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.
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Weedless landscaping, almost! |
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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!
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You may not want to eat after her. |
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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.
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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.
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Slicing and Coring |
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Blanching |
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Blanched and about to be peeled |
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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!
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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.
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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.
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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!
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Peas. I've eaten 4 so far this round. |
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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.
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The ONLY pepper to grow this year! |
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Ainsley eating an apple. It is fall after all. |
All right.
Loose ends all tied up.
Thanks for reading. Go
enjoy something today!
-mister-
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