Daisy Farm

Justice

2012-03-03T20:30:00.003-06:00

Reflections on being a Libra juror

A Libra as a juror. Can there be a more perfect job?

No.

It has been two days since I finished up my civic duty. I was chosen to serve on a jury along with twelve other civic-minded citizens of my county. For someone who lives a predictable life, this was most unpredictable.

From the moment all thirteen of us were chosen, we became an odd sort of group. We arrived at the same time every day and assembled in a small room that had a large table, thirteen chairs, two bathrooms, scheduled breaks, lunches and other periods of waiting. Waiting hours and hours in the small room with the large table, thirteen chairs and two bathrooms.

During four days, it's not difficult to feel a fondness for most of your fellow jurors. One was annoying, one was dismissed so the remaining twelve could deliberate. That left twelve strangers in a small room sitting around the large table, thirteen chairs, two bathrooms and our notebooks that each of us used during the trial.

The clerk gave me the notebooks and I handed them out by calling each of us by our juror number. It seemed like I was heading for the head juror. I wisely asked if the other gentleman across from me would like to take charge. He did. And so we started our 5 hours of deliberating.

It is a very unique experience. I can honestly say that I have never had four days like this. Ever. Being unable to discuss details outside of the courtroom created a bond that is not easy to dismiss.

At the end, we heard "all rise for the jury" one last time as we walked out of the courtroom. One last trip as a unit down the elevator to be officially dismissed and off we went...juror no. 1, 7, 1o, 23, etc. Never to see each other again or even know our full names.

Eight hours a day for four days can be difficult to forget.

I will have to wait at least four years to have this honor again.

It has not been easy returning to my old life.

Better late than never

2012-03-02T17:09:00.003-06:00

Winter

2012-02-25T16:36:00.006-06:00

Finally

Lavender under snow.

Clean snow makes everything look so bright.

The park is about a half-a-block from my house. I decided to take my camera along for a walk. All the picnic tables and garbage cans are lined up waiting for another season of warm weather festivities.

First water area.

Second water area.

Third water area.

I was suddenly thrown back to being a kid and in the car while my father drove along the snow-covered road. In those days, complete snow removal really didn't exist and it seemed like there were always roads that looked like this. His 1950 black Plymouth coupe weighed enough that it didn't matter. I loved the sound of driving over snow like this.

In a couple of months, this place will be full of people. Everything that is white will be green. Green on the ground and green in the trees. So different.

Rising in a cold place

2012-02-23T16:40:00.002-06:00

I feel like I'm living in an episode of Edwardian Farm. I'm preparing some dough for 2 loaves of wheat bread but the house is too chilly to have it rise on its own so I decided to build a fire and help things along.

I can be picky about what I read

2012-02-16T19:28:00.005-06:00

It's been a few years coming. Today I made the decision to dump one of the blogs I've been following. It had become unworthy of my time. I know that not everyone feels that animals deserve a life of contentment. People eat meat. I know this. But I have no respect for someone who takes on so much that those living beings that are in their care lose their lives. There are always excuses but it's still the same. If the goal is to become the caregiver for another living soul, then do that job or don't call yourself a farmer.

It made me nervous.

It was like a car wreck.

Now let's all go back to living a peaceful life full of contentment.

Home sick today

2012-02-13T18:41:00.003-06:00

This feels like deja vu. I think I had this virus/bug a couple of weeks ago and now it's back. And it's just as bad as the first time it visited me. Definitely an unwelcome guest.

In between delirious naps and coughing fits, I perused some of my favorite blogs today. What I find is that people who are engaged in hard work and a life centered around simple pursuits...there just seems to be a whole lotta' peace.

This is one of my favorite posts from

http://laporterouge.blogspot.com/

back at the house i cleaned up the outdoors, treated the chickens and ducks to leafy greens and shared a snack with k. a few minutes later Joe the farmer arrived with a half a cord of wood. this made me happy for two reasons, knowing we will not run out, since i heat the house with it and the fact that i would end the evening stacking wood underneath the moon and a star filled night sky. a weekend that is balanced with things that must be done and things we want to do in the company of people we love. that night as i lay in bed i stared up through the skylight at the moon, she was lovely, i told her things and asked her for a few things, she graciously listened till my eyes grew heavy and closed.

Now back to coughing and nose blowing.

Livin' the High Life

2012-02-11T16:45:00.007-06:00

That High Life includes cheese making and document sorting and relaxation.

Sometimes I feel the need to apologize for my fabulous life. Or maybe "I really like my life" is a better way to say it. Or, how about "I love my at-home life"? I'm glad to be done with last week on a personal as well as on a professional level. Good riddance.

It's all about finding peace in the day-to-day events. I have to admit that having a Saturday that doesn't require any reason to leave the house is a little slice of heaven.

It's cold out, it snowed yesterday, I finished organizing my tax papers and I have a fire in the fireplace tonight while anticipating watching Downton Abbey episodes on my iMac.

The weekend started early. Yesterday there was cheese making going on here along with homemade pizzas, caesar salad and chocolate cake. How can I be hungry now?

Today, it's all about tax document organization, reading and video watching.

I was involved in none of this except clicking my camera. Claire and Jack worked the magic and I was too amazed to do much except the dishes!

Piles of tax documents and receipts to make sense of.

All of those piles end up being one pile right there with the calculator on it.

There are still some papers that need to be burned so I'm going to get a fire going, read, watch some shows on my iMac while still doing emailing on the laptop. My son, Phil, got my iMac to be all nice and wireless. I especially like the mouse. Maybe I like the keyboard. No, I think I REALLY like to type on the keyboard and read it 6 feet away on the screen!

It's good to have experts in the family whether they be electricians, cheese makers or computer experts.

This is the view I'll be enjoying all night....with that warm fire to my right. I just noticed that I also have a TV on. Let's just call it therapy.

Gems

2012-01-29T10:49:00.004-06:00

Peaches on right, tomatoes on left. Whole peaches from 2009. Peach jam from 2010. Whole tomatoes from 2011 and Amy's tomato bruschetta from 2009. I was a little nervous about the 2009 products, but last week I opened and ate a jar of similar peaches. I lived to blog about them. They tasted just like a warm day in summer, 2009.

My day with Jacques Pepin

2012-01-28T18:30:00.009-06:00

Or, my day with cookie dough, pizza dough and whole wheat dough.

"The greatest thing of all is bread and butter."

"If you have extraordinary bread and extraordinary butter, it's hard to beat bread and butter," Pepin tells NPR's Renee Montagne.

Sunday

2012-01-22T08:56:00.005-06:00

This is the brains of the operation on Sunday mornings. Newspaper on one side, laptop in the middle, coffee over to the right and news shows on the TV in front of me. Sometimes, the radio is on in another room. I stumbled upon something excellent this morning which set the pace for the rest of my day.

I don't promote blogs other than to have them listed on my own and that's only because it makes it easy for me to check out my favorites. There can be a lot of madness and bad choices out there when people try to become "farmers" in a hurry. With that said, on occasion, I do find things that are interesting and I feel obliged to pass them on. Here is a short video that was on another blog.

youtube.com/watch?v=Tt-KHUITId8

(Ruth Stouts garden)

It made me think about myself and finding myself here in this house about 7 years ago. I looked out on that huge back yard and knew that this house would be the start of a new life for me. I really didn't have years and years of growing things behind me. But I had reached a high degree in my pursuit of puttering and I had always enjoyed growing things no matter how small the gardens in my life were. So here was a grand opportunity and I took it. Much like the character in this video. What I enjoyed was her spunk. If you watch it to the end, you will hear excellent advice that her mother gave her and which is something I sometimes forget to follow myself although I have given it a good try.

Getting back to my Sunday, my intention is to go through the seed packets and develop a plan for the garden this summer. I'm going to try only planting the number of tomatoes that I will need which will lessen the guilt that I get when I can't find room to plant 150 seedlings! Now that I know seeds will survive year to year, it's going to be my experiment this year.

Snow day

2012-01-21T11:50:00.009-06:00

What do you do after another three inches of snow falls on your garden and yard?

You start to think about Spring and getting your hands back in the dirt--without gloves. And you start to reminisce about the good old, warm days in your garden.

It's been a wonderful winter so far and I'm not complaining in the least, but I would definitely like to do something other than cut back my geraniums that I brought inside to spend the winter.

I pulled out my gardening box to look through my notebook for any helpful hints that I wrote down last year and saw that the "collector" in me had carried over to seeds. The only ones that I'm missing are some Sweet 100s and maybe another no-fail tomato. It looks like I have a few interesting tomatoes that I decided at some point to try this summer. I must have been purchasing seeds at the end of last summer and even the summer before that!

