One Hook Wonder

Time To Start Cruising Produce Stands

Bah.  Last week I pulled out what is most likely our last harvest from the garden.  Due to super heavy crazy freaky rains, many of the potatoes had already rotted before I got to them.  Bah.  I only got 2 unripe tomatoes, because SOMETHING, be it dog/cat/deer/rabbit/raccoon/zebra/neighbors who we unknowingly pissed off, has been taking ONE BITE of all the ripe tomatoes then throwing them on the ground.  Nice.

 

So here's the latest garden status report:

Corn:  Very, very dead.  Wind damage.

Squash:  Dead.  Powdery mildew and who knows what else.

Tomatoes:  Dying.  Wind damage and near drowning due to crazy freaky rains.

Zucchini:  Again with the dead.

The green beans and basil are still doing well.  At least we'll have pesto, right?  I've noticed several other failed gardens around town, so it appears I'm not the only gardener that our weather screwed over this year.  Nearby areas actually had flash flooding the last two weeks. 

The good news is that a nice produce stand has been set up in our tiny town, so I'll be able to buy and freeze local.  But still....bah.

Happy Harvest

So this morning was one of those mornings that I generally read about on other people's blogs.  You know, those blogs where all the craft projects turn out perfectly and they have really cool super huge gardens with no weeds.  The birds sing, the sun shines, and no mommies find themselves wondering if it's ok to drink a margarita at 10am. 

But look!  Look at what I brought in from my garden this morning:

 

A whole basket full of beans, tomatoes, squash, and zucchini!!  (bonus points for spotting the Transformer that Boba stuck in there)  Booyah, I say.  It was pretty much a magical experience.  Right after I loaded it all into the basket an animated deer came out of the woods and we had this, like, mystical conversation about all that was wrong in the world and

Oh. 

Suffice it to say I'm pretty happy with the harvest this morning.

This last week has been a busy one filled with homemade popsicle eating:

 

And a bit of curtain sewing.  I did not want to sew curtains At All.  But I couldn't find them in the right color, so sew I did.  Here's a bad shot of them:

 

These went into Short Pants's and Pita Pocket's room.  (did you notice what I just typed?)  We moved Pita Pocket out of our bedroom and into Short Pants's over the weekend.  Oh happy day.  No more being unable to use my own room after 8pm!  I've rediscovered the luxury of reading in bed and am loving it.  As an added bonus, since I lined the curtains with blackout material both boys are sleeping a bit later in the morning.  Woo hoo!

While I was already on the curtain bandwagon, I finally broke down and hemmed a pair of twin sheets for our closet curtains.  I'm not sure why it took me almost a year to get around to this, but it did:

 

We are decidedly not clean, organized closet people so it's a definate improvement to the bedroom.  Next up will be curtains for the littles' closet (again, a project that should have been done a year ago) and new curtains for Boba's room.  He's been seduced by blackout material.

Despite all the curtain sewing, I did find time to cut out my circles for the felt picture:

 

Hopefully sewing on that will begin in the next day or two.  Boba has roped me into taking him and Bean to see "Transformers 2" tonight.  They're back for the summer and full of ideas and places to go.

Back In The Saddle Again

The garden hasn't seen much action in the last few weeks thanks to the insane heat coupled with near record amounts of rainfall.  It's been like living in some kind of crazy midwest tropical rainforest.  I've scuttled out a few times to check on things, but the last two nights were the first chances I've had to really work in the garden for awhile.  I was able to mulch the entire herb garden with compost from our own pile (YAY!!), pull out all the old pea vines, and plant 4 new tomatoes.  Oh, and weed.  Don't forget - weed weed weed weed weed.  I'm so glad the plants are getting large enough now that soon I'll be able to kiss that loathsome chore goodbye for the most part.

Here's a few long shots of the garden.  I'm really pleased with it so far this year:

 

 

Notice the ever-present garden helper doing some watering:

 

Cropped out of this shot are the 4 new tomato plants.  I committed the gardening sin of planting them and then forgetting to water them.  Let's just say they were...err...a bit droopy:

 

Short Pants is thrilled that he'll be picking his first tomato very soon.  He's been eagerly watching the color changes:

 

He's also been watching our new pumpkins very closely.  I can't wait till Pita Pocket is big enough to get excited over this stuff too:

He's also taken it upon himself to check the flowers in the shade garden every afternoon to see how many have opened up:

And very soon we'll all be eating squash:

 

Some zucchini:

 

And even green beans:

Again With The Mmm

Whenever Pita Pocket spies something he'd like to eat or drink, he says, "Mmm..."  It's quite adorable, I assure you.  However, when he wants to nurse, he screeches like a baby dinosaur and throws himself backwards across my lap.  Not quite as adorable.

