new garden pics for your enjoyment...:)

I know I have been remiss (my big word for the day :) about getting some garden pics up so here are some. Since we live in Alabama our garden is just about done at least for the first harvest. We are planning on planting some things for a late fall/early winter harvest soon though.

First up- concord grapes. Not a lot but this is the first year producing for them.

Yes we have morning glories...a lot of them. They are like weeds here. If you want some I will gladly share...lol..

My hibiscus did well this year. lots of blooms.

This is one of my sunflowers. I planted a lot but only two came up. Not to worry though the plants themselves have multiple flowers on them so will save some for planting next year and give the birds a treat this winter.

This is my butterfly bush. Didnt have many butterflies this year though. Anyone else have that problem?

This is what a Jerusalem artichoke flower looks like. They get really tall too. I think they must be related to sunflowers.

Well that's all for now. Next up some knitting pics!

Have fun and write once in a while wouldja?

My Jelly Excursion...

Well I tried to make lime marmelade a couple of days ago and it didnt set so I reprocessed it yesterday. Half of it has jelled in the jar and half is liquid. I guess I will wait for a couple of weeks to see if it does set cause according to the directions it might take up to two weeks to set. I got the recipe out of "The Big Book of Preserving the Harvest". I got all the ingredients to make ginger jam and spiced peach jam waiting in the frig. But first I am making dilly beans. Need to find something to make with the peas too. I only have a hot water canner and not a pressure canner so everything has to be either jam/jellies or pickled.

DH went out and actually picked the cabbage the other day. I told him there were slugs all over them yuck. We had enough to make sauerkraut. This is the first time we have done this so we will see how it turns out. Just mixed the shredded cabbage with sea salt and put it in a big jar I had. To weight it down and keep the air out we used a kitchen garbage bag filled with water. Hope it works...

Don't know whether I mentioned it before but DH got a grinder to flake his own oatmeal. He even grinds his own flaxseed which he puts on his oatmeal in the morning. Next we will have to get the veggie attachment! We even got a big bucket full of organic oats from the same place. The company name is Pleasant Hill Grain and they were very fast with their shipping. The grinder is made in Germany and is very good quality.

I have pics of the garden and will post later. They are mostly of the flowers because our garden is almost done. We are going to plant some more cool weather seeds next week. We will be able to harvest them up til November then.

wow it's been a while

Sorry I havent posted in a while. It's summer what can I say? I basically have no excuse. On the crafting front, I have been crocheting a baby blanket and two little ponchos for some very special little girls who shall remain nameless and I will not be posting a pic until they get their gifts.

The garden is doing well as can be expected with the weird weather going on right now. Our tomatoes are not doing so hot. We had a bout of cooler weather which the beans and peas loved and they even sprouted new flowers but the tomatoes did not like it at all. I guess we are not the only ones not to have good weather in the US though. I bought some limes and am going to try to make some lime marmelade. I have never made jelly or jam before so this should be interesting. I bought a new canner a couple of weeks ago and would love to get a pressure cooker at some point. It all stems from a new book I got. It has so many recipes in it. Oh the ginger jam looks sooooo good with apples as a base and crystalized ginger it it. Might have to try it as well.

DH is getting another bike. He will then have four. yes I said four...sigh. He even has his own "bike room" where he stores all his bikey things. Is that a word? Well it's only fair since I have a computer/craft room.

Work was a bear on Friday and Monday with my partner being off and me covering for her. It amazes me when people call you at 10:30 and need dictation for 6 people done by noon. Not like they didnt know they needed it before Monday. But she was back today YAH!

We now have a bird that likes to sit on the flag pole outside on the porch and tease my little kittens...well all except Molly, he could care less. He was snoring on the couch while the others were lined up at the storm door acting like they were going to have lunch soon ;) And then tonight a new pal came around for Penny to get upset with. Penny is our resident guard cat. Yes she doesnt like the UPS guy and growled at him the last time he came to the door. So funny.

Well I will try to get some pics up of some finished things I have almost done so you can take a look see.

More new pics!

Ok first things first.

CLEANING TIP: The first pic shows my stainless steel sink. The bowl on the left I cleaned with Borax and the one on the right shows how stained it was. Pretty disgusting I know but its a good cleaning tip and I didn't have to scrub that hard. It looks like a brand new sink. I have tried Borax on the bathtub as well and it gets all the soap scum off.











The grapes in June.











These tigerlilies started to bloom. I thought they were dead. We planted them 2-3 years ago.









Here's my glads. I must have at least 8 of them blooming right now.













I planted some bulbs a year ago and thought they were not going to come up but they did. Don't ask me what this is though. Some type of lillies.











Here is Roxy and Penny playing in the kitchen. Ain't they cute?












First batch of blueberries. I put a nickel in the bucket so you could see how big they are.







and finally here is potato leek soup I made on 6/9. It was so good but I need to cut the recipe in half next time. We were eating this for three days straight and I even was eating it for lunch. Love the soup but not that much :)

Pictures of the garden in May

Here are some pictures of some of the plants we have in the garden. These were taken in May so they are a lot bigger now...