It seems like a hundred years ago that everything was green at my house.

What day is it anyway

2012-01-15T12:41:00.003-06:00

The last three days have been a blur brought on by an unending pain in my jaw/ear/eye. An emergency visit to the dentist brought no definitive diagnosis. However, he is on call in case it returns to the raging pain of a day ago. Preliminary possible treatment is a root canal. Yesterday, I remember being a blur as I had gotten only two hours sleep the night before. I guess it's not easy to sleep when you have an ice cube in your mouth to keep the pain down. I went through two trays of ice. Choking was on my mind at all times! I barely remember being the assistant during the kitchen light project. I was asleep by 7:30.

So today is Sunday.

Did you ever look out your window and wonder who has been playing in your yard unnoticed but leaving behind unique sets of tracks? My first thoughts were of wolves and badgers.

Upon closer examination, I found that it was just a party of rabbits! No worries.

As I looked at my garden, I realized that the snow was untouched even though the gate was open and two large bunches of kale were inside. I think they have learned that this is off limits. Funny. I never thought I'd be in the rabbit training biz.

Huge project

2012-01-14T18:33:00.013-06:00

This is something that I've been looking at, plotting a solution to and finally today, am going to have that solution for this troubling situation. Before the temporary hanging lamp and duct tape display, I had a useless vent hood hanging right over the cooktop. Today, my son came over to work on my obsession.

The pieces to the project. Today I used my new favorite room in the house! It's my furnace room and I will now call it my work room. No longer will it be a place to avoid.

Voila!

(I have to stain and seal the new wood panel so the cord isn't stapled to that right now.)

Spice of choice

2012-01-08T12:26:00.002-06:00

If you're a mouse, you're going to head right over to the cumin and bite through the plastic lid to try to get inside so you can cover yourself with the fragrant powder. The only thing I have to say is I hope you inhaled enough to die of a coughing fit once you got your sorry mouse butt back to wherever you go after your meals of spices or insulation.

Full

2012-01-07T16:44:00.002-06:00

Definitely a full moon tonight.

The last hours of the holiday season

2012-01-02T18:28:00.003-06:00

I spent about five hours in my basement rearranging and reorganizing my "collections." All the holiday items were put away. The bins this and the bins that....what did we do without bins? I am toying with fixing up 1/4 of my basement and maybe displaying some of my fun stuff.

Tonight, it's time to relax and enjoy all of the cleaning and redecorating. These are the last hours before a long stretch of work until the next holiday....Memorial Day. It makes for some grueling weeks of work with precious few weekends for relief. Was this some sort of calendar joke? Let's see, we'll make those poor midwesterners work from January 1 to Memorial Day with no time off and let's give them the worst weather imaginable. Well ha, ha. It's freezing cold out tonight and it's no joke.

The first day of 2012

2012-01-01T08:32:00.008-06:00

Promises made.

Sort my socks.

Do not buy anything except toilet paper and food.

Read books and eat more herring so there are enough jars for seeds.

Paint the basement, lay down a rug (currently in garage), reorganize the space so I can enjoy being down there. Heck, it's heated and often warmer than being upstairs!

Eat healthier.

(Promises broken. I ate the cookies for breakfast.)

The end of 2011

2011-12-31T08:11:00.012-06:00

Grab your party togs and toast the end of 2011.

Some end of 2011 musings and mutterings.

I remember 2011 as being a bit of a downer year. Maybe I'm just not far away from it to appreciate it.

Couldn't resist posting the last laundry photo of the year. That's correct. It's December 31, 2011 and I have laundry hanging on the line. I am resisting the obvious which would be to blame global warming for this tepid weather but I know that the last few years have brought beat-me-to-the-ground winters. Those were made of unrelenting snow shoveling, a blizzard, freezing cold and a huge snow blower that refused to start. This year, I had the snow blower overhauled and it starts. My son is back home so I'll get some help shoveling. But there is no severe winter weather......yet.

I lost count. By now I could be on my way to a calendar called 365 Days of Dead Mice.

My son, the electrician, is helping me with some electrical-related issues around the place. Right up there on the list was removing a useless vent hood that hung unusually low over the cooktop and it wasn't venting OUTSIDE!!! So now I will get under-the-counter lights in my kitchen, a new ceiling light fixture, light restored to my closet, new outlets here and there and the circuit that is assigned to each and every electrical outlet, light, etc. in this place identified. Hmmm, 20 circuits and the original house is being powered by 4 of them! I guess we have more electrical devices in 2011 than were available in 1941.

Two weeks ago, I had the dormer on the right resided/insulated and the window frames on both rooms on the 2nd floor rebuilt. This got rid of the old aluminum window frames and now the windows are set in their frames without a gap in front of them that allowed water to drip down into the room below. Problem solved and I discovered the beauty of steel siding! Guess you could say that I'm still blinded by my love of this house.

Boy, these guys are big. It's the peanut butter that is getting them.

My daughter and her smiling dog enjoying some holiday downtime.

The holiday celebrations had barely wrapped up when I removed the makeshift tree and put it upstairs to enjoy retirement in the window of a bedroom. It took almost all day to clean the first floor and return it to some sort of order. Usually, I leave Christmas decorations up until well into January. It's nice to have everything clean and back to near normal. I found myself thinking about seed starting.

Here's to bounty, prosperity and contentment in 2012!

Cheers!

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T21:55:00.005-06:00

And a belated Happy Festivus.

My goodness, lots of craziness but I would not change a thing.

Even a holiday mouse. That's no. 4.

The heartbreak of lots of food prep in a tiny kitchen. It all worked out.

Merry Christmas Eve Day!

2011-12-24T20:34:00.003-06:00

Temperature was balmy today. A violet pops out to enjoy the sun.

Trying to make some sense of things for the Christmas Day celebration. Dishes needed to be washed, linens ironed and cookies arranged. I find that post-its are a big help. Tomorrow morning when I look at my table of serving dishes, I'll know what I had in mind!

The traditional Christmas Eve Day laundry celebration!

Fa la la la la...

2011-12-18T19:28:00.005-06:00

...la la la la. It's gift wrapping madness again. Not as crazy as last year but still, hours and hours. As Niles Crane says, he has a gift wrapping room. It sure helps to have lots of supplies at your finger tips.

Victim #2.

Pursuing my passion

2011-12-16T19:35:00.008-06:00

My passion is laundry hung outside to dry. Google captured this at some point because two years ago in April, I had blocked out my new garden in black plastic and apparently I had a load or two of laundry drying on the line when the Google space camera snapped this pic. My passion captured from outer space.

As mentioned above, my passion is laundry dried outside.

Can't believe that it's December 16 and I'm hanging laundry at 6:30 a.m. Maybe it's the thyroid meds but I woke up at 5:15 a.m., started doing laundry at 5:30 a.m. and had two loads hung outside before leaving for work at 7:30 a.m. I was a little overheated after this workout because in two hours, my morning involved analyzing the weather forecast, making coffee, drinking coffee, cooking oatmeal, eating oatmeal, throwing some lunch together for later, doing laundry, getting dressed and applying work "face," checking e-mails, responding to or sending e-mails, checking my blog for other blogs I follow, retrieving newspaper, putting Christmas cards in the mailbox and locking the door behind me. It's a good thing that the clothes I chose last night fit or I would have been in a tailspin trying to put another work outfit together. There was not a minute to lose.

The last harvest and other stuff

2011-12-04T09:03:00.006-06:00

Potato leek soup made from the leeks I grew

The seeds from my Halloween pumpkins

Lots of kale.

What you can do with kale, tomatoes, onions and stale bread.

Add some eggs, bacon that you fried earlier in the same pan and you have breakfast!

This is what's left of the garden before I harvested what was left. Two patches of kale, some parsley and leeks.

Here are the leeks. It's the last warm day until next spring. Time to dig them out.

This is quite a mound of kale....a bit compressed. When I put them in a bowl and loosened up the pile, it is even bigger! The butter is there for scale.

When in Wisconsin

2011-11-25T18:02:00.003-06:00

You have to eat like us!

Hand-rolled butter is like nothing you have ever tasted until, of course, you taste hand-rolled butter!

The martini brings out the wit in me.

Some days you're just lucky

2011-11-19T18:41:00.005-06:00

Even though I do not need another set of vintage dishes, when they practically fall into your shopping cart at half-price, a girl has to do the right thing and make the purchase. Six dollars for a "set" of Homer Laughlin Eggshell Nautilus dishes stamped "37" on the back. 1937 was a good year for dishware. They are so delicate that you can see the shadow of your hand through them if you hold them up to a light. I have another set of the same type of dishes in a cream color with a pastel half-inch stripe around the edge. I was with my son, Jack, when I bought those. It was one of those enthusiastic moments....just had to buy those. We couldn't let them sit on the shelf in some awful second hand store. Those dishes are so delicate that I would be afraid to place anything on them. Yet, they are to be used. Perhaps a garden party down the road. In less than 20 years, they will be 100 years old!

