Garden Week 9

My broken Kindle :'(

Well, this has been another crazy busy span (as you can tell I missed a week of posting!).  Mike and I have started visiting our local farmer's market.  We've also been spending time with the chickens (although I think they are starting to feel neglected since we aren't out there as much).  They are supervised free ranging for about 30 minutes a day at this point and they seem to love it.  We were going to wait on free ranging until they were a little older, but they started trying to break free just to eat the grass outside of their run.

The cucumbers.

It's been a slightly rough two weeks since we had some pretty heavy rain last week that caused flash flooding.  Overall it wasn't too bad.  We lost a few strawberries from our strawberry plant from it and we did finally have to encounter the bad side of container gardening.  With the exception of the tomatoes (these guys love their water!) we've just spent this week letting the plants dry out!  I think we're mostly past that point now though (which is good because they're calling for more rain over the weekend).  We keep getting closer and closer to that point of 

The bell peppers

having produce.  I'm excited!  Our cucumbers, green beans, bell peppers, 

and peas all have flowers now (some even have little baby fruit growing).  The tomatoes on our tomato plants are getting bigger and bigger and looking better and better!  I can't wait for them to start turning so we can start eating them!  I haven't been spending as much  time outside as I've been wanting too.  A while back, I hurt my back and here lately (I'm guessing I've been doing too much) my backs been bugging me again.  I did get the chance to make some amazing jam!  (maybe I'll share my recipe here in the coming weeks :) ) It was Blueberry Strawberry Jam (I

The eggplants and a few more bell peppers

The green beans in their container

know, it's a shocker isn't it?  I guess they are starting to grow on me ;) )  It actually turned out really fantastic!  On Tuesday, while I was at the Farmer's Market, Growing Hope was out giving out samples of just plan strawberry jam.  Since I loved the stuff I made so much, I tried theirs, and I enjoyed it!  Mike will be thrilled if I develop a liking for strawberries (or maybe not..then he'll have to share them!).  I have all the stuff to make apple jelly, I just need to get some time together when my back isn't too sore.  Easier said than done, my friends, easier said than done!  I'm actually feeling pretty good today, but we're going out to dinner with Mike's family that's visiting from out of state

so I'm hesitant to do too much when it's looking to be a good evening so far.  Well, that got off topic quickly!  Back to garden and backyard fun!  Our neighbors have chickens now too!  They have two Leghorn adult chickens and two baby ISA browns like we do.  The Leghorn chickens seem like goobers to me, but I also only interact with them as far as observing them occasionally while sitting outside.  Our girls (even though there are no pictures this post) are doing well and growing well.  I think they miss getting the attention of us sitting out there for hours on end, but we're just starting to get comfortable that they are mostly safe 

The pool garden!

and that they are healthy.  I know any of that could very easily change, but this is a good development for us.  I think we're also starting to get comfortable with knowing what to expect of them.  It is still amusing to sit outside and watch their antics though.  Ours are going through the "we're going to constantly try to fly everywhere" stage.  I think closer to the end of this month, Mike and I are seriously going to talk about the coop.  We have to decide if we want to build a new one and make it all fancy and winterized or if we want to try to winterize the one we've build already (in that process would be 

The snap peas are growing!

finishing the painting and making it look nice from the outside as well).  We did find a really cool tip on a really cool blog about how to keep our chickens from sleeping in the nesting boxes (that's the only place they sleep anymore!).  We're going to put curtains up in front of the nesting boxes (I guess the privacy of the curtains is better for egg laying and they won't sleep that blocked off?).  I might hold off on these changes until we decide on our coop plans.  The downside to the chickens is that our compost is already filled with poop!  To be fair, we just have that little garbage can compost

The tomato plants.  I took this picture a couple of days ago before they got watered

heap.  It isn't really big, but we started small because we weren't sure we would be successful at it or that we would like it.  It's turned out great, but now we're stuck in a dilemma because of it's size.  We can't really do an in ground compost heap here because of the black walnut poison, but we also don't have the funds to afford one of the big stand alone compost bins.  At this moment, our solution is to look for people to donate chicken poop too!  It sounds 

The really cool Zucchini plant!

crazy, I know, but it is really good fertilizer.  One of Mike's good friend's wife works at the Growing Hope place I mentioned and we know they do their own compost they sell, so we considered offering some to her.  If you are in Michigan and want chicken poop, let us know!  I know that I'm adding no black walnut trees to the list of things I want in the house we're praying for!  I think we'll be working with our awesome neighbors towards getting some more of those trees in between our houses cut down.  They don't exactly add any privacy and they hurt both of our garden light!  The tricky part about it (on our side of things at least) is  that we have all sorts of cable/power lines going through our yard.  It's going to be tricky to get things down without hitting any of those!  We also are at that predicament of not wanting to pay a good deal of money to have something like that done because our landlord could decide right after we'd done so he wanted to sell the house and not renew our lease (not a likely scenario, but something as a renter you do have to consider).  

