Rock of ages

Or of garden, in my case.

It's April 30 - so, around here, about 3 weeks left to go until I can plant everything without fear of frost - and my seedlings indoors are doing GREAT. I've also got garden renovation part one nearly complete.

After Scruffy and I renovated our house - during which we realized we couldn't afford to put the garage on the front that we had originally planned - I was stuck with a great big area that was, in a word, ugly. It was just a big bare wall of tan siding and a couple of windows. And, it faced both the parking pad where I park when it's not freezing out, and the road. Something had to be done.

Last summer Scruffy and I built boxes about 2' all along the front of the house where the garage was supposed to go. So our deck covers one half, and the flower boxes cover the other half. I planted a few perennials, and then the summer budget was kaput, so we toughed it out.

Over the winter months I'd been agonizing (yes, agonizing, and don't call me melodramatic) about how to "fix" the boxes. I knew more could be done, but with 2 little kids and a limited income I had to get creative.

So: we took a couple of big driveway planters from a friend who was moving, which freed up the whiskey barrels we had sitting at the end of our driveway. I pored over photos of container gardens to get inspiration, did my research on what plants to grow, and we went ahead.

Scruffy used the bobcat to move the whiskey barrels around where I wanted them. Then I hauled a whack (and yes, that IS a technical term) of rocks around the yard from our gravel driveway to create a rock garden. Although this isn't TECHNICALLY a rock garden - more like a perennial garden with rock borders - it opens me up to a few more cheap, easy to grow plants. I don't want to be pouring money into something sensitive and delicate.

So here is what I have done so far:

You can see one of my 3D trellises in the whiskey barrel to the far left of the photo. This bad boy opens up like a Chinese finger puzzle and looks awesome. I'm looking for a fast growing climbing plant to fill this one up, possibly nasturtium or morning glories. I did see a gorgeous chocolate brown morning glory that really intrigued me!

The accordion trellises on either side, bordered with big rocks, I'm HOPING to fill with hops. I've had trouble locating hops in the past, so I might have to settle for clematis. We shall see.

If the snow can just hold off now, and the next 3 weeks fly by, I might actually have a garden growing before Canada Day!

The fort

We just ate breakfast in the fort.

Boy Wonder says we are exploring the caves. Then he finished his toast.

Love

147,000,000.

It's a big number, right?

It's the number of kids who are orphans in the world. Right now.

That's like everybody who lives in Russia... EVERYBODY... is a little child without a mommy or a daddy. All alone in the world. Nobody to love them or care for them. When they are sick, they lie alone with no one to rock them. When they are scared, they huddle with no one to protect them. When they are sad, they cry with no one to hug them.

I can't fix that.

I can't adopt one. I don't have the money, or in all honesty, the patience to be a mother to more than 2 kids (and I already have those.) I know my personal limitations are keeping me from saving one.

Fortunately there are better people than me out there and their personal limitations are NOT keeping them from saving one. They have also set up a number of organizations to allow people like me to make whatever contribution they can make.

Today I'm wearing my Project Hopeful t-shirt. It says 147 MILLION across the front, and CHOOSE 1 across the back. People have asked me what it means and I often stutter trying to explain it. It seems so far away from me and the people I meet in my every day life. But then I look at my kids and I realize that a baby crying or a child hurting shouldn't seem far away - it should tug at our hearts and make us tear up, too.

I know there's a lot of heartache in the world, and a lot of need. I know that we can't all support every charitable group or organization we encounter. But I do know that my $40 t-shirt makes me smile every time I wear it, because for that day I remember those kids, and my guilt for not doing more to help them is a little bit assuaged.

If you're seeking an opportunity to make a difference today, and you've got a couple of twenties in your pocket, please visit www.projecthopeful.org to make a donation and learn more.

Dear old clothes

I miss you.

I really, really do.

This morning we visited. I tried on a few pairs of you, old pants. Size 6, mostly. And you are just as cute as I remember, especially the denim capris, and the white ones, too.

I really wish you fit.

I am getting pretty sick of wearing the same 3 pairs of BIGGER pants. I am getting pretty sick of being in the 140s. I limit my calories to 1200-1300 per day. Most days I'm so busy with the kids that the clock shows 1pm before I have time to eat something.

We eat salad for dinner at least 3 nights a week (Scruffy is totally on board with me, which is awesome.) We don't have bad stuff in the house, even with a 3 yr old - I do pretty good resisting temptation.