I wish I didn't like dishes so much.

Happy Birthday Gordon Lightfoot

2011-11-17T18:31:00.009-06:00

Couldn't wait to get out of work today. The weather was brisk....upper 20s...a clear sky and night was falling fast. With tons of leaves in my yard, time was running out. Why not do some night yard work? I put a flood lamp outside and brought my big CD player with all the Gordon Lightfoot CDs that I own and started in raking and singing and letting my mind wonder.

And the piles are all gone!

Just a few stragglers left up in the big maple tree. I don't get it.....just let go of those branches and get it over with!

Now it's time to relax and enjoy listening to the albums. What a perfect night....daydreaming of that place that is always and forever kind to me....a time when I was 30 or so years younger and maybe a few pounds thinner (!); blonde hair that did what it wanted to do as long as I left it alone and ran my fingers through it; carrying a huge crush on a fellow art and architecture student that lasted so many years until he died; a talented artist who had no idea where it was all leading to. And of course, there was always the music that drove the art....the music I'm listening to tonight. Cheers!

The great chicken bake off

2011-11-12T20:15:00.006-06:00

I purchased a chicken from a farmer at the winter farmers market. It was quite pricey but a special splurge and I think we should support the people that grow our food locally.

I thought it would be fun to see if there was any difference between that chicken and one called an "organic" chicken at my local grocery store. The farmers market chicken is on the left.

If you think there is something not quite right about these, it's because they were roasted upside down!!! I got all disoriented and couldn't tell the difference between the breast side and the back side. Those thighs were mighty big and muscular.

They look too much like real chickens. I think that's enough meat eating for awhile.

11-11-2011

2011-11-11T19:27:00.003-06:00

And it's Veteran's Day.

Early morning

2011-11-10T19:59:00.002-06:00

And there are more leaves on that tree!

The sun hitting a tree before the clouds rolled in and a crazy snow flurry "storm" began.

seeds for next year

2011-11-06T06:35:00.003-06:00

Trumpet Lilies

Marigolds

Petunias

I have NO idea if all of this pod emptying of tiny spheres of black will produce petunias next spring. How do they start petunias? Something to look forward to. My stash of flower seeds for next year has grown from just marigolds last year to some wild flowers, cosmos, these petunias and the trumpet lilies. There are also the usual cast of veggie characters: beans and squash seeds. I'm branching out to more flowers next year.

Getting ready for w-i-n-t-e-r

2011-10-29T17:10:00.012-05:00

I follow a few small farm blogs and am comforted by their narratives about preparing for winter. While I don't REALLY have a "farm," I DO have a food producing 1/2 acre that has to be prepped for winter. I confess.....I also have a house and garage on that 1/2 acre and I DO like to have my fussy flower gardens but it all deserves some callouts when it comes to prepping for winter. And that is what I did today. And that is why I'm relaxing with my pants rolled up and my feet up.

Over the last few weeks, I have been running into this fellow and his smaller cousin (not photographed). I have no idea where it came from but I have been known to cut off some leaves to add to a sandwich now and then. I don't even know what it is.

I bought a cast iron thing-ie for a couple of bucks at a resale shop. I debated whether to buy it or leave it but decided to error on the side of "you can't have enough stuff" and purchased it. And now it holds my firewood right outside my back door.

These are the leeks that started out as fine, hair-like blades that I just put into holes that I made with my finger. If anything, it proves that you really have to try hard to kill things. A sliver of a leek into a hole in clay and voila!

They just don't quit! I still have some hardy fellows on amazingly tall and lush pepper plants. In the six years that I have been growing veggies here, I have never had a pepper season like this one.

Another shock. Where did this one Swiss Chard plant come from? I didn't plant any in this area. And it is so healthy and beautiful. I hate to eat it. Oh oh, sounding like my rationalization for not eating meat. I'm quite sure this plant won't mind if I eat a few leaves.

I'm getting ready for chillier times. My wood has been stacked for a few roaring fires and my kale is ignoring the calendar.

This guy amazes me. It's my asparagus plant. It's like a headstrong child. It just does what it wants to do.

I made this lovely confetti pattern by hauling piles of leaves over and digging them into the soil. Very intense.

If I didn't know that I just took this photo on October 29th, I would say that it is August. It was a beautiful day here in southeast Wisconsin. Now I know why my great grandparents decided to stop their journey west and stay right here.

Look at this soil! I am so amazed that this used to be my lawn. It has taken me a good 3 years in this part of the garden to go from grass to solid clay to something not that bad! Let me digress....this is why you can have whatever day job we all have and manage to find your real blessings and satisfaction coming from what you dig up and run through your fingers in your backyard. Cheers to me!

I raked and gathered some leaves to toss over my garden. I only had enough leaves for half of it but I was able to turn them over. This is the experiment for next growing season....does it matter if I leave the leaves on the soil or will turning them into the soil produce more decomposition for next spring. Something to live for.

Brilliant

2011-10-29T13:38:00.004-05:00

The colors have already hit their prime for most foliage but I still see some bright colors outside my window. It's not easy thinking of it getting cold but it's on the way. No stopping it now. Today was another stolen day of sun and temperature in the 50s. It's been like this for the last 3 days and I've taken advantage of this gift of mild weather by hitting the bike trail for my favorite 12 miles of mental health rehab. As soon as I turn onto that trail, I can feel myself smiling. It clears the head, the lungs and helps with the calf muscles, too!

Remember that "issue" I have with my ceiling? I have to get to the bottom of it. The good thing about taking your time is you can find solutions that were not evident 6 months ago. For instance, now I'm certain of where the problem is. My son flooded the windows of the dormer above the leak with water and I watched it drench the room below. OK, maybe this experiment would have been equally as successful with less water but a waterfall told me what has to be redone which is far less than what I thought the worst case scenario was. And, in the 6 month interim, I have come up with the plan to fix the ceiling. This was also not clear to me back when I broke open the ceiling. So the next time you feel you are being hassled about not finishing a project, you can just say that you are mulling over solutions. Yeah, that's right...I'm THINKING about how I'm going to fix it.

Peppers

2011-10-26T18:26:00.003-05:00

Every year I start peppers from seed and then complain that I don't get more than 2 or 3. This year I had a bumper crop of firm, crisp, juicy peppers. So juicy they squirt you in the eye when you cut into one. These aren't huge but they will be so delicious. Note to self, start peppers from seed again. That is the fun in growing your own food. There is always next year.

Victim No. 1, Fall 2011

2011-10-22T15:25:00.002-05:00

Ahhh, peanut butter got him.

what's green and grows on a stem?

2011-10-19T19:17:00.003-05:00

$3.49 at Trader Joe's. Grown in California. If they had been grown in Wisconsin, they would be fresher and cheaper.

Nature's Velcro

2011-10-16T13:04:00.003-05:00

Nature's Zipper

Nature's Hairpin

Nature's Headband

(scroll down)

Nature's Bad Joke

Sunday

2011-10-16T08:56:00.001-05:00

The mystery of small things

2011-10-15T09:03:00.004-05:00

Did you ever wonder how small things manage to collect into large things that can make such a difference in how we observe our reality? Just a few things, a few events but strung together to make something much larger and of greater importance.

I've been interested in this book for some time. There it was in my neighborhood "vintage" shop for 99 cents.

I looked out the window this morning and a smile came across my face. The weather has changed from two weeks of glorious 7o-80 degree days to 50, blustery but still sunny.

I have one big project here. I want to separate out the various sunflower seeds.

And just to remind me that all is not perfect in my queen-dom.....

This post is about what makes me happy and what grounds me. And most of it is about very simple things. I have a passion for laundry on the line, albums from what I call "the good years," making plans for next year's garden and puttering around the house. Last night I puttered and solved a nagging problem. (I guess that leaves the ceiling as the remaining nagging problem.) I call it the heartbreak of the tiny house. When you have size constraints but interesting hobbies, you simply must give careful consideration to space. Now that I have rearranged things, it is not acceptable to have my records on the floor under a potential dining space. Last night, I sorted, rearranged and found a solution to that storage problem. Now that I can see what I have, I can reach into the "archives" and pull out something interesting. Joan Baez perhaps? Listen to "Fountain of Sorrow." It's written by Jackson Browne. It made me think about how tiny things can collect into who we are, where we are going and if we are happy along the journey. The only requirement is that you must remain observant. Those small things can sometimes escape our horizon and then they are gone.

Need a little inspiration?

