2013 San Francisco Trip Report Part 2

Posted on July 4, 2013 by glenderella

A few more pictures from the Alcatraz garden tour. Again, very interesting, if you have any interest in plants, I would recommend it. Also just a good way to get more inside stories of life on “The Rock.”

More fuschia, so jealous.

Fuschia, Alcatraz Garden Tour

This is an artichoke plant

Alcatraz Gardens Tour Artichoke

.It is a large, very attractive (I think) plant – so I put it on my mental list and I have purchased one for my yard this year. It will probably not go in the garden per se, I don’t think that spot is sunny enough. I think I will try it in the flower bed on the south side of the house. We will see how it works. As of today, it is still alive, at least.

Poppies! Poppies! Oh, I do love poppies.

Oriental poppy Alcatraz Island Garden tour

The light was shining through this one so beautifully.

If I could capture that in a quilt of a painting, I would be happy. I have had poppies in some of my flower beds but they haven’t survived. I need to get some transplanted from my Grandmother’s poppy bed up at the ranch in SD – those are some healthy, spreading poppies. They are the traditional orange-red ones. Very hardy. But I also like the more delicate oriental ones, and I purchased some the other day, to try in a few different places around the yard. We will see if I find a place where they will thrive.

More amazing ground cover and succulents. Alcatraz was very green for being a rocky island, but most of this consisted of plants that had been brought in over the years.

The inside of the jail was, well, a jail. It was interesting, but I preferred the gardens! I managed to resist buying a tin cup and/or an Alcatraz Women’s Club cookbook….

And this seagull was there to tell us good bye!

Next up, more shopping and eating.

Happy 4th of July

Posted on July 4, 2012 by glenderella

My office took Monday the 2nd off so we would have a long weekend, so we are actually working today. I expect it to be a very quiet day with minimal phone calls and emails, so perhaps I can get MUCH done!

More catching up?

Oh, what did I do with the rest of my life in June?

I forgot a few little incident/anecdotes from early in the month. I went back and checked through my Facebook page, that helps.

From early in the month: Ken said, “By the way, nice drawing this morning.” I had drawn him an arrow on a paper towel to point out the cat barf on the kitchen rug. The barf kind of matched the rug so I barely saw it in time and didn’t want him to step in it. It is not every morning that I am coherent enough to draw an arrow. I wasn’t going to clean up the cat barf, but I didn’t want him to step in it.

Also:

The TSA lady at the Bozeman airport needed to pat down my collarbone area because of sequins on my shirt the security scan found alarming. She asked me if I had any bruises around my neck (presumably so she wouldn’t hurt me.) I said, “Nope, no recent vampire bites either.” Someday I am going to get into big trouble at an airport, I just know it.

And, I am glad to report that we only had BBQ beef on a bun ONCE during all of the meetings out in the fields. That was partially due to some planning on my part, but part luck. We did have various other kinds of barbecue, such as brisket, and pulled pork sandwiches (but sliced, not sauced) but those were an excellent and a welcome variation. The last meal of the trip was a Mexican buffet which was quite good, excellent green chile. And I thought it was hot while we were out there (these meetings were all outside) but it got much hotter after that week – so I am grateful it was only in the 80s and 90s that week, not the 100s like the following week. It was, however, very windy, and each night I left a significant of Colorado dust in the bathtub, especially since I was rigorous about re-coating myself with sunscreen, so the dust had something to stick to.

I went out shopping yesterday for setting fabric for the bunny rabbit embroidered quilt. Was all set to get purple and pink, because I know pink is one of the niece’s favorite colors. Then I happened upon some carrot fabric – how perfect is that for a bunny quilt? So I hope she likes it. This quilt was meant to be done when she was a baby, and she is going to get it when she turns 5 in October, so I am making it into more of a twin size quilt. That is what I get for picking a quilt with 12 blocks, the next one will have six blocks, which is what I typically do. The Sewing Circle, a quilting store in Fort Collins, was having a Buy 2 Get 1 Free special, so by buying two yards of each of the bunny fabrics, then I got 2 yards of strawberry fabric for free. Not sure what I am going to do with it yet, but I am building quite a collection of strawberry fabric.

My poor garden is about fried. It did not need record setting heat in June. My little pumpkin plants have flowers on them, but the plants are so tiny, I doubt they are going to do anything. Only about 3 little lettuce plants came up. I am tempted to turn the top part of the garden into just peonies, bleeding hearts, and herbs. Trying to get more herbs that will re-seed themselves or just come back from the roots. Thyme and mint doing pretty well at it. Cilantro re-seeds itself and then bolts almost immediately. Haven’t been able to get dill started. Tried to move the horseradish and chives, and they just died instead.

