6 posts tagged “garden”
My youngest has turned a corner. She still argues and says No a lot, but for whatever reason (maybe shes no longer constipated?) she has been in a much better mood the past 2 days.
I took her to preschool and she didn't really argue, took her jacket off and ran in to play with toys yelling "Come on Mommy". I talked to the ladies there a minute, and she was still playing with the toy cars, not even looking for me, so I snuck out.
It's put me in a MUCH better mood today.
I feel energized, proactive, and I might even clean and do laundry today.
I turned on the furnace for the first time this morning. It's getting cold overnight, but still very warm during the day.
I turned it on so I could clean out the system. You know that burnt dusty smell every fall when you first turn it on. All the windows are open and the fans are on, and I'm shivering away in the office.
But at least it'll be ready for when we do want to use it and wont stink up the house.
I'm debating between canning some of the garden veggies, and blending them up with garlic and spices and freezing them in ice cube trays.
I do that with chicken broth. Cause then you can retrieve a single cube (or two) and toss them into recipes or just sit them in a metal bowl and put them in a little hot water in the sink to melt them. It helps them to keep longer too.
I have a baggie of frozen beet mush cubes in the freezer. I toss a couple cubes into spaghetti sauce and soups. Lots of vitamins that way. You can also toss them into mashed potatoes and make them a bright pink!! heh.
Anyway, off to attempt to be domestic today.
Well, today is the first day of school up here in the frozen northern wasteland called Canada. My oldest is starting grade 1 today (half day today). Which means I get 6 hours of time almost to myself for the first time in 5.5 years! Woooooo.
Don't get me wrong. I love my kids. I don't really want to be one of those parents on my facebook page who is constantly going on about every moment they get away from their children. I'm excited for my daughter, because I know she enjoys school (so far). And I get a little more uninterrupted time for work related stuff! Working from home is not easy with small children.
The other one will be starting preschool this fall, mon-wed-fri mornings for 2 hours. This week is just an open house / orientation meet and greet, and next week she has her gradual entry, then the week after that she starts her preschool officially. So that will then become 3 days a week with 2 whole hours to MYSELF!!! What will I do? Probably work... preferably nap! lol
Garden is going gangbusters out there. Tomatoes are ripening daily. And the deer like the taste of squash flowers... buggers. I dont think I am going to get a single pumpkin this year. I had like a half dozen flowers going ... before the deer ATE THEM ALL.
You can see the size of the zucchini I just pulled out of our garden. We've always managed to get nice ones. Other plants like pumpkin or potatoes are hit and miss every year, but these always do well. The hard part is finding enough recipes to use it in. I bake a lot of zucchini bread in the early fall.
And here is just what I have in the way of tomatoes in the fridge. There are still tons out in the garden. And this is even after I used a bunch in last night's dinner! Time to make soup today I think.
:D
This fall I am planning on canning as well. Can't let all this go to waste. We've been giving some away but still... the bulk of the tomatoes will probably ripen at once.
I need more coffee....
all for today!
The tomatoes are ripening faster and faster, and now I have to come up with tomato recipes to use them up. I don't think we'll be able to eat them all, and I'll definitely can a lot of it for the winter.
The upside down tomatoes just didn't do as good. Either we didn't give them enough time upright to grow, or the buckets are too constraining for the roots... But they are growing some, and we can get some cherry tomatoes off them. Not enough unfortunately. I probably won't do that again next year.
I had planted some peas in buckets as well. Not a lot in each. My plan was to plant them every 2 weeks. Well they grew nicely, then just kind a piddled out and died. I didn't get to harvest any off them unfortunately. Shame. My oldest LOVES those.
But I did make an awesome 'Garden Veggie Pizza' the other night:
Quite tasty!! I might put the tomato a little closer next time so I can fit just a little more in, and use more basil leaves. But this is the first year I planet basil so it's not very big yet. The Mint on the other hand... is HUGE. I am going to have to harvest that and dry it soon so it doesn't go all to waste.
I manage to pull some veggies out of the garden each day. I have lots of onions, and they aren't too huge, but they are packed with flavor. The squash is starting to get big, and we have a couple melon plants in there this year that are producing nicely. The zucchini is massive again... always manages to grow well. I will get a picture of one next to something, so you can see the size.
I also tried to do a beet mash... but it kind of came out more like baby food. Tasty however, blended with sour cream and garlic and some seasoning. I froze it into cubes and will use it to mix with other things.
I might mix it with mash potatoes, make bright pink potatoes. heh
It's definitely helped cut the food bill however. Last night I made a baked pasta... some chicken, tomatoes, zucchini, mushrooms, garlic and cheddar, mixed with some bow tie pasta and baked with a small rue with chicken broth... OMG! I had put lemon juice in with the chicken while it cooked and I think that made a big difference. Lee would like me to make it tonight again... I think I will, considering I was ready to lick my bowl last night. heh
All for now.
