Where does the time go?

With hubby deploying in less than a month, I honestly haven't been able to fit blogging into my day lately, but I'm still here! Some random pics from the past few days:

Yes, that's TWO dogs... can you find them? The blend together like this every evening, apparently they have plenty of time to relax!

We don't have time to fit a camping trip in before daddy leaves, so when he put a brisket on the smoker early Saturday morning, I woke them up and fed them breakfast outside on a cool morning for a backyard camping simulation, daddy even smeared charcoal wood chips on their faces for camp-dirt effect.

We were able to harvest a salad dinner Saturday evening, I pulled a few baby radishes out since in the absence of fresh tomatoes I needed a little color! The salads were topped with grilled chicken, and the kids didn't complain - score! Of course we aren't used to our summer diet yet so we were hungry again in a few hours!

What's this? A time out? I should probably be blogging right about then, but I couldn't resist lounging with my girls for a few minutes.

Gotta run now, seedlings are calling - and weeds, and oil spray for the apple trees, and birdfeeders, seed sowing, watering, party planning, swim lessons, laundry, and oh yeah- I have to take care of my kids somewhere in there!

Clotheslines and Dogs

I've been working inside the house most of the day, but thought you might enjoy this:

A Clothesline!

The neighbors in the new condos behind me are going to love this when they get home tonight and look out their window, heeheehee! That's what they get for moving into an area that has no homeowner's associations (me laughing hysterically) and still is somewhat of a rural edge to suburbia.

The reality is that I shouldn't be doing this until the pollen stops flying, but it was nice and breezy out today and I just happened to be in the midst of 5 loads of laundry, I couldn't resist at least putting it up. Finnegan thought is was loads of fun hanging his "woobie" on the line!

I wanted it close to the house, but in reality I think it will have to be relocated further out into the yard for more space (and closer to the condos, tee hee!).

Lastly, I leave you with our beloved Aussie girl, Marley snoozing with her stuffed sheep. Poor dog needs some real sheep, what's an urban herder to do? (hmmm, bite the ankles of children?) Good thing she loves Frisbees just as much!

Afterthought: I wonder if I am on some kind of "suburban homesteader watch list" yet? If not, I probably will be soon with the addition of my eyesore clothesline! I still entertain the idea of playing chicken noises over the ipod speakers outside to see if anyone calls the city... kind of a little stealthy recon/intel gathering mission...

For the Parents of Gardening Kids!

Thanks to Judy, of My Freezer is Full, I found another great blog! In between shuttling kids and planting and watering seedlings today, hop over to the inadvertent farmer to check out her blog and take part in her new challenge/contest "kinderGARDENS", looks to be a great way to get our kids even more involved and inject a bit more fun into the garden! Even if you don't participate, do check out her blog, I intend on surfing back and reading more later today (in all my spare time)! They are doing it all, (today for example, her kids are painting beehives!) - it looks to be a fun and learning filled journey going on there!

Headed out now to "walk the estate"... i.e., water gardens, pick up dog poop, toys, check seedlings, LOL...

Have a great garden day everyone!

Jody stopped by again this weekend...

Warning: one big pi$$ed off Navy wife rant coming!

Remember Jody? The unseen entity that weaves a path of destruction and financial ruin whenever hubby is deployed? Well, he was kind enough to stop by early this time, 5 whole weeks before the big day! Oh yes, that's a beautiful stainless refrigerator on my curb, isn't it? Mr. Trash Man will pick it up tomorrow. The compressor went at 1 year and was replaced, and yet again at the 3 year mark. I won't be repairing it this time. It was in my rental house so it was extra urgent that we get a dependable one this time. So hear this: to all of you out there with the Avacado, Harvest Gold, Almond, etc fridges.... keep them! Hoard them! I know so many people who have pretty new fridges, all shiny with lights... we covet the old ones, and may break into your house for that 1980 fridge, beware! I don't care what it looks like anymore, as long as it does one thing: "be a fridge that works"!