2011-10-14T06:43:00.001-05:00

http://www.thegreenhorns.net/

(Watch the movie.)

A slow day...

2011-10-10T17:14:00.007-05:00

I decided to enjoy my sick day, if that's possible, by checking the photos in my camera that are a few days old. This cold has been coming on for almost a week. I dismissed it as allergies but about 2 days ago, it became apparent that I was in for a doozie. Sinuses on fire, chest cough, runny nose, hoarseness, exhaustion, coughing fits for no reason, hmmm, sounds like a good time. It sounds like a Theraflu kind'a night. That stuff is quite good. Unfortunately, the weather has been fabulous.....70s and sunny IN OCTOBER! And here I sit in my jammies surrounded by toilet paper and tissues.

A few days ago, I dug out my carrots. That's most of them in the strainer. But above is a photo of each kind that I planted. I tend to avoid the long, thin ones because my soil isn't the best. The best for my conditions are the shorter varieties. Nothing like a fresh carrot. Maybe Theraflu but I didn't have to dig that up.

My latest obsession is trying to work around the limitations -- size and amount of furniture -- in my living room so I can take advantage of a space that opened up when I moved my old computer out of the room. Over the weekend, I enlisted the help of my son who has now moved that rug and couch two times. It's a good thing that he's a problem solver because I had NO idea how to do that. No, I am not in love with covers for chairs, but the upholstery on two of the chairs is a light beige raw silk and I'm trying to keep it in good condition. The family beagle tried to dig through the back of the couch years ago so it's already compromised.

And this is what I ended up doing with it. I know, get a hobby or get a POD!

reflections

2011-10-06T18:52:00.005-05:00

Haven't had time to add much over the last few days. It seemed like a good day to catch up.

Even though I knew it was inevitable, Steve Job's death is devastating to anyone who has experienced the smooth, quiet efficiency and design of an Apple computer. As someone who has had almost every generation of Mac in my home, it is especially sad. Too young. Younger than me.

The inside of a purple pepper...if you've ever wondered about that.

I planted these gladiolas a few weeks ago. Very, very late. Two of them produced these lovely flowers. Finally, I know what to put in that vase!

And this is my stress reliever. I have rediscovered my bike. Every summer, I rediscover it so it's nothing new. By this time of the year, I'm addicted to riding. I have to go. I have to throw off my work clothes and quickly put on some comfortable biking clothes and off I go. This year, a new section of a county bike trail opened up and it's a mere 500 feet from my house! This has only fueled the addiction. Today I celebrated a stolen summer day in October by heading up the 15 miles that I call my daily workout. As soon as I get on my bike, I feel free.

Yup, my bike. It's about 30 years old. We might be old but we can still go the distance.

And this is the garden these days. Almost everything has been pulled out except for kale, some beans that I'm letting dry, carrots, leeks, peppers, eggplants, marigolds and some spent daisies. It's always a relief to get to this point...cleaning up after a season of producing food is a good feeling. Almost time to make notes and plans for next season. Not ready to head into winter.

Nothing is too good for them

2011-09-29T18:09:00.002-05:00

Those devils. I sense their presence.

all mixed up

2011-09-24T19:33:00.006-05:00

I woke up this morning with several tasks to do. My new refrigerator was going to be delivered in the afternoon so I spent the morning clearing a path from the front door (above) through my living room and into the kitchen. But I already had a few projects going so this complicated things. I'm in the middle of reglazing my french windows so all of those supplies were in the rooms and furniture was pushed aside for the priming and painting episodes which, of course, was all set to be done today. Keeping track? We've got priming, clearing a path, pulling out old fridge, cleaning up behind old fridge, stepping around furniture in every room and then let's just go for a 20 mile bike ride after doing two loads of laundry and hanging them outside to dry....for me, a usual weekend....I sometimes like to really beat myself up. It all got done. The fridge is in, the windows are primed, the coolers are emptied and put away, the new fridge is full of limp food, the priming supplies are cleared out, the rooms are somewhat cleaned, the laundry is inside and I got a new inner tube for my rear tire. Let's just leave that story out.

Why this litany of insanity? Sometimes I want to prove to myself that I can still do it all.....even with a lazy thyroid! I can't wait for it to get regulated so I can really get things done. I do not tolerate laziness.

Slow days in the garden

2011-09-18T08:42:00.003-05:00

Yes, you can tell that things are winding down with garden chores.

Rain is expected today which we really need . It is so dry that I bent a shovel trying to dig out some carrots. To keep myself occupied, I went vintage shopping yesterday and came home with a few pieces of a very cool set of dishes. I couldn't let them sit there on the shelf languishing amidst all of the usual 70s heavy plates in avocado and golden rod.

Before we get the rain today, I ran out and collected some very dry seeds. I'm going to try saving more seeds this year. Good thing I enjoy my herring because those jars make perfect containers.

that's right, count'em

2011-09-17T20:25:00.002-05:00

How many computers are there in this room? Four.

I replaced a large monitor with a new flat screen one two days ago.

My son helped me move the computer, an older Mac G4, a scanner, a printer along with all the connections and wiring into the room behind their old home which was what I often called "the shrine." Just drill a larger hole in the wall. So what we have here is a collection of Macs. And I just ordered another one!

This is the shrine. I had the large CRT on the table along with the G4, the scanner and lots of accoutrements. It was a tad sad because I have used that set up since I moved here. It was transitional....my freelance setup at my old house moved in its entirety to my new house and there it sat.

It served me well. Look! I still have the cheat sheet post-its that remind me to adjust curves for one of my clients. Those are probably decades old. I can't bring myself to get rid of it. My son said that it really isn't human. But I know that that's not necessarily true. It got me through some pretty rough times. This monitor and I were a partnership. I worked at my freelance projects after my day job for about 2 years. Somehow, I made it through those years when I didn't know how I was going to survive with all of my family's responsibilities dumped on me.

Had my blood test today. If all is right, I will be able to get off this godforsaken sans carbohydrate diet. I'm already off of it. There is only so much a person can do. Have we suffered enough? I think so.

Just like a trip to the grocery store

2011-09-14T20:11:00.004-05:00

You won't see this scene for another year. Tomatoes waiting to be dried in the oven.

I went out to the garden after work to see what I could grab. The weather is getting a little chilly and I didn't really know what I would find out there. I came back with a bucket full of stuff. It was like being in a grocery store. Only everything was free!

Garlic, onions, beets, green beans, a purple pepper, an eggplant, a zucchini, kale, lettuce, parsley and basil.

The bottom of the bucket.

I am not ready for winter. Not this year.

Just close your eyes...

2011-09-12T18:48:00.007-05:00

Grab yourself a beverage of your choice and pretend you're back in the late 60s or early 70s when these guys were riding a wild wave of acceptance and popularity. If you were part of the art scene or the folk scene, you were carrying these albums with you when you went to someone's house to get together with fellow artists and friends. And it certainly didn't hurt that they were extremely handsome! Gordon Lightfoot is on tour again. I saw him last fall. I can't remember what he sounded like because I just relived every album I had and played it in my head while he was on stage. Leonard Cohen just finished a heroic year-plus-long tour. I saw him in Minneapolis two years ago. A person has to see these people while you can. I'll just say it...I want to be back in college as an art student. There, I said it. Maybe it was just the calamity of the 25 years after college but I tend to look at my college years as the best. At least for me they were. Is there really anything wrong with living in the past? I think not! The past is always kind.

Has it really been ten years?

2011-09-11T07:57:00.004-05:00

Everyone who was able to create a memory ten years ago will never pass over this date without every minute of that morning in 2001 rushing back to them. I have recounted in detail in a blog last year where I was then. It was marked by that tragedy. Now, I also see it as a time in my life when I was busy with my children's early teen years. The older I get, the more I revisit that time.....for many and totally different reasons.

Good morning!

2011-09-10T09:03:00.003-05:00

Can you ever have enough sunflowers? Somehow I managed to get something in bloom all season in my new front yard garden. These were started in a flat to prevent squirrels from consuming the seeds if I direct sowed. This created a problem because by the time the seedlings were large enough to transplant, I didn't have any place to put sunflowers so I grabbed fist-fulls of them and threw them in the new garden. That was my method for marigold planting which will be featured at a later time as they tend to last longer while these beauties are at their height of color. Now I have to figure out how to save their seeds for next year. Won't that be fun?

Just watchin' the Packer game.

2011-09-08T20:36:00.002-05:00

And I'm catching up on some blogging chores. Time got away from me this week.

Hmmm, it looks like I had this for breakfast at some point. It looks like bacon and eggs with corn and cherry tomatoes. I remember it tasting better than it looks here.

This looks like a pile of "stuff." It was a very large harvest one day this week. The beans are starting over and the tomatoes are nearly done.

