hello!

In case anyone's noticed, my last couple posts have not been so wordy... Baby Son thought our laptop was a George Foreman grill because after he pounded on the keys, he proceeded to smash his chicken into it & shut the top, for me to open & find later. He really did a number on it because the keyboard does not work at all -we can only use the mouse (I'm gettin real creative with copy & paste!) I'm using my brother's laptop right now & hopefully we'll have ours fixed soon...but in the meantime atleast I can still post pictures. ....Here's the prettiest thing I've made for dinner in a long while: Zucchini Gratin from this lovely yummy foodie blog my friend found. I've been so out of cooking mode for so long but there's a few more recipes on here I can't wait to try, so maybe it'll help pull me out of my slump...         

   ...made with zucchini, yellow squash, fennel & thyme from the garden :)

flutterbyes & flowers

  ~~Butterfly, Butterfly, I'm glad to see you here                    Alighting on my daisies one by one!               ~~Cicely Mary Barker         (The Complete Book of the Flower Fairies)                                                                                        

                            morning glories in bloom

"moonshine" yarrow  

 white yarrow        

  baby watermelon          

                                      

garden harvest

  such yummy things i picked from the garden this morning! so for lunch, i just sauteed it all up with some sausage, garlic & olive oil, (lots of basil!) served over penne & added kalamata olives & feta ...oh yummy!! garrett husband said it was the perfect dish :) & the kids ate it up pretty good too.           

garden shananagins & a sad cheesecake

i left the hose on to soak some plants, ran in the house to check on the laundry & look what i came back to...  

   who needs a swimming pool?                       ....other garden news (doesn't take much to get me excited): i was beginning to wonder if my little eggplant would ever amount to anything as its been under constant insect attack & it's been budding but then the flowers usually fall off. well look what a surprise i got today ...

        it's called 'fairy tale' eggplant- how sweet is that?             .....& yet still on another note: learned this morning my cousins from wyoming are visiting & we all decided to have dessert at my house this evening. i've been wanting to try making this ricotta cheesecake that sounded divine. i went thru the pain of whipping & folding eggwhites (enough said) & was told to bake for an hour till set & golden brown. two minutes before my timer goes off, with kids screaming in the tub, i casually check to see if my cake is starting to gently brown, thinking i'd be early & this is what i see ...                               so sad. i hope i can salvage it.....

critters in the garden

Look who I saw munching on my fennel today? Isn't he gorgeous? I forgot that I have read before that fennel is part of a butterfly garden to give the caterpillars something to eat. That's ok handsome, we only need the bulbs; just make sure you come back and show off your wings!       

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Also saw this shy little guy poking around. Isn't he adorable? I think he'll just have to have a whole family one of these days...  

more of the garden

           this zucchini plant is a monster! he needs a name. 

my little soil tester...

   

             that's potatoes & watermelon behind him               

quilting continued

I'm determined to get this quilt done by this weekend so I've been staying up late working on it, which is not so smart. I can fall into this habit, since I crave my alone time so much, of staying up once the kids are finally in bed. I really pay for it ..& yet I keep doing it. And of course, if I focus on one thing, everything else goes to shambles; if I have a day in the garden, the dishes & laundry pile up; if I get into a project & try to keep up on the house, by the time I get back into the garden the weeds have taken over! Right now I have all of the above: dishes, laundry & weeds. And I'm not even doing a great job putting this quilt together. Like I said, it's my first quilt to complete start to finish -I usually just do the top. I might have started on a smaller quilt of course, but that would have been too sensible. But to cut myself some slack, this is what I have to work with:

a very plain, very old machine with no fancy quilting foot or platform or whatever else I would need. So I guess considering, I'm not doing too bad. It'll be fine. And I will try to make myself get some sleep tonight so I don't sound so whiney next time.  Oh! But we did get our first zucchini out of the garden today & now we are going to go eat him! 

     

my garden in may

...and we've got to get ourselves back to the garden. --Joni Mitchell                                                                                              I'm in garden mode right now. This is my first vegetable garden & I'm so dang proud of it.
(It goes without saying that its "organic." Isn't that the only way to grow a food garden?)   I had a lot of help to get it going --my wonderful husband tilled the whole thing ( I tried & couldn't do it --it's hard work!) & my awesome brother built the raised boxes. From there it's been my baby & I'm out there every day. I highly recommend everyone have some kind of food garden for therapy -even if it's just some herbs or tomatoes in a container --something to get your hands in the dirt, to check on lovingly everyday or so to see its progress & feel so proud when you put something on your table that you grew yourself. I'm hooked now.