Yea!

78 to 80 is the temperature forecast for today!

Today I’m going to go out and rake out the raised beds to stir things up a bit and tack down the weed cloth that the wind has played havoc with.  I also need to try and get rid of some wild onions (garlic/chives?) that have scattered themselves around the front garden areas… I’m going to loosen things up with a pitch fork and then hopefully the bulbs will pull out.

I bought a couple 4 packs of butter crunch lettuce so I’ll stick them in the front herb garden.

A couple years ago I put some vinca vine in a front bed… but it’s gotten out of control so I need to try and pull that out… I hope to get rid of it without using a weed killer… wish me luck!

I saw these little guys out front…

and I love this little ‘odd man’ hanging out on the opposite side!

Are Y’all still there?

I started this a couple weeks ago but never seem to get more than a thought or two in before something gets in my way and then I have to start again.  Lets see if I can finish tonight…

Life has been very busy around here and this week looks to be about the same… so I best try and get this post done while I can that week was busy and I never got back here to finish.  My daughter is going up to MA without… let me be clear… WITHOUT the kids - so Granny and Pops will be in charge for 4 full days.  The two older ones are fine – it’s the Tornado baby that is the challenge.  There are 6 gates installed on the main floor of my house… and you still have to have eyes on him at all times… AT ALL TIMES!  He has been here long enough and grown just enough to be able to climb into and onto anything he sets his mind to… the chairs, couch, rocker… even a pile of boxes of stuff my daughter had ordered.  There was just enough space from box to box for him to get a toe hold and he was up a good four feet off the ground in no time.  The only cabinet door that doesn’t have a catch on it is the corner twirly cabinet that has the plastic stuff and pots and pans… up until today he was content to grab a couple plastic lids or containers and play with those… but he emptied both levels of the cabinet today.  I told The Engineer he needs to add a catch to that door as well.  It took me over an hour to put it all back – I was thankful I had just mopped the floor so I didn’t have to wash everything too.  Well I did wash the grater… the boy licked it when I told him to put it down – yeah the face was priceless as it wasn’t what he expected… he didn’t hurt himself and it was rather funny…

early in the unloading process…

gotta love the face… even with the breakfast mask applied…

and just in case anyone questions his ‘manhood’… skull & cross bones diapers and the ‘man tuck’ of the hand… LOL  The other hand was busy with his bottle…

Miss K will be starting school here on Monday and Kai will be attending a pre-school… goodness – summer is over already?!  Miss K is very ready – although it’s been fun going to the kids programs at the gym she is looking forward to getting back to a school routine.  Probably happy to have a few hours each day away from us and her little brothers too.

I got her started with some embroidery…

The boy enjoying some ice cream Pops dished for him…

And did someone day Pig Pile?

Since it is getting towards the end of summer - would someone please tell my tomatoes to STOP… I don’t have time for tomatoes.  We are eating as many as we can – I am cooking sauce and making salsa and throwing them away if they even look a little bit questionable.  If I had known I would have so little time on my hands I wouldn’t have planted a garden – I don’t water or fertilize anymore… and they just keep growing!  LOL  We have enjoyed our fair share of zucchini (those plants have died – yea!) we did not get nearly enough cucumbers for my liking, we enjoyed a few melons the chipmunks didn’t make houses out of, there are a fair number of red and yellow peppers which have been delicious.  I wanted to be able to can some blackberry jam and syrup… but I’m not sure that will happen.  Maybe I should go ahead and get some berries to cook down and then once the kids get into their school program I can pull the sauce out of the freezer and can jam and syrup.

Oh and in my last post… a month or so ago… I should have given some details on my Crayon Challenge quilt but didn’t have the info with me at the time so I posted without doing anything other than showing a picture of it.

The pattern is Russian Rubix from Prairie Grass Patterns.  Although I loved it when I bought the pattern and I had fun picking out all the prints.  It was a challenge to make.  The pattern gives you a template to use to cut the octagons from 3 3/4 inch squares… really??!  I suppose that size is what is necessary in order to get to the final size… but starting with a 4 inch square would have been so much easier.  I considered having a acrylic template made – but chose in the end to make up a paper piece pattern and work with that.  I am very happy with the end result but it was a good bit of work doing all the trimming that goes with paper piecing.

