“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.” – Henry David Thoreau
Tag: Nature
Simple Sunday- Space!
All pictures are from the NASA website and are free of copyright restrictions. Go download some excellent space pictures!
https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/index.html
“There’s a historical milestone in the fact that our Apollo 11 landing on the moon took place a mere 66 years after the Wright Brothers’ first flight.” – Buzz Aldrin
“Just as the lunar landings inspired many young people to consider careers in space and related fields, the solution of the challenging instrumentation problems presented in space science can inspire young people to push beyond the current state of the art.” – Nancy Roman
Dr. Nancy Roman, pictured with a model of the Orbiting Solar Observatory
“More women should actively participate in space flight. There are many well educated women working in the space industry; they are very good candidates.” – Valentina Tereshkova
“Space exploration is a force of nature unto itself that no other force in society can rival.” – Neil deGrasse Tyson
“It’s a very sobering feeling to be up in space and realize that one’s safety factor was determined by the lowest bidder on a government contract.” – Alan Shepard
“I hope to continue to inspire our nation’s youth to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and math so they, too, may reach for the stars.” – Ellen Ochoa
“The important achievement of Apollo was demonstrating that humanity is not forever chained to this planet and our visions go rather further than that and our opportunities are unlimited.” – Neil Armstrong
Simple Sunday- Summer
“Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine.” – Anthony J. D’Angelo
“Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things of nature have a message that you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive.” – Eleonora Duse
“If your knees aren’t green by the end of the day, you ought to seriously re-examine your life.” – Bill Watterson
“Nature doesn’t need people – people need nature; nature would survive the extinction of the human being and go on just fine, but human culture, human beings, cannot survive without nature.” – Harrison Ford
Future Food- Garden Update
We have had so much rain lately that the garden is growing pretty much every time you look away from it. I also haven’t had to water it very much at all, but finally remembered to today. We are using the herbs pretty regularly. Tomorrow for our Game Night, we are using some of the basil for lemonade. 🙂
I have massive amounts of all herbs that I think I will start freezing to encourage new herb growth. I’m always a little afraid to harvest them because I might run out, which is, of course, silly. Here are the latest pictures:
The basil box. My purple basil is coming back nicely.
Parsley, rosemary, lemon myrtle, and oregano. I used the rosemary on the lamb rack this week already.
The Sages are growing well. I have plans to use a bunch of the herbs in butter for a big chicken dinner on Sunday. You can see the thyme in the picture as well. The lemon thyme has tiny purple flowers on it that are also edible.
I want to try drying the lemon myrtle, lemon thyme, and pineapple sage for tea mixes. Maybe Sunday will be an herb drying day!
The tomatoes are growing very well. I’m pretty sure one of the second batch of seeds I planted is growing, which is nice. The poor little yellow tomato plant on the end isn’t growing very well. I think the bigger plants are stealing all the nutrients. I gave it some tomato food and some crunched up egg shells. Hopefully that will help. The bigger yellow tomato is doing very well.
My beans and pepper bed is looking well. I have radishes, bok choy, rainbow chard, and carrots coming up as well. It sorely needs a weeding though, but I’m not entirely sure what is a weed and what’s not.
I saved the best news for last! (Although I’m sure I’ll get a phone call from my Dad saying otherwise.) The zucchini plant has five baby zukes on it! I couldn’t get a picture of all of them, but I’m super excited. I’m going to be harvesting these as smaller ones so that I can maybe get some more production this year. It seems to really like the pot, so I will plan on continuing to grow them this way.
I hope you enjoyed seeing our garden! I’m very excited to see that even though I kill houseplants, I can keep a garden alive at least. Maybe there’s hope for the houseplants yet! On that note, I should probably go check the one I have managed to keep alive!
Have a lovely night!
Wordless Wednesday- River Walk
(Almost) Wordless Wednesday- Life Lessons from Fancy
It’s important to stop and smell this tree.
And this blade of grass.
And this bush.
Maintain proper stretching techniques.
Hug your friends (although try not to chew his head off.)
Behave at parties so you get invited back.
Be aware of your surroundings.
Listen to others.
Never stop learning!
Be goofy.
But above all… Take good naps!
