Tater scale

Things have been busy.
Things have been good.
I'm doing a lot of teaching
And a lot less with food.

What kind of poem is that?

I got this from a student family this week.  We cooked it on Monday and have been eating it ever since.

This picture has not been manipulated in any way (I did make it black and white, because the color version was a little too vibrant), I am holding the biggest sweet potato I've ever seen right beside my head. 

It's a dirty job

Hi everyone!! We're back! Nate and I were out of town for two weeks.
Week 1 we spent working at Way of Life Christian Camp. It was a huge success and we had a great time! We spent the week working at camp with the people we usually work with (people Nate grew up going to camp with), but this year we were at a new facility. It was a great week, and it is a huge honor for my name to be lumped with the others on the Leadership team. Seriously wonderful people with whom I am honored to work.
I know its all about the kids when we go to camp, so I feel like I'm cheating by having as amazing a time as I always do. I was really blessed with new, old, and renewed friendships, and a lot of time talking about Jesus and loving on kids. I can't say enough good about it. But I'm guessing you can hear enough about it, so I'll move on. Unfortunately not really any pictures to share because I was too busy!
Week 2 we spent at the beach in South Jersey with my family. Talk about more blessings. I'll get misty if I get into the details of how great the last two weeks were. Suffice it to say, I'll share some family pics when I find my camera cord.

We got another installment of produce from my in-laws. I appreciate them so much (I appreciate them even when they don't load us up with goodies), and I'm in awe of their gardening skills. They had a ton of stuff. Some of it we tried to grow with moderate success (beets), less success (tomatoes, green beans, carrots), and maybe more success (basil, peppers, we'll have to see). I'll get into the status of our garden and maybe do a postmortem on it sometime. But its not dead yet, so I'll put that on hold.

The in-laws gave me tons of fresh beets, so I pickled them, hence the dirty job. Here are the pictures



They are hanging out in the fridge right now.

I used this recipe from my MIL, which I think is from BHG.

1/3 C vinegar
1/4 C sugar
1/4 C water
1/2 t cinnamon
1/4 t salt
1/4 t ground cloves
Bring to a boil, add cooked and peeled beets, reduce and simmer for 5 minutes, cool, let the magic happen, enjoy.

I doubled, tripled, quadrupled, quintupled (I'm not sure) it. But I left the ratio of vinegar to water in tact, which I understand is the important part, and I'm not canning them, I'll eat on them over the next couple weeks (let's be honest, few days is more likely).

My next post is sure to be about something really exciting, sexy, and intriguing in an effort to convince you that I am not, in fact, a senior citizen.

Let it grow, let it grow

Listen here.

Now view the following:

l to r: beans, tomatoes (with a couple basil), peppers

basil

tomato in the making

beet

the first 5 beans
Turns out, magic beans aren't such a stretch after all.

First fruits

Er, first fruit I should say. I harvested our first onion today! It is curing in the shed right now. These Georgia Sweets sure do smell sweet.
Why yes, I did just show you three pictures of the same onion.

It is a little small, but that's ok. I don't know if we should have planted them further apart of something, but I'm ok with the size. My in-laws' onions were about this size too if I remember correctly.
This is the bed they were in. You can see that we used straw to mulch. You can also see from the lush grass growing between the beds what a huge failure that was. We are planning to pull the straw up and put down more newspapers. If it doesn't rain this afternoon we will get right on that. After Nate finishes building saw horses.

I have really come to love onions. I don't eat them plain like my grandparents, but they really add a lot when cooking. Nate thinks so too, and neither of us consider ourselves "onion people."

I also have some pictures of the teeny-tiny bean pods forming on one of our plants. I really tried to get it in good focus, but I couldn't. I'll just show you one so you can get the idea.
Ok, I'll show you two.

We had really nice, hard rains (not apocalyptic, like April) the last two nights so I think you can see how everything looks so green and lush. It's beautiful.

I have to say that it did rain hard enough for the cat to hide under the bed and shoot us looks that said "Screw YOU!" when we tried to coax him out.

I have a lot of catching up to do on here with the gardening and growing things in general. I'll be honest and tell you that there were a couple weeks where I didn't want to share what was going on because there was this time-period with gardening (I am 100% sure that it's not just one time period) where I was afraid that nothing was going to happen. So, I didn't share any pictures, and to be honest I didn't take all that many. It was just a lot of waiting. But now things are growing and blossoms and new shoots are forming. It is all very exciting. We have 1 billion tomato plants that I'm sure will produce fruit all at the same time. Then I will need to learn to can very quickly.

I will have lots to show you in the next few days with things growing both inside and out. And by inside and out I mean the house. There are no ultrasounds from this household.

