Updates and a coupon :)

Well, I feel terrible.  Every day life has taken a nose dive into the deep end it feels like!  I've been busy as a bee.  Over this last weekend I did Senior pictures for the daughter of a woman who works with my husband (well isn't that a mouth full?).  They  turned out extremely well!  I've also been working on getting a shop set up for my photography!  Now you can buy prints of my photos :)  To celebrate with you, my wonderful blog viewers, I have made a coupon just for you!  Visit my photo gallery and store front here!  After selecting your purchases, enter the code michwife11 and you'll get 10% off your entire purchase!  This coupon expires 10/31/11 so enjoy it while it's here!

What my harvests are beginning to look like!

The garden has gotten huge!  It doesn't seem to stop growing these days!  (this makes for a happy me!)  Both my zucchini plants and my tomato plants (the non hanging ones) are getting to where they reach near my shoulders when I walk into it!  This heat wave here in Michigan has made spending time out in the garden a bit harder (plus I have to water every single night! and twice a day for Lulu), but the plants seem to love it so I can't really complain too much.  I've been freezing green beans and zucchini.  I even made zucchini bread (at the request of a friend) and zucchini and ricotta tart!  (This recipe can be found on Rachel Ray's website and is divine!)  This is the first harvest where cucumbers have been high in number so I think tonight or tomorrow I'll be working on making my first batch of pickles to store.  I think my green bean plants are coming to an end in their production, but we certainly have gotten quite a bit of them if you ask me!  Once this heat wave ends and I'm not so busy (my schedule exploded a bit for this week) I'll go out and try to get some pictures of how large the plants are getting.  It's a very pretty and comforting (for me anyways) sight.  The only complication we've had lately are June bugs (nasty buggers) and the zucchini near the potato plants are having blossom rot issues.  I guess that's it for now!  I'll be back soon I'm sure :)  Good luck everyone and have a great end of the week!

More produce!

This is an older picture but look at how big it's all getting! 

I'm really done with this whole "being sick in summer" thing.  It stinks and it's keeping from being out in my garden as much!  (as well as from updating this). 

I really like to look back at a little more than a month ago you can see how far things have come!  The cucumbers were tiny for example!  Then if you look at a little less than a month ago you'll still see how fast they've grown.  I find it surprising and shocking.  It's nice that it grows fast!

An adorable baby cucumber.  I love how cute these are!

Even with me being sick (I caught what my hubby had over the fourth), things have still been crazy busy!  Just this last week (on days I was feeling somewhat good enough to go outside) I moved the sage and rosemary inside.  They are now sitting on my desk next to me.  The reason for moving the rosemary was that it never could seem to be happy in the garden.  At least in a pot I can monitor it a bit more closely and move it to accommodate it.   The reason for moving the sage was that we have discovered a HUGE June bug infestation!  They were devouring my sage plant and with the dill and cilantro next to it getting so big it was having a hard time recouping.  (The infestation isn't gone, but we are spraying plant leaves with a soap based organic spray to keep them from eating the plants.  We also put out a June bug trap (a jar with about 2 inches of oil inside with a solar light pointing in and surrounding it since they are drawn to the light and will then die in the oil) )  At first we thought we had slugs since all the research I had seen was pointing to that.  We put out our beer traps and tip toed outside with a flashlight in the middle of the night to catch the traps in action only to find no slugs but June bugs over everything!  Keeping our porch light off at night in the backyard also seems to make a huge difference.  Our mole/groundhog also finally did the evil unforgivable act and has tunneled into the garden.  As much as the traps appall me, I may let my husband put one in.  I don't want to kill whatever it is, but I also don't want it in my garden :(  I'm going to put up more of the pop bottles on poles (my husband was playing with them and didn't put them back in correctly or the same spots so I'm thinking this might be why the sudden "ohh garden" from the creature) and hope that it decides to go on it's merry little way!

My first harvest of green beans.

My garden is producing produce!  (see what I did there?)  I'm so excited!  I've always enjoyed cooking with fresh ingredients, but having my own grown veggies definitely rocks!  My first harvest was enough for my hubby and I to eat with two meals, my second filled a Wal-mart bag half way full (I ended up sharing with my friends down the street and gave them half) and my third has added even more to that.  I think I'm going to start freeze canning them (I sadly do not have a pressure cooker :(  to regularly can them yet) so that I don't run the risk of losing them!  They are really yummy! 

My first two zucchini and three cucumbers!

Even the zucchini and cucumbers are starting to come in now!  I'm extremely excited :)  We used the zucchini in this Rachel Ray recipe.  We first made it last year when it came out in the magazine and fell in love with it!  It's a very good recipe and I highly recommend it!  The cucumbers I'll be turning into cucumber sandwiches today.

My First Quilt.

I finally finished my quilt (in between being sick) and started my husbands.  To see more, visit my Crafting Blog: Something Crafty This Way Comes! 

Overdue Update ((July 2, 2011 storm update!)

Sorry for the long overdue nature of this update.  My hubby took time off for the 4th giving him essentially a five day weekend.  Of course, he ended up sick for the entire time and I ended up sick towards the end of it.  So finding time and motivation has been a little difficult :( . 



July 2, 2011 a big storm moved through!  They had predicted rain for us, but nothing like this!

Hail falling in front of our house.

A picture of the melting hail. 

 The wind was blowing rain and hail so hard at points that we couldn't see out our front door!  The hail was on average golf ball size.  Of course, not thinking fast enough or of pictures, I didn't grab my camera until the worst of the storm was over.  Half way through the storm we went out and tried to do save work on the garden.  All of our potato and zucchini plants were flattened to the ground.  Thankfully we had just put cages around our tomatoes and the honeydew so those were a bit more protected. 

Here are some pictures of the damage from the storm:

Our onions were pummeled and many lost shoots to the storm like this one did.

The types of holes the hail left in the cucumber leaves.

You can see some of the holes in the zucchini leaves.  The zucchinis had to be tied up to support them.

There were downed branches everywhere when we drove around.  Here's one at a local gas station.

There were whole sections of town without power (thankfully we missed that part) but some people are still cleaning up the mess this storm made!  There were no tornadoes in our area, but sirens did go off for other counties near us I believe.

The sky took on a weird butter/green color after the storm.

After the storm the sky was a weird butter/green mix color and everything was cast in this creepy light.  My husband loved it because he said it felt like special effects.  As night fell, another part of the storm moved over us (but didn't hit us) so we got quite the lightening show for once!

Lightening from that night.

Other than illness our long weekend was good.  We spent a lot of time together.  We did light fireworks off in the backyard (because what would the 4th be if you didn't?)  My husband bought some mammoth smoke bombs for the larp (because they are really long smoke bombs) and decided to test them.  He is a fireworks pro and has done this man times, but as he lit it and threw it, the smoke bomb (let me repeat smoke bomb) exploded and set his clothes on fire.  Thankfully he was not hurt he just lost a shirt and a pair of shorts.  (they were new, but at least he is okay, right?)  The rest of the evening went smoothly.

With us being sick and not much to do, I did get to finish my quilt!  Now I've started my husbands.  I'll be posting more details on that at my crafting blog http://somethingcraftythiswaycomes.blogspot.com/

Here are some pretty fireworks to leave you all with!  Until I feel better and take pictures of the garden to update with, be safe and have fun :)

Fountain Fireworks