goal for 2012: tomato crafts

dang, i wanna learn to knit/crochet my own little veggie patch.

along with scarves, gloves, booties, and more....

tomato by: locoMOmomma

coveting cold frames

it's cold and rainy out there today. not much happening in here. but i did come across this blog post with a super awesomely cool cold frame/mini greenhouse. i've seen a many of cold frame made of old windows, but it never crossed my mind to do a mini greenhouse type version off the ground. i want one, i want one. oh how i want one for my back patio. let the back alley savaging begin!!!! also check out some other cold frame designs here.

drill, baby, drill.... making my little compost bin

so one of the first projects i spotted in my country wisdom: everything you need to know to live of the land book was making a little compost bin for my kitchen veggie scraps. i have been getting tired of burying them in the garden and i though this would be easier and hopefully produce some lovely compost as well. unfortunately i didn't find a second hand container, but if this works (doesn't smell to high heaven) i will be on the hunt for more containers to make more and more compost. we'll see. till then here is the basics of my little compost bin.

container with lid.

using my neighbor dave's super duper 1/4 drill bit (this thing was sharp) i drilled holes all over the top, bottom, and sides.

to help keep the smell down, my book said to cover the scraps in dirt.
so first in, a layer of dirt from my dirt pile.

then stinky veggie scraps that have been hanging out on the kitchen counter.

dried out lettuce scraps from the garden and a couple of corn husks.

then another layer of dirt.

slap on the lid and hide it in the front garden bed behind a bush.
only time will tell if this is going to work.

in the meantime, let's check in on the tomatoes. some plants are doing well, and some are fairing poorly, and some are just doing. the three that are in the ground are doing much much better than the ones in containers, which i guess is to be expected. i was feeling pretty good overall about the tomatoes, until yesterday when pig girl told me her tomato plants that she got from me (martin's roma and HBPL) are ALL taller than her. my martin's roma are in containers and only about 3 feet high. 2 of them have really good looking fruit on them, but only 4 tomatoes on each plant and very little blooms. the other 2 are sharing a container, and while they are producing more, yet smaller, fruit, one plant's tomatoes all have bottom rot, while no bottom rot on the other plant. so this weekend i think i am going to be brave and possibly split the two sharing the container and get them in the ground somewhere. next year i am dedicating the entire left side of the house to tomatoes. and this fall after all the tomatoes are done for the year, i will definitely be amending the soil and gathering caging material. the little spindle stakes i have might work for smaller tomatoes, but my HBPL plants are doing a number on them and will need to be re enforced again this weekend. here are some quick pics from the garden yesterday.

cherry roma plants doing ok. not great, but ok.

the few HBPL plants that are in containers are producing just a few fruit and all have bottom rot. i think i am going to pull those up and use the containers for growing some herbs.

while the in ground HBPL tomatoes are looking good baby.

my new garden friend. i've been spotting him for the about the last week. last year we had another frog that looked like this. i wonder if this is the same little guy.
i should give him a name. any suggestions????

the aspargus pea plants are starting to flower.... perhaps i will get some fruit soon.

house projects

flowers from my front yard

so while ray was away visiting his family in memphis, i was trying to be a busy beaver and get some long overdue projects done around he house. one project was to unpack and display some of the loot i acquired from my grandparents. apparently at one point my grandfather had given me some orange carnival ware that my mother was storing for me, and through a chain of events ended up in my sister's garage at her house in flordia (which is now someone else's house, which is why i now have the dishes). also, sometime back, ray and i were retrieving something from the attic for my grandmother at her house, when i spotted this super cool wall shelf, which of course she let me have. other than a few george and martha lamps and some pink depression glass, if you show great interest in an item at her house that she is not currently using or displaying, she will generally let you have it. so after having the dishes in boxes at my sisters house, and having the super cool wall shelf sitting in a closet for about 4 years, i figured with ray away, now would be a good time to put these two things together and add some life to the kitchen nook (which is really the dinner area, since the dog creates are in the dinning room which we call the dog room). which, if you haven't notice i have used the word which about 40 times in the post so far.