The green bean flowers

I haven't taken pictures of the sunflowers in quite a while, but they are growing!  (Maybe next week I'll remember to take a picture of them.)  My cats are also well trained to expect fresh catnip when I go out front to check the mail or when anyone comes in the front door at all to be honest.  Luclin (our cat that adventures outside from time to time) doesn't seem too interested in the chickens anymore.  He likes to lay in his daddy's camping chair and watch them, but he doesn't even stalk them anymore.  Harclave (the little dog) has finally calmed down quite a bit in regards to them.  I don't have to put him on his leash and stake each time we're outside now.  He

I recently reorganized our medicine cabinet...doesn't it look nice now?

does still occasionally bark at them, but he doesn't bull rush or charge their run.  It's almost more of a "listen to me I'm old" attitude now and less of the "I'm going to set you freeee" attitude he had before.  Kyokin (our big dog) never really seemed all that bothered or interested in the chickens...and nothing's really changed on that front!  So, what else is going on in our world?  Well, we've been slowly but surely "unjunking" our house.  We have some stuff that we've been meaning to donate (mostly stuff we've outgrown/don't need) but it just keeps getting put in boxes here and there.  We're really working on gathering it all together in an obnoxious spot (so that it's highly noticeable and annoying to us) so that we'll actually take it and let it go to someone who will actually make good use of it!  Some of this is clothes and some of this is things like pots and dishes.  We've also in this process 

Our nicely laid out and organized bathroom!  Don't mind Santa..

been making things look nicer.  So far the bathroom is mostly perfected and I'm working on the kitchen at the moment.  So, before I run out of pictures to put along side my post ;), I'll share what happened to the kindle :(.  To be honest, I'm not entirely sure.  I was sitting out reading with my friend K, and got up, set it down, then came back and sat down, scooted back, bumped it (but just pushed it back in the process of bumping it), and then this was what I saw :(.  K and I both were confused and couldn't figure out what happened!  The worst part about it?  I'm 90% through a really good book I borrowed from the Kindle Library!  My replacement Kindle (thank heaven's for warranties) should be in today!  I think not having my kindle has made dealing with my back pain worse in all honesty!  Or it could be that I get bored without it because I can't use it.  I guess I can't be entirely sure one way or the other!  Well, this has been another long winded rambling post, but it has come to an end!  God bless :)

Garden Week 2 (and decorating!)

A new addition to the prettiness of my yard!

Well, I almost hate to post now (because I know this weekend is going to be a big weekend for our garden/yard), but we've been up to a lot recently too!  The above pictures is filled with new additions!  (Well, the ladder's been there since last year to be honest.)  I want to hang the windsock up a peg higher, but I'm going to have to wait for Mike to get home and help with it.  So, I guess I should go in order and tell you exactly what you're seeing!  (There will be close up pictures of some of it later in the post :) .)  The deer are two Christmas deer (the metal ones that are covered in lights) that I'm up-cycling into garden decorations!  (I actually think I have a third one downstairs to add to the little family!)  The story behind the deer is that my mother in law found them in someone's trash (don't judge!) and new that I would love them!  I did and do, but when we plugged them in to test them for Christmas, we realized all the lights were bad.  Life was busy and they got stuck under the patio to wait until I had time to remove all the lights and restring them.  

A close up of parent and baby deer (they don't have names yet).

Well, Christmas came and went and they never got pulled out.  One of our big goals for this summer (aside from growing an epic garden with lots of good food!) is to really make the backyard a place we enjoy being.  Last year we were just so busy that it didn't really seem important to spend a lot of time outside, but once winter hit, we really missed not having taken advantage of being out there.  So, we're putting in some raised bed gardens (we're going to use Ana White's plan) to go with our pool garden and we're spending some time reorganizing stuff and actually (*gasp*) trying to decorate it a bit.  In this process, we were cleaning out under our little "fake carport" (plus the weather has been nice enough to do it lately) and I saw these two (the other is downstairs since it never got brought outside).  I have been stalking some different blogs and Pintrest trying to come up with cute and unique ways to not only attract bees and other pollen spreading creatures, but to make our yard a bit more fun!  I've been seeing (especially on Pintrest) a good deal of the wire frames with vined plants growing up them.  Then the idea struck me!  I could use these deer for the same idea!

A cute dragonfly decoration (and hanging hook) I found at Dollar Tree!  The dragonfly's wings move when the wind blows!

So, I started by removing the corded lights.  Boy, was that a big pain ever!  Towards the end (because I knew the lights weren't worth saving) I ended up cutting some of the wires to speed the process along!  Then, I went and set them up where I thought I wanted them, (in this process I misplaces the little deer's ears, but I found them after asking Saint Anthony for a little help!) staked them down, and sized up the pots (because that is one of the black walnut trees, pretty much anything I plant is going to have to be in a pot!).  The idea is that the vined flowers will grow up out of the pots and that I can  train them onto the deer (so in a way it'll look like they're eating them!).  I'm super excited about this!

