My Day in Pictures (Courtesy of Chicago Botanic Gardens)

Summer, So Far

It’s been rainy, cold and very non-summer like here in Northern Illinois. For someone who lives for the summer sunshine, I feel incredibly neglected of my Vitamin D.

I learned a very unfortunate lesson this year with my garden. I had a huge truckload of manure/compost delivered and I spread it everywhere, including on top of my garden soil. I had read a book about weed-less gardening and it suggested that you not rototill your garden as it “churns” up the weeds and allows them to get all of the sun/air/water that they need to grow. Instead, you’re supposed to mulch like crazy and let it be and you will have very few weeds. In my haste to spread the manure/compost, I somehow got a little confused. As in, this stuff is not mulch. It is rich. Very, very rich. And unfortunately for me, my little tomato plants that were started from seed didn’t stand a chance. After about a month of hoping and fussing that they’d take off, I had to accept the fact that they were not going to grow. And then, I had to break down and buy plants for my garden. I rarely buy vegetable plants. Every year, I start most everything from seed indoors or else put the seeds directly into the garden. It’s not that I’m opposed to buying plants; I just really love the satisfaction I feel dropping those seeds into tidy rows and loving them until they produce more food than we can eat. It’s a process for me; one I love dearly. The lady at the nursery where I bought the plants confirmed what I had suspected---too rich. So when I put the new plants in, I tried to scrape away as much of the manure/compost as I could so as not to “burn” them.

Stangely enough, everything else seems to be coming in just fine.  Are tomato plants tender?

Hello little radish.

We love fresh basil in salads and of course, pesto.  I found this pretty purple basil plant at a Farmer's Market in Michigan and had to bring her home.  I'm excited to make basil-infused vinegar for salad dressings.  Yum.

What do you get when you have lots of rain, cool temps and lots of manure?  Mushrooms!  They are everywhere.

The "Cedar Grove" in all it's glory.

And some tid-bits of Mother Nature. 

 My most favorite rummage sale starts today.  I look forward to this sale all year long.  Seriously.  It is run by a Boy Scout troop and held in a church parking lot.  When I see those huge white tents go up, my heart starts to race.  Then, usually on Tuesday the trucks arrive.  Huge, massive trucks full of treasures.  You see, a very affluent neighborhood has a neighborhood garage sale and everything that’s left gets donated to this sale.  Thursday is opening day.  Sometimes I’ve gone after work on the first day, sometimes not.  Usually my plan is this:  there is so much stuff crammed onto the tables that on Thursday, the first day, it can be extremely overwhelming.  I find that the best time for me to go is on Friday after work.  By then, they only have Friday night and Saturday morning left and they are anxious to move things out, so they start selling brown paper bags for $10 and everything you can fit into that bag is yours.  That may sound like a lot, but you can fit a ton of stuff if you know how to cram it all in there.   This sale is a little different for me in that I really go for the clothing.  Usually, at any given rummage sale, I don’t even bother looking at clothes, but at this sale, it is a guarantee that I will come home with 2-3 bags full of Gap, Express, Banana Republic, J. Crew, and various other brands of clothing.  Last year I also found a McCoy planter that when I looked it up online, I found selling on Ebay for about $40.  Score!!  And also, by Friday night, a lot of stuff has been sold but there are almost always still unopened boxes underneath the tables!!  So, I start digging and filling my bag with as much as I can.  I'm in trouble.  This is not very conducive to my purging of "stuff."  Ah, stuff.  I love stuff.  I guess the beauty of buying 98% of my clothing used is that I can pretty much have an entire "new" wardrobe on a pretty regular basis.

Have a great weekend, friends.

Here Comes the Sun

Little darling

it's been a long cold lonely winter

Little darling

it feels like years since it's been here.

Here comes the sun

Here comes the sun

and I say it's alright.

Spring Has Sprung

Doesn't this warm your heart?  Yeah, me too.

I don't know about you, but the older I get, the longer winter seems.  Why is that?

Tomato seeds and basil have been planted and are doing well. . . .

Obviously I don't bother with those little individual pots to start my seeds. . . .

Just throw them in a planter and I'm good to go.

