Stage II

We've been working today on the garden and making pretty good progress. We had rain on and off throughout the day so we had to work around it. We got more done after the picture above was taken but it was too dark to take a picture. Not only did we work on this, but we got Mawavi a birthday present. I know that some of you will question my sanity, bu I agreed to get him a fire pit.


Hopefully the fire will stay inside the pit. :) I got the plants planted in with the pavers so we'll see how they do. They are going to get a trial by fire literally. They are going to be getting a lot of sunshine with no protection. So we'll see who makes it and who doesn't.

Progress

We have been making some progress in the back yard garden the last couple of days. We stopped by Lowe's on the way home last night and picked up more topsoil, gravel and paver stepping stones. We had gotten the beds placed over the weekend, and last night we laid down the landscape fabric, got the blocks placed around the pond, and got the pavers roughly positioned. We have to stop back by Lowe's and pick up another roll of landscape fabric, several more paver blocks and probably a couple more bags of topsoil. I planted out some tulip bulbs that have been laying around the house since last fall. I got them to put out but was late in my pregnancy by then and it just didn't happen. We'll see how much we can get done around the rain this weekend.

Hallelujiah!

This round of classes has been the hardest by far since I've started them. I had to start up again three weeks after a c-section. Having to do classwork, recover my health and take care of a new baby just was really difficult. There have been several points where I was just ready to throw in the towel and quit altogether. I think the only thing that has stopped me is the fact that I only have one more set of classes and I'll have my associate's degree. I'm going to take the summer off so I can get some mental energy back.

Today we got to work on the back garden area. I had to hold Quickbeam the whole time while Mawavi did the planting. She absolutely refused to settle, and had to be carried around so that she could see things. It's a change for me to have to be the one watching the gardening and not doing it. So we got the beds along the fence set up and plants moved. We need some more bags of topsoil to finish them off, and we need to get the pond installed. I still have a couple more items that I'm going to need to get to finish it off, but I'll be working on that through the course of the summer. Can't have all of the fun in one week. :) I'll get up some new pictures when it's done.

Interview with a Rabbi

I am taking a Religions of the World class and for our final project I had to talk to someone from a religion besides our own. I decided to visit one of the synagogues in town here for my paper. I went and spoke with the Rabbi and had a very interesting time. The congregation of Temple B’nai Sholom was established in 1876, and the temple was built in 1899. The temple is located in historic downtown Huntsville. It has a very distinct architectural style, and lovely stained glass windows. I enjoyed my visit there and learned a lot about Judaism. Finding out more about my neighbors makes me feel more like a permanent resident here than a visitor.

Bleh

The location above is what is going to be my new garden spot in the back yard. It's our project that we are going to work on this weekend. I have several new plants to put out that I have to keep alive until then. We are looking forward to a relaxing weekend, since we didn't really have one this weekend. Quickbeam scratched her eyeball on Sunday so we took her to the Urgent Care clinic nearby. This was late-ish on Sunday afternoon. The doctor did a consultation with an on-call eye doctor who scheduled her in for an appointment the next morning. He prescribed for her to have some eye ointment (not eye drops). So we took the prescription to the pharmacy in the clinic, and they didn't have it. So then we took it to Publix, and they didn't have it. So the pharmacist there called all over and finally found one in the downtown area that did have it. We took her in to the doctor on Monday morning and the scratch had mostly healed up.

Then last night I got very sick. I was pretty much passed out hard and almost non-responsive, which really worried Mawavi. He finally got me woken up and I had to go be sick. My throat was very sore and I felt just terrible. So I was home again this morning and slept for most of the day. I am behind on my college assignments and have to get them turned in tonight. I'm going to be glad when this round is over. I've been kind of behind from the beginning, trying to recover from childbirth and take care of a kid at the same time, then starting back to work. Just one more round left and I'll have my degree finished. Then I'm taking a break over the summer and going to start for my Bachelor's in the fall. I can't wait for a little R&R.

