Snowdrops

Look at what one of my coworkers did.  She picked snowdrops that were blooming right along the school parking lot and nestled them into old antique door knobs as centerpieces for our workroom.  ADORABLE!  

Late

I am super late in putting in my seed orders.  I almost have them ready but I still need to make a couple more decisions.  I wanted to put in my order weeks ago.  But vertigo has kept me from reading lots of tiny print and life has just gotten busy.  I better get a move on it or I won't get my seeds in time for my earlier March planting dates that I want to try this year.

Seed Packaging

This week at school we were getting ready for Spring by counting, weighing and packaging seeds as part of the district's gardening program.

Grapefruit Knife

One of my favorite salads combines avocados and oranges.  The oranges in the salad are sectioned which is much prettier since all of the membrane is cut away.  If you have ever sectioned an orange it isn't difficult but it can be tedious and time consuming.  You want to cut as close to the membrane as possible so as not to waste any fruit.  Cutting down each side of the membrane can take awhile.  When you are doing this on multiple oranges it quickly becomes old, very fast.  I actually haven't made this salad in over a year because I'm often not in the mood to section the oranges.

However I recently picked up this knife which has made me willing to section oranges again.  One end has a double blade that cuts down both sides of the membrane with one swipe.  I worried that the gap between the blades wouldn't cut very close to the membrane, but it did!  The curved end helps to cut the pulp away from the peel.  The knife is called a grapefruit knife but I use it specifically for oranges. With this knife sectioning an orange is definitely less tedious and only takes about half the time it used to.

Happy Valentines Day

I hope everyone had a wonderful Valentines Day!  Andy and I kept it simple we exchanged cards and treated ourselves to Chipotle.  However it was quite exciting at school for the kiddos.  In first grade Valentines are a big deal.  This picture from our party is my favorite.  I can just imagine him thinking: Oh My Gosh SHE Likes Me!

Blue and Green Eggs

You might think that green eggs are only in Dr. Seuss books but they actually exist.  I bought eggs when I was at Dogwood Farm checking out the baby goats.  They have Araucana chickens which lay eggs in blue and green hues.  There is something more fun when your eggs look like it's Easter all the time.

Babies

I went back to the massage therapist to have some more craniosacral work done to help my vertigo.  I got to see the baby goats again this time in daylight.  Its amazing how much they grow within a week.  I also noticed this week they had a brooder box with lights where they are raising new young hens.

Cuteness

Over the weekend my mother in law took me to a message therapist who did some work on my head and neck in an attempt to alleviate and give me some relief from my vertigo.  She believes in a holistic approach to health which includes of course the food that you eat.  She runs her practice at her house and in her backyard she raises goats and chickens. 

She has a small shop where she sells sustainably farmed and raised products along with handmade soaps and such.  The store is not manned by anyone.  You take what you want, write down what you took and put the money in the box.  I found it quite interesting and refreshing the trust she has in the honesty of other people. 

It was dark by the time we got out but her goats recently had babies and of course I wanted to take a peek.  The pictures are dark because the barns aren't lighted well but you can get a glimpse at some of the cuteness.

 

 I also thought the chickens were quite pretty!

Pummelos

It has been citrus season and so there have been lots of fun options at the store.  On one of my recent trips I saw what looked like large grapefruit but were really pummelos.  We have never had one so I decided to try it.  In the store the sign said it is the largest citrus fruit.  I don't know the validity of this statement but I will say it is quite large.

The fruit is extremely fragrant and smells very similar to a grapefruit.  The pulp is pink and surprisingly had a very thick rind.  Despite having similar grapefruit qualities it was sweet and not at all sour.  It was quite delicious and I would definitely enjoy it again in the future.

Exposed Crowns

We've had a lot of mild weather recently.  I went out to see if the asparagus might be coming up because many of our other plants think it's time.  I went out hoping that they haven't started to come up yet because I am afraid February might not be kind to them. 

I got out to the raised bed to find that the crowns have become exposed.  This worried me because I wondered if they were exposed during the ice storm we had a few weeks ago.  It seems with all the rain we have had alot of my soil has become displaced outside the beds.

So I immediately went to the garden center and bought some bags of topsoil to recover the crowns and protect them from possible harsh weather.  I am really hoping that no damage has been done.  We planted the crowns last year.  So being their first year we didn't take a harvest and just allowed them to grow.  This year will be the first year we can take a light harvest from them.  I will be devestated if we lost a year and have to start over.

Exposed crowns, they look like pieces of straw sticking up.

You can see how low the soil has become in the boxes and the mulch that the rain has displaced into the boxes.

Freshly covered and protected.

Too Soon

We have had some very mild weather that has made some plants start growing a bit too soon.

The chives are starting to emerge.

Buds on the hydrangea.

Daffodils popping up.

 

Buds on the trees.

The warmer weather has also allowed the bees to venture out of the hive.