I was 133lbs when I got pregnant with Princess P. And now, she's 10 and a half weeks old, and I'm STILL not even into the 130s. I was 142lbs this morning - still 9lbs to go.

It sucks.

I miss you, old clothes. I can't wait to see you again soon.

Prima Donna Quinoa Salad

Have you ever tried Summer Fresh Seven Grain Salad? It. Is. DELICIOUS. Unfortunately, it's also expensive. So in a moment of inspiration, I tried to duplicate it here at home (and, hopefully, make it a little bit healthier, too.)

If you've never cooked with quinoa before, don't be intimidated. It's similar in flavor to barley or couscous, and is really good for you! Unlike other grain products it is very high in protein AND fibre - making it an ideal diet food (your body takes longer to digest protein and fibre than, say, sugar or other carbohydrates.) I just followed the directions on the box when I prepared it and it was easy peasy.

So, here we go!

Prima Donna Quinoa Salad

Dressing:
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
2 tbsp canola oil
1 tbsp dijon mustard
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 tsp salt
lots and lots of freshly ground pepper

Mix all the dressing ingredients in a shake-able container and let stand. Meanwhile, prepare the following according to the package directions:

1/2 cup of couscous (cooked)
1/2 cup of quinoa (cooked)
1/2 cup of lentils (I used the canned ones to save on prep)

Combine in a bowl and add about 1/4 cup of chopped green onion. Drizzle dressing over top, stir, and refrigerate at least 1.5 hours. Check and adjust seasonings after this time - the longer it sits, the more mellow the flavors become, so you may want a little more vinegar.

Enjoy!

Gardening - brief but fun

So here in good old Alberta, winter is lingering like no one's business. It's April 21, only a few days before Easter, and there is still TONS of snow on the ground. Just last week I was still scraping my car's windows. It sucks.


It sucks, especially because in the past 2-3 years, my experimental gardening has turned into... real gardening. Yes, that's right - I plant things in the ground and they DON'T DIE. Stop the presses. As a result I have developed a huge addiction to gardening, and pore over seed catalogs and salivate in garden centers.


My lovely husband Scruffy has tolerated this new passion with a remarkable amount of patience. Now is the time when he's most patient - we are THIS CLOSE to finally being able to get outside and get dirty, and I've got our mini greenhouse going in our bedroom (we have big screen doors as well as a picture window in our room, so it gets loads of sunlight.) I have started out a whole bunch of seeds:

And I even got Boy Wonder in on the action with an herb garden (in the coco lined box in the back of the photo.)


For anyone wondering, my gardening details are as follows:

Zone 3a/3b (technically - I do have a real microclimate thing going on with my front flower beds beside the house, which face southeast and are up against tan colored siding that retains a lot of warmth - so I'd say those boxes are nearer to a 4a.)
Virtually everything is a sun garden - the house faces southeast, and all 3 flowerbeds are full sun for the bulk of the day.
I have a mix of perennials and annuals - my first year I babied the perennials and let them sleep in our room with us before I was absolutely certain the frost was done for the year, and I think that helped them, since now they are fat and happy (as much as a plant can be, anyhow.)

Perennials:

Feather Reed Grass, 'Karl Foerster'. I love my Karls. I'm going to get a couple more this year. They're up to 2-3' tall now.
Blue Fescue
Catmint - this stuff grows like a WEED. It's being moved this year to a bigger area. It also smells great.
Yarrow - I do NOT like yarrow and don't know why I bought it. However, yarrow loves me and my yarrow is now showing up 3.5' tall. It's getting moved as well, just because I paid good money for them, and I hate to waste them.
Mugo pine - it's having a hard time. I've had it for at least 5 years, and it might have grown 2" in that period. However I'm not a big mugo lover, so I'm just going to let it chill out where it is, and see what happens. If it lives, great. If it dies, oh well - it was cheap.
Tulips. Painless and easy (and the tips are up. Thank heavens, something is growing in this winter wasteland!)
Lilies - I have an Easter lily as well as a few stargazers. These are also painless and easy and won't complain if they're moved, which is nice. :)
Hosta - I have a hosta that's been living in my one shady spot in a whiskey barrel. It doubled in size in the past year. I'm moving the barrel to a new shady spot and REALLY hope it comes back. I love hostas.
Ground covers like sedum and creeping charlie. I have never even touched these once they were put in and they're enormous. I'm going to have to hack them back a bit this year. They are in full sun and well drained soil.


