Honestly, why am I recording all of this? Because someday I’m going to look back and see this and remember. Truthfully, maybe I don’t want to remember some of this. This Pandemic is nuts. It sucks too. But I’m trying to make the most of it. Plus, I can’t seem to sit still. It’s not like I went a lot of places before all of this, but the thought that I can’t has me stir crazy. Stir crazy enough to go all over our place looking for scrap to haul off. Not because I want the money, but because I want the crap gone.
Once I was done with our house, I went off to my parents. In fact, the more I think about it, I might be driving my dad nuts too. (more…)
What to do when you’re “stuck inside?” Why not go out and burn leaves and sticks. Right? And only on one of the hottest days of the year so far. 87 degrees to be exact. And I started a fire. Why? Well… because I’ve been wanting this area cleaned up for over a year and no one else would do it.
I had to watch closely because just off to the right of our picture is a hay baler. I didn’t really want to catch that on fire. And you can see the rake. Didn’t want to catch that on fire either. See, you have to be careful. If you could see me, I had a rake in one hand (or was it a shovel? I don’t really remember) and the water hose in the other. I was prepared.
Once I got all this burned, I went behind our garage and continued on. Then I started trying to scrape the leaves from around the garage. That was a little more difficult. I’ll have to keep working on that. (more…)
So here’s the thing… The thing is… The thing… Okay okay, the thing is… I might have planted my garden too soon. I might have gotten so dang excited I couldn’t stand myself and jumped the gun.
I live in Zone 6B. That is temperatures -5-0˚F on the cold side. A couple of years ago we got colder than that… but typically this is pretty accurate for SW Missouri.
My Grandma and my dad told me that my Great Grandpa said we needed to have our potatoes planted in the ground by St. Patrick’s Day (March 17). That didn’t happen since I didn’t start my garden digging until March 21st. Because of the country lockdown, I haven’t been many places. Lowes and a local farm store. The farm store was the only place that had potato starts. I didn’t get mine in time. I guess because everyone is home with nothing to do… everyone is starting a garden. Sigh!
But I did a little research to see if there is anything I should have planted. Turns out as long as you have daytime temps of 56˚F or more you can plant corn, celery, peppers, tomatoes, watermelons, squash, and beans. That’s what the internet tells us. These plants tend to like cooler weather… except maybe the watermelon and the corn… I’m not sure I agree with the internet on those.
I looked at the back of the package. We’re at March 30th so I figured that’s close enough to April. A lot of the packages said April so I went for it. (more…)
This spring has been quite interesting, to say the least. Between school being postponed and doing some work at home for school (challenges)… and the fact that the oldest daughter’s school was canceled while the youngest was on Spring Break. And all the reports of the coronavirus… aka COVID-19. So much uncertainty.
But one thing that has happened I think for a lot of individuals is we’ve been given the gift of time. Something we all beg for. Everything is canceled. Can’t do anything. So why not work on that “honey-do” list.
One of the things I’ve been wanting to do is landscape our house. There have been a million reasons why I haven’t. Actually, if you look at that picture above… there to the left side of the picture, that left side of the porch… last year I planted perennial flowers. What is a perennial flower?
A Perennial Flower/Plant is a flower or plant that live more than 2 years.
While we’re at it… what’s an annual flower?
An Annual Flower lives for just one season/year.
The flowers I planted there by the porch DID NOT come back. Bummer. Here is where I tell you that I have a degree in Agriculture and I’m pretty sure I have a black thumb. My background is animal agriculture. Although when I was in college I loved the agronomy side of agriculture (plants, soils, horticulture) to the point I almost switched majors to be an agronomy major. But still… growing things is not my strong suit. I struggle, but that doesn’t mean I don’t try.
So why not give landscaping a try? I actually had to take a landscaping class in college so I got the basic gist of how to landscape. The rest comes from trial and error and the internet.
First things first
Decide on the area where you are landscaping. It is a good idea to use something such as spray paint to outline your area. Another good tip is to pay attention to your sun. Study for a few days, weeks, whatever your time frame you can so that you plant flowers that are based on the lighting.
So I outlined my area. We planned on making a walkway as well as having flowers/shrubs. Next came brainstorming on how I was going to make a retainer for my material and then what kind of material I was going to try and retain.
