How to Make a Veggie Arrangement (in Pictures)

Last Christmas my mom gave me a fun carrot peeler.  She learned how to make veggie bouquets at Relief Society, then became veggie connoisseur to me and the granddaughters during our family Christmas party.  She gave us a fun tutorial, then slipped in the secret peeler into our Christmas stash.

I think these pictures are quite self-explanatory.  

The only tips I could give would be this:

• Buy this carrot curler
• Use the right-half of your brain

If I hadn't been in such a hurry, I would have tried to perfect the radish roses a little better.  I also think having mini cookie cutouts to make cleaner shapes with the cucumber would have been nice.

The veggies I used:

• Big real carrots for peeler
• Romaine
• Long wooden Kabob Sticks
• Green Onions to slide over sticks to make flower stems
• Celery to make a support for the flowers
• Olives
• Radishes
• Cucumber
• Green Pepper to hold Ranch Dipping Sauce
• baby carrots for dipping
• cherry tomatoes

Picture tutorial begins now:

Too pretty to eat?  I think not!

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Winter is Over

This picture is telling.  Isn't it pretty?  This was taken on one of the very few cold crisp winter days that did not have a valley inversion.  Of the roughly 60 days that make up January and February, over 50 had horrible horrible air quality, like pretend you smoke-a-pack-a-day air quality that makes national news.

But this day? This day was striking and beautiful. The twiggy arch was my summer therapy creative session, and it proved to be a pretty winter statement.

But notice the gate?  It fell off its hinges in the snow and was stuck open for some time.  Last week a mystery pooch/beast came in the night and killed 8 of our chickens.

See the bridge in the background?  The siderails have been a scratching post for goats, to the point that they are detached and slowly inviting the decay of our cute bridge.

See the chicken coop?  It is sturdy and well, perhaps just in need of some new paint. 

By some measures, the farm has fallen into the "disrepair" category, what with the adjusting, mending, and painting that clearly is in order.

But the snow melted last week, and the grass is in plain sight! There are outbuildings to paint, weeds to pull, garden beds to till, flowers to plant.

I worry that I am lacking the drive I had a year ago.  There was a freeing throwing-of-the-hands-in-the-air-gesture of "still got that baby fat but I'll just work it out in the garden" shrug.  Well guess what?  I just got fatter.  Apparently working in your garden all day is quickly cancelled out when you eat ice cream late at night while watching Portlandia.

I suppose nothing great comes off without a detailed plan, but I feel like my body is contradicting my words of responsible agriculture, raw greens, and living off the earth.

 We're still looking at these winterscapes as I whine about not being beautiful and twenty years old anymore.

 Seriously, why is everyone running marathons?  Why is success, drive, goal-setting, ambition, and success constantly compared to whether or not you go to the gym every day?

I think I feel judged, but mostly by myself.  Going on a bratty introspective vanity rant seems perfect with a sole frosted pine tree, with lonely footsteps leading to it right?

Like the farm, I have fallen a little into the disrepair category.  I'm hoping some good old fashioned sunshine and black dirt will invite some new life around here.

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Easter Nature Basket Bursting with Life and Easter Countdown

I often feel like Easter doesn't get enough attention, so we are hitting it early this year.  I was very excited when I saw this Easter Countdown.  It is a full 30 days!  We started it late and so will finish just after LDS General Conference, which seemed appropriate and a good prep for hearing the Prophets words.

My mother-in-law gave us a mitten tree for Christmas.   Since mitten weather is nearly over (thank goodness) we used it to hang our Easter tags.  Every day me and the kids take down a tag and learn about all the different titles of Jesus Christ.  So far we have covered his birth, Jehovah, and Messiah.  After our study, the tag goes into our HUGE Easter Basket exploding with life and springtime energy and life.

 This is our new reading corner for the kids.  Lots of times baby Giddy brings me the sheepskin rug to snuggle him up while I rock him in the big rocker.  He is such a cuddly stinker and I love it!

This coat rack no longer accepts stinky shoes in the bottom.  It is now dedicated to a rotation of library books.  It has helped keep things manageable, in view, and USED.  Here's Giddy reading the Easter book we just checked out from the library.

Our Nature Easter Basket was first used as a changing table for Chloe.  Nowadays, it comes out for a combined Easter Basket for the family.  This year, we are celebrating Nature and the return of Spring as we countdown to Easter.  Our little turtle is bedecked with springtime jewels (with hot glue, which will easily pull off should we see fit) and is slowly marching his way to the basket of plenty.

