Farewell Garden

Juniper and I in the garden.

Wild Poppy's

My Garden is gone, last weeks cold nights took it away, the deer are now eating the weeds, whats with that?? I had so many zucchini I took them out to the road in my wagon with a free sign on them, I hope everyone that took them enjoyed them. The Ladies at work enjoyed them also but I knew it was time to stop bringing them in when they were asking for different sizes for their recipes.

I realized the beans were enjoyed by our dog Juniper Berry I caught her one day pulling the littlest bean off the vines and eating it, she had worked her way down the entire row. As far as the corn I think we planted it in the wrong spot they all came up but the stocks didn't get very tall, I think how we watered them could be the issue we will need to change that next year. The tomatoes are doing great in their water wells but the tops get eaten off regularly by the deer, I don't know if that effects the actual tomato or not.

looking up into the sky! I am 5'8", how tall do you think my sunflowers are?

Oh as for the Strawberries, they are doing great Glenn has them on the south side of the house so they are protected, we do have a creature living in the woodpile or in the near by juniper tree that leaves the bottom part of a strawberry on top of the wood pile for me to see this happens almost daily. Don't these wild animals understand I really don't like them in my yard and there are plenty of other yards to "munch" on.

Strawberry Bins!

Glenn tells me I need to learn to get along with our wild friends, like plant some for them and plant some for me somehow I don't think that is going to work I know they would think my garden was better then theirs and all the wild animals would still come into my garden and leave their small garden for me. Maybe if I got them feeders, no that would make more come around wouldn't it.

These strawberry's are so good we planted 3 different kinds the verdict is still out which one we like the best.

So as I was making lunch, Glenn looks to see what I am writing about and he looks up a me and says "the garden is no where near done for the season" and this post is about a month early. Well little does he know I am going to start cleaning up the garden area and get ready for winter!! I like the winter months until about February, if it goes on longer which it normally does then it starts to get old. So enjoy the photos of the garden, my next photos will be of the winter clean up.

A Date with Glenn!

On my break yesterday I text Glenn asking him to take me out on a date, so he asked me if I wanted to pick up some dinner, take the top off the jeep and head up to Broken Top. Broken Top is on of our favorite spots to be in the summer. Anyway someone Glenn works with told him there was another way to get into the broken top area and he wanted to hear more because it is getting harder and harder each year to get to our favorite spot. So Glenn was very anxious to try this new route, this is where the story begins.

We left on skyliner road after stopping at Long Board Louie's for some tacos and beer. We were to follow some well maintained forest road, Glenn was following his GPS that he can read really well with his glasses but last night he did not bring them, being on a date and all. We drove along and over a mountain side full of 5 foot tall manzanita with the road or should I call it trail full of rocks, boulders, ruts for miles and hours. The sun was setting and there was no moon in sight. Glenn stayed calm and cool as always making me believe he knew exactly what he was going to do next, but I knew he had no idea where we were or how we were going to get out of the forest. The funny thing about this was being at 6800 ft elevation you could see the lights of Bend but you did not have anyway of knowing how to go in the direction of the lights.

After awhile we came to some familiar territory but that was after we had drove through a stream, dodged bull toads all over the road, look eye to eye with deer along side the road or I mean trail, I guess you can call it a jeep trail..., and all around us was the dark august night sky.

We did make it to broken top right to the area we like the most, Glenn stopped the jeep we reclined the seats and watched the night sky. I have never in my life seen the sky I seen that night the Milky Way was across the whole sky you could even see where the Way started and ended, I could even see the curve of it, only those people who have seen it understand what I am talking about. It was well worth the drive or should I say adventure.

So now there was a decision to make, go back the way we came or continue on the way we were familiar with and hope the boulders were gone from the entrance or our case the exit. I really did not want to go back, I have had better experiences in my life to say the least so on we went hoping the exit was cleared. When we got to the exit at Todd Lake it was open and we were able to get onto Century Drive, we "high five" each other and on home we went.

I told Glenn I think he owes me another date, he just looked at me and said "Didn't you have a good time?" I answered "yes, but you still owe me another date". We both smiled at each other, I thought to myself another crazy adventure under our belts.

Wedding Ringlets

Joanna's ringlets


Kadie's ringlets

My Niece got married last weekend and Kadie my Daughter was her maid of honor and I just have to give Kadie a little space on my blog.

Kadie you did a great job and I know your Cousin really appreciated all your help and support. It is really to bad you two don't live close by each other, between the two of you, you guys could figure out life together and your family's could celebrate events together. You should think about talking to your Cousin and plan a time of the year that both your families can get together and enjoy each others company, just a thought from Mom.

Now, My Sister (she isn't going to like this but...) You planned and pulled off a beautiful wedding! I know how much work they are and how the planning of a wedding can consume your life, but you didn't miss a beat. Every detail was completed, I know there was something that was missed or forgotten but nobody knew or even noticed. The food was wonderful, and we all enjoyed ourselves way to much. The 3 of us had fun staying at your house, I hope we left it like we weren't even there well except for the dirty sheets and towels, HA HA. Again, I really admire you Sis, you did it :)

Back to Kadie, last night Glenn and I went to the local grocery store to pick up something and we saw Kadie's car in the parking lot so when we got into the store Glenn said he was going to go look for something, I think it was Kadie. Then I saw my Daughter pushing her grocery cart full of grocery's, like good for you white bread, pop tarts and dinner making stuff and Glenn was with her talking I asked her if it was payday and she said "yes and next is walmart for shampoo and stuff like that" then her face fell and she gave us a "pout face" which she has always been good at, Glenn patted her on the back and we both knew her whole paycheck was going to this shopping trip and probably GAS, he took out his wallet and gave her a $10 bill Kadie eyes just lite up and she said thanks Glenn with the biggest grin. Glenn's response was something like anytime Kadie. I gave my Daughter a hug and we walked away, I guess you could say my baby is growing up I would call this one of my sad and happy momments in life :) But to say the least I am very proud of that GIRL of MINE!

