Feet off the Table!

Monday Garden Club Peach Winners!

2011-10-03T12:23:00.001-05:00

It's Monday!

*boo-hiss*

But there is a bright spot! Today I am announcing the winner of my Monday Garden Club Giveaway.

Since it was an especially peachy fall season here, I have decided to give away 2 quarts of my home canned peaches instead of just one.

Once again, I used the random number generator from random.org, and once again, I couldn't figure out how to save the image of the winning numbers, so you will just have to take my word for it, once again. The winning numbers were 6 and 8, so The Heathen Family and Chris have each won a quart of canned peaches. Woohoo! I will contact both winners and get your peaches in the mail this week!

Thank you to everyone who entered, and also THANK YOU to anyone who participated in Monday Garden Club this year! Growing a garden is such a great way to make and eat some of the most delicious food this earth has to offer.

Monday Garden Club: End Of The Season Giveaway

2011-09-26T15:29:00.000-05:00

Once again, long time no blog for me. I have been taking photos though, so this is a summary of the last few weeks of garden growth and harvest.

It rained like crazy most of yesterday and all this morning. So hard that I felt a little bit bad sending the girls out to the bus this morning. Not bad enough to keep them home, however. That would be NUTS! The rain has now stopped and the sun is actually trying to make an appearance.

Now for the garden update. The garden is about done for the year. There are still a bunch of green tomatoes on the vine, but almost everything else has about reached its life span. I still need to pick the winter squash once the vines die off completely and there are a few melons out there yet. The beans are finally done, netting us 3 gallon sized bags full in our freezer for meals later this winter. I also made around a dozen containers of roasted veggie pasta sauce which is also in the freezer.

I pulled the rest of the onions last week and have them stored in a paper bag, to hopefully last the winter. I planted a 60 foot row of onion sets this year and they turned out better than ever before. I will definitely be doing onions this way again next year. Forget those tiny little plants you can buy from the garden center (or start in the basement) that take forever to separate and plant and yield only small onions.

Binny was thrilled when I finally gave her the go ahead to pull one of these big watermelons from the garden. She was less thrilled when she learned it was NOT a seedless watermelon. It was delicious though and there are 2 more out there ripening. The same day we picked this melon, the girls and I went out and I told them they were not allowed to go back in the house (to no doubt watch tv) until they picked an ice cream bucket full of tomatoes. Believe it or not, they didn't fight me too much, but did get a little bored after a while. It takes quite a few cherry, pear and grape tomatoes to fill a bucket.

Now on with the fruit trees! Our neighbors had so many apples hanging on their trees that they ended up picking 3 extra paper grocery bags full and gave them to us. I made juice out of two of the bags and I still have one sitting on the porch that I hope to turn into either juice or apple sauce later this week.

My father-in-law's peach trees ripened as well and he again had way too many to use up on his own, so we went over and picked twice.

The first time was when Grandma Dee was here and she acted as peach tester.

She didn't give up on that pit until every last bit was gone and the juice was running off of her elbows.

We picked this box full the first time around.

The second round of picking was just last weekend and I came home with 3 boxes. I still have a few left but most have either been eaten raw, made into a delicious peach pie (in lieu of birthday cake for Mae's B-day last week), canned or given away to friends and family.

And we still have about 40 peaches on our own tree that are not quite ripe yet. Peaches, peaches, peaches!

I only have about 6 empty jars left which probably won't get me very far if I plan to do any applesauce or straight up tomato sauce with the remaining tomatoes. The final canning count is 21 quarts of peaches, 4 pints of peaches, 6 quarts of apple juice and 6 pints of peach jam.

I feel sad that the gardening season is coming to an end but also relieved that all of the work washing, chopping, cooking, freezing, canning, and all of the clean-up will soon be over. Mostly the clean-up. Juicing apples makes one giant, sticky mess.

With that, I want to continue my tradition of giving away a jar of my home canned peaches as an end of the season Monday Garden Club wrap-up. So if you live in the US (sorry, Joey) and are interested in tasting some home grown Wisconsin peaches, leave a comment on this post and I will announce the random winner here next Monday. If you participated in my Monday Garden Club this season by posting a Monday Garden entry on your blog, leave a second comment. The giveaway will be open through Sunday night. And once again, I have no license to distribute my canned goods, but I can assure I made them following safe canning practices. By entering this giveaway you are accepting all risk. I feed them to my children, so I wouldn't worry too much if I were you.

Good Luck and Happy Gardening!

Wardrobe Wednesday

2011-09-14T08:17:00.000-05:00

So part of why I've been so absent from blogging is because we've had a house guest fot the last week and a half. I took Grandma Dee to the airport yesterday (where TSA not only sent both of us through the body scanners {I needed to go through security to walk Grandma to her gate} but they also did a full body pat down on my 82 year old grandmother even after she offered to show them her pacemaker card to prove the device in her chest is to keep her alive and not a bomb she plans to detonate on an airplane. Hey TSA, stop screwing with old ladies!), but before she left, we took a photo together.

Which is a perfect example of why I belong BEHIND the camera and not in front of it. I'm not even sure how I made some of these faces.

"That's enough, I'm done!"

First Day Of School. Nevermind That I'm A Week Late.

2011-09-09T12:43:00.000-05:00

The girls really were excited to go back to school, I'm not just making it up to cover up my own excitement for another school year. They were both happy with this year's teachers and couldn't wait to try out their new backpacks and new flashy headbands.

Oh, and it was crazy foggy on the first day of school which made watching for the school bus a little difficult.

Mae: 3rd grade

Binny: 2nd grade

Roasted Veggie Pasta Sauce

2011-09-02T19:23:00.000-05:00

So what do you do when it seems like you have unending amount of this stuff?

You cut it all up, drizzle it with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and give it a good sprinkling of salt and pepper.

2 pans worth, because when you're washing and chopping lots of veggies anyway, you might as well make as much as you can in one shot.

Put the pans on a hot grill, cover and and cook until it looks like this:

It usually takes about 45 minutes for me. The goal is for the veggies to be soft and juicy.

Puree with a stick blender, or regular blender or food processor, then freeze into single meal portions.

I would love to claim this recipe as my own creation, but I can't. I found it HERE last year and fell in love. I tweaked it slightly to fit my cooking style, but it's pretty much the same delicious recipe.

Roast Veggie Pasta Sauce

Tomatoes, summer squash (any kind, I used patty pan, zucchini and summer squash) and onions, cut into chunks.

1/2 head of garlic, peeled and large cloves cut in half

Fresh basil, torn

A good drizzling each of Olive oil and Balsamic vinegar

salt and pepper

Roast in the oven at 400 deg. or on the grill for 40 min. to an hour.

Puree, freeze and eat on pasta all winter.

Wardrobe Wednesday

2011-08-31T12:54:00.000-05:00

The girls go back to school tomorrow, and while I wasn't planning on buying them any new clothes until the weather started to change, I did cave yesterday when we were out buying a few last minute items and let them each pick out one new outfit to wear on the first day. As soon as they cut off the tags, they insisted on modeling their new outfits for me.

Monday Garden Club

2011-08-29T09:43:00.001-05:00

Another big harvest this week. Actually this was all picked just yesterday! I have a lot of work ahead of me to preserve all of this but I know how good garden veggies taste in the middle of winter, so it's worth it. I plan to make some soup today, blanch and freeze the rest of the broccoli and beans and make more roasted veggie pasta sauce this week. I made some pasta sauce last week and took photos that will be up here complete with instructions in the next few days. The girls start school on Thursday, so I'm hoping I will be able to blog a little more and visit blogs a little more as well. I feel so out of the loop lately, not reading and commenting on all my favorite blogs, but I will be back soon!

I have decided to discontinue using the Linky for connecting other bloggers and their gardens, so if anyone else is gardening this week and blogging about it, drop your link in the comments below and I'll you to this post. Happy Gardening!

Participating Bloggers:

Verde Mama

Shady Lady

Monday Garden Club

2011-08-22T09:52:00.000-05:00

Well, hello there, long time no blog! Before I get to the garden, I'll give a quick update on what the heck we've been up to since I last checked in. I've been busy taking pictures.

The Gardener has been mowing lawns 2 nights a week (ours and one other), and just yesterday started a new garage project. He found a 2 car garage on craigslist for cheap, so he bought it. The only catch is, the garage is currently standing in someone's front yard, completely assembled. The Gardener and his dad removed all of the shingles and a bunch of other parts yesterday, and hopefully by next weekend, he'll have the wall sections ready to be moved. We need another giant project like we need a hole in the head, but doing it this way is much cheaper than starting from scratch, and our little one car garage, besides being too small for much of anything, is falling apart. Yeehaw!

