life of seven

Evie's shed

Remember a couple of years ago when Cate and Grace fixed up the old attic? Well, that inspiration got the wheels in my head turning, and I decided I wanted to convert our shed by the garden into a special place for Evie, as well as make the surrounding areas of the garden extra nice and fun to be in. We have so much land, and so many overgrown areas, that getting the yard into shape is actually quite daunting. But I think I've realized that, no different from house cleaning, I needed to just tackle one area of the yard at a time. We currently have three outbuilding that are currently stuffed full to overflowing with junk, filled with hornet's nests, and overwhelm me if I think too much about the work that needs to be done. However, spending the weekend on this little project for Evie, and the garden has given me a little momentum to keep forging ahead and plotting how to tackle some other outside areas that need work.

This shed really wasn't too bad to begin with, and it is still not done, but so far it has been a fun project for the whole family. Pinterest has proven to be its usual help, or danger, depending on how you look at it. After deciding to make the shed into a fun, cozy house for Evie, I looked to see if Pinterest had and ideas for me (Ha!). Well, apparently making sheds into charming, feminine spaces is a thing? They call them She Sheds. Hahahahahahahaha, I know, right? Anyway, I for one find that hilarious. But, thankfully, there was no shortage of ideas. I'm hoping to be able to sort through all that junk I was telling you about, and be able to make the shed super charming just with things we have on hand.

I did have to buy paint, of course, and I'm sort of already regretting my economical decision to do everything, including the floor, in white. But I have found that floor paint really does wipe down well, so I am hoping it will work out all right when Evie and her friends play in there. I also painted the bike- an old, rusted one of Grace's. I plan to cover it with flower baskets. And, you may not believe me, but I did come up with the idea of painting an old bike for decoration, before peeking to see if anyone on Pinterest had ever done so. Yes, yes, indeed, they had. So much "painted bike covered with flowers" inspiration. 

We painted our old crib. It was Cate's baby crib. So many memories. Grace, Gideon, and Evie used it. After Evie, I'm not exactly sure what happened, but Jude, Truman and Clemmie never slept in it. We didn't live in a home that was big enough for a special, private baby nursery, and as infants they slept in our bed. After that, I moved them to a Porta-crib, because our house was such that I needed to move the crib in different rooms throughout the day so the baby could get a quiet nap. We converted the crib to a daybed a few years back and put it in the play room for cozy seating. But when I painted the shed white, I knew a gleaming white daybed/couch would be perfect. So the crib got painted, too, giving it new life from 17 years ago.

We also needed to purchase the flowers (though the random assortment of pots were all things we had on hand). The flowers were very fun for Evie to get to pick out, her own special choices. I hope she will find them special enough that she will keep the flowers watered and alive.  But anything else I plant out there I hope will be perennial, so I don't need to buy more flowers every year. I did buy clematis, to get started on the more long term picture. Also, I really hope to actually plant a couple of trees out there for shade. If they are on the west side, they will not shade the garden at all, but will hopefully, in a few years, be able to shed and the other things in that section that are currently in the direct sun. It gets very hot. I'm not a very experienced gardener, flower arranger, or landscaper. So I'm sure it will be trial and error. But that's kind of the point of gardening, right? Year by year, adding and adjusting and learning what works and what doesn't, watching the area change with time? 

Okay, so, let me close this post by showing you pictures of what we have done so far.

Perennials

 Well, this weekend I'd had enough and decided to clean up this little area at the front of the house. I knew Ben would be thrilled because while he doesn't enjoy doing that sort of yard work, and furthermore, even if he did like doing it, doesn't have the time for it right now, he definitely  loves having it done and the yard looking nicer. It worked out perfectly, because the kids and I are discovering that we actually really enjoy cleaning up an area and planting it with flowers. On top of that, my dad, who truly does love to work in the yard, stepped in and roto-tilled the ground for us (tilling the soil by hand was NOT something I was looking forward to) so we could get the plants in easily, as well as gave input and an extra hand with the entire project.

