Tag Archives: garden

2013 San Francisco Trip Report Part 2

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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

Fuschia, Alcatraz Garden Tour

This is an artichoke plant

Alcatraz Gardens Tour Artichoke

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

Oriental poppy Alcatraz Island Garden tour

The light was shining through this one so beautifully.

Poppy Alcatraz Garden Tour

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.

Garden Tour Alcatraz

Garden Tour Alcatraz

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!

Seagull, Alcatraz

Next up, more shopping and eating.

Multi-tasking Sunday

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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.

 

A Monday of Epic Proportions

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I think I will just work my way backwards through this weekend, including Monday, since it was SUCH a Monday that I didn’t even post.  Monday got a head start on Sunday night with a headache that wouldn’t go away (hence no post written in advance Sunday night for Monday morning posting.) It continued with a disturbing dream about being back in my very first apartment after college with scruffy mice and weird cats, and started out bright and early with me remembering that I hadn’t sent out some slides for a conference call that morning at 9:00 that I was supposed to have sent out on Friday. So I got up several minutes before I usually do, and logged onto my work computer, and sent those out. I don’t remember what else went wrong between then and leaving the house, except that MaryAnne was annoying and wanted to run into the closet and not leave. Then I got to my car, which wouldn’t start, wouldn’t even turn over. I looked up at the dome light, which I sometimes turn on when it is dark, and the switch was on. So the battery was dead. Back into the house I go, to wake Ken, who is still sleeping. He gets dressed, come outside, pushes my car out of the garage, pulls his car up next to it, and gets the jumper cables, which are fortunately nice and handy on the garage wall. After I manage to put the negative cable on a piece of metal which does NOT work as a ground, apparently, because the car won’t start, he hooks things up correctly and Mimi the Matrix does indeed start. So off I go to work, only 15 minutes late.

They day continued to be a Monday: misunderstandings, miscommunications, no cupcakes, etc.

Looking back on Sunday, it was a better day. Still grey and cloudy, but quite a bit warmer than Saturday. We had a picnic to go to at 1:00 with some of Ken’s former co-workers, and I had made the famous Coughlin dip (recipe below) and cole slaw (which I won’t post the recipe to, because I am looking for “The One” in coleslaw recipes, and I don’t think this one was it. Plus, I am mad at it, for reasons you will hear shortly.) I made them both the day before, because they are both better if they sit overnight. Also: I don’t make coleslaw very often and I was not aware that it doesn’t require as much dressing as you would think, so I didn’t add the 2nd bag of shredded cabbage, and I should have. That has been duly noted for next time.

We had fun at the picnic, even though it was a