The Gardener and I also celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary last Thursday. We went out for dinner Friday night and displayed exactly how old we are by deciding not to go out for an after dinner drink and instead go home and SLEEP. No, really, it was awesome and much needed.

The girls were gone for the weekend with Grandma N and Uncle T, boating and swimming (Apparently in their underwear and T shirts because somebody forgot to pack swim suits. Oops!) and when they returned, look what they found inside a jar in the house!

A few weeks ago while on a walk through the garden, I noticed my parsley plant had been completely eaten. All that was left of it was stems, and on those stems were lots and lots of bright green and yellow caterpillars. I ran to find the girls and minutes later there were about 10 caterpillars in a re-purposed pickle jar. 2 formed a chrysalis and the rest apparently didn't appreciate their new environment because they didn't do much of anything and are still laying lifeless at the bottom of their makeshift cage, as removing them would disturb the remaining chrysalis which is attached to the side. Anyway, look how pretty!

After admiring the beauty of the new butterfly, Mae released it onto a flower...

And while I no longer have any parsley growing on the garden, I have patty pan squash,

cucumbers,

LOTS of sunflowers,

watermelons,

tomato ~~trees~~ plants,

and we're still getting some broccoli!

I made 3 big jars of pickles last week, blanched and froze some broccoli and beans, and cooked and ate damn near my weight in summer squash. I still have lots of produce to preserve and use up but I'm hoping I can get some roasted veggie pasta sauce made in the next few days, and when I do, I plan to post the recipe here, if I don't get distracted by Facebook, or editing wedding photos, or a dog eating yet another pair of shoes.

Anybody else gardening this week? If so, grab the Monday Garden Club button on my sidebar, paste it to your blog entry and link up below with Mr. Linky.

Wardrobe Wednesday

2011-08-11T08:33:00.000-05:00

More photos from our rainy weekend in Minnesota. At least the girls had the right footwear!

Monday Garden Club: Minnesota Edition

2011-08-08T08:48:00.002-05:00

So, did anyone other than Sheila noticed I didn't post a garden update last week? Well, sometimes life gets a little crazy and I say to heck with it when it comes to making my self-imposed blog deadlines. I had 2 weddings to photograph last weekend and both girls were in swimming classes every day for the last 2 weeks, so updating the blog just didn't happen. Not to mention (although I will), packing for our annual trek out to Minnesota, spending way too much time at Costco getting new tires put on my car.They told me 1 hour on the phone, 2 hours once I got there and just kept increasing the amount of time every time I walked up to the counter and inquired. 4 hours and a $25 gift card for my inconvenience later and we were finally on our way to a weekend of fun, mixed with heavy rain and long rides in the car. Rain IS good for the gardens and that's what I want to showcase today.

Thursday night we arrived at my mom's house VERY late and went straight to bed, but when we woke in the morning we all walked out onto her patio to check out her ~~not so~~ little condo garden.

Most of her plants this year actually came from my little greenhouse when she visited earlier this spring. She has taken good care of all of them and they are flourishing on her little sunlit patio.

Ground Cherries

Next stop on our trip was my brother-in-law's garden. It rained almost the entire time we were there which doesn't really make for a fun trip to the north woods of Minnesota when you are forced to stay indoors. Just as the sun was going down on Saturday night the sun came out and we were able to go and check out the garden.

And as soon as we finish our complimentary hotel breakfast this morning, we will get back in the car and drive the last leg back home to see what happened in our garden while we were gone.

Anybody else gardening this week? If so, grab the Monday Garden Club button on my sidebar, paste it to your blog entry and link up below with Mr. Linky.

Monday Garden Club

2011-07-25T11:32:00.000-05:00

I leave the garden for 4 days and look what happens! I guess it could have been a bad result, with a tornado or something, but still I could hear the weeds calling me outside to do some clean up as soon as I unpacked the cooler and started a load of laundry in the washer.

According to the rain gauge, 2.5 inches of rain fell while we were gone. Made for easy pulling weeds, but also made them all HUGE. I filled ELEVEN 5 gallon buckets and I'm not done yet, but it's a big improvement.

There are edibles out there too!

I hadn't planned on pulling any carrots (mostly because I thought they weren't ready yet) until these came out alongside some big weeds I yanked out of the ground. I'll let the rest grow for a while longer

I think we have finally figured out how to have a successful tomato garden. First, spacing is huge! As in the more the better, and even then go a foot or two wider than that. Of course, that's not an option for every gardener, but tomatoes grow with such gusto* that unless you can keep up with the pruning (and can cut off a few blossoms and tiny, green tomatoes without having a panic attack), they spread and tangle together and become a giant mess by the time they start to ripen.

*I think it was was Riot Kitty who commented the other week about tomatoes being the sluts of the plant world. I couldn't agree more! Besides the overall craziness, I am constantly pulling out tomato plants that come up on their own all over the garden.
Second, staking or caging. For years I used those flimsy wire cages from the garden center. You know, the kind that stack not so neatly, stick together and bust at the welds? Never again! Now that the Gardener made me some heavy duty towers out of used electrical conduit, I have sworn off wire cages forever. I actually bought 2 of the heaviest round cages I could find at Fleet Farm, and still they don't hold a candle to the practically FREE homemade cages.

And third would be pruning and training. Even with the new cages, the tomatoes still need to stay inside them to be successful which means going out every few days and tucking the new growth inside. I also adopted a heavy pruning technique starting last year, which is proving to be quite effective. You should have seen my brother's face last week while we were out working in the garden and I was snipping off entire branches (the suckers) of tomatoes to encourage more vertical growth and less sprawling outward. Not only does it look cool to have tall vertical towers of tomatoes, it also prevents the tomatoes from hanging on the ground and reduces the chance of disease because no fruit is laying on the ground rotting. The bugs seem to leave them alone this way too.

Summer squash

Anybody else gardening this week? If so, grab the Monday Garden Club button on my sidebar, paste it to your blog entry and link up below with Mr. Linky.

Wardrobe Wednesday

2011-07-20T08:32:00.001-05:00

These photos are from last week when the girls were still in Summer School.

It would be much too hot for even this outfit today (Binny is wearing a loose dress today but I didn't feel like getting out the camera), as this will be (if all predictions are correct) the hottest and most humid day of the year. Believe me, I'm not looking forward to my shift at the farm tonight. That climb all the way to the top of the concrete silo sounds absolutely torturous to me right now.

Monday Garden Club

2011-07-18T14:34:00.000-05:00

Monday again, and a very hot and sticky Monday at that. It is July after all, but it's always a little annoying when the weather people on the news say it's so hot out that using a fan in the house won't even help. Ugh! Since we have no air conditioning, we have the fans cranked up, but with the breeze outside and our close proximity to the big Lake (Mother Nature's air conditioner for those of us who live with in 10 miles of it.) it's not quite as bad as it could be.

With regards to the garden, I'm just glad it's still growing after a whole week of neglect. I have been sick for almost an entire week, making garden work the last thing I feel like doing. I went out a few times to pick some broccoli, peas, and kohlrabi, but absolutely zero weeding has been done. Eek!

Zucchini

Broccoli

Wax Beans

San Marzano tomatoes

Silvery tomatoes

Raspberries

And of course my garden helper who just finished a tour of the raspberry patch, AKA lunch.

Anybody else gardening this week? If so, grab the Monday Garden Club button on my sidebar, paste it to your blog entry and link up below with Mr. Linky.

Monday Garden Club

2011-07-11T10:21:00.000-05:00

It's one thing to get up at 5am on a Monday morning to the annoying sounds of the alarm clock, but this morning we were also greeted with an early morning thunderstorm, complete with flickering lights and a frightened Binny.

We DO need the rain since we haven't had ANY in over 2 weeks, but still, I wish for once the rain would come down quietly while we're sleeping as not to interfere with the rest of our summer, which here in Wisconsin never seems long enough. It's good for the garden though, right?

While we weren't getting any rain all last week, I decided to get my butt out in the garden and do some major weeding. I still have more to do which is evident by my photos, but it's a huge improvement already.

Kohlrabi, ready to pick.

Bush beans

Baby peaches

The Mulberries on our tree are ripening! When we noticed the berries a few weeks ago, the Gardener pounded some pipes into the ground and wrapped the whole tree in netting so we could actually eat our berries this year and not lose them all to the birds. The netting has been working great and every other day, we head out there with a bowl and pick til our fingers are purple. After last night's picking we had enough to make some yummy mulberry muffins.

Anybody else gardening this week? If so, grab the Monday Garden Club button on my sidebar, paste it to your blog entry and link up below with Mr. Linky.

Wardrobe Wednesday: Life Jackets

2011-07-06T12:58:00.000-05:00

Can you tell which child loves tubing behind the boat and which child barely tolerates it?