  Our Nature Basket is lined with moss and filled with eggs, seashells, and our favorite Butterfly in a Jar.  The kids love to pick up the shells and listen for the ocean!

 I'm starting to feel like my homey Bunny doesn't fit in around here.  I wish you could see the butterfly in the jar better.  When you tap the lid, he flutters around and amazes all my little friends at Church Primary.

 My kids were slightly disappointed that the eggs had no treats.  One day they may just be surprised to find something inside.

Tonight we are learning about Jesus as Creator and will be starting our Easter Hill with Wheat Grass.  Thank you wizard mother at Chocolate on my Cranium!

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Home Teachers Still Allowed but No Longer Reserving a Room

Over the past year, I have slowly been trying to make our front room more A) Pretty and B) Useful to our Family.  Most homes have them nowadays, the pretty front room that's small but stuffed with couches, always clean and without toys.  Around here it's often nicknamed "The Home Teachers Room".  It serves its function in that there's a nice place to visit but guests don't have to see your dirty dishes.

But Home Teachers just come once a month, or in my case, once every 18 months. Our front room is small- too small for a couch and loveseat.  Piano is our musical talent we invest in around here, so I decided I would make our front room the "Piano and Reading Room".  When and if the Home Teachers show up, we just take them into our main family room, mess and all.

I took some pictures after I moved the loveseat out, but before the transformation.   Wait, let me clarify: before the mini-makeover.  I am not a decorator, and organization takes way too much brain energy and money for me to be a natural at it.  If I had my way, this room would have wood floors, wood plank walls painted white, and no vertical blinds!  The ceiling fan would be replaced by a quirky white chandelier, and the piano would be refinished in white.  In essence, the dream lives on this Pinterest board.  I have to say however, that the new reality is far from magazine pretty, but a dream come true for me.

 I have almost tried to sell our glider rocker a few times, but I still yearn to have a thinner profile chair that I can occassionally rock and snuggle my littles.  

 Here it is with the glider and me trying to find the perfect rocker recliner without taking up half the room.

 I have seen several tutorials on painted pianos, and would love to paint this piano WHITE.  I just don't dare start such a project, plus what if it turned out crappy?  On a piano?!

This is how far our piano makeover went.  The colorful mismatched knobs have made a big difference however!

 I purchased a teak rocking chair, only to discover I had to rocket fuel my legs off the carpet to get it to rock, and then it lasted for approximately one (1) back and forth.  So that sucker went back to the store.  So the glider remained waiting to find the perfect replacement.

This rug is fun and it's not that old.  But it didn't fit my new criteria of WHITE, WICKER, and WOOD.

So here is the AFTER picture:

The glider is draped with fabric I have had forever, which I will recover it with.  It is a white linen with embroidered tan flowers.  The plan is to paint the honey wood a clean WHITE and so that the only wood remaining in this room is the dark finish of the coat rack, piano, and small rocking chair.

I love the Ikea Expedit shelves with wicker inserts.  It stores piano and guitar books, Primary Music props, and the like.  The Ikea shelves with inserts ended up being around $200 altogether.  When I thought of the clean look and the ample storage, it was well worth the price.

Plus it has been fun to treat the shelves as a sort of mantle and make simple holiday arrangements.

The rug is made up of old indian silks and was just $17 at TJ Maxx.  

So Marilyn, are you proud of me?  I'm still trying to be el Decorateur but this will have to do for now. 

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The Winter Lull but Still Eating the Fatted Calf

One of my goals in 2012 was to lessen the garden waste due to end of summer burnout.  Are you familiar with this?  You have buckets and buckets of corn and you take the time to pick it, haul it, shuck it (*ahem, this taken a few days in years past) and by the time you're ready to process it for the freezer it's starchy and gross.

In July, I spent 2 weeks to find the perfect shade of aquamarine for the farm.  Red, White, & Aquamarine--kind of Americana with a twist.  I priced a high quality paint, swept in during a one a year rebate, then brought it home with big plans to freshen up some outbuildings once the kids started back in school.

But the thing is, once the kids started back in school the garden was unloading harvest after harvest upon us.  It was a frenzy.  So the bucket still sits in the garage, and August, September, and October I was in the kitchen canning garden produce!