Lady Bank's Rose

We ended up making it to Bennett’s after all yesterday. We went as soon as it stopped raining, and it was the perfect time to go. It wasn’t too humid, there weren’t any bugs out, and there also weren’t a lot of people out. I carried Quickbeam around in the Baby Bjorn and she enjoyed the walk too. She loves being outside, especially when there is a breeze blowing on her hair. I had a mission in that I was looking for succulents. I found plans for a bird house that has a roof that you plant succulents in. I talked to my dad and he’s going to build me the birdhouse, and I’m going to give him some succulents for his. So I needed to pick up some and then divide them out. I found several different kinds, some hen and chicks and a couple of different kinds of sedum. I also have some creeping thyme and a different kind of sedum that I’m going to use. So I got enough succulents for a good basic start, and I can add in a few others as the season progresses. I can’t wait to get up another bird feeder.

Mawavi and I also drew up plans for our rose garden that we want to start in the back yard. We’re going to have a small pond, and several roses. I also have my butterscotch jasmine that is on a trellis, and some plants in the front yard that I’d rather have in the back. This garden is also going to feature a rain garden at the end of the downspout, and this is where the new bird feeder is going to be. The rose that we got to be the crowning glory of this garden is Lady Banks and is the picture above. It is a climbing plant with no thorns on it. The flowers glow in the sunset and will look spectacular when it gets established. I can’t wait to see the garden when it is done.

Rain

Alabama has been in a drought status since las year, so I should be grateful for the rain. But how can I be when it made me miss out on a trip to Bennet's Nursery?We woke up this morning to pouring rain, thunder and lightening and hail in some places. The wind was gusting up to 40 mph. Alas, so much for planting things today. I did wait for a lull in the storm and ran outside to take some pictures.

In other news I have finally been able to attract the elusive garden gnome into my back yard. I've tried to carefully cultivate the proper habitat, but was unsuccessful. Imagine my surprise when I found this sturdy specimen under my rosebush.

Normally I am not much of one for garden ornamentation, but I've always liked the campiness of garden gnomes. My ultimate quest is to find one reading a book. Maybe if I left a few small tomes laying around in the back yard....

Alabama Snowstorm

Okay, it wasn't actually what most people would consider a snow storm, but in these parts it is. I woke up this morning to snow on the ground. I had to run outside in my PJs to get some pictures before it melted. I got up early this morning with Quickbeam so that D. could get some sleep, because I'm nice like that. So we snuggled on the couch under a quilt and drank hot chocolate. Okay, I drank hot chocolate and she got breastmilk, but we were both happy. :) I can't think of a better way to spend a Saturday morning.

And so it begins...

Here you see the re-establishment of my water gardening fetish. We've been here for about a year and a half now, and I haven't done anything about a pond. We barely got here and then I got pregnant and had the baby, and now is the first time I've been able to entertain the notion. I decided that I am going to keep the pond very low key this time, because I don't have the time or the money to do much else right now. So I decided to start with plants that I'll be able to divide later and grow my supply. My first wave is a lotus and a water iris. The lotus is Chawan Basu (dwarf, pink and cream color), and the iris is Iris Fulva (copper/red color). They came in today and are floating in my bathtub for a while, until the lotus sprouts roots and I get something to put them both in. The lotus isn't going in the pond, it will be in a seperate container.

My goal for the pond itself right now is rather modest. I plan on getting around a 40 gallon liner, having a dwarf water lily, an iris, one or two other plants and maybe two goldfish. I want to have some kind of water feature to give the running water sound, but it can't be too active because the moving water will disturb some of the plants. The lotus are a bit different, because they are grown in seperate containers, but I have to be reasonable about them too because they take a lot of watering in the summertime. So anyway, that's the latest gardening news, we'll see how green my thumb still is. :)

Update 2/10/08

It's been a pretty busy week for us. After the In-Laws left on Saturday we spent the rest of the weekend relaxing and getting ready for me to go back to work. I started back on Monday morning and it was really hard to get up at 5 am. I did okay at work that day, but left around noon because I really felt lost. I worked full days for the rest of the week until I took off 2 hours early on Friday. Maw brought Quickbeam down Tuesday through Thursday at lunch time so that I could feed her and snorgle her and get my fix so I could work for the rest of the day. This week though I'll have to stand on my own. Gas is too expensive to have trips made every day, and our goal is for him to come down once a week (probably on Fridays) and have lunch.

