1st Salsa of 2010!

Still heatstroke-hot out there, but I got a few things accomplished today. Wednesday we are supposed to have a cool front come through that will bring our temps back down to norms of mid-80's, so I expect I won't get much real outside work done until then. We are all bored, but honestly, what can we do with heat indexes in the triple digits? This morning, both my kids told me I was "lazy". I guess because they can't go outside to play until evenings and are bored and saw me reading a book that means I am lazy. I know I shouldn't let that get to me since they are little kids, but it bothered me a bit since that is the #1 pet peeve of mine: laziness! Never mind that I did dishes, swept, did laundry, brushed the dogs.... I'm lazy!

Not wanting myself to spiral down into self-hatred because of that little remark (hey, it doesn't take much with our heat induced low morales), I decided to go ahead and do something with the harvest that has been accumulating.

Today's Harvest:

Raspberries are always eaten fresh right away, but these blackberries were combined with the ones from yesterday and juiced. I ended up with 2 more pints of pure blackberry juice for the freezer and a little extra for an adult beverage tonight for the lazy mom! I am actually thinking of making blackberry wine I have so much coming in this year. A few years ago I would have turned my nose up at the thought of such a sweet wine, but now that I grow my own the wonderful redneck-ness of the idea has got me wanting to try it!

By now I was feeling a bit more energetic so I decided to move on to the tomatoes that have been staged on my counter from the past couple of days. This is an odd time for tomatoes, a bit much to eat fresh right away, but not yet the saucing & canning days of late summer...

Salsa Time!

Back out to the garden to get some jalapenos and a couple of immature mini-stuffing bell peppers, fish peppers and cilantro. I combined this with one of the onions still hanging, and the very last of 2009's garlic and shallot.

After mixing it all and adding a bit of lime juice and vinegar, it is now "chilling out" in the fridge to be enjoyed as a meal for me! Loch won't eat it and it's a bit much to expect them to eat this as a meal in itself, but I will thoroughly enjoy it! I think Finn will have a bit with some chips, though... see the video below for a huge step in the vegetable/kid combo!

The video below just blows me away....!

Honestly, I really want to get back to being "lazy" - I am reading a lovely trashy romance/murder novel set in the hot and humid Louisiana swamps... I have been reading so much non-fiction and biography type stuff I forgot how wonderful it is to get lost in a good fiction novel! This is the perfect book for me in the lawn chair tonight watching the kids play while I'm sweating and swatting skeeters off of me, I can pretend I'm right there in the swamps!

Summer Solstice, Longest Day of the Year, First Day of Summer, AND...

My Birthday!

Don't you wish life was this simple still?

Yes, I am 40. Forty. The big 4 - 0 . Four Decades. Sometimes I feel like I am still waiting for my life to start, LOL! I think that's just a side effect of being a military family, we are always looking forward to that date when we can live where we want to, in the house that we want. Yes, we have a nice thing going now, but it is always in the back of our minds that we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the military, and we are always subject to whatever housing is available in our price range at any given base. Not exactly ideal, but we work with it. I think this is why I still feel like I'm in my 20's sometimes, still full of plans for the future! And it helps that I have 2 very young children that don't give me much time to wallow in self pity and feel old!

The boys want to know if I want to have my birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese's. Hmmmm, no, I think I'll pass on that in favor of hanging out at the pool on base this afternoon to beat the heat and putting the kids to bed early. That's my birthday wish!

On to the latest harvests:

Edamame!

Golden Wax Beans, Hybrid Tomatoes, Blackberries, Raspberries

The raspberries never make it past the washing stage, fine by me - less preserving to do!

The kids don't think much of all the seeds in fresh blackberries and don't like anything but strawberry jam, so I ran all the blackberries through the chinois and then another smaller sieve and put away 6 oz of pure blackberry juice in the freezer for future blackberry lemonade! I think I will do that with all the blackberries this year, I am thinking of infusing some iced tea with it as well.

Pepper plants are out of control. I love the variegated leaves on the Fish Hot Pepper.

Jalapenos are starting to come in and I am not ready!

Peering in to the pepper bed... I'm in a lot of trouble this year.... what is the problem with moderation with me????? I parted the green curtain and they were all laughing at me!

Today's Harvest - No Vampires Tonight!

Yeah, I can never get my act together for "Harvest Monday" LOL... even as a child, I was difficult! So instead, here is my random day harvest today, it was good, and made even better by the wonderful temps we had today, perfect for gardening without breaking a sweat. Those days are few and far between in the summer, so I had to make the most of it.

Onions - tops refused to die down so I am forcing them now, enough is enough, I need this bed back!

I'm not weighing any of my onions, garlic, etc and recording them until they cure and get trimmed.

