Another Garden Update!

We ate our first garden produce the other night - lettuce! I didn't take a picture of the beautiful salad we made but it was delicious!

Despite the deer incident (and a few slugs as well), the garden is making progress!

Here are some pics...

Mom posing in front of her accomplishment :)

Zinnias - the pan to the side is the remedy for the slugs...beer!



Lettuce



Squash





I don't have pictures of everything but the basil and tomatoes are coming along as well! Hopefully we will have even more to enjoy by this weekend :)

Happy Father's Day!

I am posting a Happy Father's Day post a little bit late because my Dad was out of the country on the actual Father's Day!

Sooo - Happy Belated Father's Day to both my Dad and my father-in-law!

I am so lucky to have such an amazing Dad. Thank you for your support, love, and years of guidance that brought me where I am today.



I am also thankful for my father-in-law - You have been such a positive and supportive presence in Matt's life and now in mine as well!



Here are some more photos of the guys!









Love you both!

The Deer Problem

So I reported on our deer in the garden problem a while ago. They sure do look cute but I lost my love for them when I moved to Virginia and they started jumping unexpectedly in front of my car at night. Then our poor baby beans were nipped to shreds. We discussed the deer problem over dinner the other night. My aunt had some interesting methods of deer repellent that she's tried in the past that I verified are also recommended on E-How.com.

1. Sprinkle human hair (or dog hair) around the garden perimeter - we wouldn't have a problem finding that!



2. Have a male urinate around the garden perimeter - I'm sure Matt would be willing



3. Hang bars of dial soap around the targeted plants (in our case the beans) - sounds easy

She didn't find that those methods worked. Her method of choice is #4:

4. Spray deer repellent - this works well but washes off when it rains and will need to be reapplied. It also smells terrible.

I found some other methods online that were recommended.

5. Scare the deer away by shooting them with a pellet gun, slingshot, or "chasing it with a stick and hitting it hard" - I'm not sure this will work for us...



6. Coyote Pee - where do you even buy that?



7. Powdered milk scattered around - sounds like this would wash away in the rain as well

8. Place empty cola bottles over sticks - the noise will scare them away?

9. Build a fence at least 8 feet tall - too late, our is already built and not that high

10. Feed them - hm...sounds risky

After considering all the options, my mom decided that she was going to build a fortification at the back of the garden where she believes the deer are jumping in. She added some height to the fence and tied gold ribbons around the string.



She also added some protection around the bed of zinnias and lettuce...



Fingers crossed that these extra steps work!

OK Magazine

One day about a month ago I unexpectedly began to receive this magazine at our new house. It's addressed to me, but I didn't order it! As far as I know nobody else ordered it for me either. I know it's a trashy read (even worse than US Weekly, which is what I usually buy), but I'm addicted and I hope it doesn't stop. I also try not to believe everything it says but the pictures don't lie, right?

3 months already!

3 months have passed - wow where did they go? School is out - yipee! We spent another amazing weekend at the lake! We were lucky enough to have 2 beautiful days of mostly sunshine and warm (but not hot) temps. I could move there for the entire summer and spend my days hanging out with family, swimming/sunbathing, playing games on the porch and enjoying wine and cheese. This weekend, aside from from my favorite activities, we also spent time relaxing, bike riding, and completing a few odd projects. Too bad we have to come home on Sundays and go to work! However, there is fun to be had in town as well...see below!

Willow had a big time. She started early by tormenting Boo, enjoying her bone right in front of him and refusing to share. He's too sweet to steal it :)



She did lots of swimming! The princess wanted to be in the water with us the whole time but decided she was just tired of paddling around. Here is how things ended up :)

At first she wasn't so sure ...


Then she thought, wait a minute, this is pretty comfortable...


I think I'll stay a while...


Saturday night we came back to town. We went here...



To see this band...


They were awesome! Download a few songs if you're looking for some new music.

It's back to work tomorrow but we have a busy few weeks coming up filled with lots of fun visitors :) Meg is up first!



She will be here Wednesday and we can't wait!

Toys!

