Busier and Busier

April brought about the end of a busy fundraising project. My son's 5th grade class had planned a trip to the Grand Canyon, and in April, we all saw the results:

The Grand Canyon is a stunning place, and I found myself having a great time in spite on being on a school field trip and all the restrictions and limitations that places on one. The children were all well-behaved, the parents got along fabulously, and the scenery was beyond words.

Since then, my son and I have also taken a trip through Texas on the way to New Mexico and eventually Colorado for a friend's wedding. In Texas, we found a tarantula as big as my hand! At the hotel, no less!! I expect wild things when camping, but not at a "civilized" locale in Henrietta, Texas.

From there, we traveled on to visit some old high school friends. One just had the cutest baby on the planet (current baby ... mine was *the* cutest at that time!), and the other shared some roasted green chiles with me. What good friends I have!

And I was also able to have a jewelry show featuring hand crafted sterling silver jewelry complemented by natural stones, freshwater pearls, and leather. I love being "the jewelry girl" and sharing my jewels and my business with folks who love jewelry as much as I do!

Colorado brought beautiful mountains, more stunning scenery, and more friends, plus baseball, parties, and a wedding!

All in all, we hit 3 national parks, 1 wilderness area, 1 local park, 2 professional baseball games, 1 jewelry show, 1 rehearsal dinner, 1 wedding, and 2 4-hour lunches. Oh yeah, and LOTS of driving! Not too bad for 11 days away from home.

Now things are back to normal for a while. I am busy at work and our new jewelry catalog will be out August 1, 2008, meaning more shows, I hope. It's too hot to get outside much, but the veggies are still producing. I'm tired of cucumbers, but I have to admit that my food bill has gone down and I have indeed gotten creative with new recipes ideas.

Yes, creative indeed.

Babies!

Though I must admit that I am an impatient gardener, I am excited to announce that I have babies! Like this one ...

I have baby tomatoes and squash (two varieties) and peppers and ... gosh, I'm just thrilled!

First Fruits of the Season

My vegetable garden is coming along nicely. I've already harvested some radishes, the lettuce & kale are ready for me to start yanking leaves, and the broccoli raab is starting to produce shoots! The onions are nicely sprouted, two tomatillos and two bell peppers (one red, one orange) are in the ground, and one red lightening and one one patty pan squash have been potted.



I've still got a lot of digging to do to prepare for my 7 remaining tomato plants, 5 or 6 pepper plants, two varieties of eggplant, plus 2 yellow crookneck squash and one more patty pan. I've got seeds for white cucumbers (whoever heard of such!), asparagus green beans, and two varieties of dwarf okra. I am so eager to start the harvest, but I've got to suffer through the work first.



But fruits. I promised you the first fruits of the season, and here they are. These are loquats harvested from my neighbor's tree. Loquats are more commonly called Japanese plums, and they are delicious! They are a common landscape plant around here, but most people leave the fruit for the birds. Not me! I want to eat all I can! Loquats are sweet & juicy, and we can eat them by the bowl around here.


In addition, the strawberries are growing and the dwarf black fig trees have been planted. The satsuma, papaya, red navel orange, and sweet kumquat all have new growth. And Park Seed promises that my semi-dwarf blueberries are on the way, but I've yet to see them.


Lastly, I am scheduled to retrieve two native paw paw trees on Saturday! Paw paws produce fruit much like a banana, but with seeds that must be scooped out before eating with a spoon. The trees grow in the shade, which is perfect for my back yard.


Oh to have the patience to await the harvest!

Dreaming of my spring garden ......

Every year, I add a new flower bed or two, thus greatly enhancing the beauty of my yard and greatly decreasing the amount of lawn left to be mowed.

This year, however, I am adding a dedicated vegetable bed. I usually just tuck my veggies into the flower beds, producing crops of eggplants and peppers that I share with friends, or drop things like tomatoes into pots, where I'm eager to harvest a measley eight or nine tomatoes each season.

I learned the first problem with my tomato plants: I was buying determinate plants, which are bushy and have only one crop, as opposed to indeterminates, which are viney and produce for many weeks.