This is Mae right after we pulled her back into the boat. You should have seen the disappointed look on her face when my brother told her that NO he would not drive "wide open" while dragging her behind the 75 hp motor.

A not so sure Binny getting ready for a slow tow around the lake.

Monday Garden Club

2011-07-04T19:48:00.000-05:00

We were gone all weekend enjoying the long holiday weekend in the north woods, so not only is this garden update late (again), it will be brief as well.

We haven't had much luck in years past with wire tomato cages, so this year the Gardener welded together some used electrical conduit he had on the scrap pile to make these tomato towers. If I can keep up with the pruning, these should be orderly columns of tomatoes by the end of the season instead of a tangled mess like usual.

Binny harvested the last of our strawberries.

And a radish too.

Broccoli

True to the old saying, the corn in the field is knee high by the 4th of July.

Anybody else gardening this week? If so, grab the Monday Garden Club button on my sidebar, paste it to your blog entry and link up below with Mr. Linky.

Kitchen Help

2011-06-30T07:25:00.000-05:00

"When I'm older, and you're still alive and picking strawberries from the garden, I'll come over and nip em and smash em for you."

-Binny

Monday Garden Club

2011-06-27T14:33:00.001-05:00

Oh boy! What another full, yet FUN weekend! The girls and I helped with a rummage sale all day Friday where the girls set up a lemonade stand. All was going great until an older Grandpa type found 35 cents at the bottom of his plastic lemonade cup AFTER he finished his 50 cent glass of lemonade. It was determined that Mae accidentally gave him the change cup instead of a clean cup. Oops!

Saturday was another busy day, meeting some friends out for Breakfast On The Farm then later was the Wisconsin wedding celebration for the cousin who was married last month in South Carolina. I once again photographed the whole event but since I've been so busy, none of the photos are up on my photo blog yet, but soon!

And yesterday, we had some friends over for lunch who were visiting all the way from Virginia. In fact, our guests were the Out In Them Sticks family, Monday Garden Club regulars, including the newest member with the yummiest little toes.

And of course more photos to process, but instead of editing, I did find a little time last night to get out int he garden and pull weeds. The Gardener roto-tilled between all of the rows, then the girls and I pulled weeds around the plants in the vine section of the garden.

Some of the plants were difficult to find inside the carpet of weeds, but once identified, we were able to clear the weeds away to expose the plants. All the rain we had last week has turned the garden into a growing machine.

This week we have been picking strawberries and radishes from our garden, and the arugula is ready as well. The Pick Your Own strawberry farm down the road from our house is now open too. This morning, Binny and I went and picked 2 ice cream pails full of strawberries which will become jam later today if I get time.

Anybody else gardening this week? If so, grab the Monday Garden Club button on my sidebar, paste it to your blog entry and link up below with Mr. Linky.

Wardrobe Wednesday

2011-06-22T15:09:00.000-05:00

Monday Garden Club

2011-06-20T14:38:00.000-05:00

Grandma Dee moved into a beautiful apartment a week ago last Saturday, and since the Summer is already filling up for us, the girls and I decided to make the 6 hour drive out this past weekend to check out her new place and get our fill of hugs.

My cousin and his wife stopped by with their beautiful baby girl, and of course I had to take a photo of the girls with their great-grandmother.

While we were in Minnesota, it didn't snow like the last 3 times I visited the state, but it did rain most of Saturday afternoon. Binny and I decided to brave the drippy weather and go with my mom to check out her community garden plot nearby.

The fun thing about a community garden is that you can see all different styles of gardening in one big area. Some people plant veggies, some plant flowers, some do both!

Some mulch, some don't.

Some arrange their gardens in north-south rows and some go east-west (I garden in north-south rows so the sun is even all day long when it moves from east to west, but that's just me...) and some don't do rows at all, just a mish-mash of green stuff in the dirt.

And then there are some gardeners who go all the way. My mom was telling me about this garden below and all I could do was think about how much time and money this all must have cost. This garden belongs to a young couple who are gardening for the first time and started everything from seed including all of the flowers around the outside of their fenced in double wide garden.

Complete with a door and a lock to keep the riff-raff out.

They have weed mat down around all the plants and a drip irrigation system as well. The next time someone tells me my garden is too big and too much work, I will refer them to this post. I guess it just proves that gardening is a fun activity that can range from this extensive set-up at a community garden, or a few potted tomato plants on your back patio.

And as for my garden, it was waiting for us with ripe strawberries when he arrived home yesterday.

Anybody else gardening this week? If so, grab the Monday Garden Club button on my sidebar, paste it to your blog entry and link up below with Mr. Linky.

Wardrobe Wednesday: Mae's New Glasses

2011-06-15T15:26:00.000-05:00

Monday Garden Club

2011-06-13T07:07:00.002-05:00

So much going on in the garden this week, and outside the garden as well. The cornfield in the background has started to grow and pretty soon it will look like our property is completely surrounded by the corn. Of all the field crops farmers plant around here, we love having corn neighbors for the summer. I'm still shocked that such a giant plant can grow from one tiny seed. Same with sunflowers that plant themselves all over the garden from last year's leftovers and grow like mad into a 10 foot tall stalk by the end of summer with big blooms and enough seeds to make all the neighborhood birds happy. So far, no ten foot tall plants here, just seedlings.

Seedlings and weeds. Last week, Sheila asked about the weeds that had started to sprout up in the garden around the emerging plants.

"I see in your pics you have sprouts of what looks like grass in the cracks of the dirt. Tell me... do you just let this go? What do you do? This is my issue and I assumed I had to be grass free. But since you're the expert... do I have to get rid of every blade?"

I'd like to say otherwise, but yes, my garden does grow weeds as well, if not better than it grows veggies. I wish there were a weed free way to garden, but short of making 20 or so raised beds and hauling in clean, weed free soil, we live with them. The Gardener made the first pass with the rototiller last week (that's why our rows are so wide, to fit the tiller down without ripping out any plants) hence the squares of green in the vine garden where the zucchinis and other vines are growing along with the weeds, including grass. Once the plants get a little bigger and more hardy, I will start pulling weeds by hand right around the plants. We also plan to lay down giant sheets of cardboard topped with straw around all of the vine plants to keep the weeds under control in the most out of control area of the garden. Last year, the vine garden became so weedy that we could hardly find the cantaloupes and winter squash.

Onions

Broccoli

Bush Beans

Kohlrabi

Pole Beans and Sunflowers

Pear Tomato

Silvery Tomato- an early, determinate variety

Rhubarb

Strawberries

Raspberries

Above are the raspberries still in the big garden and below are the recently moved raspberry plants.

Some are doing better than others, obviously, but in gardening, casualties happen. Good thing more plants pop up out of the ground each spring.

We needed the ATV trailer for other uses, so the water tank had to find a new ride. And of course, since we filled the water wagon, there has been more than enough rain to water everything. Go figure.

Peaches!

And some nasty looking leaf curl on the peach tree. I'll see my father-in-law today (a peach growing pro) and ask him what to do about it.

Apples!

Mulberries!

And finally, some flowers, all of which I started from tiny seeds in my basement last year.

Lupines

Apricot Beauty Foxglove

Anybody else gardening this week? If so, grab the Monday Garden Club button on my sidebar, paste it to your blog entry and link up below with Mr. Linky.

Wardrobe Wednesday

2011-06-08T21:11:00.001-05:00

The last few days have been quite hot around here.

Yesterday was no exception, further demonstrated by Flash who couldn't keep his giant, panting tongue inside his mouth.

The girls wanted me to take them to beach yesterday after school, but instead they settled for dragging out the blue plastic pool and splashing around until dinner time in last year's one size too small swim suits..

Today will be the last of the super warm temps for a while, with a giant storm and cold front moving in right now, putting on one heck of a light show outside. This morning, lightning knocked out our power for 4 hours which in turn, made me ask myself a very important question, how do I get my car out of the garage during a power outage when I have an ELECTRIC door opener? Turns out garage door opener manufacturers thought of such a situation and added a handy rope to pull so you can manually open your door and get your car out. First time I ever had to use it, and when I returned home, the power was back on. Hopefully it will stay on tonight!

Garden Update Just Barely On Monday

2011-06-06T22:27:00.001-05:00

So, I'm late once again with the garden update, but at least I'm posting this week. Last week was a holiday and with company in from out of town for the weekend, plus both the girls and the Gardener home, there was no way Garden Monday was going to happen. I don't have a good excuse why I didn't post on Wednesday or really any day last week other than the truth that life happens and other stuff ends up trumping the blog. Stuff like Binny falling at the park, scraping both knees and the entire right side of her face then getting some sort of eye infection in the left eye 2 days later. There was also a field trip to the zoo in there, several sunburns and a new pair of glasses for a certain 8 year old and enough good gardening weather to keep all of us busy and outside as much as possible.

