Pond Fun

If you remember way, way back to the Spring, (yes, I know, it seems absolutely forever ago, especially now that it's in the 30's when I wake up in the morning!) the E.S. Garden had a pond that looked like this:

My Dad modeling nicely for us

Now here we are, the middle of October and it looks more like this:

There is a pond in there, somewhere, I promise

So you might say it's a bit overgrown. The plan was to dig this out and make it into a nice little area with a bank and even an island! This was a project we just didn't get to this year. Mostly because it never dried up down there! Ever! The entire summer, that area was at the very least soaking wet. This is very unusual. Usually the froggies have long packed up and moved to wetter ground by July. This year I think we had a froggie family reunion going on in our pond! We must have had two dozen frogs in there at one point and some of them were no little teeny things either. I always liked walking along the path around the pond and hearing all the frogs in front of me jump into the water with a big *thunk!* as I approached their lounging area.
So the hope is next year we'll have a few weeks of dry land so we can dig out this here pond because darnit I want to iceskate on it in the winter!
The Boy and I recently took a peruse around the pond and snapped a few pictures in the process:


And here are our goof-asses enjoying some pond fun:

What do You Get When You Cross a Turnip With a Cabbage?

The rutabagas are one of a few veggies that did absolutely awesome in the E.S. Garden this year. They have been poking out of the soil like this for quite some time now but we were waiting for a frost to pluck any of them up to devour. They always taste much better after a good frost has hit.
Now, you may be thinking, "what the heck can I do with a rutabaga?" They are a bit obscure in mainstream cooking so I am always trying to find new ways to prepare the rutabaga. One of my favorite ways to cook them is to mix them with potatoes and make a mashed rutabaga/potato mixture. It's extremely simple to make.

Jess' Rutabaga/Potato Mixture o' Deliciousness

- a few potatoes
- a few rutabagas
(usually about half and half is what I like to do)
- cook them like you would cook potatoes to mash them
- add some milk and butter or whatever you like to add to your potatoes
- salt, pepper and some parsley
- mmm, mmm, you're good to go!

Any other favorite rutabaga recipes out there? Shoot em' my way, I'm always looking for ways to cook them, and as you can see we have quite a few to use for experiments!

Proof of Mohawk Jess

In response to my recent 7 things post, a buddy of mine may have thought I was yanking the chain of truth about some of my more wild hairstyle days. I am here today with proof; cold, hard evidence to lay these rumors to rest and, well, have a good laugh that I would actually do this to myself. (I was 18, what do you expect?)
And here we have a few pieces of nostalgia for us all to get a kick out of. Feel free to click on the image in order to appreciate history in its full size. (Please don't mind the horribly unflattering pictures.)

And there we have it! And no, I am not being choked in the first picture, nor am I forcing my friend there to drink a beer. We thought it would be a funny picture if the non-drinker had a beer in his hand...ha.

Just in case you were thinking of giving yourself a mohawk but didn't quite know how to approach the ordeal, it goes something like this:

- Lose a bet in order to get the mohawk
- Take ratty old scissors, any old kind will do, non-hair cutting scissors would be so punk rock, and proceed to cut hair off but make sure you leave that nice skunk pattern down the top and back.
- After said hair has been cut, go back with a set of clippers (can be ratty and old too) and buzz that head right down, remembering to leave your mohawk in place.
- Shake off the hair and presto! You have your mohawk!
- Now, we must also spike the mohawk to be extra punk - with a longer mohawk I found the best product to use is Elmer's glue. Forget the gel, hairspray, pomade route, we need some anti-gravity staying power and you will only find that in glue.
- To get the mohawk nice and straight I found that by taking a piece of cardboard and cutting a hole shaped like your head, it makes a nice "table" for your hair to sit on while you coat it with glue.
- Let the glue take hold for a few minutes while your head is resting on the cardboard cutout.
- Remove head from its resting place and presto! again! You have your full blown, punk rock, mohawk.


Now, go on out there and get bad-ass!