"But, wait, Ashley" you may say, "those sheppard's hooks look awefully familiar!  Didn't your bird feeders used to sit on those?"

A new view of the flower garden!  (and it's decorations!)

Why, yes, yes they are!  Mike and I finally made the call to buy one of these bird feeder poles and doesn't it look nice!  (I love this new bird feeder because of it's size, stabilitiy, and the fact that water doesn't get trapped in my seed and grow things, but no matter how I hung it, there was either too much sway in the cord (so breezes would knock all the bird seed out by causing the feeder to hit the sheppard's hook) or the squirrels could reach it and pull all the seed out!)  I still have to figure out what I'm going to put on the other side of the feeder.   You can't really tell what it is in this picture, but as far as decorations go (aside from the pole) there is on the left a little snail metal pinwheel, on the right a cloth flower pinwheel, and a new fence around it (to keep puppies out).  Now, I'm both a little excited and nervous about these pinwheels!

The lilies I thought had died are now peeking up through the other bulb plant (the one that was here when we moved in!)

If you remember, over a year ago, we had a mole/groundhog thing attack our garden and the little pinwheels I had put in there!  Well, I've been finding those tell tale mounds and broken earth through this little flower garden lately.  These pinwheels (although they were still purchased at the dollar store) are sturdier than the little ones...and well, bigger too.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the little fella just moves along to a different yard.  So far, there are some tiny tiny sprouts in this flower garden (didn't do a close up of this flower garden or the one by the door because the growth was so minuscule), but I may end up having to try planting something else.  (I now have a really nice printed list of plants and flowers that are not bothered by the Black Walnut poison.)

The back "deck".  Pardon the mess, we've been reorganizing and are getting ready to pack the van for the L.A.R.P.

I really really really hate this "deck" thing.  It's not big enough to put our table and chairs on (and it's way too close to the backdoor for that.  If you look up the steps, the door is right there!) and because of how close it is to our door, there isn't really much to do with it.  Mike thought about taking it down, but it's currently acting as a step for those stairs (and I'm slightly terrified of what we would find under it!).  I've seen some people turn decks like these into "garden decks" but that is normally only in apartment/duplex situations where there isn't a yard option.  So, I've decided I'm going to make it direct the flow of traffic in the yard.  Back in between the stairs and that brick thing (no idea where that goes at all) is where the "wildflower" flower garden is.  On the side closest to the pool garden (and where we're planning on setting up our raised bed gardens) we're going to grow 4 container tomatoes (we'll probably have a few extra plants in one of the gardens) and on the side closest to the camera, I have made a string trellis for the three pots of snap peas (and a few vine flowers) to grow up.  I'm hoping that this will at least make this area look somewhat pretty and act as a natural draw for pollinating bugs!  I also have last year's entry way rug (one of the pets got sick all over it and the only way I could clean the spot was to take it outside and hose it down...and it's stayed there) in the middle of the deck.  I think when we build me this chair, I'll probably leave it on the deck for my relaxing in the little bit of sun we get!  So, any ideas on what else to do to this little area are welcome!  The deck is going to have to be sanded and painted (or something) this year it seems, so maybe putting some color in there will perk it up too!

Our pool garden is really doing well with stuff starting!

Our pool garden has lots of baby herbs growing in it (we decided to use this as an herb garden mostly this year).  It always amazes me at quickly plants grow!  I can't wait to see them all tall and yummy!  I did plant a small "little container" garden of some herbs that sits in my kitchen windowsill (one of the few windows that actually gets light in our house).  Even my awesome Yoda goblet thing has something planted in him (chives for the record so it looks like he has some stylin' hair!).  I'm excited to see those guys grow too (and hopefully we can figure out a way to keep them alive all winter!).  The front flower garden isn't here mostly because I forgot to take a picture when I was doing photos.  The tulips are doing well.  There's a few sprigs coming up here and there but I'm not sure if it's weeds or flowers yet!  (And that stupid ground cover is coming back again!)  I moved some tulip bulbs from a pot I grew them in last year (the green one) into the front garden so that next year there should be more tulips!  I replanted the green container with some butterfly bush and catnip.  In the yellow one, I planted bluebonnets (I am from Texas y'all) and some forget-me-knots.  We moved the patio furniture out (and after I finish this post I'm going to go move it back) so it could dry out a little bit, so our porch looks a bit crazy.  The strawberries haven't showed any sign of growth yet :( .

A beaded "ornament" I made to hang on the bottom of the strawberry pot!