First an overview of the big veggie garden, and the freshly planted corn field in the background.

Many of the seeds have now germinated and I plan to re-sow any plants/seeds that don't emerge by the end of this week.
The entire 55 foot row of onion sets are up and growing like mad.

The broccoli and brussel sprouts are growing as well.

Like last year, I'm growing a row of sunflowers and pole beans together. It was so much fun last year, how could we not try it again?

The strawberries are blooming and fruiting in there current home smack dab in the center of the garden for hopefully the last time. The gardener just tillled up a new garden for me back behind the shed that will be our new berry garden. I already moved lots of raspberry plants out there but I'm going to wait until after the strawberries fruit to move them.

Tomatoes.

Zucchini.

Cherry tomato.

This is where the raspberries were ~~taking over the garden~~ living until I plucked some of them (just the new shoots from this spring) from their happy home in the big garden and moved them to the new berry garden.

The new berry garden.

Transplants.

After I planted the 40 or so rasberry plants, I knew I needed to water them, and carrying buckets from the house did not seem appealing to either of us, so off went the Gardener on his trusty 4-wheeler to retrieve this tank from behind the barn he had been saving to fill with water for the trees around our property.

And some of the plants were thirsty!

Also in the new garden is also where I stashed the extra tomato and pepper plants. The greenhouse is finally, almost empty from all 6 flats of plants I started from seed.

There's lots more going on in the garden these days, but it's late and I still have some sun-burnt shoulders that are screaming for attention. Until next week...

Anybody else gardening this week? If so, grab the Monday Garden Club button on my sidebar, paste it to your blog entry and link up below with Mr. Linky.

Wardrobe Wednesday

2011-05-25T14:45:00.000-05:00

Binny turned 7 last weekend. We had small family birthday party for her here Saturday afternoon while it rained outside. And of course there were presents! Binny pulled this little sundress out of the box and insisted on putting the strap around her neck to try it out right away.

The weather cleared up by Monday morning so she was able to wear it to school when she brought in her birthday cupcakes for the class. I think this may be a new summer favorite.

Monday Garden Club

2011-05-23T21:14:00.001-05:00

We have to stop meeting like this. Or, rather I have to stop waiting until the last possible moment in the day to post on a specific day of the week theme, especially one that I host, like say... Monday Garden Club. Cuz yeah, my kids are already in bed and the Gardener is taking his nightly shower and still I'm working on a silly little blog post. Albeit, the most important garden update of the entire year considering I (with the help of my brother) managed to get the garden planted last Friday, but still, I feel like a slacker for not posting sooner.

The Gardener worked the garden with the rototiller 2 solid nights until the soil was as soft and fluffy as it was ever going to get. Fortunately, the heavy rain held off until after we planted and actually, Friday was a picture perfect day. My brother and I were out in the garden for 9 solid hours (giving me one hell of a sunburn on the bridge if my nose and my forehead, thanks in large part to my oversized sunglasses and a ponytail for my hair), measuring and driving stakes, and hoeing rows, ~~and drinking beer,~~ and planting seeds. We planted everything. It would be torture to make my brain remember everything we planted last week but let me tell you, it was plenty and there will be no shortage of produce at the Feet Off The Table house this year. 5 or 6 kinds of tomatoes, 3 kinds of beans, summer squash, winter squash, snow peas, 2 kinds of okra and enough peppers to make a Norwegian sweat just thinking about it. Yep, overkill at its finest. What the hell, it's gardening season!

Peonies

Strawberry flowers

Anybody else gardening this week? If so, grab the Monday Garden Club button on my sidebar, paste it to your blog entry and link up below with Mr. Linky.

Wardrobe Wednesday

2011-05-18T22:01:00.001-05:00

I actually had a few options for Wardrobe Wednesday this week. I could have taken a photo of all the shoes Flash has chewed apart in recent days, but that would be incredibly depressing. I also could have posted a photo I took of Binny fully clothed wearing an extra pair of bright blue undies and one of my bras on the outside of her clothing, but oddly enough, I've already done that.

Instead, I will offer up a mix of Flash's destruction and Binny's knack of finding a wardrobe possibility in almost anything.

The girls brought a plastic inflated ball in from outside for Flash to play with and within about 10 seconds of him noticing its existence, he popped it. As I walked over to pick it up and throw it in the trash next to my favorite leather sandals he ripped apart just hours earlier, Binny thrust her index finger in the air and said "Ooh! Can I have it?" Minutes later, it was a hat.

Monday Garden Club

2011-05-16T19:06:00.001-05:00

The weather here has been a little unpredictable lately, making Spring gardening extra tricky, which also means I have planted exactly nothing outside yet. Heck, the garden isn't even tilled yet and all of the flower pots are still buried in the planting room of the barn. When it's not raining, the wind is blowing so hard that you have to watch for flying objects when you go outside. The cover on our charcoal grill blew off and landed in the flower bed, and we've been finding broken roof shingles from the barn scattered all around the yard.

The asparagus have finally emerged from between the weeds, but I haven't picked any quite yet. I'm hoping to have enough to steam and serve with a meal by the end of the week.

The rhubarb is big enough to eat, and like every year, we always have more than we can use. I chopped up this batch and made a strawberry-rhubarb crisp the other day.

My Father-in-law called me yesterday to tell me he found peach trees at a local garden center for just $10 each and I should go pick one up before they are all gone. I went first thing this morning and bought 2. The going rate elsewhere for similar trees is around $30. Now that's what I call a gardening win! Now we have to plant them and wait to see of they will grow and produce peaches!

The plants are all still in the greenhouse, and unless the weather makes a quick turn for the better, I may not get the garden prepared and planted by the end of the week like I was hoping.

Anybody else gardening this week? If so, grab the Monday Garden Club button on my sidebar, paste it to your blog entry and link up below with Mr. Linky.

Charleston 2011

2011-05-14T20:47:00.002-05:00

So technically, we've been back from Charleston since Monday, but let me tell you, I have been so busy editing wedding photos and recovering from being gone 4 days, it almost feels like an eternity now that we're back home. Our flights on the way back were delayed and when we finally touched down in Milwaukee, it was raining. Yuck! But back in Charleston, it was sunny and hot, as was most (not all) of our time there.

We arrived in Charleston Friday morning after taking the very first flight out of the airport. So early that none of the ticket agents or TSA people were there yet when we started lining up at 4, one hour before our plane left. Getting into town early for a little sightseeing made up for the early morning take off.

As soon as we hopped into what was supposed to be an economy size rental car (but when there were no economy cars left, we were upgraded to a brand new Jeep Liberty at no additional cost), we headed for downtown Charleston.

Since of course none of the breakfast/coffee stands at the airports were making anything decent (unless you consider $4 for a small cup of drip coffee, decent) at the hour we were traveling, we started looking for a place to grab some breakfast. We turned down a side street because we saw a sign for a bagel shop, then spotted this place right next door.

For just $12, the Gardener and I ate some good home cooking all made by Jack himself. We even sat at the counter and you better believe I said "yes" when the waitress asked if I wanted grits with that.

After stuffing ourselves, we walked around some more and found what I believe to be the most cobblyest cobblestone street ever. Walking on it, I was afraid I might twist an ankle.

Clearly, the Gardener is smoother than I am.

Then it started to rain. hard. So we hid under an awning in front of an art gallery storefront until the rain let up.

And watched the rain...

When we finally had enough hiding from the rain, we went back to the hotel for a quick swim before we had to be at the wedding rehearsal. I put on the fish-eye lens I rented for the weekend and took a photo inside our hotel room.

Then one more of my left leg. You know, just for fun.

Believe it or not, that's it for photos. I have lots from all of the wedding festivities, but on Sunday when we did some more sightseeing and tourist-y type stuff, I left the camera equipment in the car.

Wardrobe Wednesday

2011-05-04T15:22:00.001-05:00

Last week I mentioned that I needed to find a pair of sensible heels to wear while photographing a wedding this weekend. While it is yet to be determined if these shoes will blister my toes or give me cramps in the arches of my feet, they are exactly what I was looking for. I love the height they offer and they should be sturdy enough to walk around in the grass.

I will have my trusty black clogs along too just in case these don't work out, but I'm hoping I won't need them.

Did I mention this wedding is in Charleston, South Carolina? I checked the weather for this weekend online today, and it is forecast to be in the 70s and 80s with no rain. Bring it on!