A few years back I discovered that my dad always whistles when he's doing something he really enjoys. I don't know why I didn't know that all my life growing up, since I would often hear my dad whistle, but what always prompted the whistling had never occurred to me up until a few years ago. Anyway, I've learned a couple things that cause my dad to whistle without fail. My dad always whistles when he's playing golf. Also, he always whistles when he's working on a project outside, whether it's planting, showing the kids how to garden, or driving a tractor, somehow fixing up the outside to make everything nicer. When we worked on this spot by the house, I kept hearing that familiar whistle. 

We planted lupines, peonies, black eyed susans, and something else I forget the name of but is supposed to attract hummingbirds. We get the occasional hummingbird by our house, but have not been able to get them to visit on a regular basis. Maybe this plant that's supposed to have bright red flowers, whatever it is, will be the draw that keeps those hummingbirds coming.

The funny thing is I have been terrified of perennials practically all my life. I know, weird phobia, right? Of course what I mean is I have always been afraid of trying to get them to grow. I've always had some idea in my head that I wouldn't be able to get the perennials to come back each year, and that they'd be hard to care for, and would never flower. Well, I realized a few days ago that other people did, in fact, have perennials that thrived in their gardens, and that they didn't have to buy flowers and replant every year. Furthermore, the look of the substantial plants with the huge flowers was not something that I could buy at the local nursery each year. Surely I am not such an idiot that I can't figure out how to get those flowering plants to grow- after all, thousands of people probably do it every year! Well, obviously I don't want to speak too soon about whether I have a green thumb or a black thumb, since time will tell, but buying the plants and getting them in the ground really was not a big deal. Let's wait and see if they decide to come back next year, though.

 

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Gardening with Grandpa

Golden Days

Gardening with Grandpa

I love to watch my dad and Gideon plant corn together. My dad is so careful and wants a job done right; that's how he's always been. He guides Gideon's hands when the corn spills out of the packet, missing the contraption (what is that thing called?) and falling on the ground instead. 

"Now, now, you've got to be careful...you can't just...let it spill wherever," as he picks up the kernels and places them with the others.

"Now walk steady, keep the pace even, not too fast, but not too slow," and Gideon eagerly (but carefully) begins pushing it up and down the rows. He wants to do this big job right because he is growing up and adult tasks (like the planting, and mowing the lawn with the riding mower, and using the weed whacker) are beginning to be within his reach. I know he wants validation from the grown ups he admires, especially my dad.

I woke Gideon up this morning and he moaned, expecting me to tell him to start cleaning his room, or practicing piano, or beginning his math lesson. (there's no rest for the weary in this house, nope, thirty minutes of work before breakfast. Yep.)

Instead, I said, "Hurry up, Grandpa wants to plant corn first thing this morning." Upon those words he bounded out of bed in a split second and I teased him about usually pretending to be asleep when I try to get him up to start school. 

"I don't Mom, I promise!"

"I know...and I'm sure if you had to plant corn every day for five years the way you have with piano and school, you wouldn't be as eager to wake up for it, either."

"Huh? I don't know what you mean."

"It's okay, Buddy, never mind. Just go out and plant your corn."

Whenever my dad is enjoying himself, he begins to softly whistle. I always think of this when I think of my dad. He whistles when he hits a good shot on the golf course, and he whistles when he's gardening. I wonder if he learned this from his dad, a farmer. My dad grew up on a farm with seven siblings just west of here, and always talks of those memories fondly. After leaving home, I'd guess he's had a garden nearly every year of his life, an impressive, lush garden that invites you to walk through it and explore it and examine all the growing plants, eagerly trying to guess what each of them are. Weed killers and fertilizers are things he is not afraid of in the least, hah, he would rather have all the vegetables grow big and healthy and not have his labors eaten up by bugs.

My older sister is a gardener too; some years she goes all out and has a huge garden, all organic, natural fertilizers, weeding by hand, and other years she doesn't garden at all. I'm not much of a gardener. But I think at least Gideon has picked up the same urge to see things grow that my dad has. Like his grandpa, Gideon too gets caught up in the magic of placing dead, wrinkled, tiny seeds into the soil and watching them transform over the summer into a jungle of delicious food, or beautiful flowers. 