For someone who is still very picky about how she'll eat strawberries, I sure am disappointed that I haven't seen growth yet.  It has only been a week though.  Today we have new neighbors moving in.  So far I haven't gotten the best impression of them, but we all know what it's like to move and how stressful it can be, so I'm hoping we'll get along!  Tonight we're having a LARP weapon making party BBQ so I'm expecting to have a good time!  I guess that sums up this week.  Oh!  I was able to drive today (and boy did that feel freeing!)  (I slightly herniated a disk in my back a week ago Monday and have been slowly trying to (as my doctor advised) stretch and get back to my normal routine.  I still can't bend over and touch my toes, but I do have a lot of my mobility back as long as I'm not trying to lift anything heavy.)  Now, I better get scootin' so I can clean my filthy house (it's not that bad, but poor Mike just isn't the housekeeper I am ;) and he was working on taking care of me and doing the housework and working full time!) for tonight! 

Blushing Peach Jam

My clean stove all prepared for an evening's work!

As much as I've tried to ignore it...fall is here.  Which means...canning!  Well, that and getting ready for winter.  I've already made one batch of jelly so far this season (it was a Cranberry Cider Jelly and super yummy) so I figured I'd make the tried and true:  Blushing Peach Jam.  This was the first canning recipe I tried and it has yet to let me down!  (Even if it gets requested by folks so often that it is the first one I run out of!)  Here is a link to the recipe.  The version I use is in a cookbook from the 70's, but it is the exact same recipe!

Jars ready for canning in all their goodness ;)

I guess I should give a little current event background news.  A really dear friend of ours was recently in a climbing accident and since we really are endeared to our injured friend's brother and his brother's girlfriend as well, we've been trying to step in and help where we can (without being bug-a-boos).  So, originally, Mike was going to help take pictures and learn to make the jam, but something came up and I flew solo on this post and project.  (This gave me plenty of fun stories to share though, so you'll all enjoy it!)  To be honest though, I wonder if the reason behind his sudden interest in canning is because I let him use my canning pot (under the condition that he scrubbed it clean after he was done) to make his beer in.

Changing the trash bag?

So, I bet y'all are wondering why there is a picture of a dollar tree bag standing in for a normal trash bag.  Well, when Mike first left (and I was getting prepped to start), I noticed the trash was at that full enough to be taken out but could probably have a little more squeezed in.  I decided to help him out and take it out.  I was extremely proud of myself (okay, it was more because I had the opportunity to help him with something that he normally takes care of before I can ask) until I realized that I have NO idea where he stores the trash bags.  I looked under the sink, high and low, in cabinets, on shelves, every possible place I could think of to look for these things.  Finally, I resign and find myself a Dollar Tree bag (see, that would be why ;) ) and struggle another few minutes to secure it to the trash can.  As soon as I stand up to look my work over one final time, guess what I see?

The super secret trash bag hiding spot!

It would seem that the ideal place to store trash bags is behind the trash can.  How I didn't see those until after I had struggled to make the little dollar tree bag stay without ripping, I'll never know, but it did make for a fun start!  So, I started my project!  The first thing I did was rinse and sort my raspberries.  I was lucky enough that I found them on sale for $0.99 a pint (what a steal!) but that did mean that some of them were starting to show signs of getting ready to be bad.

My raspberries before "crushing" them.

Raspberry slush.

I know I ended up sorting out a little less than a pint due to their deteriorating condition, but at that price, who am I to complain?  It really does stink to just toss away money like that, but I would rather toss out some raspberries that may have been fine than to make someone sick.  I sorted them (after washing them) directly into my little...tool.  I have no idea what the correct term for it is.  It can turn things into a slush as well as has a mandolin attachment I can use (I don't normally since I have the big one).

Doesn't it do an amazing job?  It's hand powered too!  (By hand powered I mean that I have to turn a crank, but it really isn't that difficult :) )  It's very easily one of the coolest hand me downs my mother in law has given me yet!  After you get your raspberries all ground up, you do your peaches.  Normally canning recipes with peaches will have you treat the peaches to keep them from darkening.  It isn't really necessary here (since you'll be cooking squishing them and the raspberry color is going to drown out the peach color anyways) but if it's something you really want to do, I don't see why you couldn't!  Now, I made a video for you all of how I like to peel peaches for this and for sliced canned peaches.  I do still run on when I get nervous.  I also did my best to try and stay in the camera's view range, so I apologize if it's hard to see.  I had the camera propped up in my dish rack while filming this so I could have use of my hands.  At least it's better quality than last time?  Anywho, all of the warnings (not directly related to my bathroom) for the last video apply here.  One day I will hopefully not dislike myself on film (picture or video) as much, but for now, it's an impressive feat that I filmed this!  After I got my peaches sliced, peeled, and crushed, I added them on top of the raspberries in the pan!

Ahh, the beauty of canning.  Look at those colors!

