Veggie Garden- Then and Now

I just realized that I haven't updated you all on the vegetable garden! Silly me.

We put in the raised gardens, and after Memorial Day I went to work on putting in all of the plants that were growing in the house. I learned a huge lesson in gardening when I put too much plant food on them, and....uh...."burned" them. I learned this term through the process of killing all of my plants. But somehow, I managed to keep them alive enough to be salvagable. 

And then it hailed.

Three times.

Some of the hail was baseball size.

And, let's just say that's not too conducive to an already on-the-brink-of-survival garden.

And yet again, luck was on my side. It only fully took out a couple of my tomato plants and all of the strawberries. But the onions, shallots, and remaining tomatoes are doing wonderfully!

Here is pre-storm garden:

And the amazing tomato cages that Eric made out of leftover chicken wire! What a creative genius he is.

 

And here is the garden now!

The hail did take out most all of my flowers (that I had planted in pots the day prior to the first storm). Eric and I quickly learned that when we see signs of a storm, take every single pot under the carport for safety. 

After the death of my flowers, I went back to work to replant pots, using mainly seeds. And this is where they all landed- as we don't have another surface to keep them in the sunlight!

 

New life for an old tree

Why I didn't take a before picture, I'm not sure. But I'll tell you what, this project was much needed. 

We have what we call the leaning tree in the front yard. 

It's unique. We like it.

Essentially what we did was widen the base of the tree to give it more room, and plant some Gladiolus bulbs to give it a little extra pop.

To do this, we shoveled out all of the weeds and grass from the base, and repositioned the stone boundary. Then we laid weed barrier fabric.

Then I poked holes in the fabric and planted the bulbs. They should come in the next week or so!

And finally, we covered it all with red mulch.

And there you have it!

 

P.S.- What do you think of the new blog background?

It's Independence Day

Remember that Martina McBride song (Independence Day)? Classic. That song just plays over and over in my head on the 4th of July. Strange, I know.

We had a great 4th. I hope you all did too!

 We taught the neighbors how to play frisbeer!

Jim and Nicki have a miniature Australian Shepherd, Sadie. 

She is adorable...and TINY! 

Barkley is a strange creature. He doesn't care for humans, but he is incredibly sweet to all animals he encounters (so far anyway). Sadie likes to tease him. Barkley just acts like the annoyed older uncle. 

The interaction is pretty cute to watch :)

Kisses!

 And this is adorable Aidan. He had an accident in the first 3 minutes of the celebration. He sat on a chair, and it flipped over. He hit his head on the concrete, and off he and Mom flew to the ER. Thank goodness all was well! Aidan came back with a balloon and a big smile on his face.

Meet Ethan. 

Who knew Doritos could be so difficult to open!

Here's the crew

And our wonderful neighbors, Jim and Nicki

 

And I'll leave you with this gem

But really, she is the sweetest little thing. Ashlee is who takes piano lessons from me. 

Let the Bread Baking Begin- Ciabatta

While Eric and I were working on the rock bed project, I decided to put in a roast. In my opinion, crockpots were one of the best inventions of all time. Just put that baby in and in a few hours, you have dinner! Genius.

And another great invention? Bread machines. 

My Mom gave me a bread machine when we moved to Sidney. I've used it a couple times, but just recently I've been thinking- why on earth am I not using this thing more?! 

Eric and I are huge bread lovers, and it's so fun to try new recipes and have a delicious loaf around for the week. So, thanks Mom!

Our friends Angela and Dan took us to this amazing little bakery in Kansas City a couple weekends ago. We bought two huge loafs- ciabatta and cheese slipper. We can't stop talking about how good that bread was. SO, naturally, I thought I'd try to make some ciabatta of my own!

 The bread maker made the dough. So all I had to do was let it rise and bake it!

And voila!

That's one delicious loaf of ciabatta.

Again, that was all working, while we were working outside. 

For dinner? French dip sammies on ciabatta!

 You would've thought I was slaving away in the kitchen all day based on the tastiness of that meal. But nope, no slaving inside. Just outside.

And at the end of the day, Barkley and I passed out together watching HGTV

The fence, completed

As you know, we put in a fence a couple of months ago. Well, since our yard required three gates (including one massive one), those took a bit longer.



Here's the huge gate. Eric was a genius and knew that it would come in handy to have one large gate in case we got a trailer or something. And sure enough, we got a trailer last weekend (Which was MUCH needed, given we don't have a truck)! The days of borrowing friend's trucks is over! This gate definitely comes in handy.

And last weekend, Eric (and I) went to work on the last gate. This one was a bit more tricky because we essentially had to keep the original chain link structure there. Anyway, it turned out very well!

Thank goodness for all of Eric's newly purchased fancy tools! We couldn't have done this without them. Eric reminded me of that several times last weekend ;) I'm sure he has a new tool lined up that he just has to have.

Hope everyone has a great 4th of July weekend!

Eric and I will be spending the holiday weekend at home, BBQing with friends and neighbors.

Rock Bed Reveal!

Well hello! Yes, I am alive. So are Eric and Barkley.

I have been MIA for quite some time now...for various reasons. This is our first weekend home in several weeks. We've been doing lots of fun things with fun people, but it's just so very nice to be settled back into our routine now. We are getting to do things that we love again, like outdoor projects!

We have also been really busy during the weeks with volleyball and softball games. We're playing on two co-ed leagues this summer, which has been so much fun.

And lastly, I have been busy contemplating a new career endeavor. It looks as though I will be making the big leap into private practice soon! More to come on that soon....



This here project has been a year in the making. We have known since we moved in that we would have to re-do the rock garden behind our house. The ground was slopping toward our house, which is a big no-no, so we had to fix it! It has also been a VERY dreaded project. After much planning and preparation, we jumped right into it.


A while back, we fixed up the egress windows, so now it was time to take out all of the rocks, put down some weed barrier and slope the dirt from the house downward.

Here is was before:

Pretty terribly looking. There were tons of overgrown weeds that were very pesky and strong-willed I tell ya. And there was no barrier from the rocks to the grass, so it just looked bad. 

So, here's how it went down:

 And ta-da!

Doesn't that look so much better? It's cleaner and serves it's purpose. 

This was a pretty labor-intensive project. Our backs hurt pretty badly the days after. But it's so worth it. The next homeowners will thank us too. 

And I'll have you know that Eric and I picked up every one of those rocks by hand to be put into a pile....and then picked them all back up (this time with a shovel) to be put back. Yowsers! I have a new appreciation for landscapers.

The best sandwich you'll ever eat

We just had a fun-filled weekend of camping and outdoor projects, but that post will come later.

For now, I wanted to share my favorite sandwich on the planet.

It came to me one day. Essentially, I put together everything that I love. And naturally, it became a sandwich that is to die for (in my opinion, that is).

First off, I made some homemade pesto. I used walnuts instead of pinenuts...because well, I dislike pinenuts a whole lot. 

So, this is basil, olive oil, lots o' garlic, walnuts, splash of lemon juice, salt, pepper and some fresh thyme.

 Spread it on one side of the bread.

I used french bread from the bakery because it makes plain sandwiches heavenly.

And on the other piece of bread is mayonnaise. What's a sandwich without it?

 And of course the tomatoes

 I put goat cheese on one side of the bread. I love all cheeses, but the goat variety is waaay up there in my favorites. 

And then I put deli turkey on the bad boy.

 Drizzle some olive oil on the bread. 

And pop it under the broiler for a couple of minutes.

Easy as pie!!