Garden, Ravioli Soup,Biscuits, Beginning Felting - a Pumpkin.

Each day begins with the animals.  Dog, cats, chicks, chickens, and lambs come first. There is something so grounding being with the animals first thing in the morning.  We make sure they are fed, watered and loved.

Today is a Monday. I water Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  It is dry and arid where we live.  We are doing our best to plant and GROW trees. We have lost many due to draught or hail storms.  This year we are doing well... honey crisp apple trees, 3 aspen, elm, willow, and this year I added two Chicago hardy fig. I contacted the Colorado Extension office and asked if they will be okay in the winter.  Here's the answer:

Here's the response to your question:
Thank you for your inquiry. Chicago Hardy Figs are compatible with Zone 5. If they have been properly planted in the ground (not in containers), are in a suitable area, and are well established, they should winter over with the correct mulching, winter watering, and protection from extreme conditions. If they are in containers they should be brought in to the greenhouse.

I am going for it. They are not in containers. Leaving them outside and mulching the heck out of the area and snug it in for the fall for winter.

We are on well water. Know that I am very grateful for the water we have but … it is full of sodium and bicarbonate.  You can actually see it some areas on the soil... it looks like a patch of snow in the dirt. But water we must... Here's how everything is doing.

I need to replant the lettuce.  A cat got in the greenhouse and used it as a litter box. 

From the greenhouse today, looks like I will be making relish. I already have 24 jars of pickles.

I did pick up a few things for dinner too. 

Breakfast... veggie biscuit sandwich.  I found a recipe HERE that I had tried before with great success.  So, I gave it another go.  They turned out great and I used a glass to cut the dough . Next time I will you a wide-mouth ring to get larger biscuits. (my sister gave me that idea).

Breakfast was onion, tomato and goat cheese biscuit. 

I saved six for the week and froze the rest.  It made two dozen. 

House chores were done. My goal daily is to be done by noon , today was 12:30pm. 

Time to have fun.

Craft time - felting a pumpkin. My youngest grandson said he wanted me to make Halloween/Fall things not so "pookie" aka spooky.   So this week I am challenging myself to craft not so spooky and gory crafts.

I had an audience at the front door. He tapped as I  felted.

I added a little yarn vines.  I have a bunch of roving that I can't wait to try and make more. 

We went for a walk this evening to see if we could tell where the coyotes were hanging out and getting into the field behind our house. I think we found it. But on the way there , trucks hauling corn have been leaving big dirt clods on the road... I twisted my ankle on one leg and went flying.... tore my pants at the knee on the other leg , landing hard...skinned my knee and hands. No big deal. I kinda laughed because I haven't fallen like that since I was a kid.  Norman, the dog, was by my side nudging me to get up and get on home. 

Dinner was from the garden... a big salad...

Plenty of vegetables from ravioli soup.  I used the recipe from HERE .

Added garlic toast. 

Time to clean up and get ready for tomorrow. 

peace

Celebrating St Patrick's Day, Crockpot Oatmeal, Snow and Books

We were on the road for over a week , despite the fun we had it was good to be home. We saw many beautiful horses and horse property.  This is my friend, Liz's horse walking for therapy. 

Colorado got hit hard with wind and snow while we were gone and was one of the reasons we were late getting home.  The highways were closed. Here is what we came home to:

Norman is back with us after his days with friends at the Dog Bed and Breakfast. We celebrated with being together as much as we could  today! He loves snow and spent most of the time in it. 

We put oatmeal in the crockpot before bed last night.  Using pantry apples we canned last year and other things our food storage .

We layered a jar of apples, 2 cups of oats, 1/4 cup of brown sugar, a sprinkling of cinnamon, a pat of butter, and 4 cups of water.  Just before bed we put it on low. The house smelled wonderful.

It was more like dessert than breakfast!

Dude's breakfast.

I told my young friend Abby, I would make something for St. Patrick's Day out of a toilet roll and this is what I came up with. Silly but with little time and supplies, not bad. 

We celebrated St. Patrick's Day with colcannon.  I am trying not to eat meat during lent. No way would Dude do that too.  But he does love potatoes and didn't mind the "greens" in our colcannon tonight.  I made it potatoes, mustard greens, scallions, cabbage, butter, milk, salt and pepper... topped with an egg.

Books...

Here is what I am reading  and listening to from the Library.

And still reading and savoring... I am just enjoying it ...plus I am a slow reader. I read library books faster since they have time due. *smile*

I made my dinner for tomorrow since I head back to work.  I made vegetarian Korean tacos with tofu and marinated veggies to top them. 

That's all for now. Time to read Norman a bedtime story. 

peace 

How we decide what to plant

When we go to plant our gardens we think about what we like to eat.  Here are some ideas for gardens:

Salsa garden: tomatoes, onions, garlic, tomatillos, cilantto, regular peppers (bell, banana, pimento), jalapeños , cherry peppers.

Herbal/tea garden - raspberries (I love to dry the leaves too), mint, catnip, borage, basil, oregano, chives, chamomile, dill, parsley, sage, thyme, lavender, lemon balm, and rosemary.

Salad- lettuce (variety), spinach, radishes, carrots, beets, cucumbers, beans.

We don't usually grow potatoes or peas because they are so cheap in the stores.

Extras  - zucchini, watermelon, variety of pumpkins, corn, sunflowers, zinnias, variety of squash.

Fruit - boysenberries, strawberries, raspberries, peach tree and two apple trees.

I did get an eggplant plant today because it was on sale .  -smile-


We love it when the grandkids come out.  They came to see the gardens, animals and learn to crochet.  They are working on single crochet stitch and making a scarf.  They had been practicing just make a chain before. 

Yesterday we got a downpour of much needed rain and the last for a while. 

peace