That learned, I have gone crazy this year with all the types of tomatoes I want to try! I have found seeds for giant heirlooms, tiny cherries and grapes, mid-sized romas! I have found tomatoes that promise to come in all colors: not the just the same old red we all see, but pinks and yellows and blacks and striped! Oh I can't wait to see what I actually grow ...

And peppers! Who knew there were so many varieties of peppers?!? I usually buy one pitiful plant, or maybe two, and add them to my beds. Plain old bells. Whatever is available.

But not this year! I am going to attempt some bells again, but I am adding anchos and jalepenos and bananas to my collection. Oh I hope I get to harvest a few ... I so love peppers of any and every kind!

What else? What else? Okra and beans and squash, oh my!

Now if the warmer weather would only arrive so I can start my planting ............

Holiday Happenings

Well, it's still Holiday Season here. It's Carnival, which won't last long since Mardi Gras is February 5, 2008, quite early this year. But oh the King Cakes I can try till then ....



The holidays started with a backpacking trip in the Sipsey Wilderness in northern Alabama. A group of friends & I headed up from south Louisiana, enjoying the chilly weather but escaping before the freezing rains set in on Saturday night. Check out the pretty moss & fungus covered log I found at lunch one day.



My birthday was the next weekend, along with the SEC championship game. What a wild weekend! LSU won, and a bunch of other teams lost, leaving us with a spot in the BCS title game! What a great birthday present! :) Of course, we played the title game last Monday and won, making my favorite Tigers the BCS National Champs. They were voted champs in all the polls, too. Quite an exciting football year!


After that, of course, was Christmas and all that goes along with it. Family & feasts, and then more family & more feasts. Culminating with my mom's surprise 70th birthday party on December 30th, 2007. With a New Year's Eve bash to follow. (Who could forget the fireball & subsequent power outage during the party?!?)


All in all, a safe & merry time. Just a few weeks of King Cake temptation left before beginning the Lenten period. Maybe this year I'll try a Zulu ... or a praline & cream cheese ... or ... or ... or ... hmmmmm, I just love King Cake.

Eatin' good on the trail

I love to cook. And I love to hike. So one of my goals was to have really yummy food out on the trail.

I've created a few recipes, and one of them recently was published in Backpacker magazine. Pretty cool.

But even better are the reviews that backpackers themselves have been giving my son's favorite recipe ... here's the latest:

I tested out your recipe that appeared in Backpacker , and after dehydrating it and tasting it at home, I was skeptical. I love hummus, but am not a big spaghetti fan.

The combination of tomatoes and hummus scared me!This past weekend, while in the Red River Gorge, I packed some of your hummus along with my usual chorizo and cheese.

Out on the trail, after a tough day of bushwacking, I tried your recipe......and I couldn't get enough. I ate three tortillas with your hummus and was craving more! The chorizo and cheese went untouched and probably won't be packed in the future, saving me 1/2 lb or more!

I don't know why, but I was craving the flavor of these torillas after my first few bites.Thanks for the recipe!

Jim

What a tremendous compliment! Thanks, Jim!!

All Things Gross

Gross thing #1:

Our family cat, River, was bitten by a venomous snake two weekends ago. He survived the bite, thanks in part to our ability to get onto LSU's campus during the LSU - Auburn game. The game took forever because it was televised, resulting in the roads onto campus being open longer than normal. Since then, he's about about 1/8 of the skin on his body and is currently at the vet for at least a 5-day stay, maybe longer.

We're trying to save his leg, and we're trying to save his life. The wound is huge and open, too big for a successful graft. He's at risk of sepsis and other infections.

Poor kitty.



Gross thing #2:

I forgot to toss my pumpkin today before I head out of town. It should be quite squishy & oozy by the time I get back home Sunday. Ick.



Gross thing #3:

This weekend, my son's 5th grade class is heading to an exhibit in Mobile called Grossology: the Impolite Science of the Human Body. While I'm sure all the 5th grade boys will love it - only one girl is going - well, I've really seen enough gross-ness in the past two weeks to last me a while.

I still haven't figured out how those nurses do all that wound care! Gross!!