Multi-tasking Sunday

Posted on May 23, 2012 by glenderella

Sunday dawned clear and warm this past weekend. I wrapped up some work on the computer and then suited up to get out in the yard, since I had told myself all of the baby plants that had been sprouted, rooted and potted needed to be planted before I left on vacation. Since I was going to be gone Monday night and get home at about midnight on Tuesday, it had to be done on Sunday. Friday night I got out and planted some sunflowers and pumpkins, and they were looking kind of peaked after the cool weather on Saturday.

I invented a potting table out of two sawhorses and a door from the closet in the craft room. The sliding doors don’t work when you have the closet crammed full of fabric and yarn, so they are living in the shed.

Yeah, that door is going to need to be re-painted before we put it back on. But that is going to be a while, unless we win the lottery and move out of the house. And if we win the lottery, I will hire someone to paint the door.

I potted all of the climbing things – morning glories, cypress vines, and some sweet peas that I somehow missed when I planted earlier in the week. I pointed out to Ken that I was going to be putting the climbing plants in place, and that meant they needed lattice to climb, and we had torn down one segment of the old lattice with the aim of replacing it, and hadn’t done the replacing yet.

He went off to Home Depot to get lattice, and worked on that while I planted, alternating with weeding, finding a few volunteer cilantro plants, which made me happy. I started converting at least part of the garden to an herb garden, moving the horse radish from the railroad tie planter where it was not thriving, and moving some chives over as well. I am gradually reducing the area that has to be planted every year, hopefully creating a lower maintenance garden. I did plant a row of lettuce, basil, and cilantro, mixed together, that could be quite interesting. I tried basil in a hanging pot last year and that just didn’t work very well, it dried out too quickly. I also thinned out the onions that returned from last year. I noted that the mint plant, known for spreading and trying to take over, was doing just that, and so I put it in its place. And smelled like mint all afternoon.

I returned to the house around 11:00 a.m. and changed out of the dirty (literally, dirt-y) garden clothes. I had been planning on pizza on the grill for lunch but forgot that the dough needs to raise. So I made the dough anyway and then made hamburgers on the grill for lunch, with baked oven fries. I cut these like french fries instead of wedges, they cook a little faster and they are excellent.

Then back out into the yard – more planting, moving things around, weeding (there is ALWAYS weeding), mulling over what to do in the weed garden. Wrapped up about 3:00 and headed inside to clean up and get some more things done, such get the package ready to mail to my nieces and pack for business travel. And put away all of the summer clothes that I got out of the cedar chest that Ken had washed. I packed for my work trip, and made the grilled pizza for dinner.

I can’t find the link for the grilled pizza, but I will tell you, that is the way to go. Excellent crust. But next time I will remember that the crust only needs 3 minutes on LOW for the initial bake, not 3 minutes on HIGH. That first one was a little crispy. You stretch out the dough, and grill it on one side, and then bring it inside, and put the toppings on that side, and return it to the grill so the other side gets done and the toppings get melted together. I am considering trying grilling the first side, then putting the toppings on, and finishing it in the oven on my pizza stone under the broiler, because the grill doesn’t really brown the top. Another idea to try.

I was totally wiped out at the end of the day and I still forgot about three things I needed to do, had to get up out of bed and email a list of things to myself so I would remember to do them later.

If I got as much done every weekend as I did this weekend, I would get a lot done. I also would be crabby and exhausted, I am sure. Can’t wait for vacation.

Fried Chicken at Wishbone and the Seed Starting Project

Posted on May 1, 2012 by glenderella

This was not a good weekend for cooking, because I was trying to finish the koi quilt and that was taking all of my attention. I gave Ken a list of places to choose from for lunch on Saturday, and he went with P.F. Chang. I am not normally a big P.F. Chang fan but my sister-in-law took me there in December when I had a horrible cold, and I had their chicken soup, which was excellent and large. So I was in the mood for that and had that again (sorry, no pictures, I am not in the habit enough, apparently….), in addition to the chicken lettuce wraps which are also excellent. Ken did not think so, however, and just stuck to his beef and broccoli.

Sunday we went out to lunch at Wishbone, which is about as old school as a place can get. The parking lot is full of Buicks, which is a very good sign. They do other things besides fried chicken, but really, why bother? They have been doing fried chicken since 1963.

I go with the 3 legs, Ken goes with the 2 pieces of white.