I'm dreaming about a yummy tomato, basil and mozzarella dish.  Heaven.

Thank You!!

Someone brought me flowers today. . . .

A Little of This, A Little of That Part 2

Well, it's official--Country is back to work!  Yeah!  He is so happy to be back out there doing what he does best--building houses and so am I. 

So, the new downstairs bathroom is coming along nicely.  The tile is in and ready to be grouted.  We picked up a door for super cheap at Home Depot.  Cool story behind the door actually.  We went to Home Depot and talked to a great guy named Tom in the door department.  We told him what we were looking for; a solid wood, louvered door (this door leads to the 'furnace' room) with panels on the bottom.  Since this is not a door that they stock, we would have to custom order it.  So, he puts all the specs in the computer to see what the price would be and tells us $270.  Yikes.  For a door that leads to the furnace?  So, Country starts brainstorming and thinks we can just get a regular door and he can build the louevers himself, but we're both thinking what a pain in the arse this will be.  So Tom says, "You know, I think we have one of these up front in the clearance section."  Clearance section?  I've been to this Home Depot about a millions times, can smell a bargain a mile away and I've never even seem the clearance section.  So we go up there and sure enough, there's our door.  The best part?  They knocked some additional money off and we got it for 75 bucks!  Can you believe it!? 

So, why I think this is so cool is that on that very morning, I had donated a big box of food to the food pantry and a big bag of clothes to Goodwill.  I like to think that this is good karma coming full circle and that if you live your life the best way you can and are generous that it can and it will come back to you.

Let me give you a little background on this new bathroom.  The room started out like this:

It was a furnace/dungeon when I bought the house.  So, I put in new flooring and painted the walls a fun purple color and the workbench blue and green and turned this room into a craft room.  Shortly after, the basement flooded and all that work went down the tubes.  With that being said, we had to cut into the concrete to get to some pipes, blah, blah, blah and then we decided to put in a full bath since the floor was all cut up anyway.  Then life got in the way and this room sat for several years untouched.

Fast forward.  Here's the transition:

(When it's finished that will hold shampoo bottles, not beer bottles)

River rock mosaic tiles.  LOVE them.

This room sure has come a long way. . .almost there!  Hopefully we'll get it grouted this weekend.

On another note, I have been day dreaming about my garden all. the. time.  I can't stop!  I am soooo ready for winter to be over and I'm drooling just thinking about tomatoes.  I picked up some seeds yesterday.

What do you think?  I still have to get some onions.  What else?  Hmmm.  I can't wait.  I wish we could grow avocados here.  That would make Country and I very happy.  We've been eating a lot of 'em lately.

Also want to congratulate Tasha and Jeff on their pregnancy!  It's been a long road for them and I can't think of another couple as deserving!  Congrats you guys!  xoxo

It's Official. . . . .

. . . . .my garden was a bust.  Mother Nature just did NOT want to cooperate with us good folks in Illinois.  Our "summer" consisted of rainy and cold days in July.  You have no idea how bummed I am.  All winter long, I had daydreams of working in the yard, lovingly tending to my veggies and flowers.  Don't let me fool you; I really have no idea what I am doing out there, but I enjoy it and every year seem to learn a bit more.

After many successful years of growing tomatoes, cukes, and onions, I decided to add some pumpkins and gourds to the mix as well.  But let's talk about tomatoes.

Ah yes, tomatoes. . .how I love thee.  Every year I start my plants from seeds.  I always plant about 4 "large" variety plants, my favorite being the beefsteak.  And I also plant about 4 of the "small" variety such as cherry, grape, or roma.  This year when I was looking at the seed packets, I found a small variety called currant.  Now, I know the name alone should have tipped me off.  I mean currants are berries, so how big could this little gems be, right? 

But, I really had no idea that I would be planting the. . .

. . . . . World's Smallest Tomato.

What, you don't believe me?  Well, good thing I took some pictures for proof:

See? I told you.  My 4 beefsteak plants netted about oh, 5 ripe tomatoes. Yes folks, 5.  My currant tomato plants netted about oh, 5 MILLION little "what the hell am I supposed to do with these?!" tomatoes. 

Here's a fun picture just to compare the size: