Weekend Job

Remember the LARGE zucchinis from the mom garden? And the load of tomatoes, cucumbers and the half-ton of basil?

Harvest from Mom's garden

They now look something like this:

Rewards of harvest!

Not too shabby - 6 loaves of zucchini bread, 7 quarts of cucumbers, 2 quarts and a pint of tomatoes, and 5 pints of pesto.  The pickles will be extra garlic-y, which is perfectly fine with me!

This was my first time canning anything, and I knew it would be a lot of work, but I was a bit unprepared for just how much I decided to tackle.  Oh, and in case you are wondering - that was only one of the three large zucchinis that made 6 loaves. I figure at the end of this whole deal that I will have made 18 - 20 loaves of bread, if that is what I choose to do with all that zucchini.

Next up is Golden Pear Tomato Jam, and I am REALLY excited about this one. Sweet with a little zing from the hot peppers.

And don't worry, Mom. All of your bowls are washed and in the bag ready to go back to your house. And who knows, there may be a loaf of bread in your freezer, along with a jar of pesto when you get home....

My Mother's Garden

My parents have taken their annual trip to Japan to see their grandchildren. As they are like many people I know, they run out of time to get everything done around the house and yard before leaving. Sound familiar? As this was the case again for this trip, Mom asked me if I would be willing to go out and harvest some stuff from her garden "so that the birds won't get all of it." So I drove out last night and harvested some items.

rutabaga, carrots, butternut squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, raspberries, zucchini and a LOT of basil

So it would appear that I will be canning tomatoes, making pickles and pesto, and most likely a LOT of zucchini bread.  This is why I say a LOT of zucchini bread:

The fork is for perspective, it is a full size dinner fork.

My Excuses for Not Posting Sooner, aka An Exercise in Hyperbole

This was a note sent to a dear friend, which outlines how things have been going as of late.


Hello, beautiful friend!

As usual, time is flying by.  I feel like everything has gone off the rails, and I don’t know what I can or need to do to get everything back on track.  Bet you know what that feels like.

Here’s a round-up of what is going on in the life of the crazy girl in Minneapolis….
Weeds have taken over the back yard, and I am worried that they will never leave, even if I pull them out.

The lawn hasn’t been mown in two weeks, and is now a strange combination of tall green weeds and brown dormant grass.


The garden is good – tomatoes and peppers and cucumbers are all doing well, the herbs are ridiculous. The bunnies have finally left the kale alone, so maybe I will be able to harvest that.


The laundry keeps piling up.  I swear that I will start going naked just so I don’t have to wash any more clothes!  And there are only two of us!!!!!! And it never seems to be fully put away. There are piles everywhere!


The dog-fur tumbleweeds and dust bunnies have taken over the living room and bedroom.

There is mail all over the dining room table – and most of it is not mine, but the majority of it is junk.

For some reason, the dishes in the kitchen have yet to figure out how to open the dishwasher and jump in. I have been trying to teach them this for 6 years.  Boy, are they dumb! So they just keep piling up and making more little dirty dishes.


The bathroom is in desperate need of a good thorough cleaning. DESPERATE NEED.

All the floors need to be swept and mopped, and the rug in the living room has enough fur on it to make another dog.


The hedges need to be trimmed again – and again and again and again.  Troublesome things.

The garage needs to be cleaned and straightened, but there is a motorcycle right in the middle blocking EVERYTHING, and has been for two years.


Both cars need to be washed and vacuumed out.  Ick.

I still have not put away the suitcase from the last round of tradeshow travels.  But it has only been 21days.


Oh, and it is HOT outside.

Does any of that sound familiar?  I’ll bet it does.

Missing you and your lovely family.  I need some friend time.  And I have a present for your lovely daughter for her birthday.  Here’s hoping that we can hook up soon, as you are WAY more important that anything that I have on my list!  I hope you are having a wonderful day, and will have a wonderful weekend, too!

XOXOXO

Sonya

Where is the Rain?

Apparently Mother Nature has one heck of a sense of humor! She let it rain all over us for the month of May, almost the wettest May on record, and now we have had not a drop of rain since it has been June. I put the sprinkler on the garden last night, something I don't like to do if it can be helped, but the poor little plants looked so weak and sad.  If it can't rain from the sky, it will rain from the hose.  I had grand plans to pull weeds from the garden, but didn't care to sit in the sprinkler to do it, so I opted to dead-head the peonies and iris.

