THE past three days were days filled with gardening, taking long walks, sitting on the porch reading books, organizing canning jars and cleaning floors. Every night from Friday through Monday was a "go to bed early" night. Yep, I was in bed before the sun went down every night. I worked hard every day so I deserved it - that's for sure. So here's how I kept myself busy :)
When I get home in the afternoons, the puppies were all keyed up and full of puppy energy - I swear they are like two year old little kids sometimes with all that energy. I set them free from their chains and off they ran. They chase each other and tumble and roll around like there's no tomorrow. When they finally settle down a bit, we all walk together down to the flag pole where I had all my fall decorations.
Colt runs circles around Ruger but every now and then Ruger will catch him by surprise and roll him down. Colt is by far the more agile of the two but Ruger has him on size. He's probably an inch or two taller and fully uses it to his advantage! They run ahead of me and they run off in the grass beside me but they always come right back to my side almost as if they are protecting me.
They run off down the driveway towards the gate and I let them go so they can get some much needed exercise. When I'm ready to head back to the house, I call their names and they come running at me full speed ahead. I can see now where an intruder would be ready to climb a tree with these two guys coming after them! They don't slow down even as they get closer to me - they simply come to a complete halt on either side of me. Sometimes it seems they'll run me over but they never do.
They love to be petted and told what good boys they are so we stop and do that every so often. I can certainly tell they are excited to be hanging out with me as they look at me with those puppy dog eyes like I'm the end all - be all to them. They really are good little fellows until they go chasing my roosters!!
When they've worn themselves out, they go to their water buckets and drink, drink, drink of that cool, crisp, spring water. By now they are ready for me to collar them again and then they burrow under the dog house in the dirt where it's soft and cool on their skin. They both nap for a good solid hour! See...just like a two year old!! LOL
There's no point in checking on my flowers or my vegetables while they are free because they'll just maul anything they think I might be looking at instead of them. So once they are settled in for the evening I make the rounds of the flower beds and vegetable gardens. The day lilies and tiger lilies are all thriving despite the heat we're now being tortured with...I know, you're in FL, you don't want to hear it. But 97 degrees is 97 degrees no matter where you are. It's hot!
The 4 O'clock seeds I planted never showed up so I'm going to try again...never let it be said I didn't try to get some flowers growing around here!! Seeds are cheap and the packets at Food Lion are multi-colored. I already have the ground ready because I planted "Mammoth Russian" Sunflower seeds in amongst the irises. I figured while I had the hoe out I might as well hoe up the whole space!
If you're standing on the front porch looking toward the outhouse (aka Dizzy's Apartment) that's the side where I planted the sunflowers. It's a bit shady during the early morning hours but after that it gets full sun almost all throughout the day. I also planted three rows of them on the back side of the outhouse. There should be plenty of sunny sunflowers around here within a few weeks. The packet says "Days to Germinate," 10-14 days. I can handle that! Now these sunflowers grow to be 8-12 feet tall so even though they'll come from the ground in 10-14 days, I don't expect flower heads to appear until they reach up close to the roof of the outhouse.
Towards the end of the driveway there are two dirt berms on either side of the driveway. These berms are where I decided to plant the Echinacea seeds. I dug out a little shelf on the berm and planted a row of seeds on each one. In this way, they are off the ground and not subject to the bush hog when Wally goes through mowing. I hope they grow well up there because that's one place there are no flowers at all except for the wild blackberry bush. I bought the pink cone flower variety which should be very pretty against the bright green background of the woods. Unfortunately I forgot that seed packet so I can't say how soon they germinate. But you can be sure I'll get some pictures when they come up!
I still had two packets of sunflower seeds to plant so I hoed a couple of rows up by the flag pole and set the seeds in place. Here I planted one row of the mammoth seeds and another row of a variety called "Evening Sun." According to the package these will be a high percentage of red and mahogany shades with blooms about 8 inches in diameter. They don't get as tall as the Mammoth sunflowers do - only about 6 feet. I think it will look kind of cool to have one very tall row and then another row in front of it that's not quite as tall and with varying shades to boot! The packet also says they are easy to grow...hahahaha whoever wrote that must not have rocks like I do...there was nothing easy about hoeing those two rows!! LOL
When the flower seed planting was done I headed for the vegetable garden where I pulled weeds and inspected the pea situation. I found that whatever has been eating them ate the tops of some and the roots of others. This being said, I may still have more peas to come. For those that had their roots eaten I dug a little hole, pulled the bottom set of leaves off and replanted them in the hope that they will somehow, maybe, re-root and start growing again. For those that still had roots but very little in the way of top leaves, I dug a little trench around them so I would know where to look and start training them on the fence as soon as possible. Keep your fingers crossed for me!
