garden and food equals love

i love my garden. It gives me food and as we all know food equals love. So here is an update of poor quality pictures.





Beets. Who knew that I would like beets. I guess before I've only had pickled beets and they aren't that great, so I figured all beats are icky. Turns out I like fresh garden beets so I'm glad i grew some this year. They taste a bit like dirt, but I love jicama and it tastes like dirt so I guess its not to suprising... Anyways I decided to grow more beets since they did fairly well and you can use the whole plant. This picture also has the one turnip I've grown. Fresh turnips aren't so good. But once they are cooked they aren't so bad.














Here they are all washed up and ready to cook. I cooked them up for dinner last Sunday, along with mango chicken and jalapeno sausage dogs (left over from family reunion), and our first calabacitas of the year, along with strawberries from the garden.










Happy produce from the garden!










Yesterday (Sunday) for dinner we had calabacitas, chicken tikamasala (with spinach from the garden), and drop biscuits with the currant jam I just made a couple of days ago.




just the 2nd year and the little bushes were loaded!





NOt sure if they were totally ripe as they are so tart, but I didn't want to wait so that the birds could get them or they fall off (that happened to the saskatoon berries this year, only one bush produced a small handful and then the birds got them and I only got two =(


I got a little over two cups worth. I cooked them down and strained them and made a beautiful red still tangy jam.



The jar was prettier before we ate it.














I've started to get small handful of raspberries everyday. Usually I just pop them in my mouth when I go out in the mornings, but I decided to share these. They are starting to pick up a bit more which is good as the strawberries are slowing down a bit.



While I was looking something up on the web, I stumbled across something about eating mushrooms from your backyard. So I did it.

No worries, its just a puffball which is the easiest to identify. It can only be confused with an "earthball" which would've just made me sick and not killed me. But I didn't confuse it, I fried it up in butter and ate one piece. Then since that didn't kill me I ate the rest the next day. Tasted like butter.













Think this one is edible but since I can't identify it for sure, I'll have to let it go. Didn't get a picture of another one I tried to figure out yesterday...









So on the way home from the reunion I was feeling bad about being the only one to not get to hang out with some family so I stopped by a garden center on my way home and picked up another Himrod grape to replace the dead one out front. I talked to the grape the rest of the way back about how its in a great spot and I'll trim it way down in the fall so it doesn't dry out like the last one did ( I think it grew so big that its roots couldn't replace the winter moisture lost). Then when I got home, I noticed a tiny sprout at the base of the dead one. Sure enough in a couple of days it had put out 3 leaves and grown at least an inch a day. It was alive! YAY! I couldn't just get rid of the new grape, we had bonded! So now I have two out front. The old one is now bigger then the new one. I can't believe how fast its growing! (in this picture you can see an edge of evening primrose that is just gorgeous this year)

Here are garden pics. Yes my garden is messy. Oh well. I'm over it.

Potatoes

Carrots (brocoli to the back left)

peas and lettuce just about all done. (rhubarb back left)

Cucumbers just about ready to start

Cucumbers and melons to left side, tomatoes in the greenhouses (only one of them is almost to the top

Beans. Couple have blossoms on them today.

Peppers to the left, Onions in front, and zuchinni behind.

Picture of banana bread since this is a post on food, and I didn't take a picture of the rhubarb cake. It was tasty!

Family Reunion Day 3

Ok, didn't get pictures of this day. So I'll refer you to the other blogs, and maybe steal some. Try Melanie's, Mom's and Amy's as they are the ones that have posted about the family reunion so far.

Bethanie and Aaron provided a scrumpteous breakfast of hootenany pancakes and sausages. YUM. BTW forgot to mention Day's 2 tasty dinner of enchaladas by the parkinsons. thems are some good eatin!

Some went to hike angel's landing. Others stayed at the houses to enjoy the pool and take it easy. Some went back to Zion's to do easy stuff. I went with the latter group. We did the weeping rock and saw the little museum.

It was fun to eat our lunch in the coolness of the weeping rock. I think my parents should put in a similar setup on the west side of the home!

Then we went back so I could work on dinner. I turned on the gas grill to let it heat up. The greese underneath caught on fire and I almost burned down the house. Not sure if that grill works very well anymore.... brought way too much foood, but everyone seemed happy. I think the biggest hit was the chocolate milk =)

We did more olympic events. Amy has put pictures of those up so just check out her post: Then Amy made this tasty apple desert thingamajig. And there was bedtime, singing, and general hanging out until the day ended.

more garden updates from earlier in the season

Here are a bunch of pictures that I took earlier in the year.

First two show the star of bethlehem flower that comes up every year and look so pretty.

This picture doesn't look so good, but this was pretty pink phlox and the star of bethlehem

Couple of tulip pictures:

More forget me not's but I need to get rid of them because I hate dealing with the seeds.

With the spring flowers we got a little crazy with the bundt cakes. As you may know those have holes in them and so Mama fixed them.

Ones of these was in honor of Aaron's bday. Sent a picture to Aaron and then ate it all up!