I almost wish there was someway to preserve the two separate colors when canning.    It's just so purdy!  Well, I added in the rest of my ingredients (minus the almond extract you add in at the end) and got it a cooking.  The tricky thing about this recipe is the timing.  You get you future jam all mixed up and boiling, boil it for one minute, then take it off the heat to add the pectin.  As soon as the pectin is in, back onto the heat for another quick one minute of boiling time.  I tend to struggle with wanting cooking things to go exactly as planned or instructed as the case may be.  It was as I turned on the burner under my peaches and raspberry mix that I fully realized what Mike borrowing my phone meant.  He took my kitchen timer!  Thankfully, I was able to make a mad dash (I'm not sure why I was so panicked the exact minute I turned the burner on.  I knew it was going to take it a bit to really warm up, but I was really worried that I had forgotten this crucial component.)  into the office to grab my pocket watch necklace so I could time the cooking time.  It was here that I decided to do a final set up sweep (getting everything in place for the actual putting the stuff in the jars and any other steps.  My kitchen is slightly small, so I have to arrange things in steps.) and discovered that I had forgotten another important item in my gathering!

Just keep cooking...cooking...cooking...

I made another hectic dash (dodging the now curious dogs along the way.) back into the office to retrieve a pair of scissors.  Now, in my defense, this is the only canning recipe I use that uses liquid pectin instead of the powder form.  I guess I should also note that Luclin (our older Maine Coon cat who has recently become a slight bit of an outside/inside kitty) was meowing at the top of his lungs outside of the kitchen window the entire time I was canning.  I swear I wasn't being mean to him!  As I was getting everything laid out, I tried to get him to come in several times when he meowed at me through the window.  Each time he came running to the back door (for some reason, he hardly ever leaves the backyard when he does go out and then it's only to come and greet us out front) and then jumped on the porch railing (I'm not really sure if counts as a porch to be honest....it's a very small wooden square platform at the top of some steps that lead to another larger wooden platform) and cooed (you know that half purring half meowing that cats sometimes do) at me to pick him up and carry him in.  Normally this isn't a problem, but I was was in cooking mode with my apron on and he knows the apron means no loving on any pets until it's off.  I tend to be extremely defensive of my apron when I'm cooking.  I won't hug Mike, I won't sit down, I do everything  I can to keep it clean so I don't get anything on my food.

All eight half pints of finished jam.  Isn't it pretty?

After repeating this cycle with Luclin four or five times, I told him that this was his last chance to come in before I started cooking and if he didn't that he would have to wait for me to finish.  He didn't.  Of course.  Instead, he chose to very vocally complain that I would choose to make food over adoring him.  Well, back to the jam adventure.  After my jam had done it's initial one minute boil, I quickly grabbed the pot and moved it to sit on a pot holder near the sink (you have to remove it from heat) to add the pectin.  In my hurry, I kicked the pet water bowl that was sitting there (the nice big one they all choose to ignore for the little tiny thing I originally put out just for when I locked up the puppy when we left the house that I now end up refilling non stop during the day) and made a moderate mess.  I continued with my quest of adding the pectin quickly figuring I could grab a towel as soon as it was back on the burner reheating (I also didn't want to stop and forget that my burner was still on.  Our burners on our stove top take quite a while to reheat so  I cheated and left it turned on.).  Well, while adding the pectin, I completely forgot about the mess.  I moved to put it on the burner and whoop there goes my front foot.  It was only a few seconds, but it felt like time had slowed as I tried to re-grasp my footing before I fell or spilled the still very hot jam on myself.  In the end, I didn't spill a drop and I got it back on the burner no worse for the wear!

Blushing Peach Jam.

I will admit that as soon as that jam was sitting on the burner, I grabbed a towel and took care of my mess.  I actually even wrapped the towel around the base of the bowl so I'd hit the towel before I hit the bowl again. The rest of the canning was pretty uneventful (except for me forgetting to add the almond extract) and the product is amazingly beautiful.  Mike came home when there was about five minutes left on the boiling water bath.  A note to help with making this jam should you decide to try for yourself.  The recipe tells you to skim off the pink foam.  I always forget this step because the pink foam doesn't actually form (or at least in a way you can really skim off easily) until the jam beings to cool (I'm normally three or four jars in).  So, if you want to skim the foam off, wait or watch (I'm normally too focused on not spilling a drop to notice that I've included the foam until it's too late) for it.  Well, I had some other fun projects tonight, but I think that I'll leave those for a scheduled post (finding my little camera again has made me so happy!) .  If you try the recipe, comment and let me know what you think of it!  I personally love the way this jam tastes!  (Well, and this jam helped me to develop a liking for peaches!)

Quite the Catch Up!

I know, I know.  Life is always crazy around here.  I really should just get used to it!  Happy Memorial Day Weekend to everyone out there!  Okay, now that my random holiday wishes are completed, I'll get started.

The wooden stakes are there to mark where we wanted to put the garden.

Over the last month, I've experienced my "good knee" getting injured over Cinco de Mayo (my doctor suspects the injury is of the "runner's knee" variety and has me doing all sorts of exercises to help) as well as caught a terrible cold.  (Okay, there's been much more going on than that, a KOV event, rescuing an injured baby goose, and such, but these are the things that really kept me from being active out and around).