If you have the ability to view the flickr site, you'll see the picture of the peas that I picked over the weekend. While I was weeding I noticed there were quite a few that were fat and ready to be picked so I went down the line doing just that. If you cup your two hands together, that's about how many pods I had. When shelled, they amounted to one whole serving and YES, I ate them all, every last one. Wally was out of town after all...
With any luck, maybe I'll have another batch before too long so he can enjoy them with me! I guess I'll just have to plant lots more plants next year if I hope to have enough for the freezer. Don't get me wrong, there are still about 20 plants out there so I may be pleasantly surprised this year when the second round comes in but that's only if the MOLE leaves them alone!! lol I'll be pleasantly surprised if that happens..:)
I weeded around the tomatoes, the one beet and the carrots. If vegetables grew as prolifically as weeds do, there would never be a problem with hunger. I'm here to tell ya, I can grow some awesome weeds! With my rake and my hoe I go down the rows digging and pulling and piling them up. I toss them up and over the fence into the woods behind. For whatever reason, they don't seem to grow as well back there as they do in my garden...lol!!
The tomatoes are looking good and growing tall. Their stalks appear strong and very dark green. I bought 8 more plants over the weekend and will get them in the ground before this week is out. Claudia had some to give me that she started from seed but they didn't make it. She said one day they just died. So I bought 8 plants from the co-op for just $3.79 total. What a deal - they want that much for just one plant at Lowe's!! hmph! I have to get more cages too because the new plants are all indeterminate which means they'll grow every which way and require cages to hold them up. At the very least I'll have to stake them.
Of the two that Teri brought me, one has a flower on it already. It's only a foot and a half tall and yet it's beginning to bloom. I remember my dad telling me that the first blooms always drop and it's the second round of blooms that brings on the tomatoes. Hang tight folks - we may be in for lots and lots of tomatoes! woo hoo!!
The green beans are full of blooms and don't seem to be having any trouble whatsoever standing on their own although I can see where the beans themselves will add some weight that might have them bending over. At this stage, nothing has been eating at them, knock on wood! Dizzy's beans are working their way up in height and will soon have flowers of their own. I'm thinking all those bags I bought for the peas will probably be filled with green beans instead...lol! Well, they won't go to waste that's for sure :) :) :)
I dug the dirt away from one of the onions and it appears they are going to take a while longer yet. The one I checked looks like a really fat, red, scallion. Of course they can be picked and eaten at this size - just peel the top layer off and serve them on a plate with plenty of salt. Indeed I'll do that with some but some are planned to get nice and big around so I can make pickled onions with them. When you pickle them, they get really tender lose most of their heat...so good on top of a burger!! I covered up the onion and took a break.
I didn't realize how long I had been outside until I went inside and checked the time. Wow! I had been out there digging, hoeing, planting, weeding, and picking for a good solid 4 hours. WHEW!! It's no wonder I was worn out...lol Time flies when you're having fun they say...
Since the air was warm and there was a slight breeze I washed my clothes and hung them on the line. I barely had two full loads without Wally's clothes there. I could have done them all in one load but that's just not right...whites with purples, darks with reds...nah - I just made enough for two loads and started the washer.
As the first load of clothes dried on the line, I took a long, muscle-soothing shower. I scrubbed all the garden dirt from my hands, nails, legs, face and hair. I scrubbed the sticky, sweaty sunscreen and bug spray from my skin and slipped into my comfy shorts and a tank top...ahhhh
I could have sworn I saw a mud puddle when I was through...lol!
The activities and the days get mixed up so the order of my story is completely random but at some point, I moved the new humming bird feeder from the front yard to the back porch. While it was in the front yard the only action it saw was from butterflies and wasps. The humming birds completely ignored it. After moving it to the back porch, within about an hour, the humming birds were buzzing it. After an hour and a half, they were flying from one side of the porch to the other, drinking from all the feeders. Funny how the feeder has to be in just the right spot for them...no matter how sugary sweet the water is, they aren't interested if it's not in the right place.
Looks like I'm back in the good graces of those little birds. Seeing and hearing them flying around again is one of the signs that, yes, summer is soon to be here. This is when I truly get some good exercise; hanging clothes on the line is a main source of exercise. You wouldn't believe how good it is for your arms to be lifting and reaching while your hanging them and bringing them in. I spend most of my time outside - even in the heat - and I keep moving. There's always something to do.