It's zucchini time!

One day you go out to your garden and there are these really cute yellow flowers inside this big plant, then a few days later you go out into the garden and see the same plant and a little 2" green vegetable and the yellow flower is on the end of it, then about 3 days later you go out to the same plant again and the cute little 2" green vegetable is the size of a "LOG" which is still green in color. So at this point you start to look around and the yellow flowers, 2" veges and logs are everywhere and I mean everywhere. They begin to overwhelm you if you let it so that is when the baking starts and the recipes come out all containing the one same ingredient: ZUCCHINI!

Zucchini Cupcakes

• 1/2 cup vegetable oil


• 3 eggs or equal egg substitute


• 1 1/3 cups sugar


• 1/2 orange juice


• 1 teaspoon almond extract


• 2 1/2 cups flour


• 2 t baking powder


• 1 t baking soda


• 1 t salt


• 2 t cinnamon


• 1/2 t ground cloves


• 1 1/2 cups shredded zucchini

oven 350. combine 1st 5 ingredients, in separate bowl mix all dry ingredients. Slowly add dry ingredients into the wet mixture. Fold in zucchini into the batter. Fill cupcake liners bake for 20 minutes. Cool cupcakes in the pan.

I used mango juice instead of orange juice, it turned out great. The finished recipe. Stay tune for more Zucchini recipes

Summer Fun

When it is 100 degrees outside in the high desert, what do you do? If your Husband loves you enough he will put up misters high in the Juniper trees so you can sit under them and stay cool. My Husband is so wonderful to me.
The when the sun goes down you walk to Apple B's for a salad and a cold margarita. The heat during the day either has you under the misters or in the house so when we returned from dinner we decided to watch a movie in the backyard on the basketball court pad.
Here is Juniper our dog and Glenn watching Pirates of the Caribbean and enjoying a cold beer and popcorn.
The evening was perfect the temperature cooled down to about 85 degrees by the middle of the movie. I had a great time being at home during the day, walking to dinner, and having our own outdoor movie right in our backyard.

I don't get very many weekends off, so some time ago we planned this weekend to be a camping trip. Because of the high temperatures Glenn decided maybe we should stay home. I don't handle the heat as well as I use to and I really appreciate him thinking about that. The camping season for me is as short as my gardening season so I feel really bad that we did not get to go, we have such a good time when we camp but I know that our weekend home was just as fun.

My advice to you before winter: pick out a good movie, set up your laptop outside, get your ipod speakers some cold beer and pop some popcorn then just sit back and enjoy the show!

Sunflowers

How Cute is this!

Here is the 1st sunflower of the season, isn't it cute! I am waiting to see how many actually get flowers on them since they all came up volunteer. The deer have ate most of the sunflower plants I have left the stocks up so hopefully the deer keep nibbling on them and not the one patch that has been avoided so far. Most of the garden this year has been eaten up by deer we have 2 fawns and a mother doe that come in about every night or early morning to have a snack, it has made me very upset and I really don't know what to do next year, it really seems useless to plant but I so like a garden in my back yard. They have even pulled the zucchini off the stocks now that is hungry.

I hope to enjoy some more sunflowers as they grow, we just leave them in the garden all winter so the birds can come in to eat on the seeds. The stocks on the plant are so large they stand up through the entire winter until we pull them out the following spring. I think there is about 2 months left before the 1st frost. Really I am just hoping it will be that long we will see.

This is what happens after the deer have their dinner in the middle of the night. Not a pretty sight.

Mr. Magorium's WONDER EMPORIUM

You know when you have this movie sitting around the house and you just don't seem to be interested in watching it but there is something about it sitting there that makes you have to sit down and watch it. Well that is how I felt about this movie, Mr. Magorium's WONDER EMPORIUM. The movie is about a 243 year old toy shop owner (Dustin Hoffman) his health is failing mainly because his favorite shoes are wearing out, you will have to watch the movie, he wants to turn over his magical toy store to a quiet, depressed manager, but since the store reflects the energy of those who work it, Molly has to lift her spirits and help the store recapture its magic, taken from Netfilx, I thought it was so well put so I copied it, I only wish I could have seen this movie when I was in my past position as SGM, but that is a whole other topic, that I don't like to talk about. ANYWAY if you feel you are at a crossroads or just getting by or maybe you feel your magic is gone, which by the way I am not at any of these times in my life but I still felt really good after I watched the movie, so let me go on. To me the movie reminded me that you can't do it alone, you need good friends, co workers and just everyday people around you to make it work. If you are wondering what I mean by "it" I mean everyday life, but in the movie "it" is a toy store. SOOO with all this said I was very pleased I watched the movie, it was very different but sometimes different is good, and in my case today I just wish I hadn't waited so long to watch it. This is a movie I would recommend, just keep your mind in a magical state while watching it and you should feel as good as I did when it is over.