So if anyone is keeping count, that's "3" stainless refrigerators purchased in the past 5 years for 2 houses. ??? And if I can stop you from ever buying a Frigidaire appliance, all the better. Our new kitchen went in 5 years ago with a new stainless & black ceramic stove, stainless dishwasher, and fridge - all Frigidaire. 5 years later we now have a Kitchen Aid fridge, a GE dishwasher (I went without for all of last year) and our stove had to have the entire circuit board/panel replaced. I've got $1200 paperweights all over the place. STAY AWAY FROM NEW FRIGIDAIRE... read complaints on the web, it's not just me.

As if Jody hadn't wreaked enough havoc with that, he stopped by this morning at my next door neighbor's house. Her husband is in Iraq, and as she got ready to leave - flat tire, really flat! So after figuring she'd deal with that later, she gets into her husband's car and it wouldn't start. So us girls jumped it and got her going again. Jody, never underestimate us military gals, you may financially ruin us, but we won't go down without a fight! If he so much as thinks blight towards my garden this year, heads are going to roll! Apparently Jody didn't get the memo that my husband hasn't even left yet!

Now onto better things:

I finished my first bag this weekend! It's loud, funky, and uneven, but wow, it's not a scarf! I'm happy knitting anything now that's "notascarf"!

We are working hard on eating everything that's leftover from the garden last year to make room for the new. Plus, it would be really nice to remember to defrost the freezer this year before it gets packed full again!

Stir fry with "froze-fresh" from the garden broccoli, peas, beans, and leeks we pulled the other day.

Finnegan in training making pizzas with daddy the other night

The pollen is killing me....

We did get a ton of stuff done around the yard the past weekend, every bit makes me feel a little better about the upcoming deployment, we have been slowly finishing a bunch of little projects that have been in limbo. I planted ALOT this weekend, and I hope it wasn't too early.

The highlight of the past week was today. Husband back at work, kids back to school after Spring break, I was alone sitting in my Adirondack chair with my dogs, listening to the birds, sipping an iced coffee, and knitting! Did I say alone? LOL. Unfortunately the birds were soon replaced by the sounds of F/A 18 SuperHornets screaming through the sky, banking right over my backyard - they are always so close I can read their helmets. I wonder what they think of me knitting under them, lol? Like I always say, Military Homesteading is kind of an oxymoron, but you can't blame a girl for trying!

Got Pollen?

We do! And we are starting to think about wearing masks out in the garden, it's miserable out there! When the wind blows it looks like a yellow dust storm. My husband's allergies are terrible and our neurotic dog wants to jump the fence every time he sneezes! Luckily, mine aren't as bad, just itchy eyes and a general tired feeling in the afternoon. The car today is actually worse than this picture - solid yellow!

Despite the pollen, we were outside all day yesterday and today working in the garden. I bit the bullet and planted my Edamame, Bush and Pole Beans, Baby Sugar Bush Watermelon seeds, Dill and Cilanatro seeds. My peas haven't even grabbed onto their trellises yet and were screaming "what happened to Spring?" the whole time I was out there - it was 91 degrees yesterday and looks to be the same today. The carrots are peeking up finally from their kleenex seedmats. Today I transplanted the Jalapeno, Bell, and Stuffing Peppers, and transplanted most of my tomato seedlings into containers. I am doing all of my tomatoes in containers this year, so now we have "Tomato Alley" along the fenceline. There is simply no more room in my raised beds for tomatoes. I still have a few but I will have to wait until we modify some more buckets and I can get some more soil mix made for them. Pictures of the garden to come soon!

Thomas, I see your cute Jonathan and raise you one Finnegan, LOL... someday our little guys are going to be very talented gardeners!:

Finn holding his Foodie Bouquet of Leeks (the last of the leeks!)

The blogosphere is quiet today, you all must be outside gardening... here's hoping you are finding all the room you need to put plants, LOL! I think we are going to quit early today and take the kids for ice cream and buy a gallon of eyewash and a pallet of Benadryl...