And do you know what those peonies did as thanks?  Developed powdery mildew! So now I am going to try some organic fixes to see if I can fix it, or at least stop it.  It is only the two in the back yard, the peonies along the side of the house and the one in the front are fine.

Tonight when I get home from work, and before we meet some friends for a birthday dinner, I am going to have to water all my poor babies in the front of the house. There are some SERIOUSLY droopy plants in the front of my house.

And they aren't predicting rain in the very near future.  Funny Mother Nature. I just don't get your humor.

The Last of the Peonies

This is the first year that I have put hoops up for the peonies. Of course, this is the first year that they have been this big.  And they would have been more standy-up if it hadn't been for all of the rain we received this May. But they are still lovely.  And they smell good, too.

This is the year of the stunted rhubarb, however.  I normally will get at least two big harvests from it before it gets too warm, but this year I haven't even harvested once. It is very strange. What an odd early summer - Lots of rain, brazen bunnies, ravenous birds and stunted rhubarb. Next I will be told that down is up and up is down, and won't that make planting things hard!

I wonder what will happen this June....

Vegetable Garden - aka Bunny Salad Bar

bunny paradise

This is the first year that I have decided to grow more vegetables in the back garden.  I moved the herbs, except the thyme and chives, to pots to grow so that I would have room for veggies.  I planted more tomatoes (with the hope of canning them or making salsa, or both!) and more peppers, too.  And this year, two of the three lovely trellis will have beans and cucumbers!  The middle one will have the pretty sweet peas that my husband insists upon (nitrogen fixer - yep, I married a biologist!).  Along with those, I have garlic, onions and some little lettuce mixes, and kale!  Yay kale!

It's funny - this seems to be the year of the pots.  In addition to the herbs in pots, I started some strawberries in pots, too.  Those cute little ones with the openings on the side that you can put the stringers into as they grow.  The plants have lots of little green berries ripening.  I hope that I can beat the birds to them!

All of this growing stuff leads to troubles with bunnies. They seem to believe that I planted all of this JUST FOR THEM!  And they graze and nibble with impunity - IN BROAD DAYLIGHT!  Oh, if I could run faster we could have a wonderful herb-y bunny stew.

The trouble is, I am frustrated and angry when they eat my food, but my big, soft heart thinks they are really cute.  I can't win!

Amaryllis - surprise!

Ooh!  Here is what I have blooming at my house!  it was a total surprise, like those ladies who have babies and didn't know they were pregnant.

Double Bloom, with another bloom on the way. 

Well, not REALLY like that.  But still a surprise.

"All right, Mr. DeMille, I am ready for my close-up."

Man-eating Hops

I suppose that if I am going to mention the man-eating hops in the yard, I should post a picture of their activity thus far this spring/summer.  They are on track to cover the fence again this year.  Such lovely and dangerous plants.  Every time I mow the yard around them, they reach out to try and snag some part of me, and they SCRATCH! Like mean little cats!

I'll bet my yard smells better than yours!

That's right!  The rose bush is blooming!  The bees are buzzing.  The aroma of roses is going right to my head.  I am positively giddy knowing that I will get to weed the spot underneath, and all around the bush and breathe that light, sweet scent that no other flower can produce.  Oh, don't get me wrong.  I am no rose lover.  They are thorny, nasty plants that will take any chance they can to prick you where you least suspect.  They jump in your way to scratch you when you aren't looking.  If you watch them from the corner of your eye, you can see them planning their next move.  Mine likes to tangle my hair when I am weeding around her.  She is the most lovely witch.  But witch she is. Sweet-smelling, lovely on the eyes, and fully devoted to evil.

Rainy Blessings

Oh, life is good in the garden! We have been receiving some nice rain over the course of the last couple days.  And we have been fortunate enough to not have any of the severe storms and possible tornadoes that they were predicting. 

Now the weeds will be easier to pull out of the ground in anticipation of planting the more sensitive plants. Even though this spring has been extremely mild, I am not going to put things like tomatoes and peppers into the garden until after Mother's Day, or maybe even mid-May, as that is our latest frost date. They are doing well inside the house, and should be ready to go into their garden home by then. Call me chicken for not taking the chance, or call me a true Minnesotan, I just don't want the plants that I nurtured so long to be damaged by my own foolishness.

Weedy Boulevard

I just had to put up a picture of the pathetic boulevard strip.  So sad.  I'll have to do something to it, just not quite sure what that will be yet....

Long Weekend

Who doesn't love a long weekend? The weeds in my flowerbeds for one! Give me a little extra time to spend outdoors and I will make their lives short-lived.

