Monday Garden Club

Well, hello there, long time no blog! Before I get to the garden, I'll give a quick update on what the heck we've been up to since I last checked in.  I've been busy taking pictures.

  

The Gardener has been mowing lawns 2 nights a week (ours and one other), and just yesterday started a new garage project.  He found a 2 car garage on craigslist for cheap, so he bought it.  The only catch is, the garage is currently standing in someone's front yard, completely assembled.  The Gardener and his dad removed all of the shingles and a bunch of other parts yesterday, and hopefully by next weekend, he'll have the wall sections ready to be moved.  We need another giant project like we need a hole in the head, but doing it this way is much cheaper than starting from scratch, and our little one car garage, besides being too small for much of anything, is falling apart. Yeehaw!

The Gardener and I also celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary last Thursday.  We went out for dinner Friday night and displayed exactly how old we are by deciding not to go out for an after dinner drink and instead go home and SLEEP.  No, really, it was awesome and much needed.

The girls were gone for the weekend with Grandma N and Uncle T, boating and swimming (Apparently in their underwear and T shirts because somebody forgot to pack swim suits. Oops!)  and when they returned, look what they found inside a jar in the house!

A few weeks ago while on a walk through the garden, I noticed my parsley plant had been completely eaten.  All that was left of it was stems, and on those stems were lots and lots of bright green and yellow caterpillars.  I ran to find the girls and minutes later there were about 10 caterpillars in a re-purposed pickle jar.  2 formed a chrysalis and the rest apparently didn't appreciate their new environment because they didn't do much of anything and are still laying lifeless at the bottom of their makeshift cage, as removing them would disturb the remaining chrysalis which is attached to the side.  Anyway, look how pretty!

After admiring the beauty of the new butterfly, Mae released it onto a flower...

And while I no longer have any parsley growing on the garden, I have patty pan squash,

cucumbers,

LOTS of sunflowers,

watermelons,

tomato trees plants,

and we're still getting some broccoli!

I made 3 big jars of pickles last week, blanched and froze some broccoli and beans, and cooked and ate damn near my weight in summer squash.  I still have lots of produce to preserve and use up but I'm hoping I can get some roasted veggie pasta sauce made in the next few days, and when I do, I plan to post the recipe here, if I don't get distracted by Facebook, or editing wedding photos, or a dog eating yet another pair of shoes.

Anybody else gardening this week? If so, grab the Monday Garden Club button on my sidebar, paste it to your blog entry and link up below with Mr. Linky.

I Made It!

Today is the last day of April which also means today is the last day of NaBloPoMo.  I'll admit, it has been fun blogging every day but also very challenging.  Even on the days where I only posted photos, it was still a lot of work to get it all together by midnight. And for a procrastinator like me, blogging well into the nighttime hours became commonplace this month, but I did it!  Woohoo! 

Since photos seem to be my thing lately, I will end this month of blogging every single day with another set of photos.  Today, while the girls and I were in town picking up a great craigslist find (a camera bag, in case you were wondering), we stopped at the craft store for some new canvases and a few more bottles of paint.

Mae painted too, but refused to have her picture taken.  Oh, the attitude of an 8 year old.   



(Mae's painting is a decoration for Binny's 7th birthday next month.)

Thank you to everyone who kept up with my everyday posting, and a special thank you to everyone who commented this month.  You all make my day!

Egg Dyeing Again

We dyed eggs earlier this month while the girls were on Spring Break, but they wanted to do it again after they discovered another box of leftover dye in the craft closet.

It never fails, the day after I post for Wardrobe Wednesday, Binny does something notable like walking around all day (at school, the library and now home) with her dress unbuttoned.  Last week Binny's teacher had to remind her that tights are just glorified underwear and no one needs to see them.  She's not convinced, obviously.

NaBloPoMo and Egg Dyeing

Call me crazy, but I think I'm going to try NaBloPoMo again.  NaBloPoMo stands for National Blog Posting Month in which participants post to their blogs every day of the month.  I tried this back in November and
didn't make it the whole month, but this time (this time!) I'm a little more hopeful since April's theme is sprout.