I found this leaf sticking out of the green bean patch. Where did THIS come from? It's not REALLY fall...yet, is it?

After bringing in all of that bounty a few photos back, I cut it all up and made my usual vegetable "stew." Festive, don't you think?

I only got 4 or 5 Brandywine tomatoes out of about 12 plants! And just 2 of those were big ones. This is the 2nd big one and I ate it all. I have NO idea where that lettuce came from but I found it amidst some pepper plants and I ate it, too!

Assorted ramblings at the end of summer.

2011-09-02T21:05:00.003-05:00

Here we go. I finally got to light the candles that have been waiting for a nice evening in the side yard and I have a gigantic oil spot sitting there in the driveway! It didn't look that huge when I saw it in the afternoon!

I never looked at my chestnut trees in the dark...with a flash.

I wanted to light these candles for about a year. They were just waiting for the perfect evening.

Here we are on the cusp of fall. Time to think of the end of another summer and the slow movement to another winter. It's always so short.

My friends from work stopped by tonight to usher in the Labor Day weekend. Some history....I reinvented myself at the age of 50. I remember everything about that time. I don't even want to call it a stressful time because that doesn't do it justice. I felt like an extra terrestrial who was dropped onto a new planet. However, there were so many people that helped me survive that time. And a few of them stopped by tonight to greet the fall by drinking some excellent wine and snacking on excellent treats. I used to hear that you don't make good friends at this age but I am here to say that it isn't true.

My bachelor neighbor.

2011-08-26T10:14:00.006-05:00

Here he is. I heard shrill squeaking outside my back door and found him yelling about something he didn't like in the neighborhood. He might be handsome, but he IS living under my back steps.

I took a day off today and guess what? Yup, another vat of tomato sauce in the works.

And more dehydrated cherry and grape tomatoes.

Has anyone read this book? Appropriate, n'est-ce pas?

While the east coast of the United States is gearing up and buttoning down for the hurricane, here in the midwest it is an absolutely beautiful day. Now that the canning is nearly done, I might take a long bike ride, work ahead in the online classes I'm taking, clean the house (it never ends!) or just read some fat and fabulous fashion magazines!

Some photos from yesterday.

2011-08-23T21:06:00.008-05:00

I was washing a few sweaters on a perfect day this week and had some room in the washing machine so I grabbed my go-to winter coat and threw it in. It was either going to be a stroke of genius or a huge blunder. It turned out to be the former. I was very lucky. The coat is maroon and it is now really, really clean!

This is a closeup of my tomato garden. If nothing else, there is plenty of room to walk right through it without stepping on too much.

Here's a view from outside. Amazing that I am able to harvest a dozen let alone enough to make jam and sauce. This is the result of not staking (which WAS intentional) and being hit by weather that fussy tomato plants do not enjoy: cold and wet Junes, scorching Julys and an August that isn't going to be long enough to make up for the other two!

I guess my worries about having gay squash plants can be put aside. I do see some zucchini plants with some zucchinis on the plant! They try to hide from me but I find them eventually.

Here's a summer squash also in hiding.

It is amazing how these things grow.

My favorite shade of yellow.

I started some cosmos this year from seed. It reminds me of the time about 19 years ago when each of my kids chose a package of flower seeds to grow. None of them came up. But my son kept saying the word "cosmos" and I now feel like I have completed that circle. Finally I have those cosmos! And they are so lovely! I'm going to grow them again next year!

I might need an intervention!

2011-08-22T12:39:00.009-05:00

What does a crazy person do on a vacation day?

Make tomato sauce! How do I get to the above point -- dipping a crusty hunk of bread topped with butter into some leftover sauce?

Get yourself organized. For me, that's always difficult.

It all starts with 8 pounds of assorted tomatoes. Use whatever is ripe or almost ripe.

Start by softening up 8 cloves of garlic in 1/2 cup of olive oil. Then set it aside while you dive into the next steps.

Some steps are done simultaneously with others. The jars have been washed and are now in boiling water. This step usually results in burning myself.

After all the jars have been sterilized, they go into a warm oven. Not hot, just warm enough.

Wash your tomatoes.

Score your tomatoes and get them into a basket for blanching to remove the skins. This step also results in me splashing boiling water on myself.

Plunge the tomatoes into cold water and remove the skins.

Here they are....all ready for some fun.

I use my hands instead of cutting them into small pieces. What's the point?

Did I really use this saucepan last year??

I like to use a potato masher to break down the tomatoes.

Add the garlic and olive oil and bring to a boil.

Get the other ingredients ready.

Let it simmer and add all the ingredients except the basil.

After simmering the sauce for maybe 15 minutes, add your fresh basil and continue simmering for another 15 minutes or until you get the thickness of the sauce to your liking.

I left out the messy part of filling the jars....yet another opportunity to splash myself with boiling liquid. Just know that there was sauce on the floor and dripping down my arm.

Place your jars into the hot water bath. Note to self....you really can't arrange the jars in the boiling water WITH YOUR FINGERS!

Cover and let it boil for 35 minutes. Be sure to start cleaning up or you'll never get out of the kitchen if you wait until the sauce is ready to come out of the hot water bath! You DO have 35 minutes after all! (At this point, I ate that piece of bread which is in the first photograph!)

Done! Raise the jars out of the bath.

Grab the little guys and let them rest for 12 to 24 hours. Be sure to splash some boiling water on yourself just incase you haven't hurt yourself enough. You will hear the wonderful "ping" of the caps the second they get out of the boiling water. This is good.

And here they are. I think this is the best batch I have ever made. I don't know why. I used Celebrities, Brandywines, Chocolate Cherries and Roma tomatoes.

This little cooktop sure performs for me. It might be small but it is mighty.

P Allen Smith

2011-08-21T09:05:00.005-05:00

I admit, it wasn't love at first viewing of one of his shows. Over time I've grown to really like P. Allen Smith and his TV shows. But how does he do it? How can he eat all of that stuff he grows? He must eat about 30 - 100 eggs a day! And that doesn't leave room for the tons of other crops and God knows whatever else he's got going there!

Speaking of eggs....Here are 2 eggs from Amy's Happy Hens and one from an organic supplier at my local food store. Boy, nothing like the real thing!

The Brandywine on the right was huge. For comparison, a Celebrity is on the left and a Sweet 100 is in front. I was surprised that it was a pinkish color. I'm glad I took it in when I did. It was starting to split. I guess they never get to be a vibrant red. But the inside was plenty ripe!

I ate the whole thing. I believe that was a pound of tomato.

Come to think of it, I eat tomatoes at least 2 times a day plus popping one in my mouth if I'm near the garden. Nothing like a warm tomato.

I can't eat all of them.

2011-08-20T08:15:00.011-05:00

With most gardens, things tend to ripen in groups. Even with tomato plants that look like they are half dead, there are still enough that are ready to be eaten all at the same time. I like to freeze some small Roma tomatoes, dry some cherry tomatoes and make jam with any others that don't fall into either of those categories which are the Celebrity, Chocolate Cherry and Roma tomatoes. I save the big Brandywines for sandwiches.

Here is 8 pounds of assorted tomatoes for jam.

A pot full.

Believe it or not, this has to be cooked down to a thick consistency without lumps. Last year, I followed the recipe and used a food processor but it was very messy and it got me to the goal no sooner. So I just start mashing them with my hands right after I blanche them and remove the skins and then use a hand potato masher while cooking them down.

Eventually, it starts to come together.

But it has lots of cooking to do to get to this point. You should really cook it down to about half of the original height in the pot. Hours of steamy stirring. I usually get a back ache and my feet are sore. At some point, when I'm nearly at the end, I have a cocktail.

After hours of prep time, I end up with between 4 and 6 half-pint jars of great tomato jam that is very good with a crusty bread, good cheese and hey, herring on the side isn't half-bad either!

Look familiar?

2011-08-15T18:12:00.004-05:00

Getting ready to go into the oven for some accelerated dehydrating.

Another basket of veggies. They all look alike.

Let the fun begin.

2011-08-14T21:03:00.004-05:00

I decided that it would be more fun to make peach jam vs. canning whole peaches.

The plan of attack is all set. Another day would be better if I was interested in waiting for the peaches to ripen just a tiny bit more. But the weather was perfect and I had time so I'm making peach jam for the first time!

No room for an extra spoon.

I'm amazed that I can fit all of these pots on that tiny cooktop. It certainly got a workout today.

Twelve pints. One went right into the fridge to eat now.

Tomatoes.

2011-08-13T17:57:00.003-05:00

The sun came out late after a day of rain. Love those golden pools on the greenery.

These are the chocolate cherry tomatoes. Interesting. They photograph well.