Only my OT friends will really appreciate this post but I thought I'd share with everyone because I'm just so excited about it. I'm always looking for fun toys that I can use at school with my kids to make working on fine motor skills fun and interesting. However, toys are expensive so I'm always looking for cheap options!

My mom found this awesome consignment toy store out near the lake. I think it's an old gas station converted into a store. It doesn't look like much on the outside, but it is filled with all sorts of treasures!



I found a Lite Brite! I've been hoping to find one of these and this was only $7. You can't beat that :)



I also found these fun puzzle building blocks...I apologize for the terrible picture.



They also had all these Vintage Fisher Price toys. I didn't purchase any of these but I remember playing with some of them (Mom - not sure if we owned them or what but how fun).





Tomorrow is the last day of school - how exciting! I can't believe it's here already. I'm looking forward to a little change of pace working more days closer to home for a while. I'm also looking forward to all of our visitors coming up in the next few weeks!

On a different note I have a little garden update...Deer jumped the fence and ate the tops off all of our beans! Ug. They only went for the beans...my aunt says they are the most "tender." The other plants still seem to be doing well :)

Garden Update!

The garden is coming along beautifully. The one good thing about the rainy weather we've had lately is that I don't have to do any watering! The garden fairy (aka my aunt) came and pulled all the weeds last week so it's looking great.

The zinnias are coming up...some insect is eating them but they're still hanging in there.





Sunflowers



Tomatoes!





A baby tomato coming already :)



Squash



I saved my favorite for last - BEANS!

Another weekend...

Another weekend spent in Vermont - I still can't believe we live here now! We had a great time and were excited to spend lots of time with my cousin now that she's finally in town for good :)

Friday night we went to the Jazz Festival



The weather was amazing so lots of people were downtown enjoying the free music and eating outdoors.



Including us...



The "Cows Come Home" event has been going on for a while downtown. The purpose is to increase tourism for the town and generate revenue for area businesses. Different businesses sponsor cows and decorate them to place around downtown. It was big news a few weeks ago when a couple of teenagers decided to go cow tipping one night :) They were prosecuted. Oh my! Guess they know better now.

This one was Matt's favorite but he was too embarrassed to pose in front of it.



Saturday was gray and rainy (again!) so we hung out at home and then headed to the lake later in the day. I checked on the garden (progress update coming soon!) and then cleaned the house in preparation for Mom's arrival on Tuesday! My aunt and cousin joined us for dinner Saturday night :)

Today was another GORGEOUS day. As my mom says "A perfect 10." 78 and sunny - amazing. We spent the day at the lake (and even went swimming - brrr) and it was almost impossible to tear ourselves away to come home. At least Willow and I are headed back Tuesday night :)

Biking

Matt and I took our first road biking adventure last night. I put on my biking outfit - check it out...



Don't worry, I wore a helmet too but didn't have it on yet. I need to invest in some shoes but don't feel like spending the money on them at this point.

We rode 13.1 miles and it was great! I was SLOW - road biking is harder than it looks! At the beginning of the ride, Matt told me he'd like to set a "beginner" pace of 18 mph. We were going 10 mph and I was already tired. Oh my. I tried my hardest but lagged behind most of the ride. He told me part of the reason I was slower than him was because I did too much sightseeing - we rode by all these beautiful lake views so how could I help myself?!

I spent a lot of the ride trying to figure out how to change the gears and feeling thankful that I bought padded biking pants. That bike seat is narrow and HARD! My arms were sore afterwards (something I didn't expect) but not my butt :)

On another note, the Jazz Festival is going on downtown this week and we're headed down there tonight! Should be exciting...

Rhubarb...

So I mentioned that I cut my rhubarb this weekend. I went out there with a pair of kitchen scissors and hacked away at the HUGE bushy plant. Here is a reminder picture of what it looked like...Keep in mind these pics were taken in late April so the plant was about 5x that size by the time I cut it. I forgot to take a recent pic...





I don't have much experience with rhubarb. I don't really know what to do with it. My mom told me the leaves can't be eaten, so I cut those off and put them in the compost pile. After I cut all the stalks down, I looked on the internet on how to store them. It was then that I read you should only "harvest" 2/3 of the plant at one time and snap it off rather than cut it. Oops. Oh well, hopefully the plant will come back next year.