From NaBloPoMo's email to me:

April's theme for daily blogging: SPROUT. There's always the concrete route -- Brussels sprouts, bean sprouts, and alfalfa sprouts can make their way into cooking posts. But then there are the off-shoots: kids sprouting up and how that makes you feel; flowers sprouting in gardens and what you're noticing on your daily walks; ideas sprouting in your mind. Beyond that, the word "sprout" has ties to the words strew, scatter, and spread -- so what new ideas are you going plant this month? What images will sprout forth from your blog?

I think I can actually do this, from all of the seedlings sitting under the lights in our basement to the Hostas and tulips peeking out of the ground outside.  Anything Spring really. Piece of cake, right?

Last week's Spring Break here was a real stinker with all of the snow and freezing temperatures, so we were stuck indoors most of the time.  One morning after breakfast, Mae started digging around in the craft closet and pulled out the egg dye (leftover from last year) while I boiled up a dozen eggs.

Of course, I took pictures.

Wardrobe Wednesday

Can you tell what's broken at our house, again?

 The girls and I took 2 big baskets stuffed with dirty clothes to a laundry mat yesterday.  I'm sure this is the closest Binny will ever get to the front loader I've been dreaming of since my last washing machine bit the dust.  I'm shopping craigslist for now.

RTT: Hot Grapefruit And A Mystery House Guest

It's been so incredibly long since I've done the Random Tuesday thing. Good thing it's one of those things you really never forget. Kind of like how you can remember your phone number from childhood (Back when there was one phone number for an entire house full of people and the phone had a cord on it.) but often forget your current phone number. Wait, perhaps that's just me. 222-8896. ???-???? Anyhow, Random Tuesday Thoughts it is! Go visit Keely for the whole RTT line-up.

*For those of you paying attention, November was NaBloPoMo which plainly means National Blog Posting Month. I had pledged to post something (anything!) to my blog each day in the month of November, but as you can tell by the post count under the month of November in my sidebar, that didn't happen. FAIL. To be fair though, November was one hell of a sucky month. So much going on, and even when I did have time to post, I wasn't feeling it and usually ended up fooling around on Facebook instead of coming here to post such gems as:

I awoke to an asshole on a 4 wheeler tearing around the yard and his girlfriend peeking in the living room windows, making faces at Binny and Mae. No intruder, just Uncle B doing what Uncle B does best.

I should really be editing photos and cleaning my house, instead I'm off to buy a snow plow blade from some guy off of craigslist. The shit I do for family...

Binny requested an orange for snack, then spit it out claiming it was "too bony."

*Thanksgiving was fine. Not bad, not great, but fine. I cleaned, I cooked, I ate, I cleaned some more and everyone else pretty much just ate. Actually, the Gardener was quite helpful but still the majority of the work was mine. Not that I mind entirely. You do remember what Thanksgiving at my in-law's is like, right?

*I'm enjoying my first Hot Grapefruit of the season. Yumm! Hot grapefruit is basically just warmed grapefruit juice, but I always squeeze a fresh grapefruit for this special drink. I also add about a tablespoon of sugar to my warm cup of pulpy goodness to offset the tartness.

*After finishing up the heating project we were working on upstairs, we decided to finally finish off the last bedroom in the house for the Gardener and I. We spent the last 2 days clearing out the room (our current storage area) and painting the previously bare walls. Not a drop of paint has ever touched those walls in the 100 years this house has been standing, so we were extra careful to tape up all of the woodwork making sure not to slop it up full of paint splatter. Today, I will finish by removing all of the tape and giving all of the woodwork a good cleaning and hang some blinds in the windows. Then to move the contents of our bedroom up there. Oh boy. All in preparation for a very special house guest who will be arriving on Sunday and staying with us for 2 weeks. Any ideas who our guest will be? Here's a hint: I've been checking around to get the dates and times for all of the local BINGO games for something fun to do while he/she is here.

* Our puppy Flash is growing like a weed! Or maybe he's growing like a flash... or in a flash. We had him to the vet on Friday and he weighed in at a whopping 23 pounds at 12 weeks old. That means he has gained 13 pounds in only 4 weeks. I don't think he's even eaten that much food in the 4 weeks he's been here! A healthy rambunctious pup with an insatiable chewing habit. He seems to have a thing for socks and underwear. Doesn't matter if they are clean or dirty, he'll pull them right out of the laundry basket and shred them before we even notice he's left our sight. Little shit.