Ta-ta
I've pretty much completely forgotten about Vox for like 2 weeks.
I've been so insanely busy, and I keep forgetting to do important things like finish my taxes, that I just kept glossing over when it came to Vox.
The wedding is this weekend. We leave tomorrow afternoon to drive down, and I took the car in today to the shop for a quick tune up before hitting the high mountain highways.
I still have lots of stuff left to do, but I did get my dress back all fixed up. I still have to find the right shoes, and a stick on bra cause the back of the dress is real low.
Once we get to Vancouver I have to balance the stuff my friend planned for us and visiting my parents... Theres a rehearsal i need to take my oldest too cause she's going to be a flower girl, and a manicure/pedicure session on Saturday morning, which I dont really want to go to. I've never had either, and not fond of the thought of someone fixing up my toe nails. Not like they are awful, but it seems a little like invading my personal space. Wierd huh?
Friday night there is the batchlorette party, which I think will be fairly tame. we might make it down in time for me to meet them for dinner and afterwards we're going to a comedy club!
I have 2 fairly complicated web sites on the go, and a new one about to start up.
And Im getting some work from the office I hate working for, and every time I see an email from them with some ridiculous bugs to check out at the last minute cause no one is organized there, I die a little inside.
But one good thing about the past few weeks has been Mothers Day weekend. It was wonderfully relaxing. The weather was very warm and clear (unlike the rain of the past few days). We spent most of the weekend in the garden. We built our contraptions for doing Upside-Down-Tomatoes this year. And then on mothers day went on a hike to a local waterfall. There are several around here. nice thing about living in the Rocky Mountains :)
I have barely posted in like 3 weeks I know!! I'm trying to remember. Work was crazy busy for a while and I finally have a lull here before it goes bonkers again. I have been on here, reading others posts, and commenting now and then. So i'm not completely out of touch. I thought I would update everyone on what's going on here, in bullet form... hopefully I don't yammer on too much.
- Spring break here is 2 weeks, which meant I got to sleep in for 2 weeks. But then the web page work through the business took off and I was typing like a madwoman for the first week of it.
- A week and a half after all the kids were back in school after spring break, they got a 4 day weekend for Easter. My oldest's internal schedule was just all thrown off I think, but she's back to normal now.
- My youngest turned 3 last monday on 420 (Im sure some will find that amusing) We just had a small party with just us. I didn't have the energy to do more. And she didn't really notice anyway. She loved her gifts, and got apple cake with chocolate glaze and gummi bears, so she didn't care either!
- I think I hammered out about 5 web pages the past month. Most are real simple, 6 to 12 pages with a little back end work so they could add content. Nothing huge.
- We have 2 or 3 coming up that could be real huge tho. Including adding shopping carts!
- Weather here is off again on again warm, mixed with rainy days.
- I had to mow the lawn on the weekend before it got too high, and I think I nearly croaked.
- Lee is a bit of a hypocondriac. My youngest has allergies... hay fever I think because Lee has it too. And he's getting me to check her for fever in case she has swine flu.... sigh...
- He also has on a couple occasions, thought he had flesh eating disease... because he found a red spot...
- It's infuriating.
- Im just making sure I get the kids to wash their hands more. Even though we are not near any areas that have confi
rmed cases, it doesn't hurt.
- I got my bridesmaid dress in the mail. I haven't tried it on to see if it needs altering. Frankly Im afraid to find out its small... but I think Ive done well.
- I cut out beer the past month... excuse me while I go cry for a bit.
- Hopefully that helps cut some calories.
- The dress is more of a cinnamon color since the original green one wasn't available. My friend called back to let me know and help me pick out more colors and order them from most preferred to least preferred, just in case
- This image is fairly close.
- I got the hotel booked for the wedding, and I am hoping to make it down in time for the stagette. I think if we leave by 2pm I'm good.
- Other than that, Im just waiting for good planting weather to get the garden in.
- This year we're doing: acorn squash (soooo much better than storebought), tomatoes (cherry and roma), peppers (all colors), onions (green and purple), and several herbs
- We're going to do Upside Down Tomatos actually.
- It's a neat planting process.
So that is me. Im sure I'll think of more tomorrow that I totally forgot.
I'm just hungry at the moment.
:)
The development manager was his usual ass...
And he logged off at 230 so I did too. :)
MJ stopped by for a quick visit on his way back home.
Lee is out talking to prospective clients and hanging out with our other prospective business partners. He's still out right now but now that one guy's baby is a couple weeks old, he can hopefully get a little time to put towards this. So he and Lee are havin some beers, chattin it up.
I made blueberry bars and zucchini bread today. And almost made a cherry pie with the fresh picked berries the landlady dropped off for me.
The kids go to bed soon and I am gonna do something mindless on the computer
Wrohoo
Only thing missing is beer or wadka.
Check out the lovely mint i have for Mojitos