Rhubarb looks kinda like huge stalks of celery, only some of them are red. I read on the internet that the stalks turn red in cold climates. Most of mine were red. Guess that gives a good indication of what winter is like! Brrr.

Mine looked like this...



This isn't my picture - but some of my leaves were this big too! Crazy....



My grandmother loves rhubarb, so I put most of my stalks in plastic bags in the fridge to save for her. I decided to try and make at least one thing so I could say I tried :) I found this recipe on the internet and picked it because it looked the easiest!

Rhubarb Bars

Ingredients:

Crust:

1 1/3 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
2/3 cup butter or margarine

Filling:

2 cups sugar
1/3 cup flour
2 eggs
3 cups finely chopped rhubarb

Procedure:
•Mix the crust ingredients like a pie crust and pat into a 9x13 inch cake pan.
•Mix the filling ingredients well, spoon into crust and bake 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

I ended up cooking mine waaay longer than 45 mins (I think at least 60, maybe even longer), but I used a casserole dish rather a cake pan because I didn't have that size pan. Here is the finished product.



By the time it was finally finished cooking, I was already full from dinner (and ice cream). The website did say it should be served warm, but I tried some today cold from the refrigerator. I kept thinking as I made the recipe, "this sure seems like a lot of sugar." It tasted that way too...It wasn't my favorite, but I'm going to give it another chance one time heated back up :)

Fun new things!

This weekend was supposed to be gray and rainy so we decided to hang out around the house and get some stuff done. Matt spent Saturday learning how to build mountain bike trails and networking with other bike enthusiasts while I stayed home with the nug and tackled my to-do list. Matt was pumped because he came home with a free water bottle so we were both happy :)

I started by cutting the peonies blooming in our yard - gorgeous!









I also cut my rhubarb....finally. It was huge and flowering in the back yard so I figured it was time. I did make something with it today that is in the oven, so I'm interested to see how it turns out.

My mom saw an idea in one of her magazines where a woman put silverware in her sugar mold. I have one and I'm always looking for a way to change it up so I decided to go try to find some. I went to the cutest antique store in Essex Junction, VT and hit the jackpot. I didn't get a deal.....but I did find exactly what I was looking for! It doesn't make a huge statement but it's a good alternative to flowers.



I finally hung the hammock my mom brought up from VA a few weeks ago! It's heavenly out there and not too many bugs yet. Saturday ended up being nice so I had the chance to sit in it a little bit :)



I saved the best for last. I made a big purchase - unusual for me I know to make a decision this quickly. Matt has started road biking lately and I thought it'd be fun to join him. One problem - road bikes are expensive - I mean really expensive. I just wasn't going to commit to that. Luckily, Matt did some research and found the Old Spokes Home. This place is the coolest bike shop ever. They have all these awesome antique bikes hanging everywhere and they sell used road bikes!



One other good thing. I have a mountain bike that I bought when we lived out west like 5 years ago. I had many miles of enjoyment on that bike but I never ride it anymore.





Matt thought the Old Spokes people would give me like $50 for it. I refused to let it go for that price! He scoffed at the idea of selling it on Craigslist but I insisted. I posted the bike up for sale and had 5 emails within 2 hours. HA. I sold it for $175 :) I enjoy saying told you so way too much but Matt is good natured about it!

I went Saturday to purchase my road bike! Here she is - what a beauty.



I also used a gift certificate I received at Christmas (thank you John and Cynde!) to buy my road biking "outfit." Matt approved. He was insistent that I look cool and not like a "gaper." As soon as the weather is nice enough to go for a ride, I'll take a picture of myself so you can decide what you think. Meg - I know you're skeptical :)

Today was rainy and cold so Matt spent some time relaxing and watching TV. Willow is allowed on the couch at the lake when it's covered with a quilt. Here is how I found them.





I guess they forgot about the quilt :) Sorry Mom!

Hope you had a fun weekend! Back to work - only 2 weeks left of school!