The Peskiest of all Pests

I have never been a fan of insects. The creepy crawliness of them just....eck....I am getting the chills just thinking about bugs and their many legs walking on me...ooooo!
However, to the gardener, many bugs are helpful little critters: spiders protect our plants by eating tons of other harmful bugs, ladybugs eat aphids, centipedes eat those slimy slugs, and there are many other examples of creepy bugs doing great things to keep our gardens looking wonderful. So that means my shivers need to be subsided temporarily and when I see (or feel!) an insect, I must turn and walk away, knowing that it will then go eat something else that is trying to eat my garden.
There is one such bug, however, that I cannot find any useful purpose for. One that has been known to carry diseases and if nothing else, packs a wallop of annoyance and unending itches.
That insect, my friends, is the mosquito. And boy did it show its face this season! In years past, we could wander around the E.S. Garden pretty much all day up until dusk hit. Then the mosquitoes would come out in full force and we either had to arm ourselves with bug spray, find some campfire-shelter nearby, or run inside and hide.
This year we saw a whole new side of that obnoxious buzzing creature. It did not matter what time of day you were outside - morning, night, whenever. You were instantly barraged with a wall of mosquitoes. Normally the mosquitoes don't bother me quite as bad as many people. This year they showed no mercy, no preference. They were out for any and all blood.
And that certainly squashed some of the garden-love I had for this year.

Fall Update

Cosmos Bipinnatus

Here in Upstate New York we have had quite the "summer". Lots of rain, hail, below average temperatures, sogginess, blight, mosquitoes, flooding...ahhhhhhh!
But fear not, all hope was not lost, and there were some beauties to keep us smiling!

Tithonia Rotundiflora - Mexican Sunflower

Ipomoea alba - Moonflower

I started the Mexican sunflowers over at the Apartment Garden and replanted them after I moved. They took some time adjusting to outdoor garden life, but soon they started budding like crazy and not long after that the beautiful orange flowers were all over the yard.
Moonflowers are easy to grow and have such a beautiful color to them. I love purple flowers and this is definitely one my favorites. We have them trailing up trees all over the garden.

Sun Gold Cherry Tomatoes

Despite the tomato blight that has destroyed thousands of tomato plants and has virtually killed many tomato farmer's crops, our plants overall came out OK. We had more cherry tomatoes than we knew what to do with! I think I had cherry tomatoes for every meal of the day a few times.

Our basil also did wonderfully. We made lots of pesto, basil pizzas, basil and greens salads. I probably love the smell of basil more than I enjoy the taste so I definitely sat down in the middle of the basil patch a few times this season and just smelled and smelled and smelled. Ahhhh....

And now...for the not so good...

poor little cucumbers (they should be green, by the way)

The E.S. Garden is set up in a way where about a third of the garden is sloped down and is in the lowest part of the yard. Most summers this isn't an issue because usually we're dealing with a drought, or at least a severely decreased amount of water. This year, however, (and last year for that matter) we were wet for almost the entire summer. Just to get an idea of how soaked we got this summer, here's a breakdown of the number of days it rained (and by rained I mean more than a trace, I left out the days that it still rained but not enough to measure) :

14 days of rain - June
18 days of rain - July
9 days of rain - August

July? Are you for real? 18 days of rain? That would mean we had 13 days of no rain. Which isn't to say sun. Because the number of actual sunny days, I'm sure, hovered around five or six. Yes that is pathetic. That is why we have poor cucumbers like the one pictured above. And why our tomato plants look like this far earlier than they should:


So I suppose after seeing our pathetic sunshine forecast for the summer, I can understand why we suffered in the veggie area. Other than tomatoes and basil we had a great crop of swiss chard, our rutabagas are blasting right out of the soil and are almost ready to enjoy. (My favorite way to eat rutabagas is with mashed potatoes. Mash them both together, mmmm delicious!), our other herbs did very well and so did some of our peppers. The carrots came out great and this year we even had some red ones come up in our mixed variety! The flowers also faired well, overall, especially the sunflowers. I think they didn't mind the rain as much as our veggies.

