Eating the green

Just a quick post, we are headed out to do some chores and cleanup in between rain showers, expected on and off rain all weekend.  We need it, but ugh, why does it have to be on the weekend?!

Lots of greens... this is an oil pan (not used for that LOL) if you know the size of that.  I harvested a whole pound of greens, and that's a lot for such a lightweight produce!  I took a bunch in to Loch's teacher since there is a whole bunch more that will have to be harvested as soon as we can eat it.  My little tester carrots I pulled are looking good, not much longer.

The peas are coming in!

Above, Oregon Sugar Pod II snow peas, below are Cascadia Snap peas.  They are both looking like they are going to be very productive over the next couple of weeks.

Enjoy your day!

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to my hubby & best friend!

(my recent hard drive crash is becoming apparent as a search for a photo of him revealed that this was all I could come up with out of the backup, yikes!)

In spite of my lack of photos, the one I did manage to pull up just shows what a resourceful guy he is...

Wife wants a fish fry at the cabin but all I have here is a kiddie pole?  No problem...

He might be laughing because even though he's getting older, he's still way younger than me, but I ask... who's really laughing?!  :)

Drumroll, please......!

The first tomato to set fruit in 2011 is.... Amish Paste!  Put on your squinty eyes to see it LOL!

This is the Amish Paste bed, and there are dozens of blossoms on them, seems like just the other day I was setting them out.  There are EIGHT of these indeterminate babies in there, just like all my other tomato beds, so if I go A.W.O.L. towards the end of July, you know what happened.

I wish peas could grow all season here, they are so pretty.

Even the leftover Hillbilly tomatoes that went straight into the unamended sandy clay are doing really well.  This time last year I was already carrying out the dead...

The "Jake Gyllenhaal's" are doing well in pots so far but these are the UFO tomatoes that reached 13 feet last year, these are more of an experiment this year with saved seed, and yes Gran, they are bottomless LOL!  I learned my lesson last year while carrying out the dead...

Potatoes have blossoms forming already

Marley taking a break from chores, she carries the hose for me :)

I have no idea where I am going to fit my pumpkins and random squashes this year, so until I can figure it out, I went ahead and got a start on them today.  At least this time of year I don't have to mess with lights so it's not too labor intensive.

more Marley...

Sprocket is a lost cause unless she is on video, she's too fast and never sits still.  Marley's 9 years old now and is developing a slow appreciation of sitting still for a few minutes at a time.

Signs that we are different...

Military life is full of funny things when you pause to think about them.  Take yesterday, for instance.  The dogs' veterinarian was deployed, so I had to make an appointment with a different Army vet clinic, so that necessitated me picking up their records to transport.  This is what I got:

You may have to enlarge it, but notice the need to indicate whether the pet is Government-Owned or Privately Owned, LOL!  Also a spot on the upper right to indicate which branch of the military the pet "serves in"  :)

When you open the record, you will find that our pets are in "active" status serving in the Navy, and the pet's relationship to the servicemember.  Maybe I'm the only one who sees humor in this stuff?  We have to look for fun where we can find it sometimes.

Upon pulling out of the vet clinic at the Army base, there was this guy, practicing bagpipes at the tailgate of his car as nonchalantly as if he was digging for a soccerball.  They were loud, too!

  

And finally, I'll leave you with this gem... you might live here IF...

Yes folks, that's a piece of a training missile that fell from a jet flying overhead.  Nobody was hurt, so it just serves as funny stuff now.  I love how these people are just standing around looking at it,  one guy there is probably calling his insurance company.  :) 

But wait...there's more wierdness!  That was written last night, but shortly afterwards we had a bit of excitement...

At 7:20 pm, we had an event that as of this morning is still unexplained.  The walls and roof shook violently for about 2 seconds.  Very strange.  I was barefoot, and I'll say that it didn't quite feel like any earthquake I had been through (I've been through quite a few in NorCal), but yet all the other signs were there.  No movement underfoot, but walls and roof shaking, a quiet boom, but not a loud explosive noise.  Did not sound or feel like any sonic boom I've seen (which we are very familiar with), it was way more violent than that.  The really wierd thing was that this was accompanied by a whoosh where it felt like an immediate air pressure drop and where air seemed to quickly be sucked outward from the house.  Hubby and I immediately looked at each other and ran outside, both thinking the same thing, a jet crashed on the airfield across the street.  He called work, nothing had happened there.  About 15 minutes later we found out we were not crazy, reports from as far as far away as 60-70 miles were coming in about the event as well.  Military denies any activity, Geological Survey says no seismic activity, NASA here denies any activity.  So basically this morning we are left with no answers.  Not that I'm a conspiracy theory gal or anything, but I have to admit I HATE that it was publicized that the now famous Seal Team came from here, and the timing of the mystery event has a few people on edge.  The local news story is here, but there are no answers.  Of course "reliable postings" by Facebook users on the news website is confirming chupacabras, alien landings, space junk, BinLaden being shot skyward, etc LOL.  