That said, there are many weeds that were given a reprieve this weekend, too. We had a gentle rainfall for much of the day on Saturday, so I stayed in. I know there are some die-hard folks out there who will go out and garden no matter the weather. My neighbor is - she jokes frequently about not being smart enough to come in out of the rain. I have even caught her watering plants in the rain! I may have considered going out on Saturday if we had not had such an early spring this year. If I am itching to get out and dig in the dirt, a little sprinkle will not stop me!

I did manage to get the front flower beds weeded and free of debris. Last fall, I dug up and divided the hosta that have been growing out there for years, they were past due for a clearing out. I gave away about 10 pots of hosta, and started a ring around the tree on the boulevard with 6 more. They are coming up gangbusters right now! I also dug up the sedum that was in the front - I couldn't stand it anymore! It would always fall down when it started to bloom, regardless of how big or small it was. So I gave those away, too. Now I have some lovely empty spots that I can fill with new and interesting plants! My poor husband bemoans this time of year, as I am always coming home with more plants to put in the ground. But I love it. Such simple joy.

When I first moved here 5 1/2 years ago, I put a brick border around the flower beds. Not all at once, it did take me a few months (okay, a couple years) but it was a nice way to separate the lawn and the beds. Now I am playing around with that in the front of the house, adjusting it and adding to it. I put in a row of hosta on both sides of the sidewalk, and need to put in the brick along those sides, as the lawn keeps trying to creep back in. And I am seriously tempted to tear up the weed infestation that the boulevard strip has become, and put in flowers and other plants. We will see just how crazy I get this year with all of the weeding and re-arranging. I may just tear it up and put down grass seed and make it pretty again.

Oh! And the yard needs to be mowed again.

The Golden Hour

I normally do not consider myself to be much of a wimp. My brother and I came from sturdy Swedish peoples, who eventually made Minnesota home. We are tough and hardworking. We are loyal. We don't talk a lot about our feelings. We don't complain about the work of the day, we get it done and move on to the next task.

Apparently, this description applies to everyone but me.  I want to whine about mowing the lawn last night. The bugs were really bad! The lawnmower made me smell like exhaust. I was sore last night, and stiff this morning when I got up. I sneezed - A LOT! And I got sweaty.

And I loved every single second of it.

This isn't my golden hour, but it sure is pretty.
Image Credit Flickr User Axel-D

I mowed long, straight lines in the grass. I mulched up old leaves from last fall. I noticed the places that I will need to give a little extra attention to - a little more water from the rain barrel, or a bit of over-seeding to bring it back up to snuff. The wonderful sweet smell of freshly cut grass. The droning noise of the mower which seems to ease my monkey-brain into dropping the stresses of the day, a meditation of sorts. And knowing that I can indulge myself when it is done - a tall, cool drink in the golden hour, enjoying the silence of my lovely backyard. Planning my garden.

Lawn Mowing Anticipation

As it is now April, I believe that I will try to start the lawnmower this evening and get a little work done on the yard. It rained last night - a big rumble-y storm, with the kind of lightning that reminds me of old-fashioned flash bulbs. And today is supposed to be in the 60s (F) and sunny.

I can hear the grass growing from here.

The Strangest Spring Ever

You can ask just about anyone in central Minnesota about this past March, and they will all tell you the same thing.  This is the strangest early spring that we have experienced.  According to the climatologists, it was the warmest March in over 100 years.  All of the plants are coming up much earlier than usual, and I am itching to get new plants and veggies into the garden.  But this is Minnesota, and I have a pretty strong feeling that Mother Nature will kick us in the shins if we get too uppity and plant before mid-May.

So what is a girl to do? I have pulled all the dead growth from around my plants and flowers, raked leaves, pulled those pesky weeds that come back no matter how thoroughly I remove them.  I have trimmed the lowest branches of the spirea that grow near the back porch (with the mild winter, the bunnies didn't do it for me) and tied up the rose bush to make it easier to trim over the summer. I am putting the early cold crops in the garden, lettuce, radishes, etc, even though it really isn't cold. All of the tomatoes, herbs and pepper seeds have been started indoors in anticipation of sun-warmed soil.

But out of sheer contrary-ness, I refused to start my lawnmower before April.

I am sure that I will pay for that. The grass is now REALLY long in some places, and full of all the juicy-deliciousness that spring grass holds. I will have green shoes and socks when I do get out to mow. But that isn't really isn't too high a price to pay for such a strange March, is it?