the remaking of a kitchen

diane came to the door today with a lovely give away. she had purchased a couple of flats of annuals and planted them everywhere she could and still had some leftovers. she brought me the remainders which saved me the time of running to the store to get some colorful annuals to fill in some of the beds. i put the fuschia, gold and orange celosia in the front beds where they matched some of the moss roses already there. the little purple posies, ageratums, are planted along the front of the hosta glade. up close they look great, at a distance they seem a bit lost. hopefully they will get fuller and taller and add something to the mass of green back there. i'm counting on that!
the tomatoes finally are looking like they should and standing proud in their cages. they are loaded with blossoms but i can't see any fruit as yet. the cukes look healthy but have a long ways to go!
thanks diane!!

Labels: annuals, color, diane

i just took another picture of the tomatoes and cukes to show that they are growing. slowly yes, but growing. in another few weeks they will look a lot better....they are ready to get their cages now....something on the list for tomorrow. i have some other tomatoes and cukes at the north fence along with some onions......a salad just waiting to happen?!

Labels: tomatoes and cukes

our second csa delivery happened today. pretty disappointing. don talked to the deliverer and she said that they really needed rain.....they are suddenly in a dry period and just at the wrong time. we got mostly the same stuff as last week, along with some mixed greens, some garlic scapes, a SMALL amount of chard and dandelion greens yet. another stir fry and some salad will happen. i am hoping to have something in a color other than green one of these weeks. sigh.
our cold spring really really hurt the growers!

Labels: csa, greens

the kazoos arrived earlier this week. they are pretty cute.....lots of colors! i hope we all have fun with them at the y camp. i'm getting excited to be there and see everyone. we still haven't figured out our schedule as yet. we have a slight excuse in that the painter just may be able to do our house before we leave. that will be a treat for sure. it NEEDS it!
we are trying to do a few things to get the yard under control. a constant battle i might add. there is always something growing where it shouldn't as we try to encourage the things we really want to grow in the same spot. go figure! my grass planting on the other side of the fence seems to be paying off a bit.....there is actually green appearing in the midst of all the dirt there. yea!

Labels: garden, kazoos, painting

luckily i took this photo yesterday before it rained and knocked a bunch of petals to the ground. this bush is amazing.....we do nothing to keep it going and it just goes on and on and on.

Labels: rose

i suspect the rhubarb will be in a dessert, pie, crisp - something of that nature. the greens became a stir fry this evening.....served with some couscous cooked in chicken broth. the greens included arugula, micro pac choi, mizuna, a spicy mix that included mustards and more arugula, chinese greens, romaine and green garlic. i stir fried it in a combo of olive and sesame oils and tossed it with some seasoned rice vinegar. it was amazingly tasty!

Labels: csa, stir fry

today we received our first csa delivery.....and we really wondered if it would happen. it didn't arrive until 8pm.....we suspect they had trouble finding some addresses this first time....and probably ours was one of them. anyway, finally! we got various greens, a very few radishes, 2 green garlics, edible flowers and rhubarb. this is our share after gary took his.....i think (i hope!) that we will get more as the season advances. we have had a very chilly wet spring, and that played havoc with any early plantings.

Labels: csa

we have actually chosen a painter and he will probably paint the house in early july before we go to estes. we went paint shopping and chose some paint that is taupe, but with brown tones and a lighter shade for the soffit. we decided to eliminate the trellis piece that is on the front porch....we may put one post in there, but then again maybe we won't! the other big decision is getting rid of the diamonds that shout 50's on the front of the house. we will put in panels that are similar to those on the front porch and by the front windows.
the bummer today was the city mechanical inspector refusing to ok the installation of the furnace and a/c. the pvc pipe for exhaust that they installed across the length of the basement to the north from the furnace (instead of using the chimney) is 2" and according to code and the furnace specs it needs to be 3 ". aaaack. we await word on when they will return to change that. good grief!

Labels: furnace and a/c, painting

tonight my friend carol called to ask me to go to an art opening with her and also to meet her new puppy, ski (sky). she is very sweet, and just 11 weeks old, picked up in seattle by carol and just home with her for a week. she went with us to the opening and was probably the hit of the show. everyone had to meet her and give her hugs and kisses and tell us their own puppy stories.

Labels: ski

in this group the new position of the hot water heater is shown by the avocado green refrigerator which needs to go bye bye. the air conditioner is shown with the top off as they are bleeding all the freon out of the system. this a/c is larger than the old one as the new gas is better for the environment, but less efficient so the motor etc has to work harder. go figure. we are all shiny and new and they even work just fine. next project is painting the house. brian and gary came over tonight, brian bearing paint samples with suggestions for colors. his idea and it's a good one is to stay with taupe but go to the brown shade rather than the gray to better blend with the brick. makes sense to me.

