If only I had known!

The weather here in sunny SoCal is HOT. Not blistering, but nice walking weather. Last night after a rushed dinner he boys, hubby and I decided to walk to Target to get our plehora of Mother's day cards and upcoming birthday cards.  I've decided to buy stock in Hallmark. Having kids greatly increases the number of cards that are now necessary for any occassion.  I can't believe how many cards we have to buy!!!! Mission accomplished, mostly. One of our goals was to have both kids fall asleep dutring the walk. Gray fell asleep on the way, then woke up on the  way back. We managed to bore Ryle enough that he konked out for the night on the way home. Yay!

Well, I also decided to finally purchase my smartpots. We ordered them and they arrived yesterday.  Our mail carrier has the strangest way of deliverying packages (and the Fedex guy too). We will occassionally find packages on our second story balcony next to the sliding glass door. This balcony is above the garage and is attached to our seldom used office (ok, it's really a box storage area at this point in time.). But it's the SECOND STORY! Why is our postal dude and fedex dude leaving packages up there? How do they get them up there? Are they throwing them? Climbing on their trucks? What gives? The first couple of times we would find packages on the ledge, which was odd, but now next to the door? A good 5 feet in from the ledge? Stuff will sit there for days before we go in that room.

But anyway... I have my smartpots!!!!  And after they arrived, I checked where they were shipped from (becuase they made great time...) and they are from Paso Robles..... I'm going to be there Saturday. I could have saved the shipping and picked them up direct! D'oh!

Finally here!

D'oh!

And now we need to build some toddler proof barriers for the strawberry patch. My little guy likes to wander around the back yard foraging for food. He's in the peas, radishes and strawberries. He does bring them by for me to inspect before he pops them in his mouth (most of the time). But the majority of the strawberries he's claiming aren't ready. I guess he likes them a bit tart.

Well, happy gardening all! (I have to go save the strawberries).

What now?

Well, 200 miles and we survived!  I was walking funny down the stairs for a couple of days, but that's proof I ran hard. My one complaint were the stop lights. Now, while I did enjoy the chance to catch my breath, it gave a lot of people I passed time to catch up to me, which only made me run faster still and the vicious cycle of needing to catch my breathe only kept going. If you are interested in which "legs" were mine, I as runner #8. http://www.ragnarrelay.com/race/southerncalifornia/course_maps

It wasn't as hot as it has been in the past, but running up the hills in the heat of the day made me SO glad I was not pushing a double jog stroller. There was an ambulance at the end of my first leg working on a girl who did not look so good. I wonder what happened with her.  Did anyone follow the blog?  Van 1 was way goofier than van 2, but I'm ok with being less goofy.

Well, it's back into the garden. Lots of pruning of my Cherokee Purple and Green Zebra plants. I think I might have let them go a little wild for too long. When I was trying to tie up one of the stems, I broke it off. Sorry CP! I tried to stick it in water in an attempt to propagate a second plant, but you know what happens when there is a stationary bucket of water and 2 boys under age 4 right? Muddy boys and one abused tomato stem.

Pruned CP Plant

Pruned Green Zebra Plant

Poor abused CP Stems I broke off

CP --- I can almost taste it

What happens when you have two boys, water and dirt....

 Anyway, that's what is going on with us, what's going on with you all?

12 stinky people

Have you ever had the desire to ride around in a van with 5 other stinky people waiting for your turn to run and checking out what the other half of your illustrious team is doing in the other van?  Well.... that is my fun filled vacation this weekend. It's actually a lot more fun than it seems. No sleep, some running, lots of laughing and chatting and making lots of new friends in the middle of the night!

Follow us around Southern California from Huntington Beach to Coronado Island. http://ragnar2011teamdave.blogspot.com/

We are participating in the Ragnar Race Series for SoCal. I am packed and ready to run, have coke, Doritos and sneakers. What more could a girl need?

Harvest Monday - 4/11/11

What an absolutely wonderful week/weekend it was! No trips to the emergency room,the kids were well behaved, and we even managed to got somethings accomplished in the yard.

This week we harvested peas, radishes, and Swiss chard.  And we are getting very excited for warmer weather and a larger garden. YAY!!!