The tools are part of the appeal. There's the corn planter, which Gideon seems to have mastered under my dad's watchful eye. Gideon hasn't yet used the rototiller. But he's thrilled to ride in the tractor with my dad. I'm sure he'll soon learn to drive it. A lawn mower, a trimmer, a chain saw, anything with a motor that will get a job done to better a yard or a garden. And my dad owns plenty of that kind of thing. 

Outside- that's the favorite place for Gideon and his grandpa. Outside doing work that doesn't feel like work at all. 

the beginning

What you see here is the start of a garden. I love watching the seedling heads turning toward the sunlight. Thankfully there will be only two zucchini plants this year.

Tomatoes

We have tomatoes here, folks. Unfortunately we got a very early frost last weekend and it pretty much destroyed our tomato plants. We picked every single tomato trying to salvage them. I think that is about a hundred pounds of tomatoes you see on the table there. I roasted most of them and made them into tomato sauce. It was a ton of work, but we are set for a while. Tomato sauce won't be on my grocery list for months. Had the frost not hit this early, we would have been harvesting tomatoes like this for weeks. Pretty sad.

We have been selling produce at the farmer's market up the street from us for the last several weeks. Corn and tomatoes are the big hits here. It helps to have an adorable seven year old standing by the side of the road waving ears of corn at you, doesn't it?

Well, I would write more but it is all I can do to get this much in with Clementine this morning. She isn't very content to be held idly while I stand by the computer and attempt to type. But at least you get to see what she looks like being held by her grandma (in case you forgot what she looked like from yesterday's and the day before's and so on's barrage of pictures).

Thank you for your response to my sweater pattern by the way! It has jumped to page one on ravelry's pattern page, which is super exciting for me. (But Clemmie is telling me in no uncertain terms that she doesn't much care about that just now).

 

What We've Been Eating

Since I seem to have nothing to talk about besides zucchini recipes (that, and "When will the baby come???") I figured I won't break with tradition today and tell you what else I have been doing with all that zucchini.

Naturally, zucchini bread recipes are a dime a dozen, and zucchini bread is an obvious choice to use up all the extra. However, I think you will really appreciate this recipe since I think it is the best one of its kind that I have ever tried. The recipe calls itself Zucchini Cake, actually, though it is baked in a loaf pan, and since it is chocolate chocolate chip, I suppose that is an accurate  description. My sceptical family, who each individually told me that Banana Bread was much better than Zucchini Bread, seemed to change their tune once they tasted this. Um, it is pretty amazing. It is closer to a cake than bread, though all quick breads taste like cake to me. But, I guess if we are going to have dessert, this is a healthier version.

The best part? Oh, the best part is all the zucchini you can cram into this recipe. I actually used 5 small zucchini when making it. Granted, I ended up with over the 2 packed cups called for, however, I don't think it made a difference at all, in fact, the texture came out perfect. One trick I used was chopping up the zucchini in the food processer, rather than grating it. It is so much faster, and makes the pieces finer. I think it is a good trick in recipes that call for grated zucchini. I strained the zucchini after chopping it for about 15 minutes to get some excess liquid out of it. Anyway, all that to say, this a great recipe in its own right, regardless of whether you don't want your freshly grown zucchini to go to waste, or whether you need to pick up a few at the store to make it: Chocolate Chocolate Chip Zucchini Cake (I copy and pasted the recipe here for you, though it isn't mine, because I want to have it handy from now on)

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Zucchini Cakes

Adapted from Food Network

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 cup canola oil
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 packed cups grated zucchini (don’t peel it)
1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven at 350 F. Spray two 9×5 inch pans with nonstick spray.

In a large bowl, stir together flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt.

In a medium bowl, beat the sugar and eggs until light and fluffy. Add the oil and vanilla. Add to the dry ingredients along with the zucchini and chocolate chips. Stir just until combined, and divide between the loaf pans.

Bake for 50-60 minutes, or until the tops are cracked and springy to the touch. Makes 2 cakes.

The other thing we have been doing is making zucchini noodles. At my husband's insistence, I ordered a "zoodler" off of Amazon. Basically, it's a contraption that with the turn of a crank, turns just about any firm vegetable into spiral noodles. The kids and I have had a great time with this. Some of the noodles come out amazingly long.

