I'm Back!

I have been playing hooky from the blog for the past week, but I'm back now! My husband's sister and her husband came to visit from Phoenix and stayed 4 days with us, it was great to see them! The kids absolutely love having someone new to torment, lol! Just kidding, but it was great having someone else entertain the kids for a few days and give me a much-needed break - thanks, guys!!! We were able to go fishing one day, although our night fishing by a full moon plans were shot down by 25 knot winds and blowing sand. My husband caught an interesting creature that is definitely worthy of clicking to enlarge:

Blowfish caught in the Atlantic Ocean. His mug was so ugly he was cute!!!!

The next day we decided to be tourists in our own hometown! We headed down to the Boardwalk to show them the sights and grab an obligatory ice cream. Super blustery wind and skies but no rain! I had the bright idea to park at the Virginia Aquarium near our house and ride "The Beach Trolley" down to the boardwalk to avoid any parking issues, but that idea had issues of its own... first the trolley didn't even slow down to notice there were people waiting to get on at the stop, then after my husband ran out to flag her down, she was incredibly rude! We ended up waiting for the next one, and then were promptly accused of being "New Yorkers", lol! I guess the fact we called out the previous driver on her people skills and probably talk too fast for the native southerners made her think that. Of course I told her that "no, I'm from HERE"! This driver just talked in circles without being able to make her route intelligible. I had asked a simple question: "Do you go to the Oceanfront?" (this is only 1/2 mile from where we were standing, by the way). Anyways, 15 minutes later we were able to enjoy our walk! I told my husband that the City/Resort Tourism employees should wear t-shirts that say "Welcome to Virginia Beach, now get lost!" I would write a letter except that they would probably just blacklist me and raise my property taxes, lol!

Finnegan & Daddy having some male ice cream bonding time on the boardwalk!

The day ended on a high note though, the weather cleared a bit and we were able to enjoy our last night together with L & M by steaming a pot of local seafood and enjoying some cold brews. We put together a dinner of steamed shrimp, oysters, clams, sausage & potatoes, lamb kebabs, and some jalapeno corn bread.

Everyone except me, of course!

We were so thankful to have them here, sometimes we feel forgotten stuck so far away from family so this was a much appreciated visit from them! We did make them bunk (literally in bunk beds) in the kids' room so not sure if they feel the same, lol!

On the garden front: fall is coming fast! The past several days has been in the lower 70's so I am LOVING the weather. The tomatoes appear to have stopped production so we will probably be ripping them out tomorrow and cleaning up the raised beds so I can start putting in some more fall things. I sent my sister-in-law out to harvest jalapenos and she took a big bag home to Phoenix, but there are still over 100 more to be picked and show no signs of stopping!

I picked up my Master Gardener Training Manual today and am soooo excited to start classes next week! My husband's schedule was changed yet again and now he is leaving next week so if I can't line up a sitter for my youngest, I will have to quit the program, so keep your fingers crossed for me. I am hoping everything will work out...I am really looking forward to being in class with adults and studying again!

Here's the manual, yay!!

When Life Gives You Tomatoes: Exfoliate!

That's right folks! I'll spare you a photo of it, but after processing some tomatoes earlier today I finally looked in a mirror this afternoon and found that I had tomato seeds dried onto my face! So the exfoliating happened while grabbing a shower before dinner!

I am drowning in tomatoes now, but I think the end is near! When I went out this afternoon I noticed many have leafhopper larvae feasting so they won't be good for anything. I am sick to death of cherry tomatoes! The last potato cage was emptied out by my husband and kids today. I wanted to save this chore for him since it is one of the fun things in the garden and he he missed out on the first two. I am really looking forward to doing a few more varieties next year. The kids were pretty cute telling Daddy "how to do it"...I guess it was fun for them since they obviously paid attention the first time. They kept saying "carefully, Daddy, don't scratch the skins!"

Total for today was 2.04 lbs Rose Finn potatoes, 7 lbs cherry tomatoes, 12 lbs Brandywine & True Black Brandywine tomatoes. Ended up with 1 gal bag of frozen cherry tomatoes, ditched the rest, and 4 pints frozen stewed tomatoes.

I didn't have enough heirlooms to bother with more sauce, so I just stewed them and stowed them in the freezer. The cherry tomatoes I just froze whole, it's really the only way to deal with them. Guess we will be having lots of pasta tossed with cherry tomatoes this winter!