My colors were cerulean blue, olive, and yellow orange… the border print was perfect.  A ‘block’ is made up of two of the octagon units with 2 small white corners and 2 large white corners.  Four of those are put together to make the circle.

Yes Professor… if you see this I’d love to get credit if I can – I need to review my list and update things – not that I’ve had any time to get into the sewing room recently. 

I do need to get this posted before the kids return from Karate tonight…

If you never hear from me again – well… you’ll know we didn’t survive Momma being gone 4 days... LOL

Mid May… Really?

Goodness where does the time go?

We lost a good 2 weeks around here being sick… not sick, sick – but whatever bug we had tapped out our energy and left us doing more sitting around than being truly productive.

We do have a deadline of sorts around here for getting projects done.  Our daughter and grandkids will be moving in with us in just a few weeks.  She is busy getting her house packed up in Hawaii… my SIL is out to sea and she figured it made sense to move here so that someone could help watch the kids we could enjoy our grandkids!  Although she has a great support group with the Navy community she lives in… when your spouse is gone and you have 3 little ones – there’s no place like home with Granny & Pops!

But here is just a sneak peek at what we are in for… the 10 month old is walking… well actually he’s running.  My daughter figures he started running as a means of staying ahead of falling down… and he just loves it!  Now he chases his older brother around… here they are in a sprinkler park the other day.  Yes… 10 months… he won’t be 1 until mid July!

But before he started walking he was climbing…

And then he started climbing into his walker…

backwards but in…

sometimes he’s just in… like a pretzel… which he thought was pretty funny.

My granddaughter had her first communion this past weekend… look at that sweet floral wreath on her!

We did get some work done in the garden.  The Engineer built another raised bed… I will move the strawberry plants over to that bed in the fall but in the mean time I’ll use it for other stuff over the summer. 

I need to order some more peat moss to mix with sand to finish filling that bed and to top off the others.  I also need to mix up my fertilizer mix and start planting soon.  I based my garden on the Mittleider Method that I stumbled upon several years ago.  I will also need to reset my sprinkler pipes in each bed… oh and I guess I need to make another for this new bed.

We The Engineer put in a wood edging all around the garden and I put down some new landscape fabric in the outer walkways – we’ve managed to chew up the edges with the mower over the past couple years – so this will keep that from happening.  I can’t wait to get tomatoes growing.

Even with all these other projects going on The Engineer has been working on a new cabinet for the kitchen.  Where we now have a table that sits 4 we will have 4 1/2 feet of additional cabinets and a eating area that will sit 2. On the sitting side of the new cabinet will also be a can cupboard for all the overflow I don’t know what to do with.  The counter top – cherry butcher block – is in the background.  It sure was pretty once we put the mineral oil on it.  The 36” cabinet will have 2 – 20” deep pull out drawers and at this point he’s going to install just one pullout in the 18” cabinet with a drawer above.  I will get acres of new storage space and we will use the dining room more often… a win, win all around!

Finally got the sink finished up – water dispenser on the left – soap on the right – faucet and control in the middle – oh and please ignore all the stuff in the window.  That is the inherent problem with having such nice deep window ledges.  One thing that I do leave there is the vintage enamel dish drainer.  I use to set stuff up there to dry all the time anyway – so this makes good use of my drainer!  I just need to put stuff away once it’s dry… or at least before I take pictures - LOL.

The next couple weeks I have beds to move – cabinets to clean out and rearrange - move all the ‘baby latches’ back into locking position – put plug protectors back on outlets – rearrange the living room – set up a playroom area for the kids in the foyer – put a baby bed together – and, and, and… oh probably a dozen other things to get ready!

Garden Work

Oh man what a mess my gardens were after a year of neglect!

I’ve spent a little time out pulling weeds here and there in the front garden beds – wild onions have taken over and I’ve easily pulled a dozen butterfly bush startups.  The Engineer and I cut back the two overgrown butterfly bushes a couple weeks ago… couldn’t walk past one on one side nor drive past the other on the other side – that’s how bad it was.  The chickweed is terrible around the pond… I may just cover it with plastic and hope that smothers it out – the winter wasn’t cold enough to kill it…. hmmm maybe a torch if all else fails?