Aside from being slightly watery, zucchini noodles are pretty good with the appropriate sauce. We did pesto (basil freshly picked, of course...) with Italian sausage. Though you can eat the noodles raw, I simply sauteed them in olive oil for a few minutes and then drained the excess water off the best I could. With this  meal I also served more green beans with bacon and onions, so we really did have quite the meal fresh from the garden. It was delicious, but it is amazing how much work growing and cooking your own food is. I suppose that is obvious to everyone who gardens every year, however, this is our first really big garden and it is quite a big chore every day. Well there you have it: your "What We've Been Eating From the Garden" update!

Our Garden

Well, my birthday yesterday didn't bring along a baby with it, unfortunately, though I did have a terrific day, starting with picking out pastries from Whole Foods (about the best bakery in Fort Collins, but what I miss most about Europe are all the amazing pastry shops on EVERY.SINGLE.CORNER.) and then a nice long leisurely walk to the river to wade, a stop at a park, and a visit to the (teeny) farmer's market around the corner. Apparently the farmer's market is incredibly informal and you can just pay $10 to set up a table Sunday morning (if you make any money there, that is...) and sell what you have. It is literally about three houses down the street from us, so we most definitely plan to do this with our many, many vegetables we have. 

Which brings me to the garden. It's doing amazing. It is turning into quite the jungle of vegetables and everything coming out of it is SO GOOD. I even found a zucchini recipe I love, which consists of basically browning onions and garlic in a pan in olive oil, then pouring them into a roasting pan with sliced zucchini, mushrooms, and red and yellow peppers. Season with salt and pepper, and roast at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes. I think I could eat this at every meal for quite some time, which is definitely a good thing, since Cate informed me this morning that she picked another ELEVEN zucchini. 

I will make zucchini bread this afternoon, maybe a triple batch. It will be good to have around when the baby arrives, if it ever does decide to arrive. I was really counting on having a baby yesterday, or today would be fine, too...but so far, not much sign that the baby realizes its time inside me is drawing to a close. I never thought I would go this long this time (though why, I don't really know- my due date isn't until Wednesday, after all...) but here I am almost at forty weeks. I know I need to make the most of these last few days. I won't ever again feel a little one kick inside me, or have the chance to daydream about who exactly this baby is, or what it'll look like. Of course I'd much rather know the baby on the outside but I am trying hard to appreciate my last few days of mystery and anticipation.

So long, then, until next time...

Old Romance and When will the baby come?

Old Romance, and as the name suggests, I am in love. I could knit about four of these, in different colors, and my wardrobe wouldn't complain. I think I'll start with finishing one, though. What a great pattern this is. I can tell that once it's finished it will be a staple in my closet. Lace, fun colors, interesting construction, dolman sleeves; this one has a lot going for it. I can't wait to get it done.

Hah, for the first time in like a year I cleaned the mirror on the closet door so I could take the picture with the light outside streaming through (I didn't want to make Cate take YET ANOTHER picture of me). It's funny what I'll do for a blog photo, I guess! 

Second verse same as the first- more produce picking out of the garden- delicious cucumbers - so sweet and we haven't had a bitter one yet, as is sometimes the wont of garden cucmbers. No problem getting those eaten! This morning the children and my parents are going to pick green beans- there are a lot of them. That's great. As I've mentioned before, it's one of our favorite vegetables. I think I am going to clean , chop, and blanch them right away so they will be ready to go for meals. Our tomato jungle is hopefully very close to ripe tomatoes- I can't wait for that, either. What's better than a fresh tomato out of a garden, except for maybe corn on the cob? The corn has a way to go yet, though, I think. But I hope we will be ready for it when it arrives- I think we are expecting about 1500 ears of corn.

I need to buy a chalkboard and make a sign and try the roadside vegetable stand idea, I think. Maybe this weekend. I am both curious to see if we can sell and produce this way, and I honestly don't know what to do with all the vegetables myself. I have given some away (anyone else want some???) but ultimately it would be great if we could make a little money off our garden in addition to growing food for our family.

