September

This post will be tying up some loose ends for me.  I have lots of pictures too!  And this will be long. 

So here we go.

We had Ainsley’s birthday party on September 1, which meant we were either going to have a beach theme party, or we were going to get the back patio finished.  Well, we didn’t pass out leis, so we’ve finally finished the project.  And it looks amazing, if I may say so myself.

Weedless landscaping, almost!

With our gazebo!

We finished the Thursday before, I pulled weeds (tons of them), I mowed, we put up some tents and tables, we busted out the lawn chairs, and we had ourselves a party.  It did rain just a little bit, but it was a great day.  Ainsley really enjoyed her cake too.  My mom made a cake for everyone, and then made a large cupcake for Ainsley, which we affectionately called her ‘Smash Cake.’  And that she did.  She probably ate half of it, and wore the other half.  It was shower time afterward, before opening presents. J  We had a blast though!  The photographer we had for her party was amazing too!  (ahem)  He only took pictures for about 20 minutes, and never got any besides Ainsley, her cake, and a tomato worm we found in the garden.  We'll see if he makes it to the next one!

You may not want to eat after her.

Precious Princess!  Love her lots!

On a different note, I did get my clothesline put in a while ago.  I’ve finally used it a few times as well.  I find it very relaxing as I hang up clothes to dry.  It’s a way to help me slow down and enjoy the little things.  It’s weird, but I think I will have a clothesline at our next house, if we ever move.  There’s just something about having to slow down to let your clothes dry.  It’s … I don’t know.  I may be in love with it!  Now, we’ve discovered that we won’t put everything out there to dry.  For instance, none of Rachel’s undergarments, no nice shirts, no pants, and I think that’s it.  So t-shirts, Ainsley’s clothes, socks, some of my underwear (as long as I’m cool with it), towels.  So, yes, we still use our dryer, but we use it less now, unless it’s raining when I do laundry.  And, no, I’m not planning on using it in the winter time.  It would be hard to put on a frozen tshirt.

No one's panties are hanging on it right now.

My brother Paul is leaving for his final deployment and final leg of being enlisted as a Marine.  So we’re getting excited for his move back home.  My parents drove out a couple weeks in advance to enjoy some western sites and to help Paul’s wife Kambria move some stuff back home to Ohio.  So since my parents have been gone, I’ve been blessed / cursed with a huge tomato harvest.  I don’t HAVE to get them, but I feel as if not using them would be a huge waste of a large tomato crop.  So we’ve been trying our hand at making our own sauce.

Our first attempt wasn’t bad, but it didn’t have much flavor, even though we added garlic and onions.  Our second attempt was better with flavor since we added some herbs, but weird in texture, because the tomatoes were larger and had longer strings / tissue than the previous batch.  So on our third attempt, we decided to ask for some recipes from others.  And we got lots of great advice.  I think our ingredient amounts were off because it came across somewhat bland.  So we'll keep experimenting until we get something that works great.

Slicing and Coring

Blanching

Blanched and about to be peeled

Stewing

We cored them, squished out the seeds, boiled them for about 10 minutes, doused them in cold water, peeled off the skins, and then added some herbs, onions, garlic, and anise extract.  Yes, that’s right, anise, the stuff that gives black licorice its flavor.  It actually smells really good when you’re cooking it, and it reminds me of Sambuca from Olive Garden, an Italian liqueur that you’re supposed to drink with 3 espresso beans for good luck.  I never tasted it, but it smelled pretty good.  Even though I’m not a huge fan of black licorice, I do like the smell of the extract.  We froze it in 3 cup amounts, perfect for spaghetti for 2!

Also, while we’re speaking about tomatoes, I tried some fried green tomatoes the other day.  I didn’t really like them, but I’ve never seen them cooked before.  So I could have done it wrong.  Rachel’s grandma says she eats them with sugar, or at least can tolerate them with sugar.  So I may give that a shot next time.  But I decided I’d try to see if I like them because I have slugs eating holes in my red ones if I don’t get them the day they turn red.  So I thought I’d try a green one and see if I could beat ‘em to the punch.  Nope.  At least not this year anyway.  Maybe I’ll force myself to like them next year.  I’m good at that.  Last year I didn’t even enjoy eating raw tomatoes.  This year, I eat them off the plant, and even got Ainsley to like them too!  Careful, world, I may decide to conquer you!

Slug-eaten Tomatoes

So our garden has produced an excessive amount of tomatoes, and it’s also done well with zucchini and spaghetti squash.  We grew tired of grilling and frying zucchini, so I made some zucchini bread.  OK, let's be honest.  I made A LOT of zucchini bread: 8 loaves to date.  It’s so good!  We made chocolate zucchini bread last time, but decided to skip the choc this time.  By no means does it mean it’s healthier.  There’s so much sugar in it, I was amazed.  But, again, it’s delicious, and I don’t really care that much.  Especially since I like to slather it with butter as well.  So stop on by and get some.  We have a few loaves in the freezer.  But they don't last long.

Zucchini Bread

Here’s the berries, growing like crazy.  I’m wishing I only got blackberry plants, because they’re growing so much better and look so much healthier.  But alas, I didn’t.  I’m feeling better about the raspberries as they get bigger though.

Raspberries.  The blackberries are seriously 4x times as big!

Here’s the garden.  I replanted some beans, peas, spinach, and lettuce.  I think it’s been too hot for the peas still, but we’ll see what happens.  I hope there are enough bees or butterflies to pollinate them for fruiting.  The first crop of beans were eaten alive by insects.  This time I put some Seven on them to keep them off.  Well, it rained one day.  I told myself I’d wait til after the next rain to put more on, but I was already behind.  But they haven’t gotten worse since I did that.  They need another dusting soon though, or else they’re gone-ers too!  The spinach and lettuce have barely come up, but it’s been hot lately, and I haven’t given them much water.  And since two and two is four, that explains our problem!

Peas.  I've eaten 4 so far this round.

Beans.  Doing a little better since the picture was taken.

I’m still amazed my spaghetti squash is still producing so well.  The one section got some mildew on the leaves, and it killed all the plants.  I thought the other section was already done, but it decided it wanted to go for another round.  So I still have 9 more squash coming!  I hope I can figure out how to eat it all, because I don’t think Rachel is going to want much of it.

The ONLY pepper to grow this year!

Ainsley eating an apple.  It is fall after all.

All right.  Loose ends all tied up.  Thanks for reading.  Go enjoy something today!

-mister-