The BIG Post

Well, lots has happened in the past month that I have not gotten around to post about. So here it goes!

Charles added a new raised bed to our backyard. It took the whole weekend and he did a great job.

You start with this...


and add this...


and you get this...


Those are blueberry bushes. I am going to order strawberry crowns and plant them in the middle and around the edges.


Then I harvested enough basil to make pesto all year long. This was about half the pile washed and trying to dry it a little.

This was all of it with the stems removed.
Then processed in the new food processor with olive oil.
I filled a few ice cube trays and popped them in the deep freeze. Now I have two bags of basil cubes. It only take one to make enough pesto for one dinner and some leftovers for spreading on toast for my lunches.

And lastly, Logan went to a local YMCA overnight camp for first time campers. It was from a Sunday afternoon to a Friday afternoon. From the moment he got up Sunday and every two minutes, he was asking if it was time to leave yet. He was so excited! After about two hours of "Is it time to go yet?" I got out the digital timer and set it to count down to the moment of departure. Then for the next five hours I heard, " Only 4 hours and 23 minutes until we leave." He wouldn't go play or do anything else except follow me around and announce the minutes to go every two minutes.




This is his bunk. We got to help him set it all up. Camp was a great motivator to get him to start doing things on his own. Like he would usually not take a shower without someone turning on the water and waiting until he got in and then you had to magically be there when he got out. I told him that if he didn't learn to do it himself that he would be the only one there with a Mommy in the bunkhouse. It also got him to start cutting his own pancakes and such. Worked like a charm!


These last two were added because Dad thought Logan looked a little worried. He was really jumping off the walls. The last ten minutes he was really quiet and didn't say anything.


Oh and I was also in a car accident. I was rear ended by a pickup truck and the driver had no insurance and no license! Luckily I have uninsured motorist and rental car on my policy. Hopefully I will get it back next week. No one was hurt at least!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Animal, Vegetable , Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver is my new favorite book. I don't get much chance to read a book through but I "listen" to them in the car while I drive all day for work. I had listened to this one earlier in the year and I just re-listened to the whole thing and I love it even more. This is one that got me motivated to do the garden. She is an award winning writer who decided to write about her family's experience homesteading and eating mostly local foods in western Virginia. They moved from Tucson where things don't grow easily to the lush mountains of Appalachia. They gave up things that they could not find locally like bananas and mostly ate what they grew themselves or bought from local sources. It took them about a year to get the resources set up and they started the next spring. They even raised their own chickens for eggs and meat and started a flock of heirloom turkeys for the meat. Parts of the book are very funny like when her turkey hen started to woo her husband since they imprinted on humans as their "family". It also explained the current politics and growing practices of the 99% of our current food supply. Most of which I already new was bad for the planet and for people. It turns out that the majority of food grown conventionally (with pesticides, herbicides, growth hormones, antibiotics, and herbivore meat animals forced to eat other animal remnants) is much, much less nutrient forcing us to take supplements to meet our nutritional needs. Like regular eggs have a lot of cholesterol and saturated fats. But free range (not the same as cage free, believe it or not) chickens produce eggs with more of the good cholesterol and unsaturated fats and are naturally high in omega 3 oils ( I used to wonder how they got those omega 3s into the egg with cartons labeled "higher in omega 3s").

I have to say that we are really enjoying our garden produce and are already planning for the fall garden. This book is well written as are all her books and was a big inspiration to getting out there and just doing it. My new prescription of Nasonex also helped since I don't have the side effects of allergies like I did last summer. I would even think of getting a few hens for the eggs but I think at this point that would be biting off more than I can chew. Maybe when I "really" go part time. She also has a nice little website with meal ideas and recipes.