I should start eating some pretty soon.

It starts.

2011-08-12T19:07:00.003-05:00

Not this.

But this. The ripe veggies are starting to cover my counter. Tomorrow I will address this issue.

A little of this. A little of that.

2011-08-08T18:36:00.008-05:00

Here's what I've been waiting for. It's a Chocolate Cherry tomato. It doesn't taste any different and really isn't all that juicy.

So this is what I brought in from the garden tonight.

Kale, chard, green beans, assorted peppers (too hot for this meal), basil, cilantro, my only zucchini, carrots and a cucumber which I'm saving.

I added some garlic, onion and potatoes and threw caution to the wind.

I had to stop myself from eating the entire batch of this improvisation.

Abby's Bouquet.

2011-08-07T19:03:00.010-05:00

A beautiful centerpiece. Why am I loving it so much? This grouping of flowers was at the wedding of my daughter's good friend from high school, Abby. So many memories flooded back TO ME. (How about her 18th birthday party in the middle of the coldest January EVER and the theme was HAWAIIAN!! The basement never got warm enough to accommodate all of those kids wearing shorts although that poor furnace kept cranking so the folks upstairs were sweating!) I can only imagine what went on at the reception with the old gang. If you made good friends in high school, you are indeed blessed. Going to an all girls school may force a few issues like needing a group of guys to go to dances with. But now, eight years later, those guys are still a source of funny stories for the moms involved.

Abby married her boyfriend from high school. So many memories. Don't get me wrong, it cost a lot of money to send my children to same sex Catholic high schools. But, there wasn't a minute that I worried about who they were with or what they were doing. (Almost.) It was definitely worth every sacrifice that was made by many family members. How about the time Abby's parents hosted a post prom party at their house and stayed up all night to chaperone. Thank you.

So here's a toast to Abby and Tony! Thanks for the centerpiece. It is bringing so many pleasant memories back to me.....just a mom who was along for the ride.

My daughter and her significant otherS about to leave for the wedding. (I kept the dog for the evening.)

Guests for breakfast.

2011-08-06T11:48:00.002-05:00

My daughter holding the perfect canine houseguest, Detective. He's supervising the frying of the bacon.

Eggs from Amy's hens. I have a deep respect for the art of egg laying.

Part fox?

The sad truth.

2011-08-03T17:58:00.006-05:00

Yet another bad year for tomatoes. A cold and rainy June followed by sweltering July.

It's not all doom and gloom.

Along with a beautiful day today with humidity under control and the temperature in the high 70s, I found this! My one and only zucchini!

And this lovely cucumber.

No. 3

2011-08-03T06:26:00.004-05:00

This is one of two window air conditioners I picked up at Walmart last night. It was a Site to Store purchase. I ordered online and drove to my nearest Walmart to pick them up.....3 days earlier than expected! Yeah! One went to my son who lives with two roommates and one goes to my other son who is giving up his air conditioned bedroom upstairs to his visiting sister today. It's like an inferno upstairs. Like I told my neighbor last night, I figured out that I could buy 300 window AC's with the money I'm saving by not replacing my central air conditioner which went bad a month ago. Let's see, that means I have 297 more to go! The humidity here has been so heavy that even with stifling heat, grass is green and lush. Not a good situation. Usually grass goes dormant in this kind of extended heat but not if there is enough moisture in the air to keep it green. It IS good for the skin though. No need for facial moisturizer. The last thing you want to do it slather on oily stuff when you're constantly sweating.

It's the simple things.

2011-08-01T20:02:00.004-05:00

I never want to get to the point where I'm not grateful as can be for something as taken for granted as two working sinks sitting right next to each other. The one of the right has been out of commission for about 6 to 9 months. The garbage disposal was broken and it stopped draining. Yuk. My new best friend, the plumber, came over today and replaced the disposal and when I came home from work, I had a real working sink situation again! It was far better than going to a spa or something self-indulgent. I've got my sinks back! So simple. So taken for granted. I had a feeling like I had gotten the best gift ever. Not a fancy sink but it works again!

Rise and Shine

2011-07-30T09:11:00.002-05:00

Lots more cleaning and tidying up to do today and tomorrow. I have an online quiz to take for the online class I'm taking and some laundry to hang up outside. It's going to be a hot and steamy day, too.

Woops!

2011-07-29T21:04:00.006-05:00

I ordered a small air conditioner for my son today. Oh heck, I ordered TWO of them. What the heck. Who wants to go to their grave with only one air conditioner.

An e-mail confirmation came through from Walmart. It read "your email confirmation..."

It's the end of a long week of denial. No carbs. No wine. No fun. I'm having several glasses of Pinot Grigio after washing floors, vacuuming and bathroom cleaning in a preliminary preparation for my daughter's visit this Wednesday. Oh, that's right, back to the funny story... I read my Walmart confirmation as "my week's wine consumption." Which, by the way, was only 2 large glasses!

The first ones.

2011-07-26T20:30:00.003-05:00

Not quite ripe grape tomatoes. Nice snap peas. Swiss chard and kale.

Is it over already?

2011-07-25T21:36:00.003-05:00

The first turning tomato. It won't be long now.

Anyway, on my drive home from work today, I was struck by the light. It looked like fall. The shadows were long and the angle of the sun starting to lower in the sky. Can it be happening already? It seems like I'm still waiting for that perfect summer weather. Not too hot, not too dry, no floods. Instead, I got that feeling that comes over me in September. But it's too soon!

The light at 5:30.

Beans

2011-07-24T13:25:00.009-05:00

I picked beans over the last couple of days and ended up with way too many to eat right now. The answer is freezing. After cleaning them and cutting them, you boil them.

The next step is to stop the cooking. I only have 4 trays of ice cubes and it's so hot out today that I'm saving them for myself later. Instead, I tried this....and it works just fine. You have to submerge the beans in cold water.

When you have a kitchen with a lot of issues, you learn early on that there is going to be lots of inventing and problem solving going on.

To keep the beans and ice pack submerged, you can get your favorite pretty plate and that should work just fine.

The result is three large bags of beans ready to use in the middle of winter! The first of many 3-bag contributions I would think.

There is so much going on in the garden now. Oh my. I have a cucumber almost ready to pick, tons of tomatoes, carrots, beets, kale, lettuce, and pepper and eggplant blossoms. I was a little concerned that maybe I had gay squash this year because it looked like I had only male blossoms. But this morning I saw the beginnings of assorted squash. I draw the line at polinating.

What I ate last night.

2011-07-23T08:53:00.006-05:00

I came home from work last night to the delicious aroma of a chicken in my kitchen. Let me clarify. It was a chicken in my oven in my kitchen! My son and his girlfriend, Claire, came over in the afternoon and prepared a most delicious dinner for me! The days of me making dinner for myself are long gone. Or, almost long gone. Except for throwing together ingredients from my garden, I don't think in terms of a meal consisting of courses. That is, unless you consider crackers and cheese followed by herring to be two courses. But then, that was in my hors d'oeuvres and cocktailing days. I've scaled way back on the cocktails and carbohydrates since my recent run in with my "fatty" liver and hyperglycemia, so any fun involving dining has been nearly erased. It's just eating to survive now. Eh, no joy in the single life anymore!

Getting back to the dinner last night. It was a chicken that was stuffed with lemon, rosemary and whole garlic cloves and roasted over cubes of hearty bread. Corn on the cob so sweet that we wondered if it was even possible to be that sweet and a lovely salad. The star of the meal was the chocolate mousse. It was made from scratch. All of this was such a lovely and delicious surprise. It's been years, if not decades--possibly never?-- since I've come home to a meal already prepared and the kitchen all cleaned up. Let's not forget that it was another hot, hot day here in the midwest so this was indeed a heroic effort.

Here's the most ridiculous part about this wonderful feast. I had no available platter for the chicken! The dishes were a mix and match affair. In the house of a dish collector, how does this happen? I must have 12 platters and 6 complete sets of vintage dishware but they are all tucked away in my basement in bins after the horrible flood exactly one year ago yesterday. It is still painful to think about this.

Greens, "It's what's for dinner."

2011-07-20T18:24:00.004-05:00

My very first cucumber! I'm so thrilled! In the past, I tried growing them but got nothing.

A huge amount of green beans and some kale and chard. I guess I'm having green beans for dinner! It never, ever ceases to amaze me that I can walk out to the garden and pick what I want to eat for dinner. Most of the time, it's a situation of picking what is ripe and ready to go and then trying to figure out what to do with it.

What does 98 degrees look like?

2011-07-20T16:30:00.008-05:00

It looks like this.

It certainly paid off to buy the high end replacement windows. I feel absolutely no heat through them. It kept the house not too bad today with all the windows shut. Hard to believe, I know.