see the new wall shelf with the orange dishes.
i also have some bigger plates that i am going to hang to each side of the shelf.

and i did some work to the back porch. it's a nice space, but one that we have failed to really use since we moved into the house. for a long time there was a big couch out there for the dogs to nap on, but after some really hard rains and red muddy paws, it was looking pretty rough. so pig girl and her boyfriend kindly came over to hall it off for us in exchange for watching their dog jackson over easter holiday. the porch area is not finished, but it's a good working start.

the kiddies and the empty porch.
installing the rain barrel, sitting over there in the corner, is a whole other future project.

the pups love the new rug.

(yicks! please excuse the terrible picture)
so here we have the beginnings of what will hopefully be a super cool back porch.
the pallet and drawers i snagged from different phases of construction going on at work. the next project is to sand those and paint them all one color then add potted flowers and such. i also want to get some ferns to hang out there and ray wants to get some kind of sunshades to keep the sun from pounding in the living room windows.

luckily i finished just in time to enjoy this................

ooohhh pretty!!!!!!

now my new project is to make a cute little dress to wear on my visit to portland.

i'm going to make dress "D" with a pretty little flower print and a yellow bag to match.
yes, i'm a dork.
i know this.

back in the saddle

the tummy is all better!!!! i'm eating regular food again and ready to cook. since the sickness not much has been happening in the kitchen, but all that is about to change for many reasons.

1. i still have greens in the garden that need to be eaten, although with temperatures like today (the high was mid 70s) i don't feel to to rushed.
2. i have many new little cookbooks with many new little recipes that i want to try.
3. shaun over at soby's keeps pointing the way to more local goods.
4. i am determined to become a self taught pastry person.
5. i really need to work on my farm photo project, which i am sure will lead to purchasing even more super ingredients.
6. we gotta eat.
7. i got an ass load of deer in the freezer.

that's right folks... an ass load of deer meat. mr. matt-dreamy (nicki's - the pig lady - boyfriend) finally got me a deer. poor ray had to go by himself to pick it up at the processor last saturday when i was sick in bed, which we now believe was an evil germ going around work and not the food poisoning that first suspected. seems like 4 of us at work all got the vomiting at the same time. still, me and the other receptionist will never eat where we had lunch that day ever again.
anyway i am here to say that more cooking is on the way. so stay tuned folks, but for now i must go get ready to watch SURVIVOR!!!!!!

this is the lunch time set up. nice weather = reading in car at lunch. check out the coolness of the matrix. the front passenger seat folds down flat and has a hard level back. makes for a nice little table when sitting in back seat. oh don't be fooled, i also keep a pillow in the car at ALL times in case i need a nap. yep, that's right, nap. i have been known to nap at lunch with brittany having to call my cell phone to wake me up. i love a good afternoon nap.

look at my lovely homemade lunch. ok, the tomatoes came out of a can, but the rest is somewhat local and fresh. i simply sauteed some onions, garlic, and local peppers. opened the can of tomatoes, juice and all, poured it in and added the juice from 1/2 an orange, chopped cilantro, salt and pepper. then i plopped in the fresh local cranberry beans (i think they were cranberry beans) and simmered for about 45 minutes till the beans were tender. i cooked up some ground deer meat (local and very organic/pasture raised...hehe) and stirred that in. the coolest thing about the deer meat is when you cook it, there is no fat in the pan that needs to be drained off. super lean and super yummy. i also made the bread. just a simple loaf of white bread.

after i eat, i read.
right now it's the omnivore's dilemma.
check out my groovy earth shoes that everyone likes to make fun of. i think they are super cute and they are super light weight. like wearing house slippers all day long.

ass load of deer meat. everything that is wrapped in the white paper is deer meat. hamburger, sausage, roast, and tender loin. all for $72. thanks matt!!!!
of course now ray is thinking he may want to learn to hunt. i would love to learn how to dress a rabbit, but i hear it is really smelly. maybe someday.