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Hello Friends.
It’s been quite a while. And we know that, because last time we blogged there was a giant freaking snow pile in our driveway. And now, alas, there is not… nothing like actually, and especially today. It was lovely outside. And if I don’t see snow for another whole 8 months I’ll be a happy bear.
This weekend was good and fun and filled with good food, good friends, good games, and too much sugar. Let’s do this thing in three categories: Gardening; Friends; Sugar
Gardening:
YEEEAAAAHOOOOOOOOO! It’s _almost_ that time of year again, that time of big tomatoes, little squashes, and other fresh delights hanging out of our pot garden. To get a kick-start this year, we drove over to our local Home Depot… which by the way is a great place. Families of all shapes and sizes picking out seeds and gardening stuff, big guys with their little girls loading pink paint and lights into carts, and crafty types picking up wood and nails for their next projects, all with big happy smiles on their faces, and nice folks in orange aprons there to help you out. Anyhoo, we were there for one thing: Starting Kits. You can make your own if you have boxes, REALLY heavy duty plastic bags or plastic liners, wire of some sort, and plastic wrap. OR, you can spend $5 and buy a reusable box with 50 little holes for 50 seed starts with its very own plastic top. While we’d love to do our own thing, we couldn’t not spend the $5 plus $4 for a bag of special seed-starting peat moss stuff. It seemed like a good idea, and we’ll see about that. We also bought seeds for tomatoes, squash, beans, carrots, lettuce, various flowers and herbs.
We brought our wares back to the house and got straight to work:
We organized a work space, and filled the box with the 50 spots with the peat mixture stuff…
sprayed it with water, and added various seeds in rows…
then we gave it a good drink of water and put the top on. We did this three more times, and set them up in our back room under a plant light and turned the space heater up to 71.
Apparently these things like this kind of special warm wet climate… and the little boxes create a bit of condensation and sort of make it swampy… perfect conditions for turning from seed to sprout.
We hope to have seedlings in about 7-10 days… and don’t you worry, you’ll be kept very well informed. Yay for gardening! Yay for pots and dirt and seeds! Pot gardens! Yeaaay!
Friends:
Later on Saturday evening we brought ourselves over to good buddy Seth’s house for some Settling of Catan and good food with our other lovely Anne Marie friend. But boy were we surprised to see Jamin too, in Boston for apartment hunting (congrats to Jamin on his match at MGH!)
Settlers of Catan is a great game. And you can call us nerds until you go blue in the face, we will not stop playing, nor will we take your teasing. It is, a fantastic game. See here if you don’t believe us. You trade commodoties for other commodoties, all in the hopes of building roads and huts and cities and longest roads and largest armies. And no, it is not like Risk.
We played for about three hours… and I’ve never seen a board turn out like this (and I say that because, unlike most games, the board and state and rate and style and outcome of play is different every time). Mark and I were on a side in orange against Anne Marie in red, Seth in white, and Jamin in blue. Three parallel roads!! Craziness. Anne Marie had the HUGEST road… like 12 lengths long or something (see the pic above), and everyone was so close (8 pts each with 11 to win in this game–we decided).
Seth kept moving the robber (yes! there’s a robber!) and stifling our sheep and brick winnings… and then the robber came off and Mark and I dominated, and then it was over. But fun. And funny. Because everyone has their endearing ways of playing, such as in trading:
(Jamin: OK, guys…so here’s what I want. I have bricks. I want wood. Anyone? Anyone? OK, let me repeat myself: here’s what I want…)
and evading the robber: (Anne Marie: But I only have two cards! I’m not strong! — except that she is strong… it’s just a ploy) and pointing out other players strength when they put down a road or settlement (Seth: OOOOOH… she’s strong! Oooooooh! Look how strong she is!) and me, I just like to deny everything… No! I don’t have any ore. Sorry. Not today. Sorry… (when I perfectly well do have ore, just not to trade with you).
And Mark? Well, he’s generally just very tricky. Very tricky indeed, and not to be trusted.
Suffice it to say, it was good fun. Mark made marinaded chicken and he and Seth skewered up some kabobs with yummy veggies, and we enjoyed good kabobs with some sort of cous cous that was spicy and delightful. Good times. Good eats. Good friends. Good game.
Sugar:
So today I probably consumed a pound of sugar. Or so. Maybe two pounds. But it was worth it. Sammy Pants friend came over for a while and helped bake the lovely Easter Cookies.
We made maybe 3 or 4 dozen or so…
And they are awesome. Sammy is a cookie decorating machine. Here are some of our finest:
And anyone who knows anything about decorating cookies KNOWS that there is frosting everywhere, and it seeps out of every place. And if one looks bad, you eat it. Or if an ear falls off, you eat it! Or if a giant glob of frosting accidentally on purpose falls off the knife, you have to catch it on your finger, and EAT IT!