Proof.

How is it possible to not grumble about this? Maybe it's because all winter, my thermostat doesn't go above 58 degrees. I'm storing this heat for the days when I'm wearing flannel pjs, wool socks, fingerless gloves, a purple alpaca scarf and wrapped in a pink mohair coat. I just got goose pimples thinking about it.

I don't know how these plants tolerate this heat. They look like it's a 75 degree day.

I love daylilies. They are so beautiful and give you just one day to enjoy each flower.

Tomatoes are ready to start turning red.

It looks like the squash aren't enjoying the steamy weather.

We had a lovely rain last night. It helped keep things green and it saved me the time and money of watering everything tonight.

You'd never know it's so hot outside.

Yup, love daylilies.

It's 12:12 p.m.

2011-07-17T12:14:00.007-05:00

And I have had a full day already.

The garden on the right was added last year for no real reason other than I want a view that I can enjoy when I look out my front windows. It really has come a long way since last fall when I started throwing in whatever was cheapest and left over at the garden stores. I accidentally added what appears to be the Mammoth Sunflowers instead of the Autumn ones. The Autumn ones are shorter and are multicolored.

Today started out with two loads of laundry done and hanging on the line. I followed that with priming the back side of the house. It's going to be very hot here and maybe rain which equals humidity which is not good for siding that has been cleaned and almost bare. I had to get that primer on. I looked like a sprinkler. Sweat was honestly just running off my face. And since I had to spray myself due to the onslaught of mosquitoes, I figured why not just take a look at the garden while I'm filthy. After I finished painting, I did indeed go down to the garden and weeded, gathered the veggies above (OK, I was too eager with the carrots and the beets!) for dinner tonight.

Tomatoes.

The cucumbers on the left, beans in the middle and along the top left outer and top edge are squash. The carrots are on the in the middle right. The bottom is a mess. I had the space left over and now it's filling up with weeds.

View from the hill.

View at the top of the hill. That's what I painted today. It was no picnic wrestling with those day lilies. Oh, and if anyone is interested in a great weed killer or grass killer, I would suggest a TSP mixture and bleach. It seems to have worked its magic here around the patio table and chairs! No more Round'Up for me!

There are lots of tomatoes. And, as is my trademark, some yellow blotched leaves. Oh well, what's summer without blight?

I love the color of snap peas. I grabbed some rough sticks and put them near the peas so they could start climbing.

Leeks and peppers and lots of weeds. This is what I cleaned up after I took the photo!

After my adventure this morning, I hosed myself off with freezing water from the hose and came inside to sit in front of the fan and that's where I am now. Brrrrr.

Did he have a face lift?

2011-07-13T19:29:00.002-05:00

I'm talkin' about P. Allen Smith. Is it just me or does it look like his eyebrows are just a tad too high lately? I never really liked him but then I had to stop my martini intake and suddenly, he's OK. Go figure.

Things are really happening now. Here are some squash blossoms. Lots of them. Love that cadmium yellow blossom. I should paint my kitchen this color. And then wear sunglasses.

I have my first snap peas! I thought I had one in this photo but honestly, I don't see it.

What? don't want to look at tomato plants? I am so thrilled because about 95% of them are perfect. No yellow leaves. Tons of blossoms. I keep thinking I'm going to come home to a sea of yellow blotched leaves. Just on the Brandywines. And only a few of those. If only I had labeled my plants. I'm most interested in the Chocolate Cherry variety. I'm assuming that I'll be able to tell them apart from the other varieties.

These are Asiatic lillies that I threw in at some point. I love how they are fighting for the same turf as the daisies. Amidst all of the veggies, I have this little drama going on.

Rabbit food.

2011-07-12T18:55:00.005-05:00

Part of dinner tonight. A basket of chard and kale, the first beets and basil. I splurged tonight and, after wilting everything in the photo, I added some forbidden pasta and a chicken breast. I have to admit that I am rather hopeful about the bounty of the garden this year. The beets were delicious (tiny but tasty) and there are definitely more of them out there. I planted the seeds in a layer of peat moss and this helped keep them under the soil vs. popping up. I have some yellowed leaves on the Brandywine tomatoes. Just the Brandywines. It's possible that because they are heirlooms, they don't have the resistance to disease that some of the other varieties that I planted this year have. Otherwise, the remaining 80 tomato plants (!!!) are lookin' good. The first pea pods are just about ready to pick and tomorrow should reveal some teeny tiny squash. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon. The blossoms have shriveled up and the next phase is the tiny fruit! Can't wait for cucumbers and zucchini and butternut squash. If I'm lucky, I'll be complaining about having too many squash this year.

Roots of the name.

2011-07-10T08:28:00.003-05:00

Lots of bean blossoms.

The daisy patch.

So far, so good.

2011-07-06T18:54:00.002-05:00

Squash, beans and cucumbers.

Some leftover tomato plants that I stuck in pots outside my back door along with basil.

Closeup of a squash or zucchini plant. Not sure what it is yet. Hoping for some blossoms soon!

The tomato garden.

The eggplants are finally taking off.

I think these might be grape tomatoes. I'm still hoping for a bumper crop.

Not enough minutes in the day.

2011-07-03T19:33:00.006-05:00

Another day of toiling in the hot sun finishing up that door and lawn mowing. I don't have a new photo of the garden so I decided to take a photo of what I'm looking at and see where I end up if I write about it. If this is any indication of evaluating my goal in life, I think I'm close to achieving it. What I want to do is to have an interesting scene or set, as in theater set, everywhere I look at home. Inside and outside. What I've come to believe is that a person can eat on a cheap plate made in China or you can find a vintage 1920 plate made in England and elevate your toasted cheese sandwich to the level of a gourmet meal. It's all in the details. Why eat on junk when you can go to Goodwill and find a piece of history to eat on for $.99? And that is my philosophy. Why should I look at a rocking chair that has been in my family since the 1920s when I can look at that chair with a mink collar and a leopard skin muff and collar draped over it? The clock that is in the photograph is from my father. He had it cleaned and fixed up for me. It has been wound (even if it chimes at odd times) every day. I have only let it lapse a few times since he gave it to me. My dad would love my little house. It's too bad that I never returned to a state of happiness while he was alive. Darn.

Buy them all whenever you can.

2011-07-01T20:12:00.002-05:00

A bill to repeal the banning of ordinary incandescent light bulbs is bottled up in a congressional committee despite Americans’ apparent distaste for the more expensive bulbs that would replace them.

The 100-watt incandescent bulb is scheduled to be outlawed in January 2012, the 75-watt bulb will disappear in January 2013, and the 60-watt and 40-watt bulbs in January 2014.

I'm one person. I have a closet full of lightbulbs. Yes, they are the incandescent version. One day I decided to clean my "lightbulb closet" and was horrified to find I had been stockpiling these Edison bulbs! I don't remember moving boxes of them. Somehow they managed to creep into my life here at Daisy Farm. I should have enough to last until I'm dead and then to light a whopping big party for myself after that!

My day off.

2011-07-01T17:58:00.007-05:00

A day off and I can't sit still. My roommate/son, Phil, is painting the siding on my house so I decided to help by tackling the front door. It's the original wooden door from 1941 so it has seen a lot of weather. Gads, 1941. Imagine all of those winters. Anyway, I made a supply run to the hardware store to pick up everything from liquid nails (?) to more sandpaper and primer and a bottle of wine. For me, not the door.

It's been 6 weeks of this crazy low carb diet but it's the July 4th weekend! (I think it might be working because my pants almost fell off while painting.)

I'm celebrating. I always celebrate. When I moved into this house 6 years ago, I spent the July 4th weekend digging my first garden in the back and hauling everything I could dig out from my old house to this house and planting it in my side yard. I remember that July 4th. I was EXHAUSTED! It was dark and I was all relaxed after taking my first bath (vs. shower) in probably 20 years and I was enjoying a martini. I could hear and see fireworks from all sides of my house. I was celebrating the freedom of my country and my new life in my little house.

Standing about 30 feet from my Minnesota Orange Blossom tree, I can smell it. I bought this because my daughter lives in Minneapolis. Nothing here at Daisy Farm is without significance.

Here is the door yesterday.

Here is the door today. I never could stay within the lines.

The yard has been successfully "fenced" in from intruders. The Canadian Hemlock on the lower left and another miniature lilac will do the trick. No more visitors. It's not like I'm a hermit or anything, but when I'm out in the yard, I like to be alone with my thoughts. Heck, I like to be alone with or without my thoughts!

2011-06-30T20:13:00.002-05:00

This experiment isn't going to be easy because I'm not staking my plants. I can't tell how tall they are because without staking, they are more bush-like.