Finally, here is the requisite broken record complaint of the day, "Please, Baby, aren't you ready yet to be born?" I am not having almost any signs of labor, or for that matter, prelabor, and I truly hope I don't have to go through a week or two of that before it means that Baby is ready to come. Please don't say that it's because I haven't finished the baby blanket and what am I doing knitting Old Romance instead (I'm talking to you, Steph!). Baby can't possibly know what I'm knitting! At my appointment yesterday, the midwife told me, "Unfortunately, the baby just doesn't share your urgency." Haha, so true. Well, maybe tonight...(that's become my mantra) 

Gardening and the Eating of it

Photos of our garden are brought to you by Cate- aren't they wonderful? She gave me permission to share them here. 

The crazy amount of growth in our garden this week is brought to you by an abundance of rain- a huge amount for Colorado's dry climate. That's fine by me- it has been the nicest summer I can remember, with only a few of those "it's so hot I can't stand it" days, and lots and lots of those cooling afternoon rains. I love it- so this is what Seattle's like! Maybe. I'm expecting well dry out here again pretty quickly, and get back to the normal summer activities of swimming, getting wet, wading in creeks, putting feet in kiddie pools, and everything else one does to stay cool on those hot, dry days: namely, get wet.

But this is a garden post so I'll give you a little update. We harvested the first of the basil last week- I didn't get a picture, unfortunately, but I made a huge- HUGE batch of pesto with it. Despite the huge batch, and my fears of, "What are we going to do with all the pesto I'll have to make this year?" I forgot how much my family loves pesto. Add a couple of friends over for dinner who also love pesto, and we made short work of that huge batch. Of course, I wasn't trying to conserve it this time, the way I usually do when I have to buy the expensive basil at the stoe, so I didn't dilute it with as much olive oil as I normally do, and I let the kids have pretty much as much as they wanted. They loved that. I am thrilled that there should be many more batches of pesto in the future.

I made fried zucchini from our garden as well, coating it with panko and parmesan cheese and then frying it in olive oil. This wasn't as big of a hit. The kids were rather ambivalent about it, despite dipping it in ranch dressing, and I must admit I wasn't all that crazy about it either. Maybe I just need to  do the simple sauteing in olive oil with a little salt, or garlic salt, and eat a healthy side dish and not get too elaborate with it. Come to think of it, I'm not exactly crazy about zucchini (though I don't dislike it) so I am going to have to get creative using it all up. Why again did we plant so much? Well, there's always that old stand by, zucchini bread, which also happens to freeze great.

Judging by the photos, I better get to those snap peas before the are overripe. Fortunately, I will have no shortage of helpers getting those all eaten up. All of us love them.

Are my garden updates soon going to transition to "How I used up the vegetables this week" updates? I'm starting to think so. That's okay. The eating is what the gardening's all about.

 

Evening Garden

Evening garden photos this week, for a change. I seem to take an awful lot of photos in the mornings, and write about my mornings as well, but nothing much beats a summer evening while the sun's setting, does it?

Garden this week- same story, third or fourth (or fifth?) verse- more weeding. More, and more, and more. The weeds have really been kept at bay, thanks to the very hard work of my family (Not me. I have barely pulled a single weed). It really will be worth it in the end, though.

We pulled up the bizarre cinnamon basil that accidentally got planted instead of about half of our regular basil plants, and replaced it with some new basil plants. So, half our basil is ready to begin to start picking, and the other half is just getting started. 

Our carrots had some sort of bug eating them and we are spraying them with soapy water and sprinking them with cayenne pepper.

Two of our tomato plants caught a virus (huh?) and so we pulled them out so it wouldn't spread to the others and replaced them.

Other than that, things are going great. Deer have seemed to have stayed away, we have avoided several hail storms over the last couple of weeks, and I have been able to take some beautiful, fun photos. How nice that we will always have these of our first "real" garden.

One day I will learn to take a lovely photo without backlighting, the sun either rising or setting behind the subject. Until then I will keep on taking lovely warm, golden, hazy softly lit photos and trick people into thinking I might know what I am actually doing with my camera. It's not a big secret, folks. I don't much care what type of camera you have, or what your knowledge of photography is. Just see that you have the warm glow of natural light behind your subject and click, click away. You can't go wrong.