Saturday, September 29, 2007

Hi.

I got some really big native perennials today at Farmer's Market.  They are selling cheap cause it's the end of the season but they can still be planted and will do well.  They will flower again next year.  Then I sowed the oat grass in the gardens.  That's what I use for fertilizer in my yard.  It does a good job and is very earth friendly.  I also put salt on a couple picker weeds that were in the yard and watered the new evergreens.  They had a lot of ornamental grasses at the market today too but not the kind I'm looking for.  Although, I may go next week and check to see if they still have some and get a few for the back fence area.  I like to watch them blowing in the winter time breezes.  I put up a few more decorations for autumn.  I got a bale of straw and a couple big pumpkins.  I use the straw for decoration now and then in November I mulch with it.  Picked the last two tomatoes today.  Well I didn't actually pick them today, I had them ripening on the garage sill and they were ripe enough to bring in.  Also put out a few more clothes lines so I can get the towels and sheets hung up at the same time.  Went to lunch with Jenny and did a little shopping together.  She's doing well in school and asked for this salsa recipe so I'm putting it here and then will copy and paste to her email.  I'm enjoying my weekend.

Salsa

1 1/2 cups diced tomatoes

1 1/2 cups diced onions

1 1/2 cups diced green peppers

1/2c celery

1 six ounce can tomato paste

2 tsp. dill pickle juice

2 tsp salt

2 tsp pepper (if you like)

2 tsp mustard seed

1/2 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp chili powder

1 tsp lemon juice

One very, very small, diced pickled jalapena pepper...take the seeds out and discard without touching with your bare hands.

Mix all ingredients.  Add small amount jalapena peppers and taste before adding more.  It will get hotter after it sits a while.  Can be canned in hot bath.  May double or quad recipe.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Owen ate a Macintosh apple that we bought at Farmer's Market and he wondered  what to do with the seeds so we planted them yesterday in a little pot.  After it overwinters in the house we'll plant it outside and maybe someday we will be eating our own Macintosh apples.

Come, let us plant the apple-tree.

Cleave the tough greensward with the spade;

Wide let its hollow bed be made;

There gently lay the roots, and there

Sift the dark mould with kindly care,

And press it o'er them tenderly,

As, round the sleeping infant's feet,

We softly fold the cradle-sheet;

So plant we the apple-tree. -

What plant we in this apple-tree?

Buds, which the breath of summer days

Shall lengthen into leafy sprays;

Boughs where the thrush, with crimson breast,

Shall haunt and sing and hide her nest;

We plant, upon the sunny lea,

A shadow for the noontide hour,

A shelter from the summer shower,

When we plant the apple-tree. -

What plant we in this apple-tree?

Sweets for a hundred flowery springs

To load the May-wind's restless wings,

When, from the orchard-row, he pours

Its fragrance through our open doors;

A world of blossoms for the bee,

Flowers for the sick girl's silent room,

For the glad infant sprigs of bloom,

We plant with the apple-tree. -

What plant we in this apple-tree?

Fruits that shall swell in sunny June,

And redden in the August noon,

And drop, when gentle airs come by,

That fan the blue September sky,

While children come, with cries of glee,

And seek them where the fragrant grass

Betrays their bed to those who pass,

At the foot of the apple-tree. -

And when, above this apple-tree,

The winter stars are quivering bright,

And winds go howling through the night,

Girls, whose young eyes o'erflow with mirth,

Shall peel its fruit by cottage-hearth,

And guests in prouder homes shall see,

Heaped with the grape of Cintra's vine

And golden orange of the line,

The fruit of the apple-tree. -

The fruitage of this apple-tree

Winds and our flag of stripe and star

Shall bear to coasts that lie afar,

Where men shall wonder at the view,

And ask in what fair groves they grew;

And sojourners beyond the sea

Shall think of childhood's careless day,

And long, long hours of summer play,

In the shade of the apple-tree. -

Each year shall give this apple-tree

A broader flush of roseate bloom,

A deeper maze of verdurous gloom,

And loosen, when the frost-clouds lower,

The crisp brown leaves in thicker shower.

The years shall come and pass, but we

Shall hear no longer, where we lie,

The summer's songs, the autumn's sigh,

In the boughs of the apple-tree. -

And time shall waste this apple-tree.

Oh, when its aged branches throw

Thin shadows on the ground below,

Shall fraud and force and iron will

Oppress the weak and helpless still?

What shall the tasks of mercy be,

Amid the toils, the strifes, the tears

Of those who live when length of years

Is wasting this little apple-tree? -

"Who planted this old apple-tree?"

The children of that distant day

Thus to some aged man shall say;

And, gazing on its mossy stem,

The gray-haired man shall answer them:

"A poet of the land was he,

Born in the rude but good old times;

'Tis said he made some quaint old rhymes,

On planting the apple-tree." - -

                     

THE PLANTING OF THE APPLE-TREE

by William Cullen Bryant

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Nice Day

I went to farmer's market today in the parking lot at Festival foods.  It's the first time I went to that one and it was very nice.  Got raspberries for only two dollars a pint, also got acorn squash, patipan squash, little jack horner squash, a bag of apples and a bag of red potatoes.  Also got a nice cantalope. 

This afternoon I picked the grapes, they are so sweet and good this year I think I'll keep them all. I also furtilized the south flower bed and weeded the raised garden.  I have a lot of room in the flower beds now and I want to plant things but I guess it's too late.

Everything isn't roses though, after supper I was flossing my teeth and a filling came out...have to call the dentist in the morning.

Anakin was curious about the sunflowers and had to check them out closer.

A little p.s....in case you are wondering if that's some sort of spray on the grapes, it isn't.  That's how they grow naturally.  I never use chemicals in my yard.

 

Friday, September 14, 2007

Frost warning...

Ah, when to the heart of man

 

Was it ever less than a treason

 

To go with the drift of things,

 

To yield with a grace to reason,

 

And bow and accept the end

 

Of a love or a season?

 

Robert Frost

Friday, September 7, 2007

September



The goldenrod is yellow;
The corn is turning brown;
The trees in apple orchards
With fruit are bending down.

The gentian's bluest fringes
Are curling in the sun;
In dusky pods the milkweed
Its hidden silk has spun.

The sedges flaunt their harvest
In every meadow-nook;
And asters by the brookside
Make asters in the brook.

From dewy lanes at morning
The grapes' sweet odors rise;
At noon the roads all flutter
With yellow butterflies.

By all these lovely tokens
September days are here,
With summer's best of weather,
And autumn's best of cheer

   Helen Hunt Jackson

Thursday, September 6, 2007

I haven't been able to add an entry, the link wasn't there.  I see it's there today so maybe later I'll get a chance...off to work in the yard now before the storm gets here.

Saturday, September 1, 2007