Checking in...

Wow! It's been almost a month since I've last posted! I've been so busy going, going, and going that I have forgotten to type anything. We spent almost two weeks in the great state of Washington...see the pic above.  It was glorious! I took that pic while standing on the northwesternmost tip of the continental US. 

I often wonder why people are so in a hurry to leave our continent to explore.  I am 44 years old and still haven't been and seen everything here yet!  I'm pretty sure once I do see it all, I'll need to turn around and do it over again as I will have forgotten half of it!

Summer is here in Oklahoma for the duration. I'm trying hard to keep a few things alive around my yard.  I will be yanking most of my garden up in a week, once I get back from summer church camp, because we are so dry and hot that nothing is producing.  I'm so very glad that my family does not rely one hundred percent on my produce for it's winter sustenance or we would be very hungry this winter!  I have nothing producing except eggplant, lots and lots of eggplant!  We've had it fried, sauteed, in pasta dishes and grilled.  I'm thinking that once summer is over, no one will want an eggplant for a while!

I'm truly hoping that after church camp, I'll start getting better about posting.  It will be the first of August, time to get started settling down for school.  I'll try to get everyone back into some routine because we certainly have not been on one this summer.  I'll also be starting meal planning and big batch cooking again. I've taken the month off since we have been gone so much! 

I'm kind of looking forward to August to tell you the truth.  I like order and summer is definitely order around here! Everyday is different, everyday ends differently. I never know who will be here and when.  Yep, I'm looking forward to August!

Wall-o-waters!

I'm in the process of getting the garden ready and planted this week.  I've been to Stillwater Milling to pick up some different types of compost and peat moss.  I like going to Stillwater Milling for all my garden needs.  It's not one of those fancy little garden centers, you can buy worming stuff for your cattle, electric fencing for the horses and get yourself some fancy boots and clothes along with pet food!  It's also one of those places that old retired guys who like to talk hang out and no one gets onto them! 
I'm a bit of a talker myself, so this is the place for me.  Last year, an older man told me that the best tomato for around here was Jet Star.  I bought a couple and, sure enough, that little plant did better than most.  So this year, while I was picking up the compost, I went out to the greenhouse and picked myself up a couple of those, plus some broccoli for spring planting. 

If you remember last year, I went to a raised bed system for most of my garden and added a drip irrigation system.  I was pretty proud of myself because it sure made watering easier!  In the background, you can those tall, green tubes sticking out of the ground.  Those are wall-o-waters for tomatoes.  I used them last year for the first time in a long time.  I had my tomatoes out at the end of March when most people aren't planting tomatoes around here until mid-April.  I had tomatoes about mid-June because one of the ones I put in the wall-o-waters was a cherry. 
I'm working on getting my wall-o-waters out today.  I am adding compost to my soil and will fill the wall-o-waters with water(thus the name!) and let that water sit out in the sun for about a week to warm up.  Science teacher time: water is a great insulator because it takes a lot of energy to heat up and a lot of energy loss to cool down.  That's why around large bodies of water, there is not as great of a temperature change.  Anyway, once those chambers get heated up, I'll plant my tomato starts in the ground. 
I love gardening, it is great exercise and I think it's good for my soul.  I can think to myself, sing and pray in my garden.  Kate, my big black dog, comes and guards the garden so no forest monsters get me.....she hates squirrels and thinks they are her enemies so she guards me!  My husband is always trying to get me to stop carrying the big bags of compost but I just tell him that it's a weight bearing exercise...good for blue-eyed women who are prone to osteoporosis!
Plus, with the cost of fresh veggies right now, anything I can grow for very little helps the bottom line! 

Been a while!

I know it's been a while since I've posted.  I've just been busy, busy, busy!  Our building project is moving along.  We have now lost the useage of the garage, the floor has been raised, and we no longer have a driveway platform.  Hopefully, we'll have a foundation for the new garage by next week.

The kids are so excited but it will entail a lot of packing up and moving around.  But with that, they know that eventually they will get bigger rooms and closets and some new furniture.  It's kind of nice to be doing it right now because they are beginning to outgrow many of the toys/books/furniture that carried them through childhood.  These new rooms will be decorated to transition them into young adults.  Makes me a bit sad though. 

I stay busy with my new job, which I enjoy, and running all over the town carrying two young people to whatever event is going on that night.  I have resorted to my cell phone alarms to remind me what day is what.  I was driving myself crazy trying to keep it all straight.  Wednesday night, my alarm went off about 4:30pm and I couldn't for the life of me figure out what was going on!  My son had entered in a reminder to get him to youth group early to practice.  Thank heavens he had entered it! I had already forgotten.

I'm picking pears off the tree now and storing them in the fridge until they become ripe enough to process.  This particular tree isn't the best for eating out of hand but is good for cooking.  I'll probably cut them up and freeze them for cakes and breads this winter. 

I just planted my lettuce, spinach and turnips for fall.  I'll put my glass window over the lettuce and spinach when it starts getting cold.  I should have lettuce and spinach until early December using this method.  I'm hoping my turnips will give me greens and then a few to cook and eat.  I'm the only one who likes them at my house so there is no point in putting up a lot.