11 oz of French Breakfast Radishes

4 1/2 oz peas

5 3/4 oz rainbow Swiss Chard

 The whole family was involved in the yard work this weekend. While the hubs was out playing basketball, the kiddos and I stayed home since the run this week was not jog stroller friendly. So we got to work on some garden projects that have been neglected. While getting the soil ready for my fava seedlings, I found a couple of worms. And normally I'd just leave them to do their work, but I know that Ryle loves bugs and worms, so I let him play a bit.

Icky!

Getting heeby jeebies just watching him play with the worms.

 And now it's time to get those seedlings planted. I've really only had Fava beans once after hearing Martha Stewart talk about how wonderful they were (yes, Martha Stewart). So I found some at the grocery store and we looked up a recipe and tried them out. We were not impressed. But lately I have been hearing about how awesome young fava beans are grilled in the pod and how delish the fava bean leaves are.  Well, I thought I'd see what I was missing.

 And we got part of our bed fixed up and ready for soil. One of the posts was missing from out kit, so we are waiting delivery. Getting excited about planting lots of yummies! So.... what grows in partial shade?

 The cress is starting to take off. I can't wait, it's so versatile. I saw some cress at the grocery store in one of those living containers, they sell. You know what I mean?  Well, I sort of figured if they were meant to keep the cress alive and fresh until you could eat it, maybe I could plant it in a container and cheat my way into a cress plant. So I panted it, and immediately watched it die. That was depressing. By about a week later I saw a little bit of cress had started growing in the pot. And now there's lots o cress growing in the pot.  Hooray!  So now we have cress. hmmmmm!

Happy Gardening all!  Check in and see what other gardeners around the world are harvesting this week!

Harvest Monday 4/4/11 - and being an idiot....

Happy Monday!  It's a fantastic day outside and it really makes you appreciate digging in the dirt.

This week we had a little harvest, mostly peas and scallions. We actually pulled 3x the amount of scallions pictured, but the camera was MIA during some of the harvesting. These were grown by replanting the cut ends of store bought green onions. 

From replanted cut ends of store bought scallions

Peas, peas and more peas!  We do not have record of the stolen peas throughout the week, but I'm pretty sure that both boys at some time or another pulled peas off the plants. Well, at least they are eating their vegetables!

6 1/2 oz Sugar Snap Peas

 

 So last week I had a rather large to do list, and I did start it, I swear!  I managed to break up some of the soil next to the house that I am planning on making into a raised bed. Now I just have to get down and dirty to really break up the clumps by hand and remove rocks and debris.


Progress.... why do I always forget the before picture?

  My youngest son tries to sneak outside every chance he gets. And when he does, he usually ends up playing in the dirt. He was supposed to be playing with bubbles. And magically he has dirt in his hair, on his face and his hands.

Likes playing in the dirt



Much dirtier than Mommy



Did you notice the gauze on my hand in the picture above? ******WARNING --- the pictures below are gross.... please don't look if you are easily icked out*******

Because I have sissy hands that are unused to manual labor,  I should have worn gloves to till the soil in my future raised bed.  I was just so excited about getting out and getting started that I didn't think about it. Last time I do that. My hand felt like I was developing a blister, and when I looked down I had done this:

Blister

 Now... I'm allergic to latex. So you would think that I know better than to use a latex band aid, right? Apparently I'm not very smart. I slapped a band aid containing latex on it. Oh, I knew it had latex in it, but all of my latex free band aids were too small to cover the area. And after all, the palm has pretty thick skin, yeah? Um, the skin that I exposed was not thick, and that is the area that is now inflamed, blistering and hurting. I tried the cream the doc prescribed for me last time I had a reaction and it so far is not working very well. I spent 3 hours in the emergency room this weekend, seeing if they had anything else to help me. The physician's assistant thought it was an infection. Either a viral, bacterial or fungal infection and not a latex allergy...  Really dude?  I am allergic to latex. Signs of a latex allergy include: redness, itching, scaling, peeling, hard bumps, or fluid-filled blisters and oozing sores. But this person diagnoses me with an infection?  So I get to go see my doc this afternoon to see what's up.


Blister after band aid...

Fun times.... Anyway, happy gardening and I hope your weekend was better than mine!!! Bleck...