Here are a few long overdue (I don't think I updated much about our own garden last year) pictures from Our 2012 Garden.
Prepare to do the scroll dance.

We had some raised beds built in the spring.  Here we planted the traditional 3 sisters.  3 sisters equals corn, pole beans, and squash.

Here they are the beginning of July starting to take off.

By harvest time I found some squash bugs that had been hiding under the leaves.  I tried to use the most organic chemical-free methods to promote garden health and for the most part it worked.  

Here I just sprayed the squash bugs with a solution of water with a little Ivory Soap.  Ivory Soap is one of the most biodegradable soaps there is.  Just spray spray spray and eventually they seize up and just quit.  To get the eggs, check the underside of leaves, grab some packing tape and pull them off with the sticky side of the tape.

Here the 3 sisters near harvest time.  This bed we planted sugar-pie pumpkin which are the perfect size for steaming, pureeing, then freezing for pumpkin muffins throughout the year.

I feel quite passionate about providing fun creative avenues for the kids to play in the garden setting.  I was enamored with the idea of a labyrinth (labyrinths are different than a maze! I won't elaborate to spare the boring details) so I found a pattern I liked and roughly shaped it out with flour.  Then we added new compost to the pattern and planted in that. 

 Here's the Labyrinth shortly after planting.  Eventually I laid down layers of cardboard in the paths to suppress weeds and it did a great job!  I planted a hybrid corn called Optimum Sweet because it is a very tall corn (and more importantly, a very sweet corn).

By harvest time it just looked like a big corn patch!  Eventually we had a big white PVC teepee at the end of the labyrinth along with 4 chairs for little people.  I'm kindof totally ticked off to report that my kids were scared of wasps all summer.  Next year I will come up with a game that will lure them in more effectively.  Also, I hope the coming year doesn't have the wasp problem that we had.

Two boys running through the tall corn.  We had some of our "Labyrinth Corn" in our soup tonight!

This shows the teepee a little better, along with my best garden helper last year, Gideon.  He loved to be outside with me while I worked in the garden.

Blurry!

Here was another addition last summer.  We took cattle panels and bent them.  They act as a support to peas, beans, while shading the cooler crops like spinach, salad, and broccoli.  Here it is pretty early on when our peas were starting to take off.

 Prior to a weedfest, my little orphan child in the hoophouse.

  A little later we got some mulch down to help with the weeds.  This is my favorite picture of Leif in the garden.

 I strung lights around the opening, it was so magical at night!  But darnit it didn't last with garden sprinklers hitting it 3 times a week!  Baby + Baby Rake = Happiness.

At the mouth of the hoophouse is the sandbox.  I wanted to clean it up a bit and bought lots of wooden alphabet letters, sea shells, and glass coins.  Here's my two blondies having fun!

This is my favorite picture of the hoophouse.  I took some old sheets to keep the shade coming.  Boy did we have a HOT summer.  

Also, did you know it takes about 8 hours to shell enough peas for a big pot of creamy potatoes and peas?  I had so many, and they were so intensive to shell, that we did have much go to waste in the pea department :(

After trying to grow a plethora of items in this top tier, I finally broke down in July and just planted the drought tolerant Portulaca flowers.  They filled it up nicely and could handle the HEAT.

Tomato guy!

We planted a cover crop of Clover after harvesting fava beans.  They will enrich the soil, suppress weeds, and provide happiness for our bees in the spring. 

The Mister of the House was cute.  I would stack a box of completed jars and ask him to take them downstairs, but instead he kept stacking them in the piano room.  He wanted to keep seeing our progress and take a picture when we were done.  

Although I know there are many awesome woman who canned more produce than I did, I was happy with the progress we made.  We still have lots of food preserved and it is serving our family well.

 Sadness = roasting peppers and garlic for a tomato sauce, only to ruin the entire HUGE patch with too much parsley for the garden.  Lame!

Peach Basil Jam and Dehydrated Pears.

 The pears came to Idaho with me and my mom helped me put them up.  Thanks mom!

Green tomato relish, peach jam (sweetened with honey), and peaches!


I love this jar of salsa with a mashed avocado and fresh cilantro.  Also good on it's own!

Here's our parting shot.  We took some trimmed branches and made an arch leading from the garden/yard to the "farm" area.  I love it!  Looking from the farm into the garden. Stay out chickens!

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