The rest of the day today and tomorrow we will be getting ready for company in the house. This is really only my thing since my husband doesn't see the need for a sparkling aquarium, lawn mowed within 24 hours, bad produce out of the garden, and my obsession for setting candles out in the garden...lol, I am very obsessive, to say the least! My husband is outside right now mowing the lawn in the rain... he was supposed to be off earlier this morning, but in true military fashion, didn't get home until 5 pm. He said "do you still want me to mow, it's sprinkling..." HA! It's now or never, since it is supposed to rain all day tomorrow and Tropical Storm Danny is supposed to visit Saturday. It's a weird kind of rain now anyways, humid with the sun still shining through it...he'll be FINE!

Better luck next year...!

Fair warning: this is a whiny post! As most of you know, my husband has been gone most of the year on training missions for an upcoming deployment this fall. Well unfortunately, due to him being on call 24/7 all this year, we haven't been able to see family for over a year. Well, not true entirely, since we got to see my brother for dinner one night as he had a layover here for about 5 hours on his way to Afghanistan...hmmm, not sure that qualified as relaxing though, since he was on his way over there. Anyways, back to my rant: my other brother called about a month ago and said that they were going to rent a beach house in the Outer Banks of NC, which is only 2 1/2 hours from us, and would be flying in here and driving down. Awesome! I check my husband's schedule, and it is during the 3 weeks he is supposed to be here in September. I was soooooo looking forward to this, since we can drive down and spend some time with them and meet my new niece (my first, I might add!). Fast forward to this evening: sailor/husband calls from work and informs me that the ship is now leaving the night before they get here and won't be back until a week after they leave. Wha????? You would think I would be used to this but the false starts and stops the military throws our way I never get used to! I'm okay with the training, deployments, holidays without daddy, etc, but COME ON! At least let us visit family for a couple of days somewhere in that year! Here is a nice fact that hit home this evening - my husband has over 60 DAYS of vacation on the books....that says something about how long it has been since we have been able to plan anything. And Christmas will be a bust, since I am not about to drive alone with 2 kids and 2 dogs up north in winter with only 7 days that the school gives for break. END RANT...BETTER LUCK NEXT YEAR!

Onto other things:

I got a shot of daddy's plane as it landed the other night! In all these years, this is the first time we have had our times straight! Usually they either are late or arrive at a completely different base than was put out to the families (see above, lol!)

Hubby has been working hard in the humid stink outside trying to get put-off chores done before company comes this weekend. Yay! All this crap actually came from behind my sheds...he made 3 trips to the dump and burned alot of debris for me. This is something I don't tackle due to the local water moccasins and copperheads, lol...saved it all for him!

Today I went to the nursery to pick up what was left of their parsley, since the residents of the "Black Swallowtail Daycare Facility" decimated what I had! Below you can see only the stalks are left!

At least we did get one good evening fishing with daddy before he had to go back to work.

Lovely shot of my feet:
And one last kick in the pants - when he got home he told me he would be working "days" for the next 2 weeks. He has been working nights for over a year so I was excited about getting to eat dinner as a family this week. Uhhhh, not exactly - the Navy's definition of "days" is to go in somewhere between 9-11 am and work until 2-3 am. No kidding. Good thing none of you live near me or I would drop off my kids with you while I go get some much needed rest and medication as an inpatient at the closest psych facility!

One More Hour To Go...

First, let's get this morning's harvest out of the way:

Now, on to more fun stuff!

I had a few minutes, so here are some pics taken today. With Hurricane Bill churning up the surf for us, I took the kids out for a hike through the refuge out to the beach, in hopes of tiring them out! See, Daddy comes home tonight and the kids have been driving me crazy for the past 2 days asking every hour when are we picking him up! Tiring them out didn't work, but at least we were able to pass the morning hours quickly. We made it home just in time since the rest of the afternoon brought torrential downpours, severe lightning, and street flooding. It was hot this morning, and the kids managed to hike about 1 1/2 miles total. My kids are either awesome hikers or I am a terrible mother, lol! We brought plenty of water and a picnic lunch (all carried by me, I might add!) and saw plenty of wildlife along the hike to make it interesting. Although the beaches are all closed to swimmers now due to Bill churning the waters from afar, the surfers are out in full strength and we are looking forward to some good surf fishing tomorrow if it's not pouring. Daddy's car is already packed and ready, so I am sure for the next few days I will not be posting unless something earth-shattering-gotta-tell-everyone happens! We are looking forward to spending some time having fun before he leaves AGAIN in September, lol!