September is coming to a close so normally we would be waiting for our crops of squash, pumpkins and other root vegetables. Unfortunately our squash plants were some of the first to go to the squishy, squishy pile. The delacotas and winter squash were planted at the very bottom of the garden and were rotten very early on. Our pumpkins went the same route and we did not plant any potatoes this year. So we're waiting on our trusted rutabagas and we're already chowing down on our fall crop of greens, spinach and carrots.

I'm sorry, I've been keeping promises like a middle school girl as far as my blog posts are concerned. Thanks for not breaking up with me or telling me we can't be friends or beating me up in gym class. I appreciate that.

Seven Things You Don't Know About Me

*Psst* It's me strangers! I'm back with a fun little post that my blogging buddy Water Roots so kindly asked me to share.
It's funny, blogs get you in touch with people you would probably never encounter, ever. Though, depending on the blog, and although deeply detailed, we only get to know a small sniglet of a person's life. But damn, do we know that small sniglet like it's our own! So I thought it was great for Water Roots to share a bit about herself that I wouldn't normally get from reading her wonderful gardening blog and so I would like to share a bit about myself.
She was clever enough to tag fellow bloggers and ask them to share some things about themselves, hence why I am posting my blog. I am still a new blogger and don't have the massive crowds of followers like many do, so I cannot really tag my buddies. Though, Unspeakable Visions here is your official invite. :)

If there's a rogue blog-watcher out there, first off, "HI!!" and second, feel free to join the fun and let me know about yourself as well.

And here we go, a bit about me:

1) I work in one of the libraries of the university I graduated from. I sit in a cubicle in the deep, dark, basement (well not really deep and dark, but very basement-y). Here I catalog books both in print and online. You know the title page of your favorite book? Flip it over and read all that boring copyright information. That's what I over analyze to death everyday. It's interesting, but not my choice for a career. Plus, the whole basement thing is a little much. Where I work was originally created as a place for storage...now it houses humans. You can imagine how lovely the decor is.

2) My dream career is to become a nurse midwife. I've always been very passionate about women's health and how we approach it in the U.S. My Mom was a lay midwife for a short period of time in her younger years and she had all four of her children at home with a midwife. I'm sure she's the person I get my passion from. Ideally, I would love to have my own practice or shared practice. I would love to be able to go to women's homes, where they are comfortable, and help them give birth in a relaxed, calm environment.

3) I am the second youngest of four kids. My two older siblings are my half siblings but we never really say that. They spent much of their childhood living in California while my younger brother and I lived in New York. I always wished we could have spent more time together but alas, that is usually, unfortunately, not up to children to decide. Even though we've lived on opposite ends of the country for much of our lives, we are all very close and have surprisingly similar personalities. My older sister is the one who just had the baby. I'm trying to keep up with her growing by living vicariously through cell phone pictures. I promise myself I will see her at least one more time before she turns a year old.

4) Though I may seem quite "boring" looking now, growing up my appearance often led me to stand out from the crowds. Funny thing is, I'm often quite shy, I've always liked to blend in and not be noticed, I hate being the center of attention and am always the one off to the side watching what's going on, not being involved in the goings on. You'd never know this by my choice of appearance for most of my teenage/early adult life. I've had every normal hair color and most abnormal hair colors. I've had short, spiked, blond hair, I've had a black mohawk, and I've had long dreadlocks. I pierced my lip, my septum and had my ears gauged large enough to stick a thick marker through them. I wore fishnet stockings and plaid skirts with combat boots. It's hard being a kid. I guess this was my way of dealing with what we all thought was important at the time. (Oh how naive we all were!)
*For the record, I still have that septum piercing. Though it stays tucked up into my nose for the most part. :) *