Making hay while the sun shines!

Last Thursday hubby's boat pulled in and we have been busy ever since! Our weather has been fantastic, so we were able to get so much accomplished this past weekend and it looks to be a productive week ahead since he is on leave and will be home all week.

Finnegan waiting for Daddy to get off the ship (his boat is the USS Truman in the background) so we can go home and enjoy the weather!

(Nice trash in the pic, huh?!)

We had a nice surprise waiting for him when we got him back: a set of 5 gal kegs, CO2 system, and the makings of his homemade kegerator! He has been wanting to build one of these for awhile, and I must admit it makes homebrew bottling day go by much quicker than sanitizing, filling and capping all those little individual bottles! It keeps indefinitely in the keg, so I don't have to worry about using it up quickly, which was one of my concerns. Even though we love brewing beer, we aren't the kind of drinkers that drink every evening, so it was a must that it wouldn't go bad! It is awesome for entertaining, though!

Here he is taking the top of and dismantling a perfectly good fridge

These are the components: recycled 5 gal Cornelius soda kegs, co2 bottle, regulator

This was me figuring out how the CO2 works before he got home - don't know what I would have done without that laptop and the homebrewing websites!

It all fits in the fridge!

By Friday evening we had a 2-Draft tower keg!

He finished it just in time for our Homebrewing/Homesteading Skills demonstration on Saturday night. We hosted a Disaster Prep group for an evening of Homebrewing "how-to" and it was a great time! We met some really great people, and shared our love of a skill that is important to "social survival" as I call it. A diverse group that includes everyone from die-hard survivalists to people like us who simply want to live as self sufficiently as possible and whose future plans include homesteading on their own piece of land. Everyone in the group brings a bit of knowledge and skill about different areas which made for an evening of lively conversation and a good time meeting new friends. We definitely hope to see more of the group!

Here is the finished batch of Double IPA from the Homebrew Skills evening. It will be fermenting and dry-hopping for the next couple of weeks and then we will keg it and store it for another few weeks until it is aged and ready to enjoy!

We did manage to find time (I don't know how!) for the kids to dye some Easter Eggs. I forgot how smelly this project is, yuck!

Most of my seedlings are hardened off now and will be going into the garden today! Below are all of them, in their various stages. The perennials, herbs and flowers are growing slowly but steadily, but the top row of tomatoes is ready to be in their new homes. I am going to go ahead and plant them today, fingers crossed! I do have a backup, however, there is another generation of tomatoes and peppers that are about 3 weeks younger than these, so if they get stunted I can replace them, but I am hoping for success. Daytime temps here are in the 80's, and nighttime temps in the 57-62 range. They did well overnight on their rack outside, so I can only assume being planted permanently will actually be gentler on their roots and better for keeping even temps.

Close up of 1st generation of tomatoes. Brandywine, True Black Brandywine, Paul Robeson, Vorlon, Yellow Pear and the Hand-me-down unidentified Polish are the Heirlooms, and the hybrids include an Orange Wellington and 4th of July Hybrid. I had bad germination on my Red Zebra, so Baker Creek Co. offered to replace them and those will be going in with the next generation of seedlings that I am raising for the Master Gardener Plant Sale in May. Kudos to Baker Creek customer service, I am very pleased!

Off to enjoy another day of very warm (hot even, 88 forecast!) temps and working in the yard. We have been given yet another date for hubby to leave for his 8 month deployment, and it gives us roughly one month left at home, so we get as much done as possible before then! He also got my much anticipated hammock up, so I will try and get some pics of that today as well as what the garden is looking like in general! Now, if I could just find some time to actually lay in the hammock...

Motivational Monday

Yet another "I'm still here!" post - I've just been swallowed up in the garden all weekend, hope to get a real post up tomorrow. Until then, enjoy this motivational picture of the tomatoes we will all soon be hopefully enjoying!

Brandywine Tomato