These pictures do not convey the true yellowness of the gravy. That gravy is neon yellow. They also do a fine piece of Texas toast. Not everyone does Texas toast right. The correct way to eat it here, in my opinion, is to tear it into fingers and dip it into the extra cup of gravy.

After I got done with the latest color quilt, I needed to get some more seeds started or re-potted. These were ones that I had started mostly in moist paper towels in zipper baggies. Let me tell you, that technique really works. For the first time ever, I managed to get some yucca seeds to sprout. We will see how they do now that they are in little peat jiffy pots.

Here is what they look like sprouting in the baggies:

Those are cypress vines.

This just started as a small project but you can see it is out of hand, as is usual for one of my projects.

Currently growing: basil, cilantro (that is slow to sprout) two different kinds of sunflowers, pumpkin, marigolds, forget-me-nots, dill, morning glories (mixed and blue), cypress vine, and, hmmm, probably a few things I forgot. The pumpkins and the sunflowers sprouted so well I am thinking they will be taking over most of the garden, unless I can give them away. Free pumpkin plants!

Gardening and Banh Mi

Posted on April 27, 2012 by glenderella

I continued my adventures on Monday by going to Golden so I could go to Golden Quilt Company and Golden Fiber Arts, (where I usually take my class) and get some additional fabric and embellishing materials for my Koi Quilt. I got a roll of “nature” themed pastel fabrics (and now I am not sure I will use any of them in this quilt, well, maybe for the water lily) and then some Angelina opalescent fibers (I always think of Angelina Jolie and wonder what she has to do with quilt embellishing….), some Shiva Paintsticks (oil paint in a stick – can Glenderella still make a mess? Why yes, yes she can!), and some hand dyed fabric by my color instructor Heather Thomas. I think the fabric will be used to make the koi, it is yellow and orange.

Another good reason to go to Golden was for lunch. I had been debating my lunch options. Lao Wang (soup dumplings) was closed on Mondays, but I had been looking at some other options in the area. When it occurred to me that I would go to Golden, of course I went to D’Deli for lunch.They are only open until 5:00 p.m. so I don’t get to go there when I have my regular class. They are always busy, but on Monday there were plenty of tables inside because everyone wanted to be outside since it was so nice.

You can choose to make your own sandwich with your choice of meat, etc., but I always go for one of their pre-concocted options, because they really have some wild ones. This time I had the Bahn Mi – Pork Loin, Chili Garlic Aioli, Mixed Greens, Jalapenos, Cucumbers, Carrots, Green Onion, Cilantro. I am now a fan of the Bahn Mi. I have no idea if theirs is authentic Vietnamese or not, but I sense an impending trip to sample various bahn mi around the area.

Lots of interesting and delicious veggies.

You are correct in assuming the Dear Husband would never eat this.

Last time I was here I had the Banano – Salami, Pepperoni, Cream Cheese, Sriracha Hot Sauce, Honey Mustard, Lettuce, Tomatoes, Red Onions, Jalapenos, Banana Peppers, Salt and Pepper. Also excellent. D’Deli has excellent bread, with a toothy crust, mmmm, I want some right now.

I ate, made the above-referenced purchases at the quilt store and the fiber store, and headed home. I knew I had to get that quilt sketched out. I sat down with the colored pencils, crayons, and markers and went to town.

I spent my entire life believing that I couldn’t draw. I got to be pretty good at drawing in Adobe Illustrator, and I thought, why can’t I do that in real life? Turns out, I am actually OK at it. Better than I thought at least. I just needed to spend more time with it and do things slowly – story of my life!

From an early report card: “Glenderella hurries.” That pretty well sums it up. Everything that I have learned to take my time with has improved. (I scanned in those sketches yesterday.)

It was lovely out that day so after dinner I worked in the yard, clearing the old weeds from last year and dead leaves from one of the front flower beds. The little grass-looking-clump type plants apparently are pretty good at re-seeding themselves, hmmmm. Will need to dig some of those up and relocate in the current “Weed Garden,” future “Rock Garden.” I am busy digging up all of the current plants in the Rock Garden and re-locating them so we can level it and start over. By ‘level’ I mean, kill everything else that has decided to grow in there, such as a bunch of elm trees and grass. And thistles from across the fence.

“Weed Garden” in 2010

See, we have already made a start.

Then we will put down black plastic and mulch and use some of the interesting rocks I have brought from SD to make some beds, and re-install some of the plants that have shown sufficient vigor to grow over there, the sunniest and hottest part of the yard.