Thoughts for today

1. We went on our bike ride last night and it was great! This is the third time we have done this particular ride and the first time and I didn't nearly collapse and vomit after the hill at the halfway point. I also didn't have to stop and walk at all. Yay!! I think the peanut butter I ate before the ride helped. And the promise of a cherry-limeade helped me do it without walking. Here's my favorite part of the ride though.
Here's the set-up:
Nate always rides behind me unless he needs to pass me on a hill, which happens on most hills, but I think he's trying not too. He tells me when cars are coming and is able to see when I fall or have a problem. He also gives me pointers. There is no telling from pointer to pointer whether it will be well received by the recipient. A more regular flow of oxygen to my brain will surely help with my attitude.
I am woefully out of shape.
Nate's riding behind me and I hear: Babe, you are really toning up already!
Me: (gasp, wheeze, struggling for air) What?!
Nate: Yeah, I can tell already!
Isn't he sweet? I'm still skeptical, I think he was just trying to make me feel better. He maintains that the calves are the first to go.

2. I (think I) am having my first cello lesson since June of 2005, today! I found out I was having it today, yesterday! I could be more prepared! Boy am I nervous!

3. Nate spent the evening last night realigning my wheels and adjusting my gear shifts on the bike, with whom I always argue (the gear shifts, not Nate, I'm too out of breath to argue with Nate). Isn't that nice? I can't wait to try it! My back brake was rubbing up agin my wheel last night and I got jipped of some serious coasting that should have been coming my way.

4. There will be lots of work outside and gardening this weekend!! I will weed the herb garden (this consists of pulling up the mint that continues to pop up everywhere) and the beet bed.

This is a carrot. It looks like grass. I must not pull it out. The carrots are not planted in rows. I will not be weeding the carrot bed because I can't tell what's what. (Incidentally, I should know that anything that looks like grass is surely not grass. The only vegetation we have in our yard is either the weeds that make up the lawn or the veggies/herbs/sparse flowers we have planted. Problem solved.)

This is a beet (rather, a few beets).

They are planted in rows (if you click on the picture I think you will see the row). They are red. Therefore, I will be weeding the beet bed.

5. I just found a recipe for homemade butter. A blog I read just posted it. Oh dear.

6. What are you doing?

Tomato Soup

Another ode to the in-laws:
For a dinner this week Nate and I had homemade tomato soup. We had some home grown yellow pear tomatoes in the freezer from the in-laws. I bought some tomatoes last week that we didn't get to, so I thought they would be good in soup since they were getting a little mushy.
The recipe was adapted from my Joy cookbook.

Ingredients:
olive oil, fresh garlic (yum), onion, fresh basil (from the garden!), tomatoes (frozen and fresh), crushed red pepper flakes, chicken broth (that I made from the chicken bones in my freezer), salt, and pepper.

Directions:
cook the first part of the list in the olive oil, add the rest and boil for a while. Salt and pepper while it is cooking. I really think when I get into this habit it will push my cooking over the edge.

The broth! The rest of it is in the freezer!

We also had white cheddar bread. Needless to say it was awesome.

This is the finished product sliced. I would have taken a picture of the loaf whole, but then I would have had to share it with you and due to a mishap between the wood cutting board, the cornmeal, and the heated pizza stone, it was not camera ready. I have since made a beautiful loaf, but like many foodstuffs here it did not survive long enough to be documented.


Thanks Mom and Dad W!!

It's not all about me; Weekend Gardening

Before I launch on into my story about our sunny little lives down here, I think it would be wrong and callous to ignore what's happening on the other side of the planet. So I wanted to ask:
Have you done anything for Japan? Anything to help those who can't help themselves? Like Jesus asked us to? Or if you prefer, because we can?
The blog-rolls are all over this, so I just wanted to pass along some of the ones I'm interested in.
World Vision
Red Cross
Do you want a crafty or artsy reminder of the past week? One whose proceeds will help those in need?
These guys will give 90% of the proceeds to Red Cross if you purchase this print. It is very pretty, and they have already raised so much! It's incredible.
Alicia Paulson (I don't know her, but she answered a question I asked on her blog! It was exciting!) compiled a list of crafters that are supplying or hosting donation opportunities. I think she will keep adding to the list.
My friend Mandy is participating in a raffle by supplying prizes.

Have you encountered any other opportunities for giving?
Anyways, just a couple ideas. I know we've all been thinking and praying about it.

This post is for my in-laws.
For my in-laws especially. They are gardening fanatics, so I know they are interested to see what we do. And Roger is, evidently, the biggest fan here at hookyarnsinker. (Nate says: Like BIG, Molly. Bigger than your mom, and I know how big of a fan your mom is.)
So, everybody, here's what we did!

