Old and New Things

The garden is growing like crazy. I am now looking for people to share with. Marianne and I have squash, collards, and salad coming out of our ears now. By the time grandma gets here we will be up to our ears in green beans, too. So I have been doing a Lot of cleaning and cleaning out of things, heading towards a yard sale. We all know how much I hate yard sales, so I making Mickie do it. Might as well put her to work! I have completely cleaned out the kitchen cabinets, rearranged stuff, and cleaned everything, top to bottom. The next "clean out" spot is my closet, ugh! I have also done a lot of weeding and week- eating, but that's not much fun either. However, in my adventures of cleaning out the kitchen cabinets I came across and old fish bowl. It was still in the old packing paper from the move up here from Florida...so it's really old. I figured the only logical thing to do would be to put it in the yard sale, but then I changed my mind and put a couple of Betas in it. I'm glad I decided to do that. I am really enjoying them. The female is blue with vertical stripes and the male is blue with red fin tips. They seem to like each other and are doing fine, so far. I haven't named them yet, so I am open to suggestions.

More Yummy

Marianne and I had a delicious salad with dinner. Everything in the salad was from the garden except for the carrot and the tomatoe: lettuce, zucchini, summer squash, and daikon radish, picked fresh! (My tomatoes are doing great, but are not ready just yet.) Some of the summer and zucchini squash went in the salad the rest went on the grill with the salmon. It was all very delicious!!

Today was my first official day of summer break. It was a good day. Not much excitement, but it was good. I did have to kill another snake today, 3rd one this year. I quess that was a little excitement, but not really the good kind. I spent about 2 hours or so mowing this morning, but quit when it got too hot out. I'll work on it some more tomorrow. Marianne and I went into town and ran some errands. It was terribly hot out so we had to go to Rita's for some Ice Custard Happiness while we were in town. After dinner I went out and pulled some weeds in the garden. I think they grow faster than anything else, but I'm making progress.

Spinach Salad from the Garden!

After a very long day at work today (one more day to go) I am Very Happy to announce our first meal that included fresh spinach from the garden. As you can see I fixed a Delicious spinach salad from the garden, topped with fresh strawberries and a sprinkling of chopped walnuts. I ate my salad with some Newman's Own Light Balsamic Vinaigrette. Yeah, that made my day! We also had chicken off the grill with some cactus dust. It was very good too.

The tomatoes are coming along nicely.

The daikon radishes are really growing. I don't know how to tell when they are ready. I guess you just pull it out and see. The 3rd row back is the sweet potatoes....another experimental project.

We had 3 hens that have been nesting. One of the hens hatched 2 eggs. Then a snake got in there and ate every single one of the other eggs that were due to hatch this week from the other 2 hens....Lousy snake!! Sometime between yesterday evening and this evening one of the 2 baby chicks has vanished. We can only speculate that it got out of the chicken pen and something ate it. When these little tiny chicks are still so small, they can walk right through the bitty wire. It's been a rough year for the chickens.

Time To Brag

Yesterday was Awards Day at Southwood Middle School. Marianne received certificates for Honor Roll and Academic Achievement. But then she also was awarded to plaque given by community groups, such as Kiwanis. She got one plaque for having the highest average of all the atheletes at Southwood. The other plaque was for having the highest average in the whole School!!! WOO - HOO, go Marianne !!!!! You go girl!!! Marianne, You Rock!!! That's my girl!!

Looks Like a Garden

The garden is starting to look like a garden. Since we took off to have some fun in Kentucky, the weeds have gotten a bit of a head start on us. But we will get them soon. The green beans (on the right side of the garden) are really coming along nicely.

The lettuce is still surviving, but little. I 'm not really sure how to grow lettuce.

We have summer squash (not Marianne's choice) that is about 3 inches long. There are 4 of them on the plant.

The spinach is also still growing. I am excited about the spinach. It was a total flop last time and I Love spinach.

There are 3 tomatoes on the tomatoe plant and lots of blooms. The grape tomatoe plant also has a bunch of tiny little baby tomatoes growing.

Last, but not least, the collards!! I have a picture of the biggest one and the littlest one...notice they are green, not brown. So they have survived the drive from Kentucky and the whole shock of being transplanted. Thank you Lisa and Jim. I am anticipating some delicious collards now.

Going Green

I am very happy to report that we now have green things growing in the garden. The green beans and cowpeas are sprouting. Some of them are even 2 inches tall. We are hoping for some spinach. It bombed last time, but I Love spinach!! So I thought I would give it another try.

The tomatoe plant has baby tomatoes on it. Even the acorn squash is just starting to break through the clay. We also have eggplant, okra, grape tomatoes, sweet potatoes, butternut squash, summer squash, zucchini, canteloupe, and the potential for onions, carrots, and daikon radishes.

Work has been really, really awful this year!! I really need to win the lottery...oh yeah, I don't buy tickets. Rats! I'll have to keep working. With all the pay cuts and my property taxes going up this year....it has been rough. They are essentially going to be paying us about what we were making in 2006 for the next school (2009-2010). As if anyone could afford to live on that now. So I have taken a part-time position (adjunct) at Tri-County Tech for the next school year. So I will be there on Monday and Wednesday nights in the fall. Less than a month of school left. I can't wait for summer!!! I need it more than the kids do!!!

Making Slow Progress

Well, the garden is coming along...slowly. I think I am a full month behind schedule now. But I have not given up. I have finally gotten the rows done, but do not have the area for the canteloupe and squash ready yet. I am hoping to be able to work on it again tomorrow. Today was church...awesome! Then I fixed lunch/dinner and put it in the oven. I worked on the garden while it was in the oven. Marianne took it out and set the table. Of course there was 6 loads of laundry that got done...clean, but not folded yet. Charlie is fresh and clean. He got a bath today. That was done in between lunch, laundry, and working in the garden. Charlie is feeling better than he has in months!! I am glad that the surgery went well and that he is feeling so good now. He is back to acting silly and playing, which he hadn't done in a long time.