family and garden

last week some family members did the meanest thing to me.... they left :(


My front yard tulips opened just for the occasion so at least I can still look at them.


Melanie came for the weekend and I don't know if she'll be up again soon since I put her right to work in my garden and didn't let her stop till it was done.... just kidding. I did let her eat. She was such a good help and she admitted that my style of gardening is a good workout (lots of digging and bending and hauling, and cutting, repeat and repeat). I feel bad that she got sunburned. I forgot that Vegas girl has been out of the sun, cooped up inside and up in Seattle where the sun don't shine.

Angela and Mom came to stay over Friday night on their way to Idaho, and I even got them to plant a few onions and pull a few weeds while we waited to get Alec, his friend, and Cora over for dinner and an evening walk to Farr's for icecream.










Gaige and Amy came Saturday evening and stayed over till they caught their ride back to Montana on Sunday. We went to Hot Pot for dinner and had an early night of it since everyone was exhausted. I made squash mac and cheese for Melanie before she headed back. I noticed that if I work hard on Saturday/Friday that the Sunday meal is less impressive and vice versa.








I don't know why everyone came on the same weekend. I'm not complaining, only its easier to say goodbye if I know I've got someone else to visit the next week. This way I probably won't see anyone until fall... :(



Melanie helped me get the 2 pea beds ready, an onion bed, potato bed (which takes a LOT of work), cleaned off a window bed and the tree bed. Really got me a good start for spring planting! I planted the peas Tuesday, various lettuces and greens Friday.


Yesterday, Saturday, Cathy came and helped me dig the back wall bed and the bed for the beans. Two shovels are twice as fast as one! I got my other early vegetables all planted (khol rabi, beets, parsnips, replanted lettuce that the cats walked over), but ran out of poops before getting the last onion patch planted. I also worked on "trimming" my neighbors tree.


This time I decided to not just cut everything that hangs over my side of the fence, but to go back a bit and cut of branches that start on their side and end up on my side.... hoping that it'll let more light unto that part of the garden.

All thats left before I leave for vacation is carrots. Thats a shorter bed due to the rhubarb so it shouldn't take too long. I'll only have three long beds left to prepare left in the main garden when I come back! Fortunately I'll still need to work on the side beds and that will take wielding the pick axe so I'll be a happy camper :)

As I worked pretty hard yesterday, today's meal won't be too spectacular. Fortunately ham just needs to be heated through, nothing too complicated :)

Just wanted to wish you all a happy Easter. I love watching the earth be reborn in spring. The optimism that this year my garden will be great. Tending my garden brings me great joy, and as a labor I try to remember the more important things and the lessons that come from tilling the earth. The scriptures have a lot of gardening references.... I'm grateful for this time of year to reflect on the real meaning of life and the ultimate gift and sacrifice given in spring 2000 years ago.

old post of random fall 2010 pictures

I guess I forgot to schedule this post cause I just found it.... Actually I found several old posts so those might be coming the rest of the week. Even though the frost kills things its actually kind of pretty. I took several pictures but the rest got lost. I was proud of the huge dhalias so I kept trying to get a good picture and it didn't work.

So I gave up.

I bought this new kitchen gadget. Me buying a kitchen gadet? I know shocker.

I am actually going to need it cause for some reason my dehydrator stopped working and I still have bags of apples to process. Yummy applesauce. But sad that I can't keep making dried apples. [edit- I got the dehydrator working again]

(thats mama's hand demonstrating the process) We had fresh applesauce with our halloween dinner.

new year resolutions

I usually make several resolutions involving saving money, eating healthy, taking care of myself spiritually/emotionally/mentally and working out. Unfortunately I don't usually go beyond thinking of setting them, let alone starting. However, last year I decided to stop drinking soda (I grew up calling it pop or coke but I've switched to calling it soda cause its fun to say if you draw out the ooo. Try it: Sooooda, see wasn't that fun?) and with only a couple of relapses I've done well. I've only recently stopped craving it even though I never really drank that much of it before. I can't imagine how hard it must be for people who get hooked on much more addicting things.