We've had all kinds of yummies going on here lately.  Over the weekend I tried out this fantastic hummus recipe from The Toby Show.  Good stuff, I tell ya.  Even more fantastic was the homemade pita bread we ate it with (can you tell I'm a bread lovah?).  The recipe is from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day:

 

It baked up soooo yummy:

I used the rest of the dough to make some pecan caramel sticky rolls:

 

You are a FOOL, I tell you, a FOOL if you don't buy that Artisan Bread book:

 

We've also been eating loads of peas fresh from the garden.  We've had a great crop so far this year:

 

I also made some granola, which was my very first attempt at the stuff.  Yeah, I feel really stupid for ever buying the super expensive bags of it from the grocery now.  So easy, and soooo good on yogurt (and yes, I do know my ABCs, thankyouverymuch):

So Pretty

The last of our strawberries, along with some lettuce and swiss chard for a salad:

 

Lavender cut:

 

And hung to dry in our kitchen:

What We're Eating

Oh yeah...

 

Right now these babies are in the fridge waiting to be eaten with homemade shortcakes tomorrow night.  Have you ever eaten strawberries still warm from the sun?  If not, you're missing out!

The garden is looking really good -  we're enjoying yummy salads nightly and eagerly awaiting the first peas:

 

The green beans have all popped up and are doing well:

 

As are the potatoes:

 

And it even looks like we might have a nice crop of onions (finally!!) this year:

 

Boba shoveled another truckload of gravel into the garden this weekend; we're estimating we have about 3 more to go now.  I can't wait till it's all done.  The Mister and I were busy all weekend on a few projects I'll share later this week. 

Any tomato tips?  Mine aren't looking so hot.  I seem to always have trouble with tomatoes.  I brought home some cow manure this weekend to spread around them in hopes of helping.  I was looking forward to making lots of sauce this summer, but currently I'm worried none of them will make it long enough to produce!

Scenes From The Yard

Ack!  I've fallen a few posts behind, so I'm going to go ahead and show you what we did in the yard this last week before going on to Mother's Day (I hope yours was as fab as mine!).  In between raindrops we spent many evenings outside last week trying to get the yard and garden under control.  The Mister is working on making a splitting maul, and the big kids were only too happy to help out:

 

 

Boba's manly lumberjack pose:

 

Our new little sitting area on the front porch...the cats love it:

 

Me gardening, in all of my sweaty glory:

 

Why why WHY won't you let me eat rocks?!:

 

I hope you've been enjoying the outdoors as much as we've been lately:

 

 

 

 

Growing Garden

Little lettuces:

 

Hesitant hostas:

 

Perking peas:

 

Obligatory onions:

 

Phenomenol phlox:

 

Lovely lemon balm:

 

Fantastic ferns:

 

Beautiful bleeding heart:

 

Beware, birds:

You People Just Love The Big Asses, Don't You?

Really.  I've never seen so much adoration for the big booty.  Oh, and to the person who googled "pita big butt magazine" - what in the hell were you thinking?!  You are seriously not right.  And by the way, what does it mean?  We've had some wagers going on here, but I doubt any of them come close to the truth.

I got a spiffy new camera the other day because Short Pants accidently broke mine.  While I wasn't pleased to have to pay for a new camera, I was kind of pleased to end up with a better one.  We are of the We Don't Buy New Electronic Gadgets Just Because They've Come Out With Much Better Ones breed here in the One Hook household. We are more of the We Will Continue To Use Electronic Gadgets From 1987 If They Still Work kind of people, much to my chagrin.  I have been praying for our television to break for years but that thing just keeps trucking along. 

So anyway, since I have a fancy new camera I've caught the "I think I can take great pictures even though I can't" disease.  Pretty soon I'll be wearing a beret and smoking little brown cigarettes if I don't watch it.  Short Pants and I spend the afternoon trying to clean up the garden, so here's some snapshots of the end of winter:

 

 

 

 

 

 

And look!  Snowdrops both outside:

 

And in:

 

And a beautiful baby just because:

All Work And No Play

...thank goodness doesn't happen here.

Saturday was spent working on our decks, which in all honesty needed to be stained when we moved in almost 4 years ago:

Yep, we're just a bit slow.  4 kids will do that to you.  We did have kid help on Saturday.  Bean was in charge of little boys:

while Boba and his best friend helped with staining.  (if you spend the night at our house and stay overly long, you just get put to work with the rest of the family!)  Unfortunately, putting two 13-year-olds in charge of staining the front porch wasn't the best decision we've ever made.  Their motto was "Brush it on fast, get it on everything."  They both did a wonderful job of following said motto:

We will...umm...be re-doing the front porch tomorrow night.

Since we had run out of stain Saturday evening, and well...because we like to have fun...we went to an amusement park not too far away on Sunday.  We had a blast, and have definate plans to return.  The weather was perfect and it wasn't all that crowded.  The kiddos had a great time riding rides and playing at the splash park:

 

Tonight I spent a few minutes out in the garden, stubbornly ignoring the weeds.  I picked some more green beans:

And admired the new ones that are popping up:

It looks like tomorrow I really need to take care of some more basil:

Back to work, I suppose.