Category Archives: gardening

Oct12

Packing up the lawn ornaments

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Packing up the lawn ornaments, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

I have ‘things’ scattered in various gardens around the house that are getting put away soon. For instance, there are mostly squirrels in here that are looking a bit green and sad from spending months and months outside. Since we’re going to have good weather, I’ll give them a little spray with bleach. I also double check to see if I really want to keep them. It would be a good time to clean the beds out better to avoid all the work I have to do in March and April.
Unfortunately between planting 20 odd iris rhizomes and playing Word Twist like a maniac last night ( Bri was helping), I had a achy left hand until 4 am when I finally went looking for an ace bandage and the icy hot. It’s much better now! Bri was wearing one on his knee. The price for yardwork!

Rant-
I bought a tiny pot roast (they call it oven) for dinner. It was like 1.5 pds and cost $8 and was fatty, tough and horrible. I want to complain, but the local store has a large patronage of shoppers. The Hispanic shoppers tend to go in one day and buy an entire cart of meat. Frankly, they don’t care what I say, as they are making money off of unsuspecting people. But if they are trying to sell cheaper cuts of meat for ‘oven roasts’ then I am perturbed. I think I’ll buy my roasts elsewhere. Dang, I’m hungry right now.

Oct9

Bam! Look what I made Emeril…

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Last night I made Emeril’s Seafood Mac and Cheese from Everyday Food magazine:

I used shrimp. The hardest part was the roux and it was a bit expensive, but I got to separate it in three containers-one to freeze, one to give away and one for leftovers! It has three cheeses in it-not lowfat except for the milk. I didn’t have the Asian breadcrumbs(panko) or the Creole spices, so I made due with what I had.  I thought stewed tomatoes would go good with this. Pure comfort food!

And here are the one two smallish eggplants that I grew:

I’m a bit fed up with vegetable gardening. I think our garden soil is eroded. We need to add top soil and nutrients to it again. I spent some moola making the Martha Stewart tomato tepees, and the tomatoes were sad. We didn’t water the garden that much, and we could have mulched it more, so those were issues too.

I did feel better yesterday and went food shopping. Not that hungry though. Seems ‘my peeps’ lay off complaining when they hear I want to go to the doctor. Is this a good thing, for my stress level-yes! : ) I’m wondering if I am developing more and more food allergies or sensitivities to food too.

Jay Leno just did a great parody about the debate Wednesday night, pinpointing McCain’s frequent use of ‘my friends’-holding up a ‘Friends’ tv show DVD and asking who the people were on his MySpace page. Obama’s sound bytes mentioned shopping and Delaware-lol-because that is what we do to save paying taxes. : )

Thanks for your comments! I am always thrilled to get them!

Sep2

3 eggplants in a row

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3 eggplants in a row, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

This was our ‘just throw it under the tree’ plant to see if it would do anything. It got so huge and now has the little eggplants growing on it, plus a few more! Bri planted hot peppers in the same area and they didn’t fair as well. I planted rooted coleus cutting to the left of the eggplant and they are doing good.

Huge eggplant under the evergreen

You can see some of the coleus in this photo.

Jul22

Local guy really feeling the heat

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A local newsman, Larry Mendte, really screwed up his career by hacking into his co-anchor’s Alycia Lane’s email account-about 500 times over the last few years!

During this time, Mendte allegedly leaked privileged legal information about Lane’s personal life to the press “in an attempt to undermine his colleague’s ongoing legal cases,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Laurie Magid at a press conference on Monday.

Larry is from Lansdowne, PA, the same town as my mom and graduated with Brian from West Chester University in 1979. He worked at the same tv station where my oldest brother does.

The article goes on to say that he was jealous that Lane made about $100K more than him a year. Larry was on the syndicated nationally known show ‘Extra’ years back, before returning back to the Philly area to anchor the news.

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I’ve been watching ‘The Mole’ and the last of the three people from the Philly area went home (was executed) last night. Clay, from West Grove, PA a few towns over, at least got to see his wife before he was sent home. I’m going to be on the look out for either one of them at Walmart, etc.

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I picked some Italian green beans (I think that’s what they are) today and a few zucchini. It was wicked hot to do so. It is suppose to rain tonight and tomorrow-thank goodness! We watered things anyway, as they were so droopy. A couple of squirrels were in the pear tree having a feast and scooted away when I came to pick the beans. I noticed there was a small pile of pears, like they were harvesting them! I picked them up, thank you critters!

Jul15

First of the crop

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It just seems like I planted the zucchini! We had it for dinner last night. I slice it up and add butter, onions and parmesan cheese to it. Really tender and tasty.

Off to get my hair done. I haven’t have it cut for a few months and it’s the longest it’s been in years. I do like to pull it back though and have to until I get my van’s a/c recharged.

Jul2

My Coleus variety 2008

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My Coleus variety 2008, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

Thought you’d like to see all my different coleus. The colors and leaf variety are all so different. If you click on the link, it will take you to flickr and you can see the different names of the plants.

My etsy shop and eBay store has been updated-eBay is loaded with very inexpensive, but nice lots of cross stitch magazines and leaflets. I’m trying to clean out my one stash area before I clean out the things I was saving for myself. Please check them out! Links on right—–>>>>>>

Jun30

Job prospective

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I was watching tv and an ad for this company-Care.com came up. I just looked it up our zipcode and there is one lady about 10 yrs younger than me (who wants $20-30 an hour-wow!) and a bunch of young 20 somethings with their profiles up. I have been around a few hundred kids in my past and this is something I can do. What better experience than raising your own child, correct? I almost have a BS in Early Childhood Education. It’s nice to know this site is there. I was thinking about looking into a local daycare, but I’ve been down that road and I was sick every other week because of the kids passing on their colds, etc. That may be one reason I don’t get as many as other people. I would hope they screen their clients too. You can also ‘babysit’ seniors and pets!

Sean left about 7:30. I left a ‘good luck’ note on top of his laptop. He tried his new clothes on last night and looked sharp. The only hassle would be the parking, which is all meters, until he gets a pass to the business’s parking area.

Jennifer asked me if herbs were annuals or perennials. I believe most of them are annuals, which means they have to be replanted each year, by seed. Some herbs, like Rosemary, can be dug up and brought in. I’ve never had success doing this. I’m not sure about Lavender-that could be either, but I do not have luck with it.

~Update~

Sean had a good first day. He was mostly looking at a tutorial on how to use the mapping program and answered the phone. The boss said they are flexible (since he didn’t get in to close to 9 and they are suppose to start at 8:30). Sean showed him a student loan paper with his name and SS on it-ok for now, but he can send him a copy of the card.