More gardening this weekend. In fact, I had quite the botanical day, but I think that should be another post in itself.
Nate borrowed a tiller so he tilled the vegetable garden out back.


Our seedlings are still in the trays and aren't big enough to put in the ground, hopefully in another week or two. Instead we planted seeds.

Nate picked up these carrot and beet seeds for me yesterday! Very exciting!

First we had to figure out the layout.
We put three beds in the front, then rows along the back.

Don't even worry about my awesome gardening-ware.
I don't was to get a rash from the grass, and I don't want snakes nipping at my toes.
You all and the neighbors can deal.

The front three beds from left to right: carrots, beets, and onions.
The row all the way over on left will be Blue Lake Bush Beans (green beans on a bush).
The rest of those rows will be tomatoes, peppers and basil.
I'm really excited to see how things turn out!
I'm a little disappointed about the onions, though. Nearly everything else (in this bed) we have planted has come from seed. So you get one thing, and it turns into something else. I would even argue that for the cold frame. We got some things that only have leaves, and they will grow heads, bunches, and crowns. The onions are already onions, they'll just get bigger. It seems kind of anticlimactic, but I won't complain when I don't have to buy onions.
In other garden news, remember how sad the parsley was? And I said that I blame the mint if it dies and I have to pull it out? Well, I checked it everyday last week and I wasn't seeing much action.
Now, it wasn't turning more brown or drying up, so I thought I would let it go and see what happens. These are the regenerative powers of mother nature we're talking about. Winter always turns into spring, as things die new life continues to pop up. Always, always, so I wanted to wait.
On Friday morning I came out to check and water, got down real close and realized that there was new, fresh parsley popping up! New growth under the old. I immediately got the scissors and cut off the old crap to make way for the new. Here's a little close up. They have already grown! Parsley after all!

Have a great rest of the weekend!

It's easy being green.

Happy St. Pat's Day! Are you wearing it?
I had a very productive weekend last weekend while Nate was away doing this:

I did some sewing, but in honor of St. Patrick's day I thought I would share the green things I did. And it was a lot of work, and I was worn out when I was done. It was hard in that I was exhausted. I'm not sure if my efforts will bear much fruit, so I can't say if it was difficult or easy, you know?
I wanted to get the herb garden done, separate and transplant daffodils and daisies, and plant flower seeds. That's three beds in all.

1. Here's the herb garden before. I didn't take a picture before the weeding. Imagine this overwhelmed with mint. I couldn't tell it from looking at it, but once I started pulling things out I realized that the mint roots were everywhere. Nate found this mat for me to kneel on, isn't that nice? So first I pulled everything out of the garden. The mint had survived, but we had already bought another mint plant so I just pulled it all out.

The oregano and parsley all survived the winter as well (I think). I divided the oregano and put it in two different spots. I untangled the parsley from the mint and I hope it will survive. If it doesn't, I blame the mint.

I left a rosemary and mint plant in planters and partially buried them. (That way we can take them in in the winter, and the mint won't take over as bad.)

I bought a sage plant and a planted another rosemary plant because I want it to get outrageously big, blow in the breeze, and spread its beautiful smell around.


Oh yeah, I also got a basil plant to tide us over until our seedlings are big enough to transfer (more on that in a sec).

From left to right: mint w/oregano in front of it, parsley, sage, potted rosemary w/oregano in front of it, basil, and rosemary in the ground.
2. Flower bed 1
We had some daffodils. They bloomed, and then they looked a little wilty. I read here that you could go ahead, separate and transplant them. Again, I didn't take a picture before I dug it up, but here is after that.
Here's the pile o daffs.
I thought there were only a few, but when I started replanting I realized that we had maybe 40 after separating the bulbs. I couldn't even find a place for all of them.
Here's the bed afterwards. The daffs in the front, daisies in the middle, and under the sand in the back are posies and snapdragons (in seed form). We'll see how the seeds go.

3. The other bed
It's only seeds in there, so it looks like a pile of dirt. I'll spare you

Speaking of seeds:
We started seeds in a seed flat. We keep it up on top of the fridge because it is pretty warm up there. We are having the best luck so far with tomatoes and basil. Hopefully the peppers will pop up soon.

I made some new friends last weekend when Nate was gone.

This guy kind of had a death wish. And he was camouflaged. It was a bit dangerous with him and me and the spiky tools.
This guy was pretty skiddish, but I got a picture of him.
And this guy.
I didn't scream at all when I found these guys!

Sorry, one more thing.
These are getting huge! And fast!