Planting, Cake, Books, the Bug, and the Adventures of Seamus the Dog.

Sorry, everyone.  It's been a few weeks (alright, a month) since I posted anything, but that doesn't mean I haven't been busy.  In fact, I've been busy enough with work and stuff around the house that I haven't had the time to write a post.  This post will be several in one...ready yourself for picture overload!

First things first: Planting!

Traditionally, my dad and I try to get our plants into the ground on Mother's Day weekend.  This year we planted on the Saturday before Mother's Day, so Mom could have her day to be spoiled without us sneaking out to the garden.  Planting day, for me, is almost as good as Christmas.  After weeks of anticipation, watching all those little seedlings become sturdy, healthy plants in the greenhouse, we plop them into the ground and hope for the best.  On the same day, we also plant all the seeds of the veggies that don't need to be, or can't be, started indoors.

Here's the list of what I am growing this year:

Corn (2 varieties: Peaches & Cream and Sugar Buns. Yes, I picked both of those for their funny names)
Zucchini
Potatoes (yukon gold, purple, and russet)
Tomatoes (Roma, Amana Orange, and Siletz.  All good for canning)
Cucumbers (Pickling, White Wonders, and Lemon Cucumbers)
Peppers (Banana, Pablano, Scotch Bonnet, and Bell)
Sugar-Snap Peas
Beets (to pickle)
Carrots
Lettuce
Swiss Chard
Rutabaga
Parsnip
Broccoli
Kohlrabi
Brussels Sprouts

Holy cow!  Of these, I've never eaten a parsnip, a rutabaga, or a brussels sprout...I guess there's a first time for everything.  If anyone has eaten these things, please let me know if you have any good recipes!

Pictures from planting day:

First, we divvied up the plants.  These ones ended up in my dad's garden.

I'm watering the freshly transplanted peppers.

My dad, resting by the plum tree
















My dad and I did all the transplants, and when David got home from work, he and I planted all the seeds.  About a week and a half later, here are the cucumbers coming up...

...and here are the beets coming up (with peppers in the background.

Elsewhere in the garden, we've been busy, too.  The same weekend as planting day, David and my dad went down to Home Depot and rented an aerator for our lawns (the thing that cuts little holes in your lawn to de-compact dirt and let the grass roots breathe).  Our neighbors and one of my parents' neighbors went in on it with us, so, once we split it 4 ways, the rental cost was actually quite affordable.

Here's my industrious hubby aerating the lawn.

Last weekend I devoted to my front flower beds.  This is the only place in the yard that still needs a lot of work.  It is in the middle of being done.  When we moved in, the front beds were a tangle of those AWFUL arborvitae bushes.  We learned very quickly that these are no picnic to remove.  We attacked them with pruning loppers, David's chainsaw, and even a tow-strap hooked up to the back of the truck to get the roots out.  By last summer we had gotten all the bushes out and just had a blank canvas of dirt.  I labored to dig out the dirt (and the remaining arborvitae roots) into a terrace shape and put up a temporary rock wall between the terraces until we were able to afford the blocks for a nice block wall.  I also laid down some weed barrier paper and planted a bunch of perrenials.  This year will be the year of purchasing and installing the block wall and a water feature, and laying down bark in between the plants.  In the meantime, however, I've been impatient waiting until we can finish the project and have been planting lots of flowers.

This is the flat of snap dragons that still needs to be planted.  I planted another flat this size of half snap dragons, half zinnias, before I remembered to take some pictures.

Here is the first iris to bloom for the year.  I transplanted yellow ones into the garden, too, but haven't seen them bloom yet.

These are lupines I planted last year blooming for the first time.

I think they look so cool!

Alright, moving on.  Next on the writing agenda: cakes.

Friends Jamie and Brett are getting married (yay!), and they have given me the honor of making their wedding cake and dessert table goodies.  I am so excited to do this!  I used to be a cake decorator at Cold Stone, so it will be nice to excercise my decorating chops again :-)  David is a happy camper, too--I have been baking up a storm, and he is my willing guinea pig.  Take a look at some of the recipes I have tried so far...

First up: Orange Cake with Vanilla Frosting.  This one was a yummy contender.  If I made it again, I would need to make it more orange-y and change the frosting to something less boring, perhaps cream cheese frosting.  Still, as it sat, we ate it all within a few days.

The next one I tried was an Italian Cream Cake.  I first had a slice of this cake at my friend Christy's bridal shower and remembered it fondly enough to track down the recipe 2 years later.  While delicious, I don't think it would be great at a wedding because, well, it's too knobby looking.

These third cakes are for the dessert table.  I still need to tweak the ganache on the chocolate one, but otherwise, I think I've got some winning recipes here.  The pink one is white cake with a raspberry buttercream filling; the white one is a chocolate cake with a coffee buttercream filling; the chocolate one is alternating layers of chocolate and white cake with vanilla buttercream filling and ganache frosting.




Other items for the dessert table: individual pineapple upside-down cakes, lemon bars, mini-cheesecakes, and cake pops (more pictures to follow as I practice and perfect each of these recipes).  It will be a glorious spread!

Next up: Books!

In the midst of all this yardwork and baking, book club is still going strong!  We had a meeting on Sunday about the book The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz.  I have to admit, I was only half-finished with the book when we talked about it, with no plans of finishing it.  After discussing it with Alyssa and my mom, though, I've read another 50 pages or so and am rekindling my interest in it.  It's not due back to the library until the 30th, so I might as well finish it...

For our next meeting, we're reading The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon.  I have no idea yet what this one is about, but I've heard good things.  Let me know if you've read it and if you liked it!














These last two items aren't my projects (one's not a project at all), but I had the pictures and decided to share them.

David, my dad, and my sister Rachel have been spending long hours in our garage rebuilding her 1966 VW Bug.  Rachel originally bought the Bug when she was 15.  It ran for awhile but needed major work, and for many years now, the engine has been in pieces in my dad's garage with the car itself parked immobile in my parents' driveway.  David is a car guy, and the entire time we've been together, I think it has pained him to see the poor Bug wasting away being unused.  When Rachel's old Corolla recently went belly-up, David jumped on the opportunity to offer his help in rebuilding the Bug.  Thus this project came about.  David, my dad, and the VW engine handbook have provided the expertise; Rachel has provided pink engine paint and a willingness to learn everything she can about cars.  Here they are working on it:

And here's one of the engine at an early stage before they put in the car.  I wasn't kidding about the pink engine paint.

Last, but certainly not least, my dear dog Seamus has been up to some major shenanigans lately.

First, he proved to David and me once again why we should never get a cat...he can catch mice!

He stopped playing with it when he figured out it was dead.

Then, he gashed open his leg somehow in the backyard.  We had to take him in to get stitches, and for several days he had a stylish turquoise bandage on his foot.  We were supposed to keep the bandage from getting wet, so whenever he went outside, we had to wrap his foot in a plastic shopping bag.  Much hilarity ensued as he walked around with that bag making a loud swoosh sound every other step.  Here are pictures of the bandage and the ridiculous bag:

OK. That's been enough of a blog post for today.  I'll try not to get so backed up next time!