Gardening Update
Hello! It’s supposed to rain here all week, so I had to hurry up and get the rest of the garden planted yesterday. The Husband pulled a bunch of dead wood out of the backyard jungle and it looks like we did nothing once again. The three yard waste bags and 3 full yard waste cans belay that notion though.
We haven’t found any other morels in the yard, but we have pretty flowers popping up.
As usual, I have no idea what they are. 😁
I do, however, know what plants I actually planted! I’ll start with the herbs.
Flat Leaf Parsley- I need to chop this back so it grows more evenly.
Garden Sage and Pineapple Sage-
The pineapple sage can be used in teas and is sweeter than the regular sage.
Greek Oregano and Lemon Balm-
Lemon balm for tea and you can make a tea with oregano too, I think. We used the oregano last night to marinate rib eyes and it was delicious.
Three kinds of basil. I just couldn’t stop myself, so we have Purple Basil, Sweet Basil, and Cinnamon Basil.
I’m excited for pesto and for caprese salad. Also, Basil Lemonade!
We also have two kinds of thyme- German Thyme and Lemon Thyme.
Lemon thyme will go in my tea mixes and the German thyme will be for cooking.
We have three containers of strawberries. The ones that I planted in a stacking container haven’t sprouted yet, so no pictures of that. The other two were ones that survived the winter and I separated.
Eventually we would like to have berry bushes in big containers near the garage, but we have a few stumps to dig out first and we’re going to put gravel down too.
The tomato plants all have trellises now out of twine, but it was starting to sprinkle after I had finished them, so imagine them all with twine.
I couldn’t find Mr. Stripey or the Indigo Rose tomatoes this year, which was a bummer. I do have a Yellow Canary Cherry tomato, a Lemon Boy hybrid, a Mountain something or other, 2 Romas, a Cherokee Purple, a Juliet grape, and a Husky Red Cherry tomato. I did buy one of the super fancy tomatoes, the San Marzano tomato plant. I seem to be missing a few, but I think I might have duplicated the cherry tomatoes too. I’m hoping the twine will help keep them in check. A couple of the plants have flowers already!
The second garden bed doesn’t look super exciting yet.
I planted bush beans in the spot with the trellis, and replanted carrots along the back. There’s also Swiss chard and bok choy along the sides. Radishes along the other edge. For peppers I have a purple bell, poblano, serrano, and jalepenos. I’m thinking of trying more pepper seeds in the ground, ut if it keeps raining, I may just have to go with this. Even though there should be a good amount of stuff geowing soon, I still feel like I could be planting more. Next year, I’m starting the seeds later so they don’t die. Also, I will be using bigger plastic pots to help keep them stable longer.
I also have a zucchini and two rhubarb plants in pots. The rhubarb hasn’t grown yet, but the zucchini looks nice and healthy.
The hydrangeas in the front have blooms. I don’t know if I’m supposed to pluck them to make them grow more leaves or not, but they seem healthy.
My flamingo flock is also coming along nicely. 😂
I bought this one at a city garage sale yesterday. It was made out of pvc pipe and affixed to a paver stone. I still haven’t named it yet, but the artist made sure to tell me that I could name it whatever I wanted. He also said that because it moves a little in the wind, it might work as a pest deterrent in the garden. I’ll try anything cor the squirrels, so it might be my backyard flamingo.
This year a bunch of the local cities are holding rummage sales in parking garages or other city areas and it’s very convenient. It’s a weird mix of vendors and items, but worked out for us yesterday. We found two Wii games, the flamingo, and I got some Lego pieces for work. There’s a couple more coming up, so we might go see what we can find. 🙂
Fancy has been excited about the warmer weather. She likes it when our windows are open and she can smell all the things happening. She’s also helpful when we are messing with sticks. This is her, after the kids across the street went back inside.
I’ve started my canning prep list and am going to try to start having at least one canning/freezer prep day every couple of weeks. The mason jars are taking over the house again. I have a few recipes that I can make whenever; Jasmine Tea jelly for my FIL for Father’s Day, pickled red onions, and pomegranate jelly. I will probably try to do some of these this Friday. I don’t think I have much else planned.
For now though, I need to start getting ready for work. Have a great day!
Wordless Wednesday- Fairy And Flamingo Stories
Monthly Review- Wordless Wednesday Style
Wordless Wednesday- More Spring Signs!
