Sunbath Central

The back of the couch has always been a preferred place for all kinds of dog and cat sunbaths, and this time of year the light streams through at a perfect angle for napping and posing.

Bill is particularly sweet on the camera.

Bill.

Bill again. Isn't he pretty?

Malibu.

Phoebe will soon be 4 and still looks like a kitten.

 

Garden Snapshots

One day last week, I loaded-up a real camera and took some not-with-a-cellphone photos at the garden. 

Marigolds are a great companion plant for nearly everything in the garden. These came up volunteer and are already blooming.

Barry's Crazy Cherry tomatoes were a favorite last summer, and we have several of them planted again this year.

The first sunflower bloom of the year.

Jack carried his camera to the garden, too. There he is behind our enormous pea vines.

Beets and carrots.

Jack among the sunflowers.

Onion blossoms are quite beautiful. 

Radish blossoms are also very beautiful. 

Leafy lettuce greens are planted to get afternoon shade so they will hopefully not bolt as quickly in the heat. 

 

A Quick Update: The Garden is Popping

SO much has been going on in life and the garden since March that I'm just going to jump right into things where we are now then backfill other details when those opportunities present themselves.

Before Jack and I ever planted a garden, I envisioned arranging a beautiful still-life of colorful vegetables on the tailgate of our truck and taking a picture to share here on the blog, and look what just happened a few days ago.

Pretty as a picture. 

Here's another.

This was YESTERDAY!! Look at that cabbage!!! Red AND golden beets. Kohlrabi. 

I've super excited because we've finally been able to grow snap peas!!

This variety is called Magnolia Blossom, and it's called a "tendril pea," because of the copious structure the vines build as they grow. The blooms are all a lovely shade of bright, cool pink, and they form bright, hot green snap peas with sweet, crisp edible pods. 

I'm in love with these peas.

They've quadrupled in size since mid-May.

The second week in May, the garden looked like this.

This was last week, June 16. 

Garden Ahoy!

Happy March, everybody!!

I'll jump right into the gardening portion of the program with the announcement that SPRING GARDEN 2023 is officially underway.

Last week, we loved-on last fall's spinach and lettuce, which survived ghastly sub-zero temperatures just before Christmas, and this week, we have fresh, delicious salad!! The spinach and butter lettuce are especially happy after the trifecta of fertilizer, rain, and warm sunshine, and earlier this week, we ate our first fresh salad since December. Since these greens have gotten their toes nipped by cold weather, they're especially sweet and flavorful.

Last week's gardening effort also included planting more spinach, arugula, radishes, and more lettuce. If nothing else, we'll have plenty of salads.

Today we planted peas, carrots, and beets in the garden, and I started cabbage, peppers, kohlrabi, and mountain mint in sprouting mix. With rain in the forecast for the next three days, we wanted to get some seeds scattered in the garden, and we got it done. 

Don't ask about the mountain mint. I ordered it from Baker Creek because I liked the picture and the description. 

Introducing Malibu

 We have a new cat. He's not NEW new - we made him "official" back in August - but this is the first time I'm sharing his picture or saying anything about him on the blog. Named Malibu, he came to us in that same stretch of weeks that Josie died, and our garden was still coming in like gangbusters right then, so he had to wait until now for a proper announcement.

This is Malibu asleep on the back of the couch.

This is also Malibu asleep on the back of the couch.

You see the pattern developing? He's totally assimilated to being a fat, happy housecat, and while he does enjoy ripping and romping with Bill, Kinky, and Phoebe, he's far more difficult to photograph when he's awake. Sis used to say that her dog, Bonnie, was growing in her sleep when she was a young dog, and I think Malibu is doing the same thing. He's twice the size he was six months ago, and our vet guessed him at "around a year" when we first took him in for a health check and to be neutered. 

AND while some tom cats have a hard time with being neutered, Malibu didn't seem to even notice what happened.

The other cats weren't necessarily happy when his period of health quarantine was over, but everyone has adjusted nicely. 

Mid-January Check-in

2023? I still have a hard time not writing the year as 19'something. It's been awhile. 