Anyways this year I decided to limit myself to eating out once a week. This has actually contributed to not spending as much money and eating healthier as byproduct goals. It hasn't helped tons though because when I do go out now, I tend to splurge :) But I've done really well, in fact a couple of weeks ago I didn't even eat out once! Last weekend I didn't quite do it (see post about Tom and Alec), and this week I got a couple of "snacks" to go with my lunch so not doing as well but overall its a vast improvement. (this picture doesn't really go, but I was proud of the 18 cups of pureed squish!)

This week, I printed out my monthly goal sheet and put it up on the fridge to mark up daily. Just that small step has put me back on track for some things that I really do want to do everyday. Shiny Sink is back and with it all the benefits of having a cleaner house. Just by breaking things into small doable chunks I feel better about myself, my home, etc.

So how are you doing on yours?

Alec and Tom

I only touched on the subject of going to lunch Saturday with Tom and Alec in the previous post. Well thats cause I wanted to do a whole post just on them. Thats cause they're special :)

ps this picture is from my birthday





Its been fun having Alec up here at college. Its crazy to see my nephews and neices growing up so fast, but its fun to get to know Alec as an almost grownup. I always mean to invite him to dinner, but never think to do so until to late. He should just invite himself ;)

Sometimes we go shopping together as I have transportation. One time we found something that I've only seen in Taiwan. Alec actually bought some so he could shock some people.










On Friday we went to a BYU men's volleyball game. Those are very fun. I went to one several years ago and the place was packed and its just amazing to watch how high those guys can jump and how hard they can hit! This game wasn't quite as packed but still fun to watch. It was over pretty quick as they won 3 straight in a row.




We went to In and Out before the game and then to the Malt shop for shakes afterwards. Pretty good shakes but scary place! Saturday between sessions we went a little lighter with Zupas. It was fun to get to spend time with Tom too. I've got great brothers and sisters in law. Tom's been around for quite awhile now and has always been like another brother.

Conference Weekend

Conference equals spring! It was funny to see it all snowy today. I meant to get a couple of pictures of my first daffodils blooming in the back window garden, but forgot so I just went out there. My new phone has a flash! Poor daffs.



I do enjoy conference. its nice to get things in perspective and remember the things I can do to make my life better. I'll also admit its nice to not put together a lesson for sunday. Last year I was glad to not have to teach too, but this year our little guys are much easier :)



I was pretty tired today so I decided to cook up the remaining squash from downstairs for squash mac and cheese, and preserve the rest in the freezer. Besides 3 small squash (2 baby blue hubards, and a mystery volunteer) all that was left was bubba. It cooked up pretty good, and had more flesh then i thought it would. Very mild and fairly sweet. Not great for pumpkin pie but perfect for my needs. I found it worked better to squeeze out some of the extra juice to keep it from being so soupy.


Have you ever squeezed cooked pumpkin. Its kind of a fun experience :)



Friday I got home from work early enough to do plenty in the garden. I dug up potatoes and since I had already worked on it a week or so ago, it was much faster going. Cathy was nice enough to stop by and keep me company.... I also got some of the back wall garden cleaned off before going to play.

Saturday was also a beautiful day. I organized my primary stuff during the first session of conference so now the spare room will not get as messy, hopefully!. In between conference sessions I got some of the house work done as well as ate lunch with Alec and Tom. Then it was out in the garden after the afternoon session where i finished digging for potatoes, shoveled all the dirt back, planted broccoli and cabbage, put down cow poops on the bed where the peas are going, and finished cleaning the bed around the fire pit. This lasted till it was too dark to see anything. I also planned out the garden on the computer so I know what goes where. I really hope to do more vertical plantings this year to try and fit more things in. We'll see how it goes. Then the rest of the evening was finishing house work. I'd let it go a bit long but the house was looking much better when I started so thats good.




Digging out the potatoes took a lot of work. Some of them were over 2.5' down. I think this year will be better since I planted to shallow the first year and too deep the second. 3rd year is a charm, right? I also need to find a way that saves me from skewering so many when I dig them up. I got some great big ones so I must be doing some things right. Now I need to figure out how to use them all up in a hurry. Any suggestions?








I had hoped to get the peas planted yesterday, so hopefully that will happen this week. I can plant the onions now that the old potato bed is all dug up and turned over. Just need more poops :)


i love these nasturtiums. They just popped up and are already taller then the older seedlings. For some reason they look like hands lifted up in prayer to me (hard to see in this picture)