So many questions have to be answered before you can start. (more…)
A year ago I really wanted to start a garden. It just wasn’t in the cards. We were trying to finish up our house and there was no time for a garden. Gardens are actually a lot of work. I had one a few years ago that was a small raised bed. I tended it every day. They are work.
But then this year… coronavirus hit and BAM, we all had time on our hands. haha. Back in January, we had a fire that burned up my little tiller. It wasn’t really the size to start a big garden anyway, but it was what I had… but the fire consumed it as well as that original raised bed I had. haha. Ironic… kind of.
I started probing hubby trying to question if we could get a tiller, etc. Why? Because I want to start a garden. Why? Why not? Why? Why not? Okay, you get the picture.
I mentioned in the Chiefs tree post that the little took over the original Chiefs tree. The white tree is like 3 1/2 or 4 1/2 feet tall. I kind of forgot exactly, but Abug wanted her own tree and we had the ability to make that happen. In like September or August maybe even, we were at Hobby Lobby and they had their Christmas ornaments out. With the help of my mom, we got her a bunch of new ornaments for her tree. Now, this is where I note that last year when it had all the Chiefs ornaments, she took it over. And so we were adding to her ornaments not starting from scratch.
The ornaments were focused around things she likes, ballet/dance, tball, unicorns, and mermaids. Oh and ketchup, we can’t forget the ketchup.
I wouldn’t let my mom give her the ornaments until we were ready to put the tree up. I knew if we gave them early, she’d get so excited she’d want the tree up in August or September. While I’m all about putting up the tree early, that might be a wee bit early.
Honestly, I’m quite late on this, but better late than never. Now that we are in our own house, we had a little more room to put up more trees. We put up 3 in fact. You’ve seen the family tree which housed all the presents. Then both girls got a tree. This one was the Chiefs Tree for Tbug. She had options and this was what she wanted.
Last year at the end of the season I bought this tree. The funny thing is if you look at it, it almost has a silver tone to it. However, it was bought to be gold. So looking at the box, what was printed directly on the box says silver. The label Walmart put on it said Rose Gold. With the lights on it looked more rose gold so who the heck knows what color this tree really is. (more…)
It would be funny if people didn’t know my favorite holiday was Christmas. Especially if you watch my Facebook page all year long. Now here is where I say that sometimes I post how many days/weeks/months until Christmas year-round just to be ornery for all the people who give me CRAP about it :). But somewhere along the way, this year hasn’t felt quite right. I haven’t been nearly as excited as I normally am.
A friend took it upon himself to try and help me get into the spirit. When it didn’t work, he eventually backed off. I told him not to but he did anyway. He said he shouldn’t cram it down my throat, but I told him that maybe he should. and while right now I’m still not 100% feeling it yet, I feel better about it. That might have come because I’ve been listening to Christmas songs since they came on Sirus XM radio. Or the fact that Hallmark has been playing Christmas movies around the clock since the weekend before Halloween. Quite possibly it could also be because our Christmas trees are up and decorated. Yes, I said trees, plural.
Whatever it is, I hope that it keeps coming! Last year at this time we were hanging in Limbo on if we were going to get our house bought or not. And I hung Christmas lights up the day we bought it. I got made fun of but I didn’t care. I threatened to put my Christmas tree up in our house but I didn’t. Instead, hubby and I got into a huge argument about actually putting the tree up and we almost didn’t. Then when it was up, the fight was still going on to the point I almost tore it all back down that day. And the fight… want to know what it was about? It was about putting up the tree. (more…)
Woohooo… go me, right? Oh… but… here’s where I mention that I baked an Angel Food Cake IN. MY. OWN. KITCHEN. WHAT!!??!!??
Yes! You read that correctly. I baked a cake in my kitchen. In my oven. So super exciting if you ask me!! Today I think I’ll focus on said kitchen. Then the next post will be about said Angel Food Cake. Deal?
Here while back, I came across a recipe for Pigu. What the heck is Pigu I wondered? Well, basically it is a little dough like thing filled with romano cheese. You start out by making the dough much like noodles, but I almost think it comes out tasting more like bread than a noodle dough. Basically, it is like an Italian Gougères.
Okay, I’ll bite (for you)… what is a Gougères? It is a choux pastry flavored with cheese (usually Gruyère), then usually filled with a savory filling.
So, we have dough, check.
We have cheese, check.
Well, it’s like an Italian Gougères, correct? We’re going to go with it and run! (more…)
