Nonversation of the day

Squeee!!! I found some clover growing in the front yard. Yaaaaaay!!! We'll see if any of it will grow in the back.

Cat and Mouse

This whole time I thought Calvin was trying to teach Trouble how to hunt and kill mice... now I think he does it just to get her out of his hair. She is a kitten and as such will be very energetic and rambunctious... he is older and cranky at this point.

And on that note, we can always tell when Calvin caught the mouse for her as it is unharmed and she gets to play with it. She brought one in the other day that she caught all by herself and it was in half and the organs were falling out. Jed and I just sat, watched, and laughed the whole time. We were commenting on how we might want to get her out of the habit of eating the mice inside since we find it funny, but not everyone might find it very hygienic. I love our sense of humor.

Living room images =)

Guacamole recipe

This is for mexican guacamole, which means it will be nothing like the stuff you get from the store.

You'll need:

ripe avocado
ripe tomatoes
onions
chile peppers
garlic
cilantro
lime juice (real, just squeezed)
salt

Directions: Peal avocado and place the meat of the avocado into a bowl. Start smashing with a fork. Next chop the tomato, onions, chile peppers, garlic, and cilantro. You want some but not as much as the avocado. Lastly, add some lime juice and salt to taste. Then use your chips to enjoy your home made guacamole. =)

Things I wish I would have known - gardening - pinching

Pinching is a wonderful thing. A lot of gardening books will post on this, but they mostly talk about stalk shoots and side shoots and how to pinch them off so that you can get bigger growth, but the part that I think helps out the most is pinching off the shoots that are about to seed. Even if you have a "slow bolt" type of plant, pinch off the stalks that show that are about to bolt so that the plant can continue to produce. This works for herbs (basil, mints, etc) as well as things like spinach so that you can get more leafy greens. This will cause your plant to produce more greens in an attempt to grow more seeds. If you let it go to seed too quickly then it will focus all the nutrients on the seed making process and none on your leafy greens. Try it next time and see if it will provide more greens and then just let it bolt(go to seed) when you are ready.

Things I wish I would have known: Gardening - mounding up

Have you ever heard the term mounding up? Well, this applies to many of your allums and others, meaning your onions, shallots, garlics, leeks, celery, potatoes, carrots, and others. What mounding up does is it ends up building up your bottom shoots or your root head. When your shoots start thickening (such as onions) simply mound up a little bit more soil around it to build it up and to fool your veggie into thinking that it has to grow some more to reach the air. The root will expand and grow giving you a bigger head when you harvest. If you plant down far enough (seedlings) you should be fine, but if you are planting seeds then you will want to mound up to give you bigger veggies. The same applies to your celeries so that the shoots can be blanched and that you get bigger stalks. This falls into the "Something that could have been brought to my attention yesterday" category since reading all the gardening books it doesn't really tell you this. I figured it out after much trial and error, but I thought others might want to know.

NOM NOM Honey

I was just directed to Honey.com and found a ton of really nummy honey recipes. These include jams, peaches packed in honey, and a lemon honey jelly... they all sound fabulous!! I can't wait to try some of these at home. NomNomNom

Honey Packed Peaches
http://www.honey.com/nhb/recipes/recipe-details?RecipeID=131

Strawberry Jam
http://www.honey.com/nhb/recipes/recipe-details?RecipeID=1231

Honey-Lemon Jelly
http://www.honey.com/nhb/recipes/recipe-details?RecipeID=130