And so we crashed.
And it was good.
The end.
Of a lovely weekend.
I cannot wait for summer.
Let me say that today wasn’t one of Gordon’s best days. No, indeed it was not. I’m not sure if it’s a full moon tonight, or a dog-ette was in heat or the weather was changing–but Gordon the Dog was a little shit today. It started this morning. I woke up and took him outside, which is the normal routine (Mark will argue here that me taking Gordon for the morning walk is _not_ a normal routine, but he’s on vacation, so whilst he’s away, this routine is normal) and went around the block–as we turned the corner, a nice man walking a little brown dog came around on the other side of the street. Well it was still 7:00 am and I wasn’t quite awake at that point, and didn’t have my full day’s strength yet–Gordon pulled me into the street, me shouting “NO GORDON!!” looking left only to see a car coming our way about 100 yards off. The car was far enough off that I think it saw us and slowed down, although I was so pissed at that point my adrenaline kicked in and I yanked the little beast back to the safety of the sidewalk and sat him down for a talking-to. Which seemed to last all but about an hour while I did some gardening, and then he proceeded to sit under my desk and chew on one of my hb pencils.
Gordon looking out for wild vegetable-eating beasts while Mom gardens.
The garden is doing really well. I’m very proud of it so far. It got a little overgrown and wild, but I took care of most of that craziness this week. Took one of our cherry tomatoes out and put it into its own pot which seemed to help a lot. I also created a little string fence for the beans to grow up. I hope that works, because the first of the beans were really good, and the more beans the better. We have two full cucumbers and a couple little ones growing too–I check the garden about twice a day, and didn’t notice these until this morning. They just kind of appeared out of nowhere.
And I’m the most proud of our little yellow-neck squash that popped up this week. We grew these squash plants from the seed (all of our other plants came from seedlings we bought at the store) so it’s quite special. Isn’t it beautiful?
I noticed today too we have a few zucchinis, a couple more peppers, and way too many tomatoes of three varieties (romas, patios, grape) that will be ready to eat soon. Our flowers are doing well too, and the lavender is finally taking some shape, and looks to be growing some flowers which we’ll use in our soaps this winter. I’ve really loved gardening this summer. It’s our first garden together.
We’ve had many many plants, but not any that gave fruit, so this is exciting and fulfilling. I appreciate more and more the work farmers do when I’m out there–and I’m doing it on such a microscopic level comparatively. Someday I would like my sheep farm with a big big garden to grow enough produce to sell or trade for other things. But for now I am heartily content.
A pepper and some tomatoes that I picked fresh today.
I went to the grocery store and to the PetSmart because Gordon was running out of food. Is it just me or are all big-name pet stores crazy and completely under-staffed? I see the commercials and think, oh, those dogs and cats look so happy, and the people there are friendly and nice! And then I go to pick up dog food that I would gladly purchase anywhere else if I could, but PetSmart & PetCo etc. are the only ones who carry it. And I feel like I always wait with 15 other customers in the only line of a flustered employee, while someone waits on the side getting pissed and demands a manager. But where else do you go to buy 45 pounds of ground up flour, oil by-products and other unmentionable meats? Where!? Anyhow, despite Gordon’s bad morning behavior, I did decide that perhaps instead of pencils he needed some rawhides to chew on. YAY! Gordon loves rawhides. He loved this one so much he ate the whole thing in one sitting. Sometimes he hides the ends, but not today.
Look at how he grips it with his paws and holds on for dear life. I keep telling him “Gordon, I don’t chew bones. I don’t want it!” but any time I walked by him with even the slightest look his way, he took the bone and ran to another part of the house.
What a Gordon!
I also made cookies today–Lemon Drop Cookies which are the easiest and most delightful cookies of the summer. My mother used to make them when I was little, and she’d make bags and bags of them and stick them in the freezer, because they are best that way. The Lemon Drop Cookies are made with frozen lemonade and they’re so sweet and tart and lemony! You take a cup of butter, a cup of sugar, cream them together and add two eggs. Add to that a mixture of 3 cups of flour, a tsp of baking soda, and a .5 tsp salt. As you’re mixing in the flour, add half of a can of melted frozen lemonade (you can use pink lemonade too, if you can find it at your store–that’s my favorite!) and then turn out teaspoon sized balls on to a cookie sheet and cook in a 375 degree oven for 12-15 minutes, until the bottoms are light brown. Then brush the other half of the lemonade on them, and sprinkle with sugar, then pop them into the freezer. Makes 3 dozen or so.
Gordon really wanted me to drop him one, but since he’d already had a bone and just eaten his dinner, I said no. No, Gordon, no cookies for you.
He didn’t like that much, so he licked a raw one right off the sheet when I wasn’t looking.
Hopefully he’ll be on better behavior tomorrow, eh?
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