Monday Garden Club

2011-05-02T15:32:00.000-05:00

I moved the plants outside into the greenhouse for good last Friday. We still wheel them into the garage overnight, but they are now able to handle dropping down to 40 degrees without a problem.

There has, however, been one problem with the new arrangement.

Yesterday, after I flipped down the door to water the plants, the wind (That damn wind!) caught the back window like a sail and smashed it to the ground in several hundred pieces.

Less than an hour later, the Gardener was finished replacing the windows, and the greenhouse was back in business. This is exactly why we save old windows.
This time he added some more screws to the frame to make sure this doesn't happen again.

The girls and I went to a garden center over the weekend (I love to make the rounds this time of year.) and they each picked out a begonia. They are both sitting patiently in the greenhouse until the weather cooperates a little bit more. Today is another windy one but the sun is shining and drying up the puddles.

Peony shoots

Anybody else gardening this week? If so, grab the Monday Garden Club button on my sidebar, paste it to your blog entry and link up below with Mr. Linky.

I Made It!

2011-04-30T16:08:00.008-05:00

Today is the last day of April which also means today is the last day of NaBloPoMo. I'll admit, it has been fun blogging every day but also very challenging. Even on the days where I only posted photos, it was still a lot of work to get it all together by midnight. And for a procrastinator like me, blogging well into the nighttime hours became commonplace this month, but I did it! Woohoo!

Since photos seem to be my thing lately, I will end this month of blogging every single day with another set of photos. Today, while the girls and I were in town picking up a great craigslist find (a camera bag, in case you were wondering), we stopped at the craft store for some new canvases and a few more bottles of paint.

Mae painted too, but refused to have her picture taken. Oh, the attitude of an 8 year old.

(Mae's painting is a decoration for Binny's 7th birthday next month.)

Thank you to everyone who kept up with my everyday posting, and a special thank you to everyone who commented this month. You all make my day!

Headlock

2011-04-29T21:54:00.000-05:00

Priorities

2011-04-28T20:09:00.002-05:00

With the news that tornadoes claimed nearly 300 lives and flattened entire cities last night in the southern US, I have a hard time enjoying the unending news coverage (and I use that term loosely) of Prince William and Kate Middleton's wedding.

Wardrobe Wednesday

2011-04-27T13:14:00.002-05:00

I'm not much of an accessorizer (please tell me that's a word) but I knew I wanted to get a pin, broach, something camera related to wear on my clothing while photographing weddings. Something that when people saw it, along with my camera in my hand would tell them that I am the photographer paid by the bride and groom to capture the day and not just some nosy cousin with an SLR. I've seen some photographers wear a name tag that says "photographer" on it, but I wanted something a little more subtle and not so GET OUT OF MY WAY, I'M WORKING HERE!

Etsy to the rescue! I found this cute little metal pin from this store and it arrived yesterday.

It came in a little box wrapped with a black satin ribbon. How cute!

With my first wedding of the year just over a week away, I better start working on the rest of my outfit and think about purchasing a pair of sensible shoes. Too bad most sensible shoes (meaning they won't kill my feet after running around all day) don't come with a heel. Have I mentioned before that I'm only 5'2"?

Magnified

2011-04-26T20:17:00.000-05:00

My grandmother stored her car here for the winter and while she was here over the weekend, she cleaned it out. Among other things like maps and a pile of empty plastic grocery bags, were 2 umbrellas and a giant magnifying glass. Mae called dibs on the purple paisley umbrella and Binny scored the magnifying glass. My grandfather had a hard time seeing later in life so he always had a magnifying glass nearby. Grandma Dee probably has no idea how many hours of fun Binny will have with her new toy. If Flash doesn't get a hold of it and chew it to bits first.

Monday Garden Club

2011-04-25T22:10:00.000-05:00

After a long weekend, it was nice to have a sunny day all to myself to get a little spring gardening done. As soon as the girls hopped on the bus and my mom and grandma pulled out of the driveway this morning, I decided that the sunshine and mild temperatures outside (mid 50s) were perfect weather to haul all of the seedlings out of the basement and into the greenhouse.

The flowering pansies right in front were not started from seed by me. While I was out today, I stopped at a garden center (first of the year for me!) and picked up those cute little blooms. I couldn't resist.

Because we have had mostly rainy/snowy/cloudy days lately, today's sunshine and light winds were the perfect opportunity to get out and do some work in the garden. I pulled 10 buckets of weeds from between the rhubarb...

Before

After

And the strawberry plants, which will hopefully be relocated from the big veggie garden to their very own garden soon!

Rhubarb liberated from the weeds

I have no idea where these little grape hyacinths came from (I never planted them) but they sure are cute!

Tulips not quite ready to pop.

Compared to last year, this Spring is about 2 weeks behind. Last year I had tulips blooming for a week already and we were already enjoying the first of the rhubarb. We'll have to wait another week or two for any of that, especially if the rain in the forecast develops.

Anybody else gardening this week? If so, grab the Monday Garden Club button on my sidebar, paste it to your blog entry and link up below with Mr. Linky.

Snapshots From Easter Sunday

2011-04-24T21:35:00.000-05:00

Grandma Dee

2011-04-23T21:59:00.000-05:00

Everybody's favorite senior is in the house! She and my mom arrived today and will be here through the weekend.

Mae's New Favorite Show

2011-04-22T21:55:00.001-05:00

This is a guest post by my sweet Mae with a little help from a blog-blocked Mama. 22 days into NaBloPoMo and I'm running out of inspiration. Enter an energetic 8 year old who's been home all day and drained me of all of my energy to blog. Kids do that.

"I have a new favorite TV show I love to watch on Friday nights. It's on after dinner, but before bedtime. It stars 3 men acting funny and my favorite character is Curly. It is in black and white."

Can you guess the show?

Egg Dyeing Again

2011-04-21T18:22:00.001-05:00

We dyed eggs earlier this month while the girls were on Spring Break, but they wanted to do it again after they discovered another box of leftover dye in the craft closet.

It never fails, the day after I post for Wardrobe Wednesday, Binny does something notable like walking around all day (at school, the library and now home) with her dress unbuttoned. Last week Binny's teacher had to remind her that tights are just glorified underwear and no one needs to see them. She's not convinced, obviously.

Wardrobe Wednesday

2011-04-20T20:44:00.000-05:00

Like every other morning, Binny goofed around until the last minute and Mae had her snow pants and boots on an hour before the bus arrived. Typical for this house.

Facepalm

2011-04-19T17:58:00.000-05:00

I'm actually embarrassed for Mother Nature.

Monday Garden Club

2011-04-18T20:22:00.000-05:00

Here I am again, late to my own party. At least it's still Monday, right?

You might also notice I'm having a little trouble with one of the grow lights. Not the crooked one even but the one that isn't putting out any light. I checked on the plants last night and everything was fine but today when I made my trip down to the basement, the fixture was dead. Thankfully, I married an electrician, but unfortunately he couldn't fix it with what we have at home and we don't have any spare fixtures hanging out in the barn, a rarity. Tomorrow when I go to town, I'll pick up another fixture and my sweet husband will (pretty please?!) install it for me when he gets home from work. For now the plants in the dark have started to lean themselves over to the still functional light. Smart plants!

Brussel Sprouts

Tomatoes

Anybody else gardening this week? If so, grab the Monday Garden Club button on my sidebar, paste it to your blog entry and link up below with Mr. Linky.

Bride To-Be

2011-04-17T20:30:00.001-05:00

Today I went to a bridal shower for this gorgeous bride to-be. She flew in from North Carolina for the shower and next month when she and her fiance get married in Charleston, SC, I will be their photographer. I can't wait!

It's Not Over Yet

2011-04-16T16:06:00.000-05:00

Eye Candy

2011-04-15T20:28:00.001-05:00

I was busy most of the day today photographing a beautiful newborn and editing the 300+ photos, so now at 8:28pm, I'm beat and not really in the mood to blog. That said, go check out the cuteness on my photo blog.

Here's a peek...

Gamer

2011-04-14T20:07:00.000-05:00

And by the way, she totally dominated Bubble Shooter. With that pose, how could she not?

Another Day, Another Ear Infection

2011-04-13T21:52:00.001-05:00

Sorry, no Wardrobe Wednesday today. Read on to find out why.

So yeah, Mae's sore ear was confirmed to be infected as we suspected and she's now on 10 days of bubble gum flavored antibiotic. By this morning she felt well enough to go back to school and actually wanted to go back. I was happy to have both girls back in school for the day as I had some major house work to do before our brand new bed arrived this afternoon.