These are really really tiny itty bitty grapes. See them?

These are the tomato plants, just blossoms no tomatoes yet.

Here are the blueberries. I am now picking them.

This is one of the raspberries.

Baby Cabbages...

Potatoes...

Jerusalum artichokes.

My time off

I had such a great three days off! On Monday I worked on piecing together a couple of quilt tops. I didnt get finished with them but I worked on them ;) Tuesday DH had off and we weeded the garden and went out for supper. Then on Wednesday I decided I had had enough of being at home and went shopping. I stopped at the Hobby Lobby to get some more soap fixings for DH and bought some "other things" for me. Yes DH is making soap. I got him a soap maker (it just heats up the glycerin base) and molds so he has something to do on rainy days. I told him he needed a rainy day hobby mostly because I have lots of crafts to do and some I have to concentrate on and I just cant listen to him talk about work all day...lol.

After going to Hobby Lobby I was sooooo hungry I decided to stop in at Dreamland for a salad and iced tea BY MYSELF! Yes I sat there BY MYSELF and ate my lunch. I wasnt the only one there sitting BY MYSELF though. I think if there are any single women reading this they should definitely go to Dreamland at around 1 pm. There are some older gentleman who eat there around this time. They are probably engineers from the Arsenal. Oh that salad was soooo good. I got their smaller salad half chicken and half pork. Iced tea was very good too.

Then I stopped at Kroger cause I had run out of laundry soap. Got the soap and went around to the meat department but didnt see DH. He told me later he was probably back in the cooler or unloading a truck. He hates the cooler and freezer. All in all I had a very nice day. Came home did some laundry and knitted. Who could ask for more?

Then Thursday and Friday and today I am typing, typing and typing. These docs just need to see less people or not see them everyday at least :)

Well I need to get back to typing so take care for now.

Denise

Days off!

Yes folks I am taking some time off! One of the docs is going to be off for a whole week so my work buddy (boss) asked if I wanted any time off and I said sure! I would have been nuts to say no...so I took off three days :) I worked on my quilt on Memorial Day and will put some more time in on it during that time off. I have to finish up sewing the blocks and then iron them all. Finally I'll lay them all out on either the bed or the floor for block placement. I'm leaning towards the bed idea if I can get Molly and Tikki to sleep somewhere else. It would be much easier than on the floor. Cause then I would have an audience. Cats seem to like to walk on things you are doing on the floor, the table, your lap, you get the idea...lol. And Penny likes to push her head under things and try to hide under them like papers and such so I think she would really like the quilt blocks though I don't think she could actually hide under them. She would have a good time trying though!

I will try to download some pics from my camera later. Need to get back to work!

Denise

Toilet chuckle

DH put the old toilet out front to be taken by the garbage men. About three days later our neighbor across the street also put out his old toilet. This guy copies everything that the other neighbors do. Just had to chuckle about that...Kind of looks funny with two toilets being across from one another on the same street. Wonder if the other neighbors will be changing out their toilets as well?

some more pics

These are pics of the thyme and lavender plants out back.

New toilet!

These are the Jerusalem artichokes on April 30th. They are much bigger now. I'm looking for recipes for these. I hope I like them. We planted eggplant last year and discovered that neither of us likes them so did not plant them again this year even though we had a really good crop of them last year. They must be related to zuccini...

Yes we have put in a new toilet. It is a Jacuzzi (ooohhh ahhhh). The old toilet had been rocking and when DH tried to tighten it down he kinda cracked the bottom and it still rocked. So we went and bought one and then it sat in our bedroom for a couple of weeks until DH had off. We had problems of course. No problems taking the old one off except that the bolts were corroded. But DH got it out of there while I unpacked everything out of the box and then cleaned the floor arnd the old toilet. Surprisingly it did not stink at all...thought it would but it didn't. DH cleaned off the old wax and then I got out the screws to fit into the flange. They didn't fit...hmmm. DH tried every which way to try to get them to fit and the heads were just too big. There weren't any other screws that I could see anywhere so he got his trusty hacksaw and sawed off part of head and put them in the flange. He then put the wax seal on the main toilet part and carried over and we lined it up and dropped it. Well I noticed that there were some other screws in with the wax ring and guess what? Yes the screws that were to be on the flange were in with the wax ring...sigh. So after removing the toilet DH went to the hardware store and picked up another two screws. To make a long story short, we got the toilet in! And guess what it rocked! Seems our wonderful house builders didnt get the floor level. So we shimmed the stupid thing! Now it doesnt rock! Yay!! The seat is higher off the floor too and it uses a very small amount of water so it should save us money in the long run.

So DH and I have a new Kibow (for the Park family members out there, you know what I mean). The only thing is that it has a plastic seat but it should last I hope...

DH rotilled another patch so I could plant beans, peas and sunflowers. Dont know whether all the peas will come up though (the seeds were from 2004).