Annuals that I've had success with:

Mimulus, or Monkey Flower. I'd never done these before but had them in containers in part shade (on the deck) - they did great but overpowered the other stuff in the box. Lesson learned is that they like moist soil and lots of sun and seemed to spread quickly.
Wave petunias. Boring but pretty. Moist soil, lots of sun.
Basket stuffers like ivy - painless, so easy to grow.


I fertilize once every 2 weeks with bigger blooms fertilizer (the pink lid) mixed into a watering can. Yes it takes ages, but that way the kids can play outside and get lots of fresh air (and me too!) :)


Whenever I planted something big, like my Karls, I put a handful of bone meal into the hole dug for the plant. This year's plans include a weeping Caragana in a whiskey barrel, so I will definitely be doing the same for it.


Wow, just listing it all out makes it sound like I have an enormous garden. That is sort of true... but it could be bigger. :) Hopefully in a few more weeks I'll have pics of my changes for 2011 to share.

fancy fishie

I don't know about you, but I could get REALLY sick of salmon. Salmon is very popular. As a result salmon dishes abound. As another result, salmon farming and fishing is also a big industry and a lot of fishies are sacrificed for our plates. I'm not going to tell you not to eat salmon - it is VERY good for you, as well as a great source of omega 3s and DHA, both of which are needed for a healthy brain - but I will urge you to consider the source of your salmon. Farmed salmon is not what's best for the environment, since farmed fish tends to be more prone to infection and parasites, which in turn affect the environment and wild fauna around them. So if you're going to eat salmon, go for the wild caught kind.

Now, back to my original point about getting sick of salmon. If I have to eat ginger/maple/cedar planked salmon once more, I might just throw up. So in a moment of creativity, I came up with my Fancy Fishie Salmon recipe that I will now share with you here. This dish is quick and fancy enough to serve to company. It's also one of my 3 year old's favorite dishes, which is thrilling for me!

Fancy Fishie Salmon

Serves 4

Ingredients:

- 1 package Highliner Frozen Wild Pacific Salmon Fillets (Individually Quick Frozen) - do NOT thaw

- 1 5oz log of goat cheese - either plain, or herbed (I prefer herbed)

- 12 sheets of phyllo pastry

- 2 tbsp butter, melted

Instructions:

** Stop here. A lot of people are turned off by phyllo because it seems like a sensitive item, what with the cool damp towel over top and blablabla. Now, I know that if you're a real talented cook, you follow the towel instructions. If I were making, say, spanakopita or something that involved a lot of handling and a lot of phyllo, I'd do it. But for this recipe, I'm going to be honest and tell you that I've never been a devout phyllo user, and never done the towel thing when I make this dish. Also, when I have thawed my phyllo and most of it is soft and bendy enough to work with - and I'm all done preparing - I have refrozen it with plenty of success. So, it's your call - you can either thaw your phyllo, do the towel thing, and throw away what you don't use, or you can do what I did here. Okay, carry on.

1. Preheat oven to 400 F. If you're using a package of frozen phyllo, pull it out of the cardboard box and leave it wrapped in the wax paper. Toss it in the microwave for 30 seconds, then pull it out and see if it's soft and bendy. If not, give it another 30 seconds until it is. Once your phyllo is nice and soft, go ahead to step 2.

2. In a small bowl, crumble the goat cheese into small pieces. Spread a piece of phyllo on an ungreased cookie sheet. Using a silicone brush, brush a little bit of melted butter over the phyllo and then lay a frozen salmon fillet on top. Sprinkle 1/4 of the goat cheese over the salmon.

3. Wrap the phyllo sheet around the fillet and goat cheese. Then get a second piece of phyllo and lay it on top of the wrapped fillet, flip it over, and wrap the fillet in the second piece. Brush the seams with melted butter.

4. Take a third piece of phyllo, and fold in half lengthwise to make it a longer rectangle. Put the wrapped fillet at a narrow end and roll it up in the phyllo. Then brush it all over with melted butter.

5. Repeat with the other 3 fillets, and place seam side down on the cookie sheet. Bake at 400 for about 20 minutes or until fish flakes with a fork (yes, this means you will have to pierce the phyllo package to see if it's cooked.) Alternately, bake until the phyllo is a deep golden brown color.