The mountain of clean laundry in our bedroom needed to be sorted, folded and put away. I had to disassemble our old bed, remove it from the room and vacuum up 6 months worth of dust bunnies that were collecting under it. All for the delivery men to arrive an hour before they said they would, after them telling me there was no way they could get here before I had to leave for work. Apparently they forgot how to use a phone! So they arrived before I was finished hauling furniture around and running the vacuum across the floor only to discover that the new box spring would not fit up our stairwell. Perfect. I actually think it could have fit, especially if the Gardener was home (he never takes no for an answer) but he wasn't considering they showed up nowhere near the 2 hour window I was promised on the phone, plus these guys were complete weenies and gave me a look that insinuated I was the craziest woman they had ever come across when I offered to grab a crow bar to start disassembling the problem door frame. They insisted they couldn't make it fit and said they would be back maybe by the end of the week, probably next, with a thinner box spring thing that would probably, most likely fit. So now we're sleeping on the brand new mattress (I refuse to sleep on that old lumpy mattress one more night!) directly on the floor. I guess that's what you get when you shell over big money plus a delivery fee and also happen to live in an ancient farmhouse. Lucky for us.

As if the fun would stop there, on the one day of the week I actually have to be somewhere to earn my meager paycheck, Binny slinked off the bus this afternoon, in tears, holding her right ear. Thank goodness the Gardener has a current insurance card in his wallet and the patience to deal with another sick kid and her sore ear. Time to restart the 10 day antibiotic countdown.

Why I Do What I Do

2011-04-12T14:32:00.001-05:00

So, if you've been reading this blog for some time, you know I don't work. Well, that's not entirely true. I milk cows at a local dairy farm (Moooooo!) once a week and I do photography as often as I can but other than that, I'm home. Almost every day I can be found here at the house washing clothes, making meals, making sure everybody has their necessary prescription medications and favorite cereals, waking up early with the Gardener and getting the kids on the bus in time for school. Most of what I do goes unnoticed by my family but they don't seem to mind coming home to a ~~relatively~~ clean house and a hot meal on the table every evening. And it's days like today that I don't regret our family's decision to do with a little less income in exchange for flexibility.

Last night shortly after we tucked Mae into her bed, she came downstairs holding her hand to her ear and whimpering about it hurting. She was up off and on most of the night holding a warm compress against her ear and occupying the big recliner in our living room. This morning when there was no improvement to her ouchy ear, I called school to say she would not be there today and made an appointment at the pediatrician's office. I didn't have to find somebody to fill in for me for the day or rush around to find a sitter and rearrange my whole schedule. Nope, this is what I'm here for.

Monday Garden Club

2011-04-11T12:10:00.000-05:00

We spent most of the beautiful day yesterday about 20 minutes west of where we live, enjoying the unseasonably warm the 80+ degree day celebrating the Gardener's grandmother's birthday. On the way home, we watched the temperature on the digital readout in the car plummet all the way from 83 to 72. Still, 72 was nice so while the Gardener raked the gravel out of the ditches along the road, I hauled all of the flats of seedlings out of the basement and outside into the greenhouse.

Yes, that's my Oreo cookie in the bottom right hand corner of the greenhouse. Thanks, Binny!

While I was moving everything around, I decided to transplant some of the duplicate seeds that popped up (I hate to throw away perfectly good plants just for the sake of thinning them out!) into that little half tray on the right.

About an hour after I hauled everything outside, the sky turned dark and I chickened out and moved everything back down to the basement and back under the lights. But it was nice to be outside moving the seedlings and enjoying the fresh spring air even if it was only an hour.

I also walked around the yard to check on the progress in the flower gardens since I cleaned them out last week. They seem to like it!

Lilies

Lupines I started from seed last year!

Sedum

Tulips

I can't remember what this one is. Maybe more lilies, maybe irises.

Anybody else gardening this week? If so, grab the Monday Garden Club button on my sidebar, paste it to your blog entry and link up below with Mr. Linky.

For One Day Only!

2011-04-10T18:36:00.000-05:00

Saturday

2011-04-09T15:05:00.000-05:00

My Landscaping Crew

2011-04-08T21:24:00.001-05:00

So, the bucket full of frozen veggie scraps finally thawed out and the weather actually warmed up enough today to do some yard work. The flower beds were still full of leaves and old growth from last year along with some shingles that blew off the house, or the barn, or both over the winter that all needed to be raked out.

Flash kept me company until the girls came home from school to give me a hand.

They collected and hauled 2 wagon loads to the brush pile for me!

And no, I won't rent them out. We have more than enough work for them here. Ha!

Veggie Scrapsicle

2011-04-07T17:42:00.001-05:00

We closed off our composter (the blue plastic barrel) to new veggie scraps so that the contents will have a chance to break down and be ready to work into the garden in a month or so. In the interim, I've been putting all of the banana peels, egg shells, grapefruit halves, and everything else into a 5 gallon bucket. (A bucket with a lid that also happens to have a small hole in the top.) I thought I was being smart, setting the bucket under the roof of the garage. Let me tell you, after a weekend of rain, I realized it was not such a smart idea.

This is what happens in what is supposed to be spring in Wisconsin.

The weather is rumored to be warming up this weekend. We may even see 70 by Sunday with a major threat of storms. Yippee!

Wardrobe Wednesday

2011-04-06T08:51:00.000-05:00

Like in many homes with school aged children, mornings here can get a little crazy. Between breakfast and packing lunches and making sure everything they need for the school day is in fact in their backpacks and not stuffed between the couch cushions, time slips away in a hurry. Before we know it, the bus is pulling up.

Oh, and I forgot to mention the constant fooling around and procrastination. Not so much Mae, as she actually woke up extra early today, took a shower, picked out all of her own clothes, made her own cold lunch and brushed her teeth without too much prompting. Binny, on the other hand would rather goof around and doesn't really give a rip what she wears as long as it's not the red outfit, ANYTHING BUT THE RED OUTFIT.

Hello Cuties!

2011-04-05T15:09:00.001-05:00

The pansies I've been waiting weeks for, finally popped up out of the soil!

Monday Garden Club

2011-04-04T15:21:00.001-05:00

Monday again. Time for an update from the basement.

Flowers

Last week I replanted seeds of everything that hadn't come up, including the pansies but as of yet, still no pansies. Everything else is filling in nice and I transplanted quite a few seedlings to even out the trays and fill in the bare spots.

Tomatoes and peppers

Broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, a few more peppers and cauliflower

Our basement is a bit cool so the plants prefer to be in something. This little greenhouse is actually a plastic container that originally came into our house with 2 heads of lettuce (from Costco) in it. As it sat empty on the counter waiting to be taken out to the trash, I realized it would make a great home for a few extra tomatoes I thinned out and some herbs too.

This is actually the top of the container but I use it upside down after I discovered how stuck-on the sticker was.

Anybody else gardening this week? If so, grab the Monday Garden Club button on my sidebar, paste it to your blog entry and link up below by clicking on the Mr. Linky button directly below this post.

Best Buddies

2011-04-03T14:18:00.000-05:00

Dutch Baby

2011-04-02T12:48:00.003-05:00

Last week while I was enjoying some quiet TV time while the girls were sleeping in during their Spring Break, I saw this recipe on PBS's Cook's Country and I knew I would be making it for breakfast after the cooks on the show compared it to a popover no less than 6 times in the 5 minute segment. Popovers are always a huge hit in this house and now this Dutch Baby is too.

Dutch Baby Recipe
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

Rub vegetable oil (butter will burn) on the bottom and sides of a 12" oven safe skillet and heat in the hot oven while mixing up the batter, about 10 minutes. The pan needs to be piping hot when you pour in the batter.

Beat together 4-5 eggs (depending on the size of your eggs), then mix in 1 cup of milk and 1 T melted butter. To the egg mixture add 1 cup of flour and 1 T corn starch (for the crispy edges) and whisk until smooth. That's it! Pour the batter into the hot pan and bake in the oven (make sure you have plenty of room above the pan for expansion) for 20 minutes or until it is puffy and golden brown.

Once you remove it from the oven you can dust it with powdered sugar or any other toppings you wish and cut into large triangles.

*The first time I made this, I added 1 tsp vanilla and a few grates of nutmeg to the batter and the second time I made it plain. Both were delicious!

**I swear no actual Dutch babies were harmed in this making of this breakfast.

NaBloPoMo and Egg Dyeing

2011-04-01T11:18:00.002-05:00

Call me crazy, but I think I'm going to try NaBloPoMo again. NaBloPoMo stands for National Blog Posting Month in which participants post to their blogs every day of the month. I tried this back in November and
didn't make it the whole month, but this time (this time!) I'm a little more hopeful since April's theme is sprout.