In other news, the neighbors with the alien landing pad have now camouflaged it with mulch, so as to be less obvious. There might even be one or two aliens hiding UNDER the mulch. Small ones, you know. You can see they put down some cement stepping stones for the landing vehicle.

Ken would say “Ok, this blog is long enough.” So it will be!

K & S Come to Denver to Visit, Part II

Posted on April 25, 2012 by glenderella

We had stuffed shells for dinner Saturday night, sorry, I forgot to take a picture of them, and the recipe for those is pretty much different every time. It involves a lot of cheese, a homemade marinara that has a variety of things thrown in it, and pepperoni laid across the top layer of cheese for the last 20 minutes to brown and get crispy. And the leftovers are awesome.

I forgot to say that at the Bagel Deli, Ken and K. had a french dip and chicken salad, respectively. They both said their food was good, but S. and I were too entranced with our own food to even taste theirs (well, maybe S. got a bite of chicken salad???) and we really didn’t have time to take pictures.

After dinner we taught K. and S. how to play Progressive Rummy, which is the best card game ever and I would gladly type out all the rules, but maybe sometime when I am stuck in a car and don’t have anything to do, because they are kind of complicated and long. And S. lulled us all into a sense of complacency and then tried to go out early about three times in the final hand, and still was the first one out and cleaned all of our clocks.

Got up Sunday morning and had waffles and bacon, and then took them for a scenery run. (Run in the car, not an actual on-foot run, oh that is SO funny.) We went up to Standley Lake, and wandered out onto the floating dock to take pictures. The lake was like glass that morning.

I forgot to pay sufficient attention to the reflections of the mountains and clouds in the water. There was a gentleman up there fishing, and some ducks swimming close to shore, egrets (I think) further out, and pelicans. S. is a little freaked out by birds so she was OK with the pelicans not flying too close.

Not much of this cottonwood is still alive, but it was a spectacular contrast against the blue sky that morning.

They we headed up Coal Creek Canyon, just to show off that hey, we live 20 minutes from the mountains (if not less) and because when you live here, you don’t go up into the mountains and appreciate them enough.

The Flatirons and just south of the Flatirons, and Jefferson County open space in the foreground.

They have shooting star flowers here in Colorado too! At least that is what my family calls them. I had never seen them in Colorado before. They are a little more healthy and bushy than the ones in South Dakota.

Pose by the creek. I stuck my finger in the creek, it was pretty darn cold.

Awwwww. So happy for my friend K. that he and S. found each other. S. is my friend now too, but I knew K. for a long time before I knew her, and always hoped he would find the perfect partner. He has.

Then they had to head home, and I tackled the back yard. This involved spraying myself in the face with the hose accidentally, but if that is the only mishap for me with an afternoon in the yard, that is pretty good. Got 6-7 hollyhocks moved to a new place, plus a surprise peony that came up from an old root. Aggravated Ken by digging up two big rocks in the edging and leaving them on the grass. : ) Went on weed patrol with my trusty jug of Round Up. Those rotten thistles that come over from the neighbor’s yard need strong measures. With all this nice weather in April I MAY actually have the yard in decent shape before I get tired of working outside in the heat and let it go to pot again. Who knows, maybe it will give me something to blog about if I keep it in decent shape, THERE IS ALWAYS A FIRST TIME!

I also tried starting a bunch of seeds in moist paper towels in ziploc bags. I put in a bunch that are kind of old so we will see if they sprout. If they all do, I am in serious trouble. So they probably will….

A preview of the current flowers:

Well, the lilacs over the fence from the neighbor, but I appreciate them. Much more than I appreciate the thistles.

Bleeding Heart, always an early bloomer.

And a happy, happy pink tulip. There may be a dandelion leaf in the background, but I choos to focus on the tulip! : )

Bacon Wrapped Chicken Breasts and Gardening

Posted on April 10, 2012 by glenderella

I was up by 7:30 on Sunday, started puttering around in the kitchen and cleaning it up, a never-ending task. Worked some more on the landscape quilt, finding out just why the stick iron comes with a guard around most of it (it gets really really hot) but it is still possible to get your finger on it and raise a big welt. Oweeeeee.

Made Spicy Sweet Bacon Chicken Breasts for lunch – of course I couldn’t find the recipe at the time so I just winged it. I made about double the recipe, we like these as leftovers. I used much less “spicy” since Ken doesn’t care for that. And I forgot about the garlic powder until I saw the recipe again, AFTER I had made it. So I printed that recipe out again and I intend to put it in my three-ring binder cook book so I can find it easily next time, hopefully before it gets buried somewhere.