I think the best way for me to deal with it all is by planting squash, so that's what I'm gonna do...

Peas!

Only a few so far, and they aren't really ready yet, but I stole a few anyways.

For stir fry!  I am also getting down to the end of my frozen veggies from last season, so I think I'm starting to get how much we need to put away for our family.  I had plenty of peppers and beans, but definitely need more tomato sauce this year.

I had to do a little wildlife control on the front porch.  Despite my best bamboo skewer efforts, the darn sparrows are building nests in my newly planted baskets.  Luckily they were caught just as they were starting to build - they had just pushed my skewers out of the way, LOL!

More skewers, and we are back in business

I had to break out the big guns for the darn mahogany wasps.  They are huge, I hate them and their sting packs quite a punch.  I do everything I can for all the bees, but these guys have got to go, they always build their nests right over the front door and in the kids' fort.  They are the only guys who get the foam spa treatment around here :) 

I spent the better part of the day in the 2nd grade science classroom again, this age group is hilarious.  Today was the first time I had the "yuck" reaction to the herbs.  We had all kinds of herbs out for them to sniff and all we heard was "yuck" and "ewww"!  The first kid said it and then of course everyone else followed suit :)  The school I was in today has turned their little courtyard into a butterfly and bird habitat and are going to plant vegetables too this year.  When I asked what was going in to the little bed I was standing next to (about 2 x 2) I was told squash, LOL!  Guess those kids will get some entomology lessons too!

Happenings...

Mondays always seem to be my catch-up post, and everything is always random on Monday... I'll need to think of a catchy phrase for this day of forgotten photo downloads!

The past few days of unrelated things going on around here:

The kids have me constantly making Jane's Gr@pe Nuts, they can't get enough of them!  This time we used some local honey for sweetener and I sprinkled a bit of cinnamon on top.  This is the first recipe I'm going to allow the kids to make from start to finish by themselves, with me supervising of course, but I think it may have to wait until school is out so they have enough time to do it.  If you haven't tried the recipe yet, what are you waiting for?!!!

The kids love crumbling the mixture before it goes in to start oven drying for the crunch...

The finished cereal:

Friday's thrift store find - loving this skirt and sweater... only $2!  My favorite colors and when I inevitably spill olive oil on it as I always do, I won't feel so bad.

Hubby's Subaru got a spa treatment, new catalytic converter and harmonic balancer.  Combined with the new timing belt and tires she got for her 105K birthday, I think she may be ready for another 100K...

Marley sat in the back seat while daddy worked on the car

Mother's Day was uneventful, it rained!  BUT... look at Finn below - I could hardly believe it, he swept for me!  Only a little bit, but I was in shock LOL.

Since it rained, we decided to take a trip out to the feed & seed store.  Although ours is a typical "city feed and seed" so it's very small, it's still better than any other type of store I could have found myself in.

Wishful thinking...

  

I hate having to tell them no when it comes to chickens, but we just aren't ready!  Now we are in a critical few months where we might find out if hubby's career path in the military is taking a different turn and so it's not a good time to be building coops and committing to anything property-wise.

All I needed was birdseed, but I got caught up trying on some new hats for the garden, and lucky for me the expensive ones didn't look very good on me, but the one marked $4.99 was just perfect!  Below is Finn doing his Minnie Pearl impersonation.  I'm not sure if I'll get it back from him!

Today I decided to take the day off from garden chores and sew after the regular morning house chores were done.  Yikes, it appears I have forgotten how!  I had no plan, couldn't even decide between making a dress, an apron, a purse or a quilt.  I forgot that I "needed a plan"!  After staring at a bag of scraps for 30 minutes, I just decided to wing it and make a couple of potholders.  The big blister on my hand last week let me know that these were needed greatly!  They came out kind of lame, but I admit I cut them without measuring and just slapped them together.  This little project didn't do much for my desire to sew something since I didn't have either a plan or the proper time to devote to a bigger project.  I'll just have to come to terms with the fact that sewing & spring/summer gardening don't really go together, I just don't have the time.

What is one thing you like to do that you find you don't have time for during garden season?

Happy Mother's Day!

What's on my agenda?  Last I heard I need to give my hubby and kids a haircut today, sounds exciting, doesn't it?  I am hoping to fit a trip out to the wildlife refuge today to ride bikes with the family, keeping my fingers crossed that we can do it!


Happy Mother's Day to all!  And especially to one very special mother, mine!  

ma & me, 1971

Happy Mother's Day, Ma!  We love you and miss you tons, hope dad and my brothers have something special planned for you - have you outgrown the present of "just leave me alone for a day"?  That's where I'm at right now :)