From NaBloPoMo's email to me:

April's theme for daily blogging: SPROUT. There's always the concrete route -- Brussels sprouts, bean sprouts, and alfalfa sprouts can make their way into cooking posts. But then there are the off-shoots: kids sprouting up and how that makes you feel; flowers sprouting in gardens and what you're noticing on your daily walks; ideas sprouting in your mind. Beyond that, the word "sprout" has ties to the words strew, scatter, and spread -- so what new ideas are you going plant this month? What images will sprout forth from your blog?

I think I can actually do this, from all of the seedlings sitting under the lights in our basement to the Hostas and tulips peeking out of the ground outside. Anything Spring really. Piece of cake, right?

Last week's Spring Break here was a real stinker with all of the snow and freezing temperatures, so we were stuck indoors most of the time. One morning after breakfast, Mae started digging around in the craft closet and pulled out the egg dye (leftover from last year) while I boiled up a dozen eggs.

Of course, I took pictures.

Monday Garden Club

2011-03-28T10:17:00.001-05:00

Monday again. Time for a garden update.

Most of the flowers I started last week and 3 weeks ago are growing nicely, some have actually grown so high I may need to move them to other pots to keep the covers on the other less mature seedlings. All but the pansies. The seeds I used were leftover from last year and after 2 rounds of failed germination, I think I'll have to buy a new package of seeds.

The peppers finally popped up !

More flowers with the exception of pansies, of course.

And the second flat of veggies.

Below on the right is cauliflower, which in the past I have had absolutely no luck with but I'm determined and again the seeds were leftover from last year so no big loss if they flop in the garden once again.

That whopper of a seedling right above the tag for Brussels sprouts is broccoli. By mid July this little sprout will be about 2 feet across and producing the most delicious (and healthy) broccoli.

And for a reality check, I took this photo of my garden outside this morning. Last week during Spring Break (ha!) it snowed nearly every day. *cough* bullshit *cough*

The tulips seem to think it's time for Spring and stuck their tongues (or leaves) out at Mother Nature by popping out of the ground, reminding all of us that Spring will be here soon.

Anybody else gardening this week? If so, grab the Monday Garden Club button on my sidebar, paste it to your blog entry and link up below.

Participating Bloggers

Typical Suburban Family

Unschooling Royalty

Wardrobe Wednesday

2011-03-23T09:06:00.005-05:00

Can you tell what's broken at our house, again?

The girls and I took 2 big baskets stuffed with dirty clothes to a laundry mat yesterday. I'm sure this is the closest Binny will ever get to the front loader I've been dreaming of since my last washing machine bit the dust. I'm shopping craigslist for now.

Garden Monday

2011-03-21T21:44:00.002-05:00

Like always, I had good intentions of getting this posted before ~~breakfast~~ sunset, and now here it is almost 10pm and my house is wild with 3 giggly girls (It's Spring Break and the girls have a friend spending the night. Ooh boy!) and my eyes are barely staying open on their own. Anyhow, it's basement gardening time again which means we propped up the table on paint cans and strung cords all across the basement to start growing this year's veggies and flowers under the fluorescent lights.

I started a flat of veggies (tomatoes and peppers) and a flat of flowers 2 weeks ago. Once the first two flats germinated and tiny plants started peeking out of the soil, I moved them off of the heat mats (used to speed up the germination prcocess) and started 2 more flats yesterday.

Can you believe this tiny seedling will (hopefully) grow into a 10 foot long Passion flower plant that produces Passion fruit?

These tall plants are a new (to me) variety of Lupine flower that are blue and yellow.

Above is the first flat of veggies I planted. The back six sections are assorted varieties of tomatoes and the front two are bell peppers. I almost gave up on the bell peppers after almost 2 weeks and no activity. I thought maybe my seeds from last year were no good but then all of a sudden, they popped up. I then remembered that last year the bell peppers seemed to take a long time to germinate as well, even when the seeds were brand new.

tomatoes

flat of flowers, just planted.

These are the heat mats I use, and yes, they get a little dirty under my care.

Just planted veggies. Broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, cauliflower (Even though I have had no luck with cauliflower ever. When will I learn?) and grape tomatoes.

I'm still without a reliable Linky, so at least for this week, if you have a garden update, leave your link in the comment section and I'll add it to the bottom of this post. (I did, however make a blog button and it is free for the grabbing on my side bar ----->) One more favor? I have had a few new gardeners mention to me that they are planning to give veggie gardening a go this year. Yay! For anyone else who has participated before, or plans to this year, would you leave a comment about what hardiness zone you garden in so I can (perhaps, if I get my shit together) make a blogroll with zones noted so everyone can see what's growing in similar areas? Thank you!!! For information on hardiness zones, click here.

Participating Gardeners

Out In Them Sticks

Ice Fishing 2011

2011-03-14T11:01:00.000-05:00

Who wants to go ice fishing? Oh, Flash, do you want to go ice fishing? Shadow will be there.

How about you, Binny?

For the third year in a row, we all bundled up and went ice Fishing at my in-laws' pond, with my brothers along as guides (the guys who show up with all of the equipment, set everything up and stick their hands into freezing holes in the ice to set the lines and pull out the fish).

The girls, with some little help from Uncle T, caught quite a few fish (way more than Uncle K) and released them all back into the pond.

Jamaica Part 3

2011-03-11T21:41:00.001-06:00

This is the last set of photos from our trip to Jamaica. Our 4 days there went by so quickly but they were beautiful and relaxing.
We actually only left the resort one day. We walked into town for a little sightseeing and shopping (although we bought very little compared to many others who filled their suitcases with T-shirts and trinkets with the words Jamaica and "No Problem" on them) and we did an afternoon trip to Dunn's River Falls where we formed a human chain with a family of 16 Canadians (and bunch of other vacationers) up the 600 ft waterfall.

There were also bobsled and zip line tours through the mountains we could have done, but there was plenty to do (and eat!) right at the resort, so we spent most of our time there sitting by the pool...Using the water slides...
Paddle boating in the bay...
And snorkeling. Although I freaked out a little (or a lot) when a group of guys standing on the pier watching us snorkel pointed out what they described as a 6 foot long water snake swimming in our vicinity. Minutes later (as I swam as fast as I could back to shore), a local clarified that it was only a white eel and not a water snake, as water snakes prefer shaded areas of water. Still, I had a hard time convincing myself that it was safe to go back in.

My husband, the electrician got a kick out of the outdoor lighting, screwed directly to a palm tree.
Sunrise on our last day. It was hard to say goodbye to that beautiful and WARM sunshine.
And one last Red Stripe at the airport as we were waiting for our plane.

Wardrobe Wednesday

2011-03-09T10:08:00.000-06:00

Oh look! It's another photo from Jamaica. Surprise, surprise!

The Gardener bought this new shirt for the trip and I bought this new dress. I went shopping at Old Navy about a week before we left, hoping I would find something bright and springy. I can't believe I'm actually going to admit this next part (fully prepared for everyone to mutter 'skinny bitch' under their breath), but here goes. After trying on every size extra-small dress in the entire store with none of them even remotely fitting my small frame, I ventured into the girls section and picked out this bright little number, girls size extra-large. I just hope when I wear it to a wedding or some other event this summer, I don't encounter a 5 year old wearing the same dress.

Jamaica Part 2- Mae's Edits

2011-03-08T11:44:00.003-06:00

Mae (age 8) recently discovered the fun that is Adobe Lightroom, my favorite photo editing program. Since the Gardener and I returned from Jamaica, Mae has been playing around in Lightroom with colors and vignettes and everything else Lightroom does and she wanted me to share her edits here on the blog.

Jamaica Part 1

2011-03-07T09:25:00.000-06:00

Yes, as the title suggests, this is going to be one of those annoying weeks where every day I post pictures from our winter escape to sunny Jamaica, tormenting the rest of you who were stuck at home with freezing temperatures and pale, sun deprived skin. Sorry about that.

We left early, early Tuesday morning and by sunset that evening we were finally checking in to our hotel. The bus ride to the resort in Ocho Rios was long but beautiful and the driver stopped at a little roadside bar so we could start our vacation out with a bottle of Jamaican Red Stripe beer. Yum!
The first night there was a beach party and tons of food but it was dark so whatever we put on our plates was a bit of a mystery. It was delicious though and I think I hit the buffet line at least twice. Double yum!

The next morning I woke up early, left my sleeping husband in the room while I wandered around devouring all of the sights and sounds of a morning in the Caribbean. As soon as the buffet opened we were some of the first in line for made to order omelets and every kind of deliciously ripe fruit and anything else you could possibly think of. Can you tell I gained 5 pounds in just 4 days from my excitement over the food?
This was the view from our favorite table in the restaurant.

I have no idea why the housekeepers make these little towel creatures but it was fun to come into the clean room after a day of relaxing with a drink in my hand and see what sort of animal was waiting for us on the bed in towel form.