Saturday evening we went to a gathering of people from our church with young families. It feels very odd now to be in the parent club, after being a childless couple for so long. I've never minded kids in theory, but don't like to be around a lot of them at once. The visit went okay, of course they were all doting on Quickbeam. I did get some insight on parenting though, when one of the ladies started tearing up when she held her. She said she hadn't held a baby since her last child who is now 7 years old. I know that time is going to fly by and we have to enjoy her while we can. Before you know it she'll be graduating from high school, moving out and starting her own family. I'm really going to have to watch myself that I don't suffocate her, because I can see that I'm going to be very clingy. :)

This afternoon I made some chicken soup that I saw on the Food Network. It was from Tyler's Ultimate and turned out very good. I added in some swiss chard so that we could get a little extra greenery in our diet. I packaged the leftovers up in individual serving sizes and am putting them in the freezer. Previously, whenever we would make soup or something made to serve more people, we would end up eating on it for days and be completely sick of it by the end. I figure that if we eat it for one meal, freeze it, and then have it throughout the month then it'll give a good variety. I can check out the freezer and pick out what I want to eat for lunch the next day, and leave it in the refrigerator overnight. Then I can microwave it at lunchtime and have a good hot meal. I had been eating out almost every day for lunch while I was pregnant and Maw and I were both working. Then we'd be too tired to cook when we got home so we'd eat again. Now that we are eyeing our budget more closely bringing my lunches is a major objective of mine, with eating out once a week. So we'll see how it goes. :)

Changes

This is my last weekend on maternity leave, I start work again on Monday. I went in for a meeting yesterday, to try to get back in the swing and wean me off of my Quickbeam addiction. All of the visiting family are gone now, and so now I'm going to take advantage of the relative quiet to finish the main project that I set for myself to get done with all of my time at home. When we moved down here from North Carolina, we went through a major purge of our stuff. I mean major, like leaving half of our stuff behind. Over the last few weeks I have gone through my closet to get rid of the old clothes that I don't wear anymore, so there is some more stuff gone. The last two rat holes that we have left are in our guest room closet and our computer room closet. I was watching Clean Sweep this morning while I was feeding Quickbeam, and I got motivated to go ahead and conquer the clutter at last. That way I can start my working life back and Maw can start his stay-at-home-dad routine without having to be burdened with it.

So, my first project this morning was the spare room closet, since it has less stuff in it. I pulled everything out of the closet and put it in a pile. I sorted out the pile into sub-piles. Throw Away, Donate, Quilting Supplies, Knitting Supplies, Paperwork to Shred and Paperwork to File. I had to have a heart-to-heart talk with myself on a couple of topics:

• Quilting - With a new baby, working full time and taking college classes too, I don't have a lot of spare time. I am going to focus on quilting as my main craft of choice. I plan on starting attending guild meetings this month to get reinvigorated. I did a major purge of fabric that I am going to set aside into a bag and donate to the guild. I also took several UFO (Unfinished Objects) that I have had for years that I have had guilt over not finishing and threw them away. When I'm ready to start quilting again I want to start on something new and fresh, not something half-finished that I no longer care about. This is progress here. :)
• Knitting Supplies - Even though I enjoy knitting, it isn't high enough on my priority list to keep hoarding yarn and magazines for a craft that I am not going to be doing anytime soon. Verdict: All of the knitting items are going in a bag and I will see if there are any knitters at the guild that would be interested in it.
• Work Stuff - There are a few large binders of reference material for training courses that I had taken in my previous job. My idea was to take them to work and leave them there in my office, rather than leave them at home. But then in thinking about it, I'm not going to use them any more there than I would here, so I threw them away.
• Idea Book - One of the other things that I have been carting around with me forever are clippings from magazines with ideas for gardens and house ideas. I sorted through this stack harshly and am left with my very favorite ideas. I plan on compiling these into a binder so that I can keep them more organized. I'm going to prune out my stack of gardening magazines so that I can clear up some space in my bookshelf. Then I'm going to take the idea book and design a plan for our yard so I can take things from just being an idea on paper and actually do something with them.