After lunch I decided if I was going to work in the yard it was now or never. I have a bad habit of getting really excited about the garden early in the year and then losing interest in the middle of the summer when it gets really hot, so then the weeds get tall and I ignore them until the next spring. Ken went out too, to work on some grass that needed to be dug up and replaced. I pulled old weeds out, checked the peonies and Bleeding Hearts for signs of life (they are there, they are growing!) and moved some perennials out of the Weed Garden (future Rock Garden) into the bed south of the house. This bed is hard to deal with because it is the sunniest part of the yard, and it was mostly clay (I have been trying to work better soil into it) and not many plants do well there. Daylilies from the ranch do QUITE well there, but I don’t want a while line of daylilies, although it may come to that. Hollyhocks (one of my very favorites) also do OK in there, but some of them have spread to places I don’t want them to be, so I did some digging and moving of hollyhocks. The summer I need to label them as to what color they are and start trying to make sure I have the variety I want.

So I moved some of the big tall perennials (well, they are not big and tall yet but they will be) out of the Weed Garden and put them on the south side of the house, we will see how they do, the ones I moved there last summer didn’t do much but I don’t remember when I moved them. They came up again this year at least. And I am turning one of the tomato patches into another perennial bed, so I am going to move more hollyhocks and Weed Garden perennials there, but it needs to be tilled first, and Ken is going to do that next weekend. I watered all of the peonies and bleeding hearts. We need to slow down on the weed pulling until we get the accumulated weeds hauled off. We only get one container of “trash” picked up a week, so we need to meter the bags of yard waste out.

There are also a bunch of trees in the Weed Garden that I need to get out of there, they aren’t very fun to dig up. Some of the smaller ones I will dig up and maybe take up to the ranch to plant around some of the dams where the drought killed the trees off the last few years.

It was 72 degrees, just about right for working in the yard and not feeling too put upon.

I need to decide the purpose of the garden/flowers/yard. I don’t think it is to go out there and sit on chairs and enjoy the evening, because we don’t do that too much. We don’t have company often enough to show it off to. It isn’t really a big enough garden to grow enough vegetables to can or freeze to eat through the winter. I do enjoy growing lettuce and we have salads with that and eat it on sandwiches, but green beans haven’t been a big success and neither have tomatoes, two of my main gardening needs. Maybe I will switch the places I plant the green beans and the tomatoes this year, and try that.

The “new” perennial garden is going to have: hollyhocks, sunflowers (they aren’t perennials but I like them), poppies (which I need to go to SD and dig up or get seeds from, so they won’t be a big presence this year) and perennials (daisy type, brown-eyed Susan type) from the Weed Garden…..hmmmm……we’ll see what else happens.

I am also getting some “Red Hot Poker” flowers for that garden, I have tried them in other areas and they haven’t done well, but that might be just the spot. Hope springs eternal in the heart of the gardener.

The Russian Sage in the Weed Garden are still alive, amazing me, because they didn’t seem to like it very much there last year. It was more sunny than the shady flowerbeds in front of the house, but maybe too sunny. The Russian Sage may join the New Perennial garden.

Came back in to make Hamburger Pinwheels for dinner, but I think that is a whole ‘nother entry on its own.

MaryAnne took a break to lay on my new Faribault blanket that was supposed to be drying after I washed it.

What, this is not for me to lay on and look cute? What good is it then?

Aren’t I just too cute?

MaryAnne, later, airing out things, with Jello molds.

We tell her this isn’t ladylike, she doesn’t care…..

A Little Spring

Posted on February 16, 2012 by glenderella

Since it is STILL cold and snowy and HAS BEEN for it seems like forever….(sorry, in Denver we are usually spoiled by snow falling, sometimes a lot of it, and then melting, and a few days of 60° before we have snow again. Not so since oh, January?) So I thought I would put up some flower pictures. These are from the summer of 2008. Early July, I believe, because later that summer we got hammered with hail.

Pink morning-glory. The birds like these, so they are scattered around the yard quite widely and volunteer the next year.

Purple morning glory. I am pretending it is 75 degrees and sunny….

Mr. Bee, busy in a sunflower.

Pink hollyhock. Hollyhocks are another one of my favorites.

I always start out gardening with great enthusiasm in the spring and then lose interest as it gets hotter and the weeds get more numerous. Maybe it will be different this year……

glenderella

Knitting, crocheting and burning down the kitchen.

Category Archives: Garden