Out back at the raised beds I needed some help…

I went through a couple weeks ago and pulled the overgrown grassy weeds hanging in the beds out and pushed them over into the paths.  It was clear I was going to need some help pulling the weeds and finishing the clean up.  I have 4 raised beds… they are 12” tall and measure 2’ wide x 16’ long.  In the picture above – the two on the far right have strawberries, the next one currently has leftover onions and at the end of the box is sage and oregano.  The box on the far left with the T-poles is for tomatoes.  We built these boxes back in May of 2009 – and added the T-poles in May of 2010.  We have a fella we hire when we need a little extra help getting things done – great guy and a hard worker.  I couldn’t have gotten this all cleaned up myself.  First some before pictures…

Strawberry bed #1

Strawberry bed #2other 2 beds

My daughter put out some onion sets last year when she was here with me – then the weeds came and I didn’t pull but a few.  These are what have come back this year.  My overgrown sage plant is at the far end with an oregano plant coming up just this side of it.  Amongst the weeds in this strawberry bed there was a rabbit nest – there were bunnies in this a couple weeks ago when I first worked out here but they were up and gone within a few days of my finding them.

Nice and clean!  The strawberry beds needed some reinforcing – something we apparently did with the other 2 beds before.  The Engineer added the boards on the outside at the joint and added some rebar spikes that we can screw to the boards on the inside.  The wooden spikes we used originally to build the beds a few years ago had rotted out in several spots.

We will be building a new bed for the strawberries which will run in the other direction at the far end of these current beds.  I’ll collect the new runners this year and put them over there and then the strawberries will be pulled and we will backfilled to bring the dirt level up again so they can be planted with other stuff.

I’m not sure how long I’ll give these onions to get going – lots of leaves but not much bulbs yet… maybe getting my watering system in will help.

Still lots to do…

Let’s Go For A Walk…

Join me…

Oh no… we aren’t stopping here – although I could use a little help cleaning out the rest of the tomato plants… I am so over the tomatoes.

Out here a little further in the yard - here is where we are going… isn’t she a lovely tree?

The Stayman Apples are ready… they are a late variety so we will be picking for a couple weeks.

Mostly just picking up the ones that fall.  Some will fall with no damage but many will bounce on a limb on the way down… I’ve even had to pick bark out of some of them.  I was out here earlier (on Sunday) to pick up around the tree – these two just fell so I’ll take them in and add them to the ones I’ll salvage by cutting the bad parts out.

These are the ones that have ended up in the mulch pile on Friday… damaged by the fall and or munched on by the bugs.  Once picking season has begun it’s easier to keep things cleaned up around the tree on a daily basis.  I know we could have salvaged a good portion of many of these apples by cutting out the bad parts… but on Friday (when we cleaned up) my sister took home approx. four 5 gallon buckets of apples to make sauce with.  I also unloaded gifted a 5 gallon bucket to the quilt shop…

These are sitting in my kitchen doorway… I picked them up on Sunday when I took these pictures…

And I cut up the damaged ones I picked up to make Apple Crisp.  Assembled and ready for the oven – boy this sure is good – especially with ice cream.

There are lots of apples still up there…

I’ll be taking some with me when I head up to the A Quilters Gathering this week up in Nashua NH - dropping off some with my daughter in MA as I go by.

Tomato Pie…

We’ve been eating, cooking and giving tomatoes away… and they just keep coming.  Note to self… next year don’t buy so many plants!  LOL

I didn’t dress this up as much as I had planned – but that was because the first thing I did was cut my thumb on that mandolin I was using to slice the tomatoes… you know – right after I thought to myself… ‘gee ya  better be careful’.  One of these days I’ll learn to just stop when I have those thoughts and walk away… far away!  I have scars to prove that it would be prudent to do so.

Anyhoo – not a bad cut - but anything on the edge of your thumb is an annoyance.

I kept it simple - I was aiming for a mexican flavor so used some corn tortillas and green chilies.  We will dress it up when we serve it tonight… some nice salsa (homemade of course) and avocado and sour cream…. mmmmm, mmmm!