The focus of this year is to stop hoarding up things and actually put them to use. Stop just talking about doing things and actually do them. Live life instead of putting things off. And for goodness sake, stop keeping piles of things in the house. ;)

Gardening News

It seems like a while since the last gardening post, but there is finally news to report. I purchased a compost bin from the Gardener's Supply Company and it finally came in a few days ago. Maw's parents are visiting this week, and his dad put the bin together. I'm pretty excited to have it, because I've been wanting to compost for a long time now. We go through lots of vegetables while we are cooking, and I hate to waste them by throwing them away. I looked around for ways to make your own, but they didn't look very good, so I decided to buy something that was made to do the job. We've broken it in with the leavings from the last few days of cooking.

In other news, Quickbeam is sick with her first cold. She has been congested and coughing, but she doesn't seem to be feeling really bad. She has still been smiley and interactive, she just gets frustrated at times when it's harder for her to breath. She's been getting lots of attention lately with visiting family. I had to learn how to share her, because after being just the two of us with her I am not used to having to give her up. I guess it's good that it happened when it did, because I'm starting back to work next week and have to get used to being seperated from her. Needless to say I'm not looking forward to it.

Work In Progress

So I have been working on my New Year's Challenge for the last week. I have done better in some ways than others. :) I have tried three recipes from my recipe pile, and they were successful. I finished reading one of my books, Acacia by David Anthony Durham. This book was a Christmas present from one of my best friends. I enjoyed it more than I have any fantasy book for a long time. It was pretty dark, but the story was interesting.

Now I'm working my way through Touching Earth by Janet Lembke. It is a series of essays on vegetable gardening, which is really appropriate this time of year. The seed catalogs are pouring in and I'm plotting out what I want to grow this year. I'm going to make a modest start at vegetable gardening this year, a small raised bed with tomatoes and a few other vegetables. I just have to resist the urge to try to start too big. :) I start making large, ambitious lists when I go through the seed catalogs, I'll have to use some self restraint. The flower catalogs are also pouring in, and I have to use even more restraint with them. I am going to get a rose this year and plant it for the baby, who shall henceforth be called Quickbeam, after another name for the tree she is named after. :) This is the rose that I'm favoring at the moment.

I went to the doctor today for my postpartum checkup, and was given a clean bill of health. So now I can start working to get myself back to normal. I need to start exercising and making sure that I eat healthy so that I can take advantage of the calorie burning increase from breastfeeding. I am actually below my pre-pregnancy weight, so I want to keep going with that momentum. I've also been getting tired really easy, so I need to exercise and get back into some stamina. I have to start mentally preparing myself to get back to work, because I'll be starting back in a couple of weeks.

We went by this afternoon and met the pastor at the church we are planning on going to. It was a pretty interesting discussion. He has been the pastor here for almost 40 years and had some interesting stories to tell. His first calling was to Mississippi in the 1960's, during the Civil Rights era, and he was the pastor of a black church. It must have definately been culture shock to say the least. We've been meaning to start going again, but with long work hours, kidney stones and finally being freaking huge and pregnant, we kept putting it off. So now we're going to get started again, and get Quickbeam baptized. Life is getting a little more normal. :)

It Was a Cold and Snowy Night...