The views from our room.

We walked into town the first day and I bought this drink mug/vase from a local who was carving them out of fresh bamboo. He wanted to scratch my name into the side of it (to be sure I would buy it from him) but instead I asked him to sign it with his own name. I was unsure of the pronunciation of Toe (you never know, right?) so I asked him and he pointed to my foot. Like duh!

More tomorrow as I need to get started on the mountain of dirty laundry and make a run to the grocery store. Our fridge is completely empty!

Wardrobe Wednesday

2011-02-23T08:14:00.003-06:00

Binny was wearing a short sleeve shirt and got cold, so she put on her puffy, down vest. Very logical, this child.

And like her daddy, when the temperature drops below freezing, she wears a hat on her head all day, even in the house.

Flash And His Cone

2011-02-20T16:01:00.000-06:00

Poor Flashy was so excited Friday morning when I hooked up the leash to his collar and escorted him out to the car. He loves to ride in the car. Most times when he goes for a ride in the car, we go somewhere fun, like ice skating over at Grandpa's. Not this time though.

Even when I put him on the scale at the vet's office, he let out a little excited pee as the vet tech rubbed his head and told him how cute he is. He had no idea what he was in for, but in the end it's all for his own good.

He was neutered (ouch) and had all 4 dewclaws (thumbs) removed (quadruple ouch). The dewclaws were optional but since we live out in the country (read: lots of things to get into) and since he's a very active dog, we decided to have it done so they don't become a problem in the future. Dogs with dewclaws can get them caught and injured and while many dogs have the dewclaws clipped off in the first few days of life, our mutt didn't have that service being born in a calf barn and all with very little human intervention until we picked him up and brought him home with us. So Friday was the day.

Friday afternoon when I brought him home he was groggy and confused and not happy about having a giant cone around his head but after he slept off the anesthesia, he started to perk up. The vet was concerned that he'd be in a lot of pain the first few days but since we've been keeping up with his medication, he's been fine. He'd like to be running around playing fetch and hopping up on the sofa (a no-no anyway but try and tell him that). To amuse himself he's been running into the back of our legs with his giant cone, bruising all of us behind the knees.

The cone needs to stay on for at least 2 weeks until the stitches in his front legs can be removed.
2 weeks is a long time for an energetic puppy.

Wardrobe Wednesday*

2011-02-16T08:12:00.002-06:00

*With Barbie heads!

Making Valentines

2011-02-14T08:47:00.003-06:00

Wardrobe Wednesday

2011-02-09T09:50:00.000-06:00

I'm sick with a raging sinus infection, so this will be brief.

Yeah, I know this isn't very wardrobe-y, but the girls refused to let me take their photo yesterday wearing their matching Green Bay Packers shirts.

*One more thing. The linky I normally use for Wardrobe Wednesday is now a pay service and since we are saving every spare penny for our Jamaican vacation next month, no more linky. So from now on if anyone wants to participate in Wardrobe Wednesday, just do it. No need to link to me and I will no longer post links here. It's usually the same three bloggers anyway.

**And another thing. That's sparkling apple cider Binny's drinking.

Mae's View

2011-02-03T09:23:00.000-06:00

Mae hijacked my camera yesterday afternoon...

Wardrobe Wednesday

2011-02-02T13:15:00.001-06:00

For the second day in a row, we're snowed in. Well, it's more like we're forced inside because of all the wind outside. School was called off yesterday, and today almost everything in southeastern Wisconsin is closed, so the Gardener is home today too. The only activity I've seen on our road today (a state highway) is the snow plow coming past trying to keep the road open and passable.

From what the weather people say, we received over a foot of the white stuff but since the winds were whipping at blizzard speeds for most of it, it actually looks like we have a net loss of snow in some areas of our yard. Our driveway only has a tiny drift in it and most of the front yard is blown clean but the orchard on the back side of our house is completely buried. Only the very tops of our apple trees are peeking out of the giant snow drifts.

Yesterday the girls and I spent most of the day baking and playing games and enjoying the day off but today the novelty of being confined to the house is starting to wear off. This morning was filled with fighting. "She hit me!" " Well, she took my toy!" "I had it first!" "NO, I did!" And on and on until I told them they were not allowed to play together if they were going to fight. Then something strange happened. They got out the dominoes and started building structures TOGETHER. It didn't last long but I did manage to snap a photo of them with smiles on their faces. Not any crazy outfits on this snowed in Wardrobe Wednesday but we're all warm and comfy. I'm not looking forward to venturing out in this crap weather to go to the farm tonight, but it is payday so that helps.

The linky I normally use isn't working today for some reason (I think our Internet connection is goofed up because of the weather) so if you have a Wardrobe Wednesday link, leave it in the comments and I'll add it to the bottom of this post.

Unschooling Royalty

Nature Connections: January

2011-01-31T14:18:00.008-06:00

Nature Connections

is a collaborative link collectionposted at the end of each monthon Living and Learning.
Its purpose is to showcase photos of childrenenjoying nature to inspire all of us to get outdoors more.

We must be in some sort of winter weather pattern that is giving us the most beautifully sunny and calm Sundays. The last 3 have been perfect for ice skating, so that's what we've been doing.

Don't get me wrong, the kids love ice skating on Grandma and Grandpa's pond, but since someone else *ahem* recently bought a pair of skates, he's been working on some fancy moves of his own.

Be sure to stop by Living and Learning for all of the other Nature Connections links!

Puzzler

2011-01-31T08:27:00.003-06:00

Binny is finally feeling better and back at school today, but not before using up every tissue we had in the house and feeling pretty miserable for a handful of days. Most of those days, we did puzzles.

Wardrobe Wednesday

2011-01-26T12:02:00.001-06:00

Yesterday, Binny woke up with a runny nose and a wicked sounding cough. I kept her home from school and we sat around in our jammies watching PBS kids and put puzzles together most of the afternoon. This morning when she emerged from her room at 5AM, her cough and runny nose were accompanied by a fever, so it's basically a repeat of yesterday. Home again. She's in a good mood and believe it or not, when she gets sick, she's a real doll. She loves to cuddle and drink hot cider and talks in this sweet, sick kid voice that just melts my heart.

Link up your Wardrobe Wednesday posts below!

Binny Lost Another Tooth

2011-01-23T20:27:00.002-06:00

Wardrobe Wednesday

2011-01-19T09:44:00.003-06:00

My dad gave the girls these toe socks for Christmas. I wasn't so sure they would like having their toes individually wrapped, but they love them.

Link up your Wardrobe Wednesday posts below!

Feet off the Table!

Monday Garden Club Peach Winners!

Monday Garden Club: End Of The Season Giveaway

Wardrobe Wednesday

First Day Of School. Nevermind That I'm A Week Late.

Roasted Veggie Pasta Sauce

Wardrobe Wednesday

Monday Garden Club

Monday Garden Club

Wardrobe Wednesday

Monday Garden Club: Minnesota Edition

Monday Garden Club

Wardrobe Wednesday

Monday Garden Club

Monday Garden Club

Wardrobe Wednesday: Life Jackets

Monday Garden Club

Kitchen Help

Monday Garden Club

Wardrobe Wednesday

Monday Garden Club

Wardrobe Wednesday: Mae's New Glasses

Monday Garden Club

Wardrobe Wednesday

Garden Update Just Barely On Monday

Wardrobe Wednesday

Monday Garden Club

Wardrobe Wednesday

Monday Garden Club

Charleston 2011

Wardrobe Wednesday

Monday Garden Club

I Made It!

Headlock

Priorities

Wardrobe Wednesday

Magnified

Monday Garden Club

Snapshots From Easter Sunday

Grandma Dee

Mae's New Favorite Show

Egg Dyeing Again

Wardrobe Wednesday

*Facepalm*

Monday Garden Club

Bride To-Be

It's Not Over Yet

Eye Candy

Gamer

Another Day, Another Ear Infection

Why I Do What I Do

Monday Garden Club

For One Day Only!

Saturday

My Landscaping Crew

Veggie Scrapsicle

Wardrobe Wednesday

Hello Cuties!

Monday Garden Club

Best Buddies

Dutch Baby

NaBloPoMo and Egg Dyeing

Monday Garden Club

Wardrobe Wednesday

Garden Monday

Ice Fishing 2011

Jamaica Part 3

Wardrobe Wednesday

Jamaica Part 2- Mae's Edits

Jamaica Part 1

Wardrobe Wednesday

Flash And His Cone

Wardrobe Wednesday*

Making Valentines

Wardrobe Wednesday

Mae's View

Wardrobe Wednesday

Nature Connections: January

Puzzler

Wardrobe Wednesday

Facepalm