Basic ratio for making a quiche type dish is to use 1 egg per half cup of milk or cream.  When I’m using tomatoes I add a little more egg.  For this 9 x 13 pan I used 6 eggs and started with 2 cups of cream.  I added a little more milk (maybe a half cup) around the edges as it wasn’t quite as high as I wanted the liquid level.  Sometimes you have too much liquid and other times you don’t have enough… life is like that sometimes!

My youngest is coming in by train from MA to visit this long weekend… I’m going to make her make the salsa today!  And maybe do some weeding in my garden too!  She’ll spend some time finishing up a woodworking project with her father and she and I will spend some time running around Antique shops!

Oh and I’ll make her go out and pick the tomatoes while she’s here…

A Lost Week…

or at least most of it anyway.

Some medication I had taken before did not agree with me last week… seems the generic has changed the formulation and although it was probably doing what it was suppose to be doing it was also making me feel terrible… really terrible.

Once I stopped taking it – it took about 48 hours to get the awful feeling out of my system.  Then I had something of a relapse… oh no wait – that was just sticker shock from the cost of the brand name version of the medication… LOL

So last week I spent most of my time on the couch… now don’t get me wrong – I’d love to have nothing better to do than sit around doing nothing.  But when that’s all you can do – kinda takes the fun out of it.

I’ve got tons of stuff to catch up on… the car needs service… I’ve got errands to run… plants to water… a pattern to work on…

But first here are some pictures of my butterfly bush and one of it’s visitors.  We usually have a few butterflies flitting around and these swallow tails seem to especially like to visit.

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Momma Knows Best…

Well - outside of the fact that she made her nest in my herb garden… she’s really pretty smart.

At least she knows the fine art of making a nest.

I found the tell tale signs (disturbed dirt and grass clippings) in the garden the other morning when I went out to water.  So I didn’t water that area in case there were babies in there.

Later I started gently pulling out the grasses that covered the opening and digging further and further down pulling out stuff as I went… no babies!  Yea!

What a nice, cozy nest she made – at least 12 inches in and just underneath my thyme.  I dug out a bunch of grass used to cover the opening and line the walls of the nest… but as I continued to dig down – there was a bunch of wood pieces from the garden mulch laid in the bottom of the nest to keep her babies dry.

Sure hope she has a Plan B… 

Two Days in Pictures…

Sunday Evening - remember I said I thought the next Cherry Tree would be ready soon… turned out it was ready right then.

So I called my sister that night and told her she needed to come out if she wanted any of these cherries… and so she did.

Monday morning - we started picking… see those red cherries in the picture below… those are from a different tree – they aren’t ready - yet.  Seems there are two trees planted together… or I guess it could be that the black cherry tree was grafted onto a different root stock and the root stock grew a tree as well.

 

I finally reached the top of my ladder…

I picked all I could reach and said that was enough!

Some of my pickings… everything got put in the refrigerator Monday because I was too tired after a morning of picking cherries and an afternoon spent working in the garden.

Tuesday Morning… Let’s see – first a trip to the store for more canning jars.  This is the book I worked from – a Mothers Day gift from my daughter last year.

This sounds good…

 

Wash and drain the berries…

Then I used this cherry pitter… one cherry at a time… 3 cups worth of cherries took me 1 1/2 hours.  Can you say tedious?

  

Then I decided to use this antique cherry pitter I had hanging in the kitchen.  I picked it up last year poking around antique shops.  You roll some cherries in the top… turn the handle…

The pits come out here…

 

and the cherry come out below…

 

Now tell me please why there isn’t a modern stainless steel version of this guy around?  I had 5 cups of cherries pitted and ready to use in 30 minutes.

 

Sure is a shame you can’t smell this… or better yet taste it!

I made 2 batches of the Black Forest Preserves… one per the recipe and one I used orange extract instead of the almond and added some cinnamon – yum!  Then I made a batch of Cherry Jam using the same recipe I used on Sunday when I canned the other cherries we picked.  A 4 cup batch of cherries for more jam and a 3 cup batch for more preserves are in the freezer… for some day when I have nothing better to do.

Not a bad day – 3 batches of jam/preserves canned… and a couple of tired feet.