5) Growing up my family did not have money. At all. We never went to Disney for Spring break (I never went to Disney until I was 22!), I didn't get to join Ski Club, or have the coolest clothes, my Mom made my clothes. But from the time I was about eight to my early teens my parents would take my brother and I to Nova Scotia, Canada for almost an entire summer. We drove all around the province and camped at some of the most wonderful campgrounds I have ever seen. We ate lobster and scallops right off the fishing boats. And we got a taste of how our wonderful Canadian neighbors lived. I still don't know how they did it, they must have saved the entire year for those trips. But it was an amazing experience and I miss that place terribly. First chance I get, I'm heading back there. I'll take the ferry out of Portland, Maine, just like we did when I was a kid. And hey, now I can even gamble on the boat!

6) I love, love, love to watch hockey games. Sports in general are good to watch as long as I'm live, at the game. (Though football and other such sports as golf and tennis are not my cup of tea.) We have a local team, The River Rats, (great name eh? Brings a lovely image to the mind doesn't it?) whom I love to watch. Hockey season is coming up and I'm already planning out date nights. The Boy and I especially love to go together because it's one of the few things we get to do with our busy schedules. Last year we took my parents to a game and it was great to watch my Dad get so into it. He loves making up funny names/phrases for players. Mike Kennedy, for example, would go something like this, "Kennedy! Can he getty it right in that goal!" Get it...Kennedy, Can He Getty...yeah...suffice to say it's an interesting few hours of grammatical fun!

7) The Boy and I have been together for almost four years. Our story is a funny one: Once upon a time we met while in the same 4-H club...when we were 15...young love is so funny. He lived a good hour from me but we had awesome taxi-driver-parents who catered lovingly to us. He broke up with me for another girl named Jessica. That jerk! :) Over the years we were still friends, catching up every now and then. After he moved back from college we became pretty close friends, his Mom would always tell me he was in love with me. And then one day he must have learned the err of his ways so many years ago and indirectly let me know it. I wasn't having it. Not one bit. Not after getting my heart broken once! Oh the horror!
Alas, after many months, he wore me right down, he did. And on New Year's Day back in 2006, after he spent an entire day taking care of my hungover, puking self, we decided we'd give it a shot. We were great friends then. I never regretted it for a second and still don't.

So there it is a little look into my past and present. That was fun to do and brought back a lot of great memories as I was thinking about things to write.
As far as the, ya know, gardening goes, I have finally managed to snag some photos from the garden, get them onto a computer, and then get them onto my IPod to then get them back to a computer where it will be feasible to write a decent update. *WHEW*
Shockingly I imagine my job would not appreciate me using their time to update you wonderful readers with wonderful pictures, so I'll try and snag some time this weekend and I will whip out the best darn blog update there is.

A New Future Gardener Joins the Family!

Here is the newest part of our family, my beautiful niece! (So weird to say that! I am a first time aunt, if you couldn't tell.)
She was born July 28th (the day I predicted, by the way!) and very happy and healthy. Momma and Poppa are doing great as well!
We had a great time out in the western part of the U.S. I had never been to the upper midwest and we were able to drive right through it. Very nice. Here's a taste of some of the great views we had as we drove my little Scion xD across the ol' USA.

North Dakota

Enchanted Highway, North Dakota

rest stop in Montana

Coeur D'Alene, Idaho

Coeur D'Alene, Idaho - sunset

And one more picture of that little cutie:

one of my favorite pictures of the little girlie

So there is a little taste of how I spent six days in a car and five days in a two bedroom house with an infant. Oh wait, that may have sounded bad...

Head over to my Flickr to see some more pictures of the little cutie.

So right now I am still living out of boxes, pretty much living in two different places, trying to sign up for a class that I probably won't be able to get into because I slacked on the whole matriculation thing, cats and dogs are living together. It's just insanity, really.
This all means, blog time has become non-existent at the moment so bare with me as I piece my world back together. I promise, when I am bored this winter and not taking classes because everyone and their mom is going to community colleges - I'll be blogging up this whole world wide web, yo! Yeah!


Nerd...


Til' next time, my blogger buddies.