Once the star of bethlem flowers dye, I clean out the bed so its ready for planting. Here are som before and after pictures.

Couple more pretty flower pictures, although the color of the roses washed out.

Especially love the delphinium this year!

So the dandylions did well too this year. Mama has taken on the lawns more this year and the number has gone down.

The peas are just about done as the weather got hot all of a sudden. But they were enjoyed while here (most mornings I had peas and letuce from the garden as I grazed).

The great thing is the strawberries are on. They make the greatest breakfast (this picture doesn't look like that many, but it actually was quite a bit.

I also needed to thin some beets so I cooked them up and mama and I ate them. They were actually pretty tasty.

In the spring I used quite a bit of rhubarb. I accidently left a couple out and they got wimpy so I put them in some water and the ends exploded.

Family Reunion Day 2

Melanie finally did a synopsis so you can check out hers for a better outline of the reunion. None the less, here is day two: After a scrumpteous breakfast by Jared and Amy we headed to Zions. First we had to pack our lunches and it was fast and everyone was happy with the variety available. All the kids seemed to like to pack their lunches and water bottles into their own stuff sacks. Jared demonstrated how to appropriately yell in a tunnel which I then used for the rest of the to and from Zion adventures.

Both Gaige and Hannah told me that they had never been on a bus before and were very excited about this. We just about filled an entire bus!

We did the easy Emerald Pools Hike. Since we weren't going to go very far, I left my big water bottle in the car. Regretted that later since it ended up being way hot!









This is my favorite part, the water dripping! It was much cooler there. Malina saw me getting my hat wet and thought that was a great idea. I liked being able to be different hiking buddies with my nephews and neices.





The first two pools weren't too bad. They weren't that big or green, but the little tadpoles were fun to catch for the kids who were so inclined.











Then we went to the upper pool and it wasn't that bad, but it was hot, no shade, and we didn't have enough water. Just about killed off mom and dad.





I'm suprised more of the kids didn't play in the water with me and Gaige. But I guess they were tired out too.






We made a pretty impressive group!



(This picture is of Mom and Alec who found a seperate seat)


I drank so much water when we got back down. Fortunately going down seemed to be easier then going up! It was funny to watch a couple of the little girls (I think it was Hannah and Malina) try to chug their water like I did!



I think people were still pretty tired out so we sat inside the lodge were it was cool and once we were cooled down everyone opened their pack to finish their lunches. Again it was so fun to look around and see all these people that I love so much!














So we got back on the buses and finished the scenic tour. The more intreped people got out to do the weeping rock hike. Melanie, Aaron, and I decided to check out the river hike (which is what we would've done if Angela had been able to come). Its only a mile but half way there we sat down in some shade and then decided we really didn't need to go further. I think the effects of the heat and dehydration tired us out!


This huge moth was in the path so Aaron picked it up to get it out of the way. I think it was dying as it wasn't doing much. I put it on a tree and it was there on the way back.






While resting in the shade we met a squirrell who was sure we were going to feed it. It wouldn't take no for an answer. I think Aaron may have gotten a picture. He threw little pieces of stick at it and it just sat there and closed its eyes. It would back off for a bit when we threw some dirt but not really. Squirting some water seemed to have an effect. He went and rolled in the dust and then came back. When some other hikers stopped to rest the squirell went to check them out and they shewed away the now "mangy looking squirrell." When it came up to me I poked it with a stick and it just sat there and that freaked me out. I've never seen a wild creature just take that!

So after our squirrell adventures we headed back and ran into the weeping rock group so we all went back together.

That night we started some olympic events, including the discuss, the 100 meter dash, and the biatholon. All so fun and everyone got into it.

Dinner was great and Neita had made cake for Jared's birthday. Happy Bday Jared! Sorry I ddin't get you anything!

I didn't make it to the swimming pool but the reports from the guys who went was that it was pretty nice. Aaron and Bethanie had to do some kid rescuing when they went the next day. THe following night I did get in the hot tub which felt nice! Its amazing how much it cooled off at night. Anyways Day 2 was a success.

Family Reunion Opening Ceramonies

I think I may have forgotten to mention that Melanie picked a theme for this years family reunion as "the Olympics." So the first night we were all there we did opening ceremonies.

Melanie had us check in for our packets which contained our bib numbers and schedule of events. Then we got a cool "stuff" bag that she had made and filled with great stuff. Things like a small light, note book, pencil, pedometer, granola bar, sunscreen, rescue whistle, pennate, etc. We were able to decorage our stuff bags, and pennate's so here is Joel showing his off:

And each person got their family reunion t-shirt which was yellow, of course. If I get around to it I may post about doing the design.

We started with the parade of flags. Each family was to create a flag. Umm I didn't get around to it.... yes I'm a looser. Melanie was busy making stuff bags so didn't get hers done either

I missed a picture of the flag my mom made but you can see it in the video. Its got each of the kids' names on the spokes.

Here is the Texas family flag:

Here is the Idaho family flag (they all had matching t-shirts too!)

