Marshmallows melted in the microwave for 10 seconds then topped with pretzels.
Baby bird update: The last egg still has not hatched...and probably won't?
I made too much noise and all 5 mouths were squawking up at me at the same time. Sounded a bit like my kids when they are hungry.
I am not afraid of bees. I love bees!
A few weeks ago I posted a picture of some work I had done for my vegetable garden. After spending some time watching the sun I realized that the spot remained in the shade for most of the morning and than again in the late afternoon. So I gave up for a week and helped D haul stones from up the hill in the back of the house down to the street for his landscaping project. This week we decided to clean up the area near the driveway and use that as my garden.
We used leftover paving stones from the project two summers ago.
Most of the hill is mulched trees from when we built the house 3 years ago. I threw in some sand from the sandbox and half a bag of dirt that I had.
The area is so rocky in part because of the gravel that got pushed halfway down the hill from the blacktop job and the rest is just nature. After searching the property for better dirt and even taking the wheelbarrow into the woods in search of dirt I surrendered and bought 8 bags of topsoil and two bags of fertilized dirt in which I surrounded my first 5 plants.
Here's my favorite tomato plant. Grow baby grow!
Two weeks ago I bought some plantains for a class demonstration. They sat on the counter in my classroom for several weeks to ripen. It was the perfect opportunity to talk about this fruit and the different ways to prepare them. If you prepare them "green" it is a bland/starchy food much like a potato. And as you probably already know starch turns to sugar (yum) as they ripen. The ones above are about a day or two blacker than I usually prepare them but we were unable to use the kitchen before yesterday.
We talked about the difference between a banana and a plantain. Do you know the difference?
Peeling them can be somewhat of a problem. The peel does not always come away cleanly. I was so busy helping my students that I didn't get a picture. Growing up with a Jamaican background, my mother always cut them in small pieces. During my two visits to Costa Rica I noticed that some people cut them lengthwise.
We fried them in olive oil.
These are ready to eat. All but one of my 8 students liked them. They were thrilled to share the experience with others and asked if they could deliver them to other classrooms. I was shocked as to how many adults (other teachers) refused to taste them or turned their nose up. If you have never had one they have a slight banana/ sweet potato taste. I don't know...you would have to try them and find out what you are missing! Would you? Could you...eat them?
Yesterday evening all three kids came running into the house proclaiming that baby chicks had been born. So I go out onto the deck and peep through the cracks of the deck to discover 4 baby birds and one white egg in a nest. I think my camera did pretty well focusing through such a small space.
The front deck is a great place to sit. You can see the horizon for 180. This is looking to the right. Northeast maybe? I don't know...I guess I'm not "straight" as D's grandma would call it.
This is straight ahead...and unfortunately you cannot see the beautiful quilted pattern of the landscape. Oftentimes hot air balloons can be seen from this view.
This is looking to the left...I know this is west because the sunsets from this view are stunning.
When I first spot a morel my heart does a little dance and then I stand very still and look away from it. I look away in search of others in the area before I rush to the scene. Here is a picture of where I was standing when I spotted a morel a few yards away.
Enchiladas with morels. (Well, only the four in the back have morels because 2.5/5 of the family won't eat them.) P will eat them in very small quantity.
I took bunches of pictures while I was in the woods. I liked this one the best.
While at M and P's soccer game yesterday, S and his "girlfriend" M o were just hanging out on the bleachers having one of those 3 year old conversations.
This was even cuter in person because the dog was resting her chin on S's sock. Do dogs have chins?
The other day on the way home from work I spotted this plant sitting in the street in front of someone's house. "Stop the car! Get that plant!" I yelled to D. The three kids in the backseat asked, "what? what mom?" D was like..."are you serious?" I was most definitely serious. Heck, many many years ago we outfitted most of my apartment by diving into people's garbage after hours.
So, we have matured over the years because D actually went and knocked on the door to ask permission. Nobody was home. We took the plant. These aren't the best pictures but you can probably tell that it is a rubber tree. It was in desperate need of water so I watered it. It also needed to be put back into its pot. Whoever threw it to the curb did so in a way that the pot was laying next to the tree. I also plan to replace the metal pipe to a wooden stake. I have plenty of brush on the back hill I can use. So, what would you have done? Would you have stopped to save a plant?
This is where I have decided to put my garden. It's right on the edge of the hill in the front of the house. Saturday I dug out most of the weeds and pulled the biggest rocks out of the area. I worked over an hour with what looks like little progress.
The neighbors had some extra ties which I set down in the general area that I want them. This is still a work in progress. I think I the bed will need to be higher towards in the back because of the slope of the hill. I also want to remove more dirt because it is so terribly rocky. I need to buy some dirt and I also plan to find some rock free dirt in the nearby woods. My goal for this year is to buy some tomato plants to put here. I really enjoy this kind of work...
A few weeks ago I was moving my photo folders from my laptop to the server here at work. To make a long story short...I lost all my folders containing hundreds of photos. I was not happy about the loss but I quickly shook it off...what could I do? This blog is a constant reminder for me to move from here...forward...not dwell on the past...and be thankful daily for everything around me. It is not always easy for me to do. Anyway, this is a photo a took recently that reminds me of a favorite photo that I took in Costa Rica last summer.
I grew up in the suburbs of Cleveland. I wouldn't eat mushrooms for a long time after my brother told me, (while eating mushroom soup), that mushrooms were a fungus...just like that white stuff you find on sticks outside. Ewwww.
So, this year I made it my goal to hunt for my own. I went out on Saturday with a seasoned hunter and after two hours and 4 stops we didn't find any.
When it comes to my children and clothing I choose not to fight. I don't really care what they wear as long as they are dressed when they leave the house. They do have a few church outfits which I have asked them not to wear when they play. I will make suggestions when it comes to clothing but I decided a long time ago not to argue. P who is 5 has always had a style of her own. Last summer she wore the same jeans and shirt all summer long. We bought her new jeans which she wore every day for 3 months until she burned a hole in the knee. I turned them into cut offs and bought her a new pair which she continues to wear. Now that the weather is warmer, her clothes stink after one day. I have refused to let her wear stinky clothes and have asked her to find something else until I do the laundry. Everyday I have laid out these cute pink jeans and every morning she tells me, "throw them away I don't like pink jeans."
I would be a tulip...Just look at this one and you will know why! Wow!! Sexy huh? And I would have a long distance relationship with a big ole honkin' magnolia! Comments anyone?
I've mentioned our unlandscaped yard on a hill in previous posts. It really is just an open palette right now. D has been combing the property for rocks to hold back the hill. Here is just a portion of the progress. The plan is to seed on the street side of the wall and enjoy the weeds on the upper half again this year. Some day we will plant something above. Too bad we don't live a few miles closer to the city. We were rejected from the landscaping shows on HGTV for being too far away.
I just keep reminding myself of the natural beauty that resides on the property.
These are apple blossoms. The tree is a scrawny little thing that sits on the edge of the fence line. It was hurt when the bulldozers cleared the land. Last year it bore 6 apples.
I love all of these. And thankfully we have an excuse to keep our "socially unacceptable" weeds for yet another year!
I love the shadow on this one. Lovely little weed!