That's about it for me today now that my Hot Grapefruit is gone, but I'm seriously considering making another cup because it was THAT good.

Black Friday Fools

Our puppy, Flash had an appointment at the vet's office today for his second of three round of vaccines, so we were forced to go into town on this cold and windy day after Thanksgiving. While we were in town, we decided to return some leftover duct work from a recent heating project the Gardener is working on. Basically, he's adding heat to the upstairs of our 100 year old farmhouse. We installed some electric baseboard heat in the girls' rooms when we moved in 4 years ago, but the intention was to always add duct work to tie in to our furnace that currently heats the first floor. Long story short, after a week of cutting holes in the plaster ceilings and banging on metal tubes and lots and lots of mess, we now have some heat upstairs. Hooray! Anyhow, we had stuff to return to Menards. Since we were in town anyway, we thought we would quick take care of our non black Friday shopping on the biggest retail day of the year. Not smart.

First of all, the driving was madness. Why must these self described bargain hunters all park their huge SUVs at the entrance of the store or in the middle of the aisle of the parking lot and just assume that the other drivers (all about as brilliant) will drive their equally ridiculous vehicles* around them? JUST TO GET A BRITA WATER PITCHER AT HALF PRICE. Insanity, I tell you! I can only assume that was the big sale item because after driving around the parking lot looking for a parking space and failing to find one, I dropped off the Gardener at the main entrance with his returns and headed over to the loading area to wait for him and noticed that almost every person leaving the store had a Brita box in their carts. Everyone but my husband, who went to the HOME IMPROVEMENT STORE with the sole intention of buying items to IMPROVE OUR HOME. What fools are we?

It's going to be a long holiday season.

*I apologize to drivers of SUVs for my wild outburst, but honestly, your cars are DAMN big and a little obnoxious, especially when occupied by only one person.

Mae's Globe

Here is Mae's finished Earth Day project . Not bad for a 7 year old (with a little help from Daddy) and an assortment of old junk destined for the landfill. Now we'll have to find a special spot in the house to display the beautiful sculpture.

Her winning prize was a gift card to a bookstore and a unique metal bookmark with 3 interchangeable charms.

Congrats Mae!

First Place!

I was going to post these pictures yesterday being Earth Day and all but I felt like actually writing instead of just putting up a bunch of pictures, so I'm a day late. Anyhow, a few weeks back the girls went to the local library after a half day of school (end of quarter teacher work day or something like that) to watch a movie and on the way out of the library, Mae stopped at a table full of sandwich bags with puzzle pieces in them and picked one up. It was a contest to make a project out of mismatched puzzle pieces to help celebrate Earth Day. They could be used to make anything but the idea was to recycle and use found objects with the puzzle pieces to make something new.

As soon as we got out to the car Mae was already planning out what she was going to make and how she was going to make it. She knew right away that she wanted to make a globe out of wire but wasn't sure quite how to do it. After a couple Google image searches she decided that she would model hers after the Universal Studios globe and attach the blue and green puzzle pieces as the continents and the oceans.

With some help from the Gardener (We don't let our kids uses torches on their own quite yet. That would be dangerous...) Mae soldered together some old copper wire to make the framework of the globe.



They coiled up some old copper with patina on it (I think it was harvested off of the outside of the barn) around a funnel for a spring and soldered it to an old lawn mower pulley as the base.

After the framework was made it was time to trade in the torch and solder for the hot glue gun. The Gardener squeezed out the molten glue and she stuck the puzzle pieces to the globe.
I don't have a photo of the finished product with all of the puzzle pieces (damn!) but I'll get one once we bring the sculpture home.

All of the projects were to be returned before Earth Day so that all of the people who attended the Earth Day potluck last night could vote on them. We brought in the globe earlier in the week but couldn't make it to the potluck. Besides not really being potluck people, (unless of course it's a mandatory family function) we had other plans last night so we didn't get a chance to vote on Mae's globe or see any of the other projects (or eat some crappy potluck food).

The library called today to say that Mae won first place with her globe sculpture! She won a prize and we can go pick it up this afternoon! Plus now all of the other projects will be on display to look at too. She's going to be so excited when she gets home from school today. I can't wait to tell her!finished globe