Me putting in one of  the flower gardens over Cinco de Mayo

The only form of a covered porch we have.  Storage ATM

I was beginning to worry that I was NEVER going to get my garden started (not to mention update my blog!)  Well this picture heavy post will serve as a memorial to those days being past!  First, I want to show everyone what it is we are starting this summer out with in our yard.  Thankfully, our rental home has a really nice, large yard, but it needs lots of work!  With all the craziness going on in our lives, we just haven't had the time to really dedicate to making it the nice haven we really love having our yard be!

Yes...this is the same pile of sticks from March.  Just smaller.

You'll remember me mentioning (if not see my March post) that when we first moved in, there were so many trees (junk and quite a few dead) surrounding our yard that grass didn't even really grow!  Thankfully, that pruning paid off and the grass is evening out (even if we still have some "bald" spots).  Now is at least the fun part of the process!  Making it beautiful!  So far I have two flower gardens!  There was already one in front of the house, but it was filled with some kind of ground cover plant that smells awful! 

Our little table looking sad and not set up for a party yet.

The ladder I use to hang the small wind chime and squirrel feeder.

Kyokin in the other back corner of the yard.

So I've been working on clearing that out (boy is it stubborn!) and replacing it with flowers.  I completely forgot to take pictures of this (I have a feeling there will be more than enough pictures in this post!) garden (or the growing other flower one for that matter), but so far I've replaced the ick weed as I like to call it with pansies, snap dragons, and some gorgeous orange/yellow/red flowers.  My husband thinks they are a variety of marigolds (which they may be) but I don't recognize them as such yet :).  The snapdragons and pansies were clearance flowers (I got them the Saturday before Easter at Home Depo for $1.00 for six because of frost damage) that I brought home and nursed back to health.  Looking at them now though, you'd never guess it!  The other flowers are recent additions from Joe Randazzo's (if you live in Michigan, you definitely need to visit them!) where they were $.89 for a set of four.  The other flower garden is in the backyard near my bird feeder so that I'll take prettier pictures.  Most of these flowers we either $2.00 flower sets or clearance as well.  I know.  I'm cheap.  It's part of how I save money as a housewife!  I have a picture of me working on getting the flower garden put in, but not pictures of it now that the flowers are growing and blooming like happy little plants!  I'll have to work on that!  I have pictures of different individual plants on my smugmug, but not of the whole garden.  I have also planted two rose bushes (as well as transplanted a third that was placed on the side of our house in a terrible spot!) and the blueberry bush (after having the leaves eaten off by a puppy we had rescued and were holding temporarily) has moved outside as well.  My lilies I planted outgrew their pot (big surprise!  Those are the ones I felt sorry for when they were outgrowing their bag at Meijer) so I moved them into the flower garden out back.  As far as potted plants go, I have some onions I'm growing out front (they were starting to go bad so I figured I'd try learning how to collect onion seeds) as well as flowers my wonderful friend Amber gave me.  Out back, I have four five gallon buckets growing potatoes as well as a potato growing sack growing them, three herb/indoor flower pots I'm working on getting started, and one outdoor flower pot I'm trying to get to bloom.  Oh, I still have my giant ivy my mother in law gave me.  I had to move it since it outgrew my kitchen window! 

The biggest news I have today is that we finally got our garden put in!  I'm so ridiculously excited about this!  This garden is probably double what we put in last year!  (Thankfully we left walking room in it!)  We learned quite a bit last year from our gardening blunders and are excited to start again.  For goodness sake, we even made an actual chart depicting what was planted where (some of last year was guessing game until the plants came up!). 

The view of the garden from our bathroom window.

Four of the potato planters in front of my herb pots.

Bare rows.  Mostly for seeing the change in the coming weeks.

Today was the first day I was actually physically up to going outside for a long period of time and doing any work (remember that cold...I'm still coughing :( ).  We were outside working at 10:30 in the morning and didn't finish until around six in the evening.  We did take a roughly 45 minute break for lunch when a sudden thunderstorm hit and drowned us with rain!  My husband started by "peeling" the grass off of our selected ground while I tried desperately to save the tomato cage we converted last year into a cucumber trellis.  It almost didn't make it.  To be honest, I don't think it'll make it next year.  At least it's surviving this year!  About the time I finally got new yarn on the trellis and it was standing steady, DH (how I'll refer to my husband from now on) had finished uncovering about 5/6 of the grass.  This was when everything suddenly got dark and we heard thunder.  We just made it in the house with the dogs as the rain started!  It made for a perfect lunch time.  After we had eaten (the rain had stopped as well) we returned to work.  He continued with his task of uncovering the garden and I took my trusty hoe and began to carve out rows and plant with the lettuce!  I didn't make it very far (the third row) before I realized I was going to need another trellis of sorts for the sugar snap peas and honey dew.  I quickly tossed one together (we'll see how it holds) and continued on.  When he got the dirt uncovered for me, DH took a break and played with the pups. 