Here is the Montana Family Flag:

Here is the Wisconsin Family Flag (see if you can figure out what it says)

Aaron made a flag too!

Here is the setup for the parade

First Half of the Parade

Second half of the parade (my phone only does 30 seconds worth)

After the parade of flags, dad held the torch and took the oath. The rest of the evening was spent settling in, eating dessert, and enjoying each others company. It would be an early start the next day since we needed to leave by 8 to make it through before they closed the road- fortunately after Wednesday they stopped closing the door, but traffic was still bad at times....

After we would return from our days outings we would have "olympic events" which were way fun. No one is competitive in the family. (thats sarcasm for those of you who haven't met me or my family). I didn't get any pictures so I'll have to wait till others post so I can steal =)

Old Garden post from back in May

well my garden has had it a bit rough. I went to Vegas to check out Mel's broken elbow and all my sprouts were dead when I got back... I had given careful instructions on bringing them in if it got cold, but hadn't mentioned that they would need water. Oh well.

So I might have cried. A bit. I called mom and dad answered and was not appropriately sad but mom was. Mama helped me replant and I put a space heater on them and they popped up pretty quickly. I was able to harden some off and even planted some Saturday. The seedlings were still just little 2 leafers, but I figure at this point getting them in the ground as soon as possible is the only way I might get a harvest.

Oh and the local neighborhood kids had knocked over the walls o' water in the front and squished my tomato plants. Nice. Actually they were all able to recover except one which forunately was one I could replace and so I did. Unfortunately the kids proceeded to knock them over another time or too. I was not feeling very kid friendly after that...

I was able to get a ton of things done Saturday in the yard. The last bed turned over, the aforementioned seedlings planted (1 squash, 5 cukes, 8 tomatoes, bunch of basil, marigolds and nasturshums), finished pickaxing the new bean bed (yes it requires a pickaxe as even my mad shovel skills couldn't get through the hardpan type layer), attended to the potatoes (half the smaller dirt pile is gone), tested bubbas soil (Mama planted bubba and company. the soil is alkalai but not as bad as I thought it was, and the nitrogen and phosphate levels are good, but viritually no potash- i'm not even sure what that is), got a new raspberry planted and weeded/mulched 5 others (9 down, 9 to go), got first set of beans planted, put out some new sprouts to harden off, and started a bunch more seeds.

New bean bed all ready for seeds

Here are the peppers planted. ummm might have planted a bit much as there are 10 hot peppers and 24 sweet peppers... I like to try lots of different kinds and this year they only came in 4-packs. So really I practiced restraint.

Then yesterday it snowed (24 May). I had brought the hardening off seedlings in close to the house as it was a bit colder of a night but noone said it was going to snow (I check 2-3 different weather reports on all questionable nights). It wasn't just a little snow.... And the wall of water tomatoes had snow in them because I had put the cages inside of them to keep the kids from being able to knock them over and open them up so the bees can polinate the flowers. I tried to get the snow off but it was still coming down and was a lost cause. Had a few hot hats that I put over a some tomatoes, but thats all I could do before needing to leave for work. I stopped back at home after my meeting and it had finally stopped snowing so I went around and pulled all the snow off of all the seedlings and other plants, figuring that most were gone. Fortunately most survived. Thats good cause I was sad.

updated to add: Things are growing pretty good. I've had to replant the beans a couple of times, and the carrots are still not coming up well after replanting twice. I don't know that I'll get tomatoes off of the seed started ones in the back as they are still tiny. The ones up front look great. I'll need to try all the varieties again next year I think.

Reunion- Zion part one

Went back to work today after the family reunion. Thats the problem with vacation, as I'm sure you all know. Who wants to go back? not me.

I guess I need to remember that work is what makes the fun part possible...

Anyways I wanted to give a huge thankyou to Melanie for planning the awesome reunion. I know she was way stressed out, but everyone seemed to be happy and have a good time. I only wish it was longer (see first paragraph). I used my phone pretty good at first to take pictures, but then forgot to use it as time went on, so I'll just have to steal others' photos as they post about it.

Trip to Zion was fun. I packed my car carefully so I'd have room for additional passengers if needed, but then it was just me. However I didn't think things through and put all the heavy stuff on the drivers side. My car might have been a bit lopsided.

I followed Nathan and Jared was behind and those boys drive fast! You can see Nathan's van ahead and jared's subaru behind. And no I did not text and drive...

It was an interesting drive. I liked the different landscapes and plant life zones we passed through. Lots of wild flowers in bloom.

We would've gotten there in record time if not for the road construction through the park. Which I thought I had figured the route around. Wow the scenery was awesome. We were still the first to arrive and check out our awesome accomadations. Too bad I didn't get pictures. Melanie had our dinner that night cattered which was nice as no one had to cook. The beer bread wasn't a big hit but everything else was tasty.

In two years it will be my turn to host the family reunion. With my history of procrastination and indecision this could be interesting. Any ideas or input would be helpful....

I'll post about the opening ceremonies next time. I'll probably also stick an old post in that I forgot to publish back in May about my garden....