But, I have a tomato!

This is a typical lo-carb lunch....a 5 gram wrap, yogurt, tuna, grapes, cheese, peaches. I might just be getting used to it.

Why didn't I think of this before?

2011-06-28T06:23:00.004-05:00

It seems like things grew 6 inches yesterday so I decided to do an experiment. I'll measure tonight to see if they DID grow 6 inches today. I know it's difficult to understand someone who loves to brush up against tomato plants just to smell them. There is something so satisfying in growing these from seed. I feel like I know each one of them and it was very hard to throw the last few on the compost pile. Last night I counted them. There are approximately 115 plants. Ninety of them are in the official tomato garden and the rest of them are planted here and there among the other flower gardens.

These are the beans. They grew about 3 inches yesterday.

And one of the squash varieties. I should mention that yesterday and for the next few days the weather is going to be stellar.

Busy, busy, busy.

2011-06-26T18:23:00.009-05:00

I never tire of this view.

Or this view. My love affair with a house.

I mowed last night and always like to enjoy how neat everything looks after but I forgot to look so here it is the next morning. The start of a very busy day in the garden....weeding and planting some very late gladiolas and cilantro, morning glories and more lavender. Can't have too much lavender. That's so when I pull out the bumper crop of bishop's weed, my nimble fingers brush up against the lavender and I forget about that weed from hell!

The morning started with one of Amy's Happy Hen's eggs. Delish!

Assorted colored pepper plants. They grew. Just believe me when I say it....they really are bigger!

Assorted herbs and onions here. I ripped out some old lettuce and cut back the spinach. Look at how neat those wood piles are! My new "roommate" (son, Phil) helped rearrange and sort through the messy pile.

Beets, kale, lettuce, peas and chard.

Zucchini, squash...butternut and summer, beans and carrots.

Tomatoes. Lots of the plants have blossoms. Enjoy the moment.

I finished planting the remaining 2 dozen tomato plants that were still in cups. Instead of tossing them on the compost pile, I put them here and there. Heck, if you've got healthy, food producing plants, you should grow whatever it is that you have. If I should be so lucky as to have an actual bumper crop of tomatoes this year, I'll donate my surplus (from 100 plants, there should be SOME surplus!) to the local food bank. We should all be growing food and not prissy lawn. I have a lot of lawn because I have 1/2+ acres here and only one aging body to do this work! Sometimes it's just easier to fire up the Toro and mow grass. It does provide a nice contrast to the gardens.

Eggplants with thick rows of marigolds around the top and right side. I just threw in the seeds I pulled from last year's marigolds. Tons of seeds. I planted more cilantro in this bed today as long as the eggplants were being stubborn.

What is it?

2011-06-25T07:57:00.002-05:00

The Sun.

Haven't seen it in what seems like an entire month. SOOO much to do today and those are outside chores! The grass is so high and full of unusual tree seedlings and weeds that I really am amazed how this happens. Probably won't do much in the garden except throw in some of the remaining tomato plants that are too pretty to toss on the compost pile. The Chocolate Cherries are a little small and I don't feel that it's a faux pas to plant those very close together. All I want is to taste one of those guys. Plus, would it be too much to ask for a successful tomato crop? Hope I didn't jinx it by talking about it.

What I didn't eat yesterday.

2011-06-25T07:52:00.003-05:00

They're ready.

2011-06-23T19:17:00.003-05:00

Hmm, what could these be?

Why it's my strawberry crop!

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!

A still life.

2011-06-22T20:46:00.003-05:00

What I did not eat today.

It's officially Summer!

2011-06-21T20:15:00.004-05:00

If it looks damp, it is. Rain, fog, lightening, thunder. I hear it's good for your skin though. Tomato plants are leaning. Weeds are popping up. It's a good thing they just pull right out. Speechless.

Minneapolis Vacation.

2011-06-19T19:07:00.007-05:00

There is a block in Minneapolis, east of Lake Calhoun, that is astounding. While walking Deitz one evening, we came upon a fairy tale. Almost every quaint house had a front yard that was transformed by plants, fountains and sculpture to nearly take your breath away -- especially on an early evening walk after an afternoon rain. I was inspired.

When I stopped an owner to tell her that I loved this block, she was proud and said that "they did it themselves." There were fountains, lush greenery, sculpture, oh my!

My son greeting his "nephew," Deitz (also known as Deiter, Detective and You are the Handsomest Dog I've Ever Seen!). Mr. Detective is very charming. He was a stray from Tennessee. He's one lucky guy. He likes to shake hands a LOT because it usually leads to a treat.

My attempt at a low carb breakfast while on vacation and enjoying a cuban themed cafe. Everyone else had enormous platters of exotic breakfast fare.

The Soap Factory. The gallery that my daughter works in and manages.

Where's my cocktail?

2011-06-12T16:44:00.008-05:00

The weather today was spectacular. Here in Wisconsin, we finally have our spring weather. It was about 70, sunny and breezy. I did 3 loads of laundry and hung it outside and then moved on to the landscaping issues I've been in the gardens all day. That means from 9:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. I ended the marathon with mowing the lawn. During this time, I planted about 200 more marigolds that were from last year's seeds, put in the few left over pepper plants, some other flowers and herbs that I grew from seed, potted a couple of cherry tomato plants just for yuks, and weeded and weeded and weeded. It all looks so nice and neat. That will change in a few days.

I love my yard!

That moment in time.

2011-06-10T20:32:00.004-05:00

This is the author of a blog that I follow. I like that she uses a laptop that is like mine. It's Friday night and she's spending her Friday night in a lovely bedroom, taking a photo of herself to post on her blog and it all looks so fabulous!

A cupcake.

2011-06-10T20:24:00.001-05:00

It's been two weeks since I had a little chat with my doctor. I guess I haven't been taking care of myself and my glucose was elevated in my yearly lab results. Oh Oh. How did this happen? What have I let my life become? A big bowl of mashed potatoes?

Somehow, I wrangled a "do over" with that blood test. Part of this arrangement was that I had to go on a low carbohydrate diet for two weeks. For heaven's sakes. I think I just vacationed in hell for two weeks. I managed, and did an impressive job of sticking to 40 - 70 carbs a day. No alcohol. No fun.

When I walked into the department this morning, after fasting for what seemed like a thousand hours, I saw a mirage! Yes! It was eighty (80!!!) cupcakes!!! I was ecstatic. I thought that my co-workers had thrown me a carbo bash! Unfortunately (for me), the cupcakes were for our patients in the department. Could there be a more cruel joke? I think not.

As I left work today, I managed to snag a cupcake. It was like catnip to a vacationing cat.

Surprise!

2011-06-09T18:47:00.004-05:00

Very disturbing. A baby possum and his brother were walking around in the grass. You never know what you're going to find.

The possum ran under the bushes so I'm going to choose to think that he'll be OK. And I cut some flowers to help me forget about the drama on my lawn.

It's time for your close ups!

2011-06-07T18:36:00.004-05:00

It looks like these tomatoes are growing in the dessert.

Carrots.

More.

2011-06-07T06:35:00.004-05:00

My irises are really poppin'. While I was taking these photos, I managed to get 2 new insect bites. They love me. One on my forehead (a nice look) and one on the quarter-inch piece of virgin territory on my arm. Bites everywhere. These were mosquitoes this morning. What got me over the weekend were odd things that land on you and bite until they leave a bloody wound. It's long sleeves for awhile.

Bringing in the outside.

2011-06-05T09:31:00.001-05:00

Sunday.

2011-06-05T09:17:00.004-05:00

Assorted greens.

My tomato garden. Always optimistic at this stage.

One week old carrots, cucumbers, beans, squash and zucchini. ???? !!!!!

One week old squash.

The view from my favorite spot in the garden!

My favorite spot in the garden.

Here's were we stand now. Everything in the ground. Still have a 2 x 2 foot square that is empty. I might put in some autumn sunflowers today. They were started in a tray and are now a couple of inches tall. This is the only way to start sunflowers. If you direct sow, the squirrels feast on the seeds.

Memorial Day.

2011-05-30T08:26:00.007-05:00

I ended my day still in the same clothes.

Not bad considering I WAS doing some messy stuff.

The end of a very pleasant and productive weekend.

It's a day to stop and remember why we're able to pursue our dreams, work in our gardens in yards belonging to a home that we love. Why we are able to choose what we pursue in our lives. When I think about living in this country, I remember my grandparents and great grandparents who decided to leave eastern Europe and take a chance on their future. I am grateful for them as I am grateful for all of those who defend my way of life--my ability to make choices. I am lucky.

Because it's a holiday, I've decided to not look like a gardening bum.

I will look neat and clean and not get covered in dirt today.