Shallots

Early Italian Garlic

My latest in recycling! I don't know how many times I had to rescue this towel bar from the trash pile - we used to use it when we had the hot tub, but has been idle for awhile. It's absolutely perfect for curing all my "stuff"! Bonus: if rain threatens, I just open the sliding glass door behind it and pull the whole thing in.

Double Bonus: there will be no VAMPIRES at my house! Well, it would be okay if Edward got through...

More Dragon's Tongue (1.0 lb), Golden Wax Beans 1.0 lb), Peas (1.05 lb)

The peas were officially ripped out as of this evening - the heat this past week did them in.

Staying true to my vow to not buy stupid crap as gifts this year... bags of garden goodies for Finn's teacher! I even said "no" to the one soccer mom's request to kick in $$ for a gift of candles.... candles? Nah, I'm staying strong on this resolution - saves me money and I feel more thought and caring went into this anyways.

Don't laugh...

Yes, that's 3 Blackberries! I better figure out a way to keep the birds out, and quick... since the rest will be turning color any day now...

Lazy Day in Pictures

My garden is in limbo right now...everything is growing, but not yet ripe for picking! I figured today would be a good day just to show pics of what's happening in the garden. The clouds finally cleared and got some decent (not great, as I am not a great photographer!) pics of the plants. It's hot here and humidity supposed to climb way up this weekend, so I am planning on some indoor activities, and possibly being able to put up some jalapenos from the garden by this weekend. I'm not much for heat and humidity, so I won't be out there any more than necessary! Enjoy...

Pinot Noir Bell Peppers

Purple Rain Eggplant

Tomato Beds with Eggplant in foreground

"Aerial Shot" of garden...from atop the kids' fort! Some of the beds were just reseeded with squash and edamame where the peas were ripped out.

The sometimes boring but always pretty marigolds.

Out of control Mammoth Dill in the Jalapeno bed

Purple Vitex that I am training into a tree...

Blackberries

(the resident boss mockingbird is watching me as I take this one, I know what he's thinking...)

"NO BERRIES FOR YOU!!"

The Butterfly/Bird Garden...although the first flush of blooms has disappeared, waiting for next group of plants to bloom

Miscellaneous free lily that came in a veggie shipment!

Crepe Myrtles are in full bloom now

Another shot of Crepe Myrtle tree

Five-Leaf Akebia vine...all the mockingbirds live here!

My new Fig Tree! Due to my uncertainty of how long we will be at this house, all fruit trees are now in containers so they can migrate with us.

Salvia

We have tons of butterflies with the new butterfly garden, hopefully I can get a better shot soon

And no garden post is complete without a shot of one of the Garden Dogs...here is one of my Aussies after "herding the hose"! This involves her chewing the nozzle open and then attacking the spray...yes, we are on our 3rd nozzle due to this game of hers. I guess if there's no chickens or sheep, water is the next best thing for a bored herding dog!

Berry Picking & Birthday!

Saturday was the first day the blackberry fields opened, and we were out first thing in the morning, since the temps were to climb in the upper 90's with a heat index in the 100's! It only took us about 30 minutes to pick a bunch, and a few for the mouth while we picked! The rest of the hot day was spent inside in the A/C making berry-related goodies. I might add that it was only $10 for all those mouth watering berries the kids are holding...

Here's Finnegan "helping" to make the jam.

Here I am squishing berries...the kids thought this was hilarious.

Thanks to the kids playing with my camera, you get to see a picture of the happy homemaker with the finished jam! (Like the dumb headband?? Gotta keep the hair out the jam...)

Still, lots of berries left...so I made some blackberry lemonade. Kids thought this was awesome...probably because it wasn't watered down like I normally do to their store bought juice!

We also picked up some blueberries at a roadside stand on the way home, so I made blueberry muffins. This was the first time I had made them from scratch, and they were incredible. If you look up "To Die For Blueberry Muffins" on the web...that's the recipe I used, they even had a yummy crumb topping.

Finally, kids were off to bed and I thought that was a good occasion for a mommy drink - that's Blackberry Lemonade with a splash of vodka - YUM!

That brings us to today, which was pretty uneventful considering it's my birthday and Father's Day! We are minus the father, the kids are too young to really do anything for me for my birthday, and we don't live near family members, so I mowed the lawn and weeded the garden for my special day. Don't feel bad for me - I actually got ALL THE WEEDING DONE (for now) and my yard looks spectacular all freshly mowed and dog poop scooped...woohoo! The kids and I barbequed and ate dinner outside this evening and it felt so good to look at the backyard and garden and not be filled with the thoughts of drudgery! So it ended up being a great birthday after all! Tomorrow I still have plans for the garden, but for once all they are is to plant some of my flowers and sow some seeds, pleasurable stuff!! I will probably take some pics of my new container trees and what's blooming and update on that stuff for a change!