Labels: furnace and a/c

you can see that the supervisor is at work, and watching that things are done correctly. these guys arrived at 7:05am and left at 7:20pm. the hot water heater needed to be moved and that caused some issues. the hole in the wall is outside the den, and the new site for the thermostat. in the living room the sun hit it each afternoon so that room seemed chilly and so did the rest of the house because the furnace didn't go on. now, it's fixed we think.

Labels: furnace and a/c

no new pictures today, but some new plantings happened. we cleared the grass from in front of the fence and worked the soil a bit. i planted the remaining 3 early girls (i really hate to toss any live plants) and some onion sets gifted by gary + another hill of cucumber seeds. this area gets some sun.....not a ton of sun, but hopefully enough.

Labels: cukes and onions, tomatoes

these are some of the pots i planted today.....there are more, and a few plants to go into more pots. i thought it would be fun to take pictures today and then to take photos of the same pots after they've had some time to do some growing.

Labels: pots of flowers

after seeing all the lovely california gardens i felt compelled to take a few shots of my little patches. i have some herbs growing, and some seeds planted for more herbs, like cilantro and basil. i have 3 tomato plants, 1 cherry and 2 early girls. i didn't follow the advice of my friend chauncey who always said you had the best luck if you planted early girls next to the big boys in the garden. hah! i plan to put some additional early girls by the fence we share with jordan and to try to onion sets there also. most of the flowers are in pots, but i still need to plant a few more pots and add some annuals to the two beds in the front yard.
our big deal today was getting the ducts cleaned.....an interesting process and thank goodness a short one. they were in and out of here in 45 minutes!

Labels: cherry tomatoes, early girls, herbs

oops, i guess i didn't blog about yesterday's activity. i went to studio strength in the morning and we had a different sub teacher. she was a real goer. we did a lot of squats with the bands, and used the bosu ball for most everything else. we did squats, weights, all sorts of stuff, and to relax in between we were to jog laps and then go side ways for a lap and then skip. i walked, and then did the rest, but stayed out of the lap path because i was slowing everyone down. :( we were to do lots of push-ups and that is not my deal either. she probably thinks i'm a loser in the exercise realm.
we did a lot of shoulder stuff and i was worried about how i'd do with that, but so far so good. in the afternoon i went to my first tai chi class. it's at a neighborhood church so i walked there, but left don a note that if it rained as predicted i'd call for a ride home. the class was interesting, and we went over several poses, but i'm pretty sure i won't remember them just going over them one time. takes more than that to become rooted in my brain! it was a good way to do things that relaxed the muscles i'd been stressing earlier in the day. and yes, it was pouring down rain when the class ended, so don gave me a ride home....wuss am i!!

Labels: strength class, tai chi

today was another medical dealie, the last of a busy week! i had a marathon echo cardiogram.....it took an hour. the technician was nice, so that helped, but after all the activity yesterday, having to lie still on a table did not add to my comfort quotient.

Labels: echo

i just returned from my second acupuncture treatment....yes this would be me the medical model queen. it would also be me who is sick and tired of being well, sick and tired. too many episodes of sinusitis/asthma/antibiotics/prednisone this year with no relief in sight, except perhaps and hopefully acupuncture. it is an interesting feeling.....a bit tingly and over all terribly relaxing, so much that i almost fell asleep on the table, and i NEVER fall asleep in the day time!
i am returning next week and we are going to discuss my taking a chinese herb that is said to strengthen lungs and to promote the immune system. i have been a bit stuffy the past week and a half, but by taking echinacea and also irrigating my sinuses i have not slipped into an infection....throw that in with the acupuncture and something is doing something. which or what no one knows!

Labels: acupuncture

yesterday out of the blue, well, out of the grayishness we suddenly realized that there were storm warnings to the north of us. strangely the storm started moving in a southerly direction, golden valley, st louis park, with us next on the menu. don and i grabbed the plants awaiting planting and shoved them back under the picnic table and pushed the planted pots under the eaves. i grabbed the hanging basket outside the back door and put it on the deck under the eaves. the planters that i had on the deck to protect them from digging chipmunks i put under the deck seating. first there was rain, then a short power outage (luckily i had just turned off my computer) and then came the hail. there was a lot of wind that blew leaves and maple seeds all over the place....our windows look pretty messy! the pictures show the hail....the pile at the end of the drain spout in the front garden and along the house at the deck edge. no damage, but a lot of action for a while. no sirens, but the talking heads were VERY excited!! we did get quite a bit of rain from the storm and that was very good news. the yard was extremely dry. so, we were lucky in a couple of ways.

Labels: hail, welcome rain, wind

last week it happened. i could no longer deal with my longish (for me) hair and made an appointment for something new. i haven't tried to make this work on my own, but i like how it looks fresh from the snipping. time will tell. :)

Labels: new do