A Little Cow Patti

This is for my friends Adelia and Wendy, who've never heard this song. This was one of my dad's favorites.

What's Up With the Garden

The garden isa growin'!!

Someone... someone anonymous asked for pictures of my square foot garden. I'm happy to oblige!

We have 2 boxes that are 8' x 4'. Technically, that's considered 4 boxes...they just happen to be connected. So, here's how it's goin'.

Box number 1: It is loaded with 4 roma tomatoes at the top, peppers in the second row, 2 plants of basil and 2 oregano in the third row, and the 4th row has on square of marigolds and then 3 squares of onions. Yum!!

The other half of that box (or you could call it box #2) has: 4 more roma tomatoes (for all that yummy spaghetti sauce I'm going to make!), 1 pepper and 3 squares of bush beans in the second row, 4 squares of beans in the 3rd row, and the last row has 2 squares of onions, a bean, and a marigold. I heard that marigolds are supposed to keep pesky pests away, like rabbits and such... we'll see...

The next box has this on one side: The top row has 2 roma tomatoes and 2 beefsteak tomatoes (for Handy Man's hamburgers :-), the 2nd row has 4 cantaloupe, the 3rd row has one parsley and 3 onions (I had the extra space so I just planted them last week), and the last row has one marigold and 3 beans.

The other side of this box looks a little sparse because we're staggering the corn. It has: on the top row, there are 4 cantaloupe. Here's the deal with the cantaloupe... I started these from seed during the cold in Feb. Well, I planted extra just in case some of them didn't make it to the garden. The problem is, they ALL survived and I'm to emotionally involved in all this to kill the leftovers. So, that's why we have 8 squares of cantaloupe. In the 3rd row, there are 2 empty squares saved for corn and then 2 squares of corn. In the last row, it's a marigold, then empty, then corn. Some of the corn didn't come up the first time and we had to replant a few of them, so we'll see how they turn out.

Finally, here's something that has absolutely nothing to do with my garden... It's my lemon tree! I have about 10 lemons that are growing every day!! Fun!!

Somebody, Somewhere, is Bleeding!

Here's a scene I come upon at least twice a month.

Where: Utility room bathroom

What: Open Band-aid box

What else?

Band-aid trash for, like, 5 Band-aids.

Where else?

All over the bathroom. NOT in the trash. Come on! The trash can is right there!

And these pics were taken AFTER I'd already put a hand full of Band-aid trash...well, in the TRASH!

Seriously kids, if your injury requires 5 Band-aids, you should probably tell mom.

Terrific Taters

It's Mother's Day. I've had a lovely day and thought I'd blog a little. I had been meaning to post about baked potatoes for a while now. I don't know why, but baking potatoes always intimidated me. That, and making rice. Thanks to my crockpot, and my beautiful electrified rice cooker, I am now a rice and potato goddess. I discovered about 2 years ago that I can make baked potatoes in my crockpot. Since I have the "Big Mama" of crockpots, I can make 7 humdinger sized potatoes with no problem. Awesome!!

The details?

Wash your taters and scrub them clean. Or, if you like to eat dirt, and I've heard that there are those that do, then just skip that step. Next, I take a fork and poke each one about 5 or 6 times. I'm not sure why, but that's what all the recipes I've seen tell me to do. I have visions of potatoes exploding and covering my kitchen ceiling, so I don't mess with this part of the recipe. Always poke the potatoes!! Then, I take a stick of butter and I smear it all over the potato. Now, if you're not going to eat the skin, or you like the taste of dirt, I don't suppose you need to do this. However, it makes me feel a little bit gourmet when I drench them with butter...and I know how much you love butter! Who doesn't I'd like to know!! I plop those babies in the CP and cook on low for about 8 hours...or high for about 4. They come out steaming hot and fall-apart delicious. Then, you can put MORE fat on them... butter, cheese, sour cream... mmmm. I'll take two. After all, they ARE vegetables.