Gotta run now, kids are bouncing off the walls and Daddy's flight lands in 45 minutes, yay! A month is a long time to wait when you have kids, lol!

What's better than two Australian Shepherds?

Answer: Two Aussies greeting their Daddy after a 14 month deployment!

I thought that video was good preparation for what the next year holds in store for our family! Deployment is right around the corner now, and I plan on writing some posts about the "Big D" and how our family copes and dealing with the special challenges that come with the territory. I have been in denial all summer. Although he has been gone most of it, we have been getting to 'borrow' him every few weeks! Well, it won't be long now until the real deal, and I need to start preparing. I have been through many deployments, but every one is different. This time around will be the first time the kids will be old enough to be affected greatly by it. Compound that with missing Thanksgiving, Christmas, both the boys' birthdays, and the entire school year - you can see I will have my hands full! So occasionally, you will read posts that are related to the deployment haphazardly intertwined with gardening! What a strange mixture, but that is my life! With the garden doing a 'whole lot of nothing' in winter (how many posts can I really do about shallots & garlic, lol?), I am hoping that blogging will allow me to keep some sanity and that you will continue to follow along with my Military Wife Adventures! We are a strange breed indeed - if I stray into Militarese, just holler at me to speak English please and I will clarify! My house is filled with acronyms and strange words for common objects and during the pre-deployment and deployment phase it only gets worse! I hope you have fun and shed a few tears with me, your continued kind words and encouragement are always appreciated. Although a good cyberspace kick in the butt is called for sometimes too if I get too whiny!

Here we go...!

Well, the time has finally come...tomato sauce season! Tonight is my first large batch. About 30 Heirlooms went into this one, a combination of Brandywine, True Black Brandywine, and a few Black Krims and some of our garlic, shallots, peppers, and basil. I threw the rest of the bottle of red wine that I opened last night in too. It's different every time, lol...whatever I have laying on the counter is going in there! I forgot how good this stuff smells. We left for an hour and came back and I could smell the crock pot simmering from 15 feet outside the front door!

Here are two of the Brandywines picked this morning. The shapes are always amusing, but these two weighed in at 1.1 lb and 1.26 lbs each!

That's all I got today, folks! Gotta go and get messy with sauce!

When Freezers Attack!

I spent the day defrosting my chest freezer. This means that I had to stuff everything in it into my side-by-side in the interim. The 3rd time I opened the side by side and was attacked by chuck roasts, bags of hamburger and even a pack of short ribs that landed on my big toe, I thought it was funny enough to snap a picture of! In the future, I will remember to defrost the freezer before I go pick up a share of beef, lamb etc - even if it doesn't need it! Kind of like when I demand the kids go to the bathroom before we leave the house...even if they don't think they need to! I had to stuff an entire share of beef along with other meats and all my garden produce into that side-by-side, so I guess I can say "it can be done"...although to prevent injury, I wouldn't recommend it!

Today's harvest: 4 lbs Eggplant, 14 oz beans, 2 lbs cherry tomatoes, 13 oz bell peppers, 6.1 lbs Heirloom tomatoes, 2 lbs Edamame, and 4.6 oz raspberries. I am amazed at how much more the raspberry bushes produce compared to the blackberries! Next year we should actually have enough to do something with besides snack on. I have been letting the suckers grow into new plants since the kids aren't big on veggies I think we could use more as Finn is happy to eat a bowlful of berries every night with dinner! I harvested all the remaining edamame and pulled the plants, so I really can't wait for the next crop! Into the empty bed went broccoli starts, some lettuce, and chives that I bought at the nursery, since they weren't pathetic looking like the chives I started from seed!

In the non-edible category I got my front yard shaped up finally. I pulled weeds, pruned a bit, finally took down the dead hanging baskets that the birds destroyed and even pulled all the weeds growing in the cracks of the driveway and sidewalk. I hope it inspires my neighbors to do the same! I finally stopped when I got an odd look from a driver passing by and realized that I and my stool had moved out into the street and was pulling weeds growing in the street! What's up with those damn birds anyways? It seems us gardeners love the birds and will do anything for them, including leaving up dead hanging baskets with nests & eggs inside. Nothing says "A Gardener Lives Here" like a bunch of dead plants hanging on the front porch, lol!

And finally, the Swallowtail Daycare pic of the day:

The pupa is still intact, no butterfly yet, but these guys of different ages were having a busy day filled with the parsley buffet!