Denise

New pics

These are some pics of my window boxes out front. The first pic is of some lemon thyme.
Then a shot of one of the window boxes, yes I know I need to weed...sigh.

The next shot is of some weird oregano that we got at the plant sale at the Botanical Gardens here in Huntsville. It has these really fleshy leaves on them and they are kinda fuzzy. Like I said weird.

This shot is of a new plant I got at the plant sale. I wish I would have gotten another one as well. It's a poppy called bubbles. It gets pink and yellow flowers on it one or two at a time. I think there have been about 7 or 8 flowers so far on this plant. I am very impressed...

This is what our seedlings looked like in March. We have since planted the ones that survived in the garden.

Some more seedling pics. These seemed to do better than the ones above. These were planted in Jiffy pots. The other kind was an off brand we got from a plant catalog. Jiffy pots rule!

Tomatoes and Kolrabi.

This is to prove that yes in Alabama we do have snow. These were taken March 1 of this year out my front door.

I will post some more pics soon. You're just sitting on the edge of your seat aren't cha? ;)

Out for now,

Denise

Happy Easter!

I hope everyone is having a very nice holiday today. It is beautiful here, sunny and warm with just a slight breeze.

Hubby is working so I am here with the kittens. Everyone is sleeping except Tikki who is meowing to shrimpy. I will try to get a picture of shrimpy for you later.

We had some bad weather a couple of days ago. The wind was wicked! It blew off a few shingles from my friend Jen's house and a couple of other neighbors houses as well but we were lucky and nothing came off our roof.

Well all for now,

See ya later!

Denise

Sponsor My Friend Jen at March for Babies!

My friend Jen is doing the March of Dimes walk in April. If you are interested in sponsoring her just click the button. They take credit cards and Paypal too!

Well I'm back again! Miss me? course ya did! Yesterday I went out for lunch with some of my buds. We went to a Greek restaurant and it was very good food and the company was wonderful. We are going to try to get together in March again.

After lunch I went with my friend Kathy to get some baby clothes at consignment yard sale type thingy. They had anything you might need for babies and toddlers. I helped her pick out some great clothes for her grandbaby. I have posted a picture before of Megan on here see below. It was fun looking at all the little bitty clothes and was especially great since I wasn't spending any of my money to do it :) lol.

After we were done Kathy dropped me off at my car and on the way home I stopped at Big Lots. They had some Looza juice so I got some of that. You never know what you are going to find when you go in.

I have taken some new photos. I think I am finally getting the hang of the digital camera although you have to forgive some of the pics as we are having overcast weather here. Today it has been raining. I went down to get the mail and pick up my morning paper and yes the paper was soaked again. The plastic they have covering it always seems to leak. Anyway here are some pics.

The first one is of an African violet I got for cheap at Home Depot. It is different from my other one that I have. Can't have too many plants. Well maybe if there is nowhere to sit or stand you should back off on the plants but other than that...

The next two are of our seedlings. These have gotten big enough to be out of the little domed house they were in and be put out on the windowsill in our kitchen. We just got another set of seed pellets so another 72 seedlings!

Here are two pics of a little beaded purse I did some time ago. As you can see it needs finished with a lining and a cord handle. It is beaded with delicas.






Here is a pic of the socks I did for myself. These were the first pair of lacy ones I did. The picture isn't true to the colors though sorry about that. They are blue, gray and white Opal. They have been very long wearing and although I wasnt too crazy about the color after I was finished I just love them. They go with a lot of different colors.


This is a pair I started for myself but found the pattern did not stretch enough for my fat ankles :( so my husband said that he would wear them. He has such little chicken legs...lol and loves bright colors. I need to get a pic on here of him wearing the hat I made him. He even went to the yarn store and picked out the colors.


These are some of his purple socks. They are very soft.

These are his blue multi-striped ones.

And these are the austermann ones that I call his autumn socks. Love those fall colors.

And this is the last photo for today. This is a little MP3 player sock I made out of some sock remnants. It is a very soft blue varigated. It even has a little pocket for the earphones. I need to put a cord on it but it works quite well protecting it and the cords from curious kitties.

Well that's all for now hope to have more later this next week to talk about.

Denise

Sunny day today!

Yes I really need to start doing this more often. Life just seems to be getting in the way though. ;0) Since this blog is supposed to have knitting on it, here is a pic of some socks I finished a while back. They were made with leftovers that I purchased on Ebay. Nothing fancy just plain socks. I made them over a year or two ago and they are holding up really well. The bottom part is Austermann step but I'm not really sure what the top is.

I will try to take pics of the other things I have made now that I have figured out my camera working with Vista.

On the 2nd of February I took these pics...

This is our spinach garden, lol. I just wanted everyone to see it does actually snow here. This is our accumulation which lasted oh about a couple of hours before the sun melted it.

This is a pic outside my backdoor. See the snow? wooohooo! Good thing I dont have to drive to work huh? Course everyone was at the grocery store the night before this big storm getting bread and milk. You think I'm kidding but I'm totally serious.

Well all for now here in Alabama.

Denise