I've not made any resolutions, because they don't work most of the time, and I refuse to engage in unnecessary self-defeat. A friend who religiously works out at the local community center calls folks who embark on the "New Year - New Me" journey "January people," which is brilliant and draws a picture of them as effectively as I could with pencil and paper. 

Been there. Done that. Have the t-shirt. Literally. From CURVES cross-training gyms for women. Remember them? They were actually pretty great, and the one in McMinnville *did* help put me on the path to improved health and fitness back in the day. It wasn't a New Year's resolution though; I  joined in November after the wrap of candy corn season and did all kinds of marching in place to Cher's "Believe" between bursts of resistance moves on different machines. 

Sigh. Are they still in business? Because I've eaten way too much homemade caramel corn in the last couple of weeks and could probably benefit from stomping around on an elevated box and doing a few squats.

Christmas was great. We celebrated on the farm with Mom and Dad and Sis and the Vs during one of the coldest cold snaps any of us can remember. The week before Christmas, our daily temperatures were in the 50s and 60s with overnight lows in the not-too-bad 30s. The weather was extremely nice for the calendar transition from fall to winter, and the remains of the garden looked happy and healthy for late December in Zone 7. The spinach was at the start of a growth spurt, the deer-ravaged snow peas were growing new shoots, carrots were also recovering from having their tops eaten by deer. Our lettuce bed was thriving, two rows of bok choy were prepared for explosive growth, turnips were maybe going to happen, then boom. 

On December 23rd, our temperature dropped nearly fifty degrees in a handful of hours, and by 9:00 that evening, we were in single digits with TVA issuing "rolling blackouts" due to incredible demand. We weren't impacted by those, but at 11 o'clock that evening, our power, which had flickered and blinked several times throughout the evening, went out and stayed out for 6 hours. 

Here's a selfie I took at 3 o'clock in the morning. My friend, Brad, was vacationing in Philippines at the time and had complained about hot, wet weather in a Snapchat message, so I sent him this:

Jack had prepared for the weather by stacking a whole bunch of firewood into our wheelbarrow and rolling it onto the porch near the front door, which is our routine for very cold and/or snowy, wet weather. We can conveniently feed the stove without traipsing all the way to the woodpile. We kept the fire stoked throughout the night from our warm place under blankets on the couch. The battery charging station for our EGO yard tools functions as a small generator in such times, so we powered our landline phone, internet router, and devices, so we still had communication throughout the night. 

Fortunately the weather had warmed by Christmas, and while it wasn't nice enough to play outside, we were able to comfortably gather at the farm for our annual celebration. 

 

Apple Crumble

My latest favorite sweet thing to bake is fruit crumble, because it's fast, easy and doesn't make a mess. Aside from that, with oats and apples it's downright healthy compared to many dessert indulgences this time of year. 

This isn't a picture of the actual mixed berry crumble cooling on my stovetop at the moment - it has pecans instead of almonds - but it's the same thing: a BH (big handful - maybe 2/3 cup) plain flour, a BH of old fashioned oats, a half-cup or so of brown sugar (use either light or dark), and a half-cup or so chopped nuts mixed with 6 tablespoons of butter that's been melted in my favorite skillet. 

Into the buttery skillet I toss a pound or two of fruit - the one in the picture has a pound bag of frozen mixed berries from WalMart with the remains of a couple of bags of frozen strawberries and blueberries thrown in for good measure - a tablespoon of lemon juice, a quarter cup'ish of white sugar, and a sprinkle (or fifteen) of cinnamon. 

When I use apples, because apples ARE wonderful under this topping, I use 3 big ones or 4 medium-sized ones, brown sugar, fifteen times more cinnamon, and maybe a sprinkle of allspice.

Add the topping and pop everything into a 375 degree oven for 50 minutes, and you've got dessert. 

I've probably made a dozen crumbles since mid-fall when the The New York Times published their version, which can be found *here* and makes enough to feed an army. I split it and have wiggled it back and forth enough time that the version written out above is truly my own official version.