After being holed up in the house for so long, I had planned on going shopping today. Just something to get out of the house for a while. Unfortunately I heard on the TV this morning that winter weather was expected tonight, so I wanted to make sure that we had something really warm and hearty to eat for supper. I broke out my Savoring the Seasons of the Northern Heartland cookbook by Beth Dooley and Lucia Watson and found a recipe for Wisconsin Cheddar Cheese and Vegetable Soup. I also had a recipe for Apple Pomegranate Cider from my recipe file to try out. Here is the recipe for the soup, which I made some changes to. So I bundled up the munchkin and we went out for a grocery shopping trip. I carried her around in the Baby Bjorn carrier and she got lots of attention from old ladies. :)

Wisconsin Cheddar Cheese and Vegetable Soup

2 Tbs. canola oil
3 leeks, white parts only, sliced and rinsed
1 stalk celery, chopped
1 c. cauliflower florets
2 large russet potatoes, peeled and chopped
1 carrot, peeled and chopped
1/2 lb. sliced low-fat kielbasa or other smoked sausage
2 c. stock
2 c. milk
Salt and Pepper to taste
8 oz. 1/3 less fat cream cheese
2 c. shredded cheddar cheese
1 Tbs. Dijon mustard
1 Tbs. Worcestershire sauce
Hot sauce to taste

Heat the oil in a soup pot over medium heat. Add all of the ingredients ending with the sausage, and saute over medium heat until vegetables begin to soften. Add the stock, milk and salt and pepper. Simmer until vegetables are soft. Remove pot from heat. Cut the cream cheese into smaller pieces, add to pot and stir until melted. Add cheese and stir until it is melted. Add remaining ingredients and stir to combine. Return the soup to low heat until warmed through.

The apple cider was really good, and hit the spot. This is from the Cooking Light November 2007 issue.

Apple and Pomegranate Cider
6 whole cloves
2 (3-inch) cinnamon sticks
1 (3-inch) strip lemon rind
1 (3-inch) strip orange rind
8 c. unfiltered apple cider
1 c. pomegranate juice
3/4 c. fresh orange juice
1/4 c. sugar
1/4 c. fresh lemon juice

I threw all of the ingredients into a crock pot and turned it on high heat for a while. That way it stayed warm through the night without having to keep the stove on.

The Challenge

To document the extent of my recipe pile, I made a list of recipes from my file. This shows the extent of my problem. http://goblingastronomy.blogspot.com/2008/01/pipeline-list.html I also made a list to show progress as I work my way through it. http://goblingastronomy.blogspot.com/2008/01/tested-list.html Maybe I'll actually make it through. :)

Resolution

Last year was pretty eventful, with the most important being our new baby. She's amazing and I can't get enough of looking at her and being fascinated by her. Over the last year we've gotten settled into our new home and my new job. Life has been very good, and for that we're grateful. Over the next year, my main goal is to get even more at home, explore more of our new hometown, and to be the best mama that I can be to my little girl. In order to gain more appreciation for the things that we have, I'm going on a buying moratorium.

Over the past few years I’ve gotten very bad about buying books and not reading them. I have a shelf full of cookbooks in my kitchen that I have never really even looked through, much less cooked out of. I have books on my shelf that I bought but never read. I have countless recipes from magazines that I have torn out and set aside, but never done anything with. It’s like I’m obsessive/compulsive about wanting to buy these things, but when I get them the itch is scratched and I never do anything with them. So I decided that this year, I’m going to reform my ways. My resolution this year is that I won’t buy any new books or cookbooks until I have actually read those that I have now. I’m going to caveat this, in that the one subject that I will buy books on is childcare/rearing. I even plan on restraining from getting books from the library until I have gone through those that I have already. We’ll see how far I can get with this.

The other part to my resolution is to try to buy only essential items, and only buy things to replace those that get worn out. Again, we'll see how far I can get with this. The main thing that I foresee buying is clothes and other necessities for our baby. We'll see how creative I can get. :)

Apple Cranberry Hermits

There's something about the holiday season that makes me feel in the mood, nay, compelled to bake cookies. In this case I've had a couple of accidents while baking lately that made me feel like maybe I was cursed (or too absent-minded from being 9 months pregnant) to bake. They had a baby shower for me at work, and I had decided that I would bake some cookies and take them in to the people who contributed gifts. So my first effort was making Maple Oatmeal Cookies, during which I broke my bottle of vanilla and was unable to bake enough for all. So a week or so later I decided that I would make some Cranberry Orange Sugar Cookies, and things were going along swimmingly until I noticed that the clean spoon I had taken out of the dishwasher had some food residue on the concave part of it. So I'd just about decided that the rest of the people just weren't going to get their cookies.