One of the highlights of my three day weekend was the baking of a loaf of sourdough bread. Calm down - I'm not that ambitious! LOL I used a box mix and the bread maker that Teri and Jay brought me. What a wonderful invention that turned out to be! You add some water and then the flour package and the yeast from the box mix. You plug in the machine and set it according to how you want your crust and what type of bread you're baking, push start and off it goes. The machine does all the rest.
While the bread machine worked its magic, I sat on the porch reading my book and watching the birds. They fly so close it seems I could just reach my hand out and touch them but they fly so fast there's no way in the world it could ever happen! They even make a little chirpy sound when they fly away.
I took a picture of one of the birds as it was about to drink from the feeder - it's just hanging there in the air. That was the last picture I was able to take before my camera told me the memory was full. Darn it!!! I had all weekend to get lots of pictures for you and now the memory was full. Ernie tried to help me, bless her heart, but I'm just not that much of tech-y person like she is and I couldn't figure it out. I had to take the pictures of my basket with my phone. They aren't nearly as clear and nice as the camera pictures are but at least you get to see what the basket looked like.
By the time I came back inside, the bread had the cabin smelling wonderful. I sat and watched a little tv, breathed in the scent of fresh bread baking and waited to hear the timer go off. When it did, I lifted the basket from the machine and dumped the bread on the cutting board to cool. Well it smelled so good, I said to heck with that and sliced the crusty end piece from the loaf. I slathered it was real butter and sat back in my chair to savor the flavor. mmmm mmmm good!!! After one more slice I was full!
This bread is more dense than what you get at the store and the crust is just that...crusty - even almost crunchy. The bread is soft and soaks up the butter without it leaking through to the other side. The loaf is smaller than what you get at the store but that's okay with me - we can never seem to eat a whole loaf of bread anyway. You can just imagine how good it was soaking up the yolk of the farm fresh eggs I had for breakfast the next day. What a treat!!
The CSA basket was over-flowing to be sure! In it was another batch of Red Russian Kale and more bok choy. The farmer tells me this is a different variety of bok choy so I'm to be sure and notice the subtle differences in flavor and texture. The basket had another bunch of radishes - of which only half made it to the refrigerator! It had two different kinds of lettuce; savoy lettuce which is a beautiful shade of bright, light, green and the leaves are very ruffled and romaine lettuce. The romaine is dark and crispy-crunchy whereas the savoy is soft and tender. Both will make some awesome salads this week! Also in the basket was a bag of what my farmer called "braising greens." Now, I'm not really familiar with braising greens so she explained it to me.
I'm to rinse them, dry them well, then put them in some water to simmer gently. I figure I'll use chicken broth instead - or maybe even beef broth. She said to add garlic and black pepper if I prefer either or both of those. When they are tender, I'm to drain them and serve them as a side dish with just a bit of salt and if I like it, lemon juice. hmmmm sounds like there could be lots of options here... any of you ever heard of braising greens? Let me know how you like them cooked. I have a big enough bag to make them a couple different ways.
The weekend was over and I still had to gather up all my canning jars, lids and bands. I needed a count to see if I should pick up any more at Fred's while they were on sale. I think I have enough pints to last a lifetime...72 or some crazy number like that. I have less than 20 quarts and no jelly jars at all. I was short on lids and bands so I counted everything up and made a list. Looks like most of my canning will be in pint jars :) :)
I did get my floors done and in way less time than it used to take thanks to the swiffer steamer that Kris sent me. That thing is wonderful!! It gets the job done quickly and is easy to manage and store. I love it! Now those steps on the spiral staircase, those are a different story but they took only about a half hour with a rag and a bowl of water with murphy's oil soap. The floors are shiny, the laundy is done, the garden is weeded and me and the dogs all got plenty of sunshine, vitamin D and exercise.
I hope you had a three day weekend and I hope you were able to check off a couple of "to-do's" from your to-do list...:)
I'll get that memory cleared from the camera so I can take more pictures for you. In the mean time, I hope you're enjoying the blog even after a year of reading my rambling :) I know it was hot there in FL and even for Dizzy Debbie in AZ but it was also very hot here too so don't feel bad...I guess the whole nation realized some serious sweat this past Memorial Day!
The quote for today is unrelated to the posting but I thought it was pretty darn funny... see what you think.
"I have six locks on my door all in a row. When I go out, I lock every other one. I figure no matter how long somebody stands there picking the locks, they are always locking three." ~Elayne Boosler
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