Sunday, September 21, 2014

Guess What's on the Menu? What a Fab Weekend!

   JUST plucked this corn from our garden; yum! Going to enjoy with a nice pork roast & Caesar salad with my homemade sourdough croutons.  It is SO nice to be able to eat real food again, after the worst stomach virus in my life, which lasted 7+ days. Phew!
   Speaking of harvesting, the monkey and I squeaked in peach picking yesterday, just in the nick of time. I'm making an apple/peach crisp in the crockpot as I type this, from these peaches and the apples from my class garden. My class made apple crisp on Friday, but we had so much fun, I neglected to take photos!

   Here is Larry Hogan, proprietor & winemaker extraordinaire, pouring wine last night at the French-themed Sagebrush Annie's dinner. The hub & I had a wonderful time. I forgot to photograph the redneck 'chalice' I made him, but you can see one side of it in this photo. Sagebrush rocks!!
   Overall, we had had a wonderful weekend, though we had to skip going to the movies today, since monkey has a little cold. However, I rode the horsey, & gave her an Absorbine bath (which has been doing wonders for my weimaraner), so for me, perfecto!!

Monday, September 1, 2014

Busy, Busy Time!

   This is my garden a week ago. The corn is even taller now, and most of my pumpkin plants are still alive, despite the gopher's best efforts. Happy there are tons of tassels, and cobs are growing so far. Each kernel must get pollinated individually, so we'll see what happens...

   These are my two biggest pumpkins, thus far. They both had little nibbles this morning, and that pesky gopher had caused some of my plants to wilt...
 
   This is the only photo I can show of my students picking apples in our garden last week. They had a blast, and we used the apples we picked for math and language arts. Of course, they also got to eat their apples!
   Why am I showing you a photo of screws & weird little screw-like things? Because today, I decided to put together the forward facing bookshelf my hub purchased for me from Zulily. I open the box, and there are NO directions, just pieces of board, and a bag of screws and weird things I've never seen before. Somehow, I triumphed, & figured out how to put it together (it only took 2 hours...).
   Look at this parts; I don't even know what to call it. This is a top & side view. Somehow, I figured out that it goes in that big hole so that this next part fits into it from another hole that joins it at the side (I kid you not).
   Notice these little beige plastic things with a cross on them? You had to slip them into a hole that went into the side of the main screw holes. They have a hole in their side you had to line up, so when you tightened the screw, it went into the hole. You had to know to put it in this way, so if it slipped, you could turn it to line up the hole.
   This metal screw-like part, went into that hole, only up to the end of the threading, so it stuck out. THEN, it slipped into another piece, going into the side of that metal object in the prior photo. You then used a flathead screwdriver on the big piece (hence the + & - signs on it) to tighten it in.
   See? There it is sticking out. It then went into that hole to the right.
  After you sat the pieces together, it looked like this.
   Here is the completed bookshelf! Because it took so long to put together, I will be up late tonight prepping. BUT, doesn't it look great??!? This is where I will put the seasonal books each month. I am SO glad I didn't get my hub to help; he would have had a FIT...LOL