Tonight I got bitten by the bug again, and had an apple that was getting in a bad way. So I went online and looked up apple cookie recipes. I found a recipe for Apple Hermits on allrecipes.com and decided I'd give them a try. I made a couple of changes to the recipe, notably substituting craisins for raisins, reducing the amount of cloves, omitting the nuts and shredding the apple instead of chopping it. I also added a teaspoon of vanilla, because really, who likes cookies with no vanilla in them? These turned out really tasty, and had an almost butterscotch flavor to them. The recipe called for them to be glazed but I'm happy with them without it.

Apple Hermits

2 c. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 c. softened butter
1 1/2 c. packed brown sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 c. shredded apple
1 c. dried cranberries

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees (175 C). Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. In a medium bowl,, sift together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and salt. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter until light and fluffy. Mix in sugar and egg. Stir in flour mixture, and mix thoroughly. Fold in apples and cranberries.

Drop by rounded teaspoons onto prepared cookie sheets about 1 1/2 inches apart. Bake for 12-14 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Apple-Hermits/Detail.aspx

Janet Lembke

I personally think that one of the most important innovations on the internet was when online bookstores started acting as marketplaces for used book stores, i.e. Amazon Marketplace. It seems that almost no book is too obscure to be able to find online now. It used to be so frustrating to find an author whose work you just loved, and then be unable to read their previous works because they are out of print.

Janet Lembke is one of my very favorite authors. I first came across her work in the book "Shake Them 'Simmons Down" about ten years ago. She is from the same area of Eastern North Carolina where we used to live, so I identify with her work. The book was a collection of her essays about trees, and I loved it. So the other day when I was on Amazon, I happened to look her up, and saw many of her works available through the marketplace. So now I have some new reading material. The first is "Touching Earth", which is a collection of essays on kitchen/vegetable gardening. The second is "Despicable Species: On Cowbirds, Kudzu, Hornworms, and Other Scourges", which (as you can tell from the title) is a collection of essays on undesirable species.

Over the years I have gotten much fonder of reading essay collections. I don't seem to have the attention span necessary to read a whole book at a time, unless it's something that really catches my attention. Essays are usually the perfect length to fill in the time that I have available to read now, and I don't have to worry about trying to figure out what I read last time.

Bookstore Lovin'

We stopped and ate after work today, and then headed over to one of our favorite bookstores to hang out for a while. He read some manga and I read some gardening books and we just enjoyed sitting for a while. We're not going to have a whole lot of quiet downtime soon, so I figured it was a good thing to enjoy it while it lasted. It was quiet until the two teenage boys showed up hanging around the Dungeons & Dragons books and going on and on about their gaming. It kind of ruined the mood. ;) So we left and got some coffee and headed home. I think it's about time to snuggle up in front of the fire with a book and relax. :)

Cooking with Mojo

I haven't been up for cooking the last couple of months, so we've been eating out quite a bit. Every now and then I will get an inspiration to make something. For the last week or so, I've been getting really tired, most likely since I have a space alien in my stomach that is sucking the energy out of me. I also get out of breath easy, and have almost no room in my stomach for food because there is a space alien growing in my stomach that is taking up a whole lot of room now. So I tend to lay on the couch and nap a lot. I was doing just that this morning, and watching the Food Network in between snoozes. One of the times I briefly surfaced Guy's Big Bite was on, and he was making Cuban Pork Chops with Mojo and Sofrito Mashed Potatoes. Now I'm a girl that loves the Latin flavors and I also think mashed potatoes go just super with anything tomato-ey. So when we went to the grocery today I got what I needed to make them. You can see the results above, and it was REALLY good. Very flavorful and didn't take a long time to make. The sauce for the pork chops was a bit acidic when I tried it so I cut in a tablespoon or two of brown sugar to round it out. Definately something I'd make again. :)

The recipes can be found here:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/show_gi/episode/0,2857,FOOD_26717_49895,00.html