Serve with a side of garlic roasted asparagus and herbed risotto. Yum!

love glue gunnin'

Given that her mother is an avowed diva, it should come as no surprise to you that Princess P's room is VERY girly. I've decorated it in a shabby chic sort of idea that involves a lot of flowers and sparkly stuff. Here I'll show you what I did along with instructions to make your own.

Gem & Flower Mobile

Materials you'll need:

- glue gun & glue sticks

- 6" (or bigger, if you like) foam wreath

- sheer ribbon in color you like - about 12' long by 2" wide

- artificial flowers - depending on the size, you'll need anywhere from 6 to 12

- gem beads

- fishing line

- sheer ribbon in another color - 1/2" wide. Just get the whole roll - every one is different and there are no hard & fast rules here on how much to use.

1. Wrap the 2" wide ribbon around the wreath to cover the green floral foam. You'll probably go around it a few times. I used 2 different colors on mine. Use your glue gun to fasten the ribbon.

2. Cut a 8" piece of the thin sheer ribbon and glue each end to the wreath opposite from each other. Then repeat with another 8" piece laid crosswise over it. Then repeat with a third piece of ribbon. To explain better, you want to glue two pieces of ribbon over the wreath to make what looks like a pie. This is how we'll hang the mobile.

3. Cut another piece of narrow ribbon, this one about 10" long. Glue each end to the wreath. This is where you'll hook your fishing line to hang it from the ceiling.

4. Now comes the hard part. Thread the gems onto ribbons cut different lengths - I had a couple of 8" pieces, a few 10" pieces, one big 12" piece, etc. I actually used a safety pin to feed the ribbon through the holes pierced in the gem. It's slow, finicky work, but worth it. Once you have the gems hung on the ribbons, tie knots at the end to keep them from sliding off. Try putting two or three gems on one ribbon for a pretty look, as well. Glue the ribbons to the wreath - put a few closer to the middle, a few closer to the outside. Space them evenly around the wreath. Tie a couple of the ribbons with the gems to the center of the wreath where the crossed ribbons meet as well.

5. Once the glue has hardened and all the ribbons are hung, glue your flowers on. Make sure to cover as much of the wreath as you can. Then get your big piece of ribbon on top and tie a knot in the middle (to create a loop.) Make the loop about 1" long. You can string gems on here as well if you like. Tie a length of fishing line to the loop but don't cut it - this is where you'll decide how high to hang your mobile. I used a white thumb tack in the ceiling to hang mine (this mobile will be quite light, as long as you didn't use a wooden wreath as your base) and just looped the fishing line where I wanted it hung. I trimmed off the extra line. Pretty!

Quick & dirty

When I'm feeding Boy Wonder and Scruffy, I'm often on a fairly tight schedule. Now that Princess P is in the picture, I have to make sure my night is on time and that everybody's needs are met in time for me to get the kids to bed on time. That's when I like my dinners quick and dirty (as opposed to weekend meals, when the bigger the mess, the better the dish.)

Boy Wonder LOVES rice, and everybody likes Chinese food, so I created a quick and dirty version of fried rice. No pictures this time - sorry, you'll have to trust your instincts.

Quick & Dirty Fried Rice

Serves 4

Ingredients:

1 package Uncle Ben's Bistro Express Plain Rice * I use the brown rice because it's better for you. They also make an Oriental type that I'm sure would be good, too.

1 cup frozen diced vegetables, or 1/2 each of frozen peas and frozen carrots

2 tbsp oil (I don't care what kind you use, but avoid olive oil because it's got a stronger flavor)

2 eggs

Soy sauce

Directions:

1. Heat the oil in a 12" frying pan over medium-high heat. While it's warming, nuke the frozen veggies in the microwave with a drizzle of water for about a minute or just enough to warm.

2. Drain the veggies and add to the oil. You can throw in some jarred diced garlic or ginger at this point, if you feel like it.

3. Stir and let the veggies sizzle for a minute or so, then add the eggs and stir quickly (don't let them turn into one big fried egg.)

4. Add the rice and keep stirring to coat.

5. Drizzle with a bit of soy sauce, stir to coat.

Serve hot! Takes 5 minutes - seriously. Totally quick, totally dirty, totally something my 3 year old will eat. LOVE THAT.