The baby cucumbers and their revived trellis.

After I put in the "squash" row (which I left extra spacing for!), I switched and began working on the other side.  We have a down spout on our gutter that will drain into the garden and I wanted to make sure my cucumbers and tomatoes were near it.  I put in my cucumber plantings, put up their trellis, and went to grab the first of the tomatoes, at which time I discovered I missed a whole set of baby cucumber plants!  I quickly added the extra cucumbers to my cucumber line and began my tomato planting with the cherry tomatoes.  The reason I started my tomato planting with the cherry and roma tomatoes is because I knew I only had a limited number of cages (we really expanded our garden this year) and I also knew that Beefsteak tomatoes can be staked up instead of caged.  I wanted to make sure all my plant babies were taken care of! 

The corner of the garden with the cucumbers and tomatoes.

 Since I mentioned, Randazzo's market earlier, I want to point out the good deal they gave me on baby plants.  DH and I have started going there once ever two weeks to pick up fresh veggies (they have such good prices and variety) and the last time we visited, we looked at their plants too.  (We always go to the location at Newburgh and Warren.)  Both of my rosebushes I bought there were only $3.00 (not on clearance) and I got flowers as well as my plantlings.  Now, for plantlings I got the following:  8 sugar snap peas, all of those cucumbers in the picture minus one, 4 Kale plantlings (something DH wanted to try), and 24 (yes I really mean 24) tomato plants all for $9.00.  I don't know how you'd beat that.  Especially since they seem to be really great plants.  I feel like I won this year!  (This should be taken with consideration of the dying of my own starters.  This is the first year I'd try to grow starters indoors.  I didn't realize they needed wind agitation to help strengthen them.  Next year, we'll keep a fan on them!)

The corner opposite the tomatoes.  Peas and Kale can be seen.

While planting my tomatoes, I discovered something.  I HATE cages.  Last year DH put them all in for me.  This year, I tried to do it on my own.  Not only did I fail miserably at this, but DH has made me promise to share my predicament with you all because he thought it was far too funny for me to keep to myself.  I'm still weak from being sick and since this was later in the day, my body was quickly getting fed up with being pushed to it's limits.

Baby Kale plants.

 Each time I went to push a cage down, it would become stuck.  In an effort to finagle with the cage, I would shift and focus on pushing the suck leg down with all my might.  Each and every time this led to the ground suddenly giving way under the leg and me wailing myself in the face with the rest of the cage which had in turn become "stuck".  I feel really bad about the language my poor neighbor's experienced during this ordeal before DH took over the caging.  I'm not normally one to cuss, but the shock of being smacked in the face repeatedly can do some pretty surprising things to a girl.  I finished up my tomatoes with just enough room for a row of carrots!  I was really worried that even though we tried really hard not to over plan this year we had and I wasn't going to be able to fit them in!  Now, I'm sure by now you've all noticed the newspaper scattered in the garden.  I've read online that putting newspaper down can help lower the amount of weeding that is going to be necessary for the garden.  We put this in a "walking" space to try and hopefully it'll save me lots of work later.  So far however, the initial watering of it was a pain.  If I moved my hose too quickly, the breeze it created would blow it around.  In the end, we may have wasted some time and newspaper, but even if we end up picking it up and throwing it away it was worth it. 

Baby Peas.

The garden aside, T moved out (thus why I won't be mentioning him in further posts).  I've also rearranged the living room furniture again (I'll have pictures soon don't worry ;) ).  We have a rental home inspection at the end of June (it was originally suppost to be last week, but God was watching out for us and let it be rescheduled!).  In preparation for this, we're going to just rearrange everything to the way we now want it.  For example, T's old room is going to be fully transformed into an office/crafting room.  (This way my ladies aren't all forced into a "Sweat shop" to hang out and sew together).  What I was trying to turn into a garden room is going to instead change into the guest bedroom.  We are also finally putting the time into our basement.  DH is going to have a tavern/bar area again.  He's also going to finish out the pantry/root storage area down there as well.  Something new we've added to our basement plans is we want to put together a spot down there to grown plants in during winter.  Our goal is to try and have some fresh veggies all winter long.  I don't know how well it's all going to work yet, but we're excited to try!  We're thinking of putting it somewhere near the studio (yes I said studio.  The boys put in a youtube/basic photography studio over the winter for KOV).  All in all, I think this will be a good summer and I'm excited to get my house arranged and share it with you all!  Now, to finish this all off on a nice note, I'm going to share a recipe that many folks have been asking me for lately!  I found this apple tea cake recipe on a british forum, but I had to translate all of the measurements for us "lame" Americans ;) .  Tomorrow I'm  going to the Wonderful Miss Amber's home to enjoy some BBQ with her family and I'm going to make this with peaches instead of Apples (I'll let you know how it turns out!)

British Apple Tea Cake

2 Apples

2 TBS lemon juice

2 TSP cinnamon

1 C sugar

1 C butter

1 C flour

4  eggs

Topping:

4 TBS butter

4 TBS sugar

4 TBS flour

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.  Grease and line pan.  (I just greased mine and it worked lovely.)

2. Peel and core apples.  Cut into segments and toss the apples in lemon juice and 1 TSP of cinnamon.  Set aside.

3.  Take 4 TBS of butter, flour, and sugar  along with 1 TSP of cinnamon and rub together to make a crumb mixture.  Set aside.

4.  Place the eggs and remaining sugar in a bowl.  Beat until light and fluffy.  Melt 1 C. of butter and pour into the egg mixture.  Sift in the 1 C. flour and fold carefully until mixed.

5.  Pour your batter into the pan.  Carefully lay the apple pieces on top of the batter.  Top with the crumb mixture and bake for 50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

6.  Cool for 10 minutes before moving to a ire rack to cool completely.  (Or serve out of the pan if you are leaving it in the pan like I did.)

Getting Ready for Warm Weather

The weather here has been simply amazing!  Warm days, chill nights, and we even had a thunderstorm last night!

Miss Fana approves of both the extra bird feeder outside the window and of the warm weather.

 With this warm weather has come a bee that found it's way into my bonnet.  My house must be perfect now!  (well not really perfect but clean and tidy).  There nothing to chase away the winter blues than to rearrange furniture and tidy things up a bit.  So, my little family has been working both inside and outside to get things ready for the hosting (because we host quite a bit during the summer) that is soon to come!

The fire ring we put in outside is very nice!

As far as the outside goes, we've put in the feeders (squirrel/bird/and a humming bird one new this year) and filled them.  We also have started to move the patio furniture out.  I've got my sitting spot for pictures early in the morning :)  Below are the first fruits of my morning picture taking :D

My first squirrel friend.

My first bird friend.

A word of advise, if you are having problems with squirrels in your bird feeders, try hanging the bird feeder up on one of those smooth hook poles.  I watched, in dismay, as the one I had was too high for Mr. Squirrel and his climbing attempts led to him sliding down the pole multiple times.  (I feel bad because he was trying to get into the squirrel swing).

My husband standing in front of the pruned stick pile.

The biggest thing of work we've been doing (well the boys have been doing) is trimming trees.  See, our back yard was lined with junk/dead trees that kept pretty much all light out.  What little "grass" there is out there is mostly mold and moss.  In preparation for my garden though, these sweet boys have been thinning and cutting down some of these trees (with the landlord's permission of course!)  Turns out that fire pit is going to get used a lot!

The spring wreath I made to replace the fall one.

I finally made a new wreath for my door.  I think it turned out amazing!  If anyone is interested, maybe I'll do a wreath tutorial some time :)  I think they are a lot of fun to make and the one above cost $10.00 when I had finished buying all the supplies (versus the $50 I've seen nice big ones go for).

The painting I bought as a kid at a garage sale.

Inside, we've started room by room with the spring cleaning.  This started with my bedroom (which is in the very front of the house creepily enough).  I finally got around to hanging wall art up on the walls.  In the process of this, I realized how blank they still look so I guess I'm going to have to get more prints up in there.

A view from the bedroom door.

 

The plant stand in the corner of the room.

The view from in front of the plant stand.  I'm hoping to put a real nightstand there.

As you can see, I moved my plant stand (that poor fellow moves all the time..and to think I garbage picked him!) into the room so I could have plants in there.  I also rotated my bed so our feet are facing the window instead of one of our sides.  I think I like the new layout and flipping the mattress made it feel springy again (since the arrangement is still so new it feels slightly like a hotel room).  All in all, I think we'll be really happy with these changes.

The door way and beginning of the living room.

The next room we've perfected has been the living room.  We put my magazine holder by the couch (previously another of my "floater" furniture pieces) and I think it really fits there nicely.

The end of one of the couches.

The end of the other couch.

Kyokin and Harclave each have to have opposite ends of the couch.














The Sailor Moon posters were birthday presents from
my Sailor Moon themed birthday party!

The table in front of and the tv.

Not too much has changed in the living room overall.  It was really more of a straightening and moving some stuff down stairs (I am not looking forward to getting to there with the cleaning).  The animals seem to like the new layouts quite a bit though.  I also finally remembered that I was given Easter decorations a few years back!  This is the first year since I was given them that they have made their way out and about the house!

The plants are doing well (I'm planning on updating about them on Friday so they have the chance to grow a bit more!).  I can see the beginnings of flowers peeking up in the lilies.  I also discovered that the front garden bed has a bit of a mystery plant peeking up.  I feel like my weekend was very productive!  I hope everyone else had a good (and warm) weekend :)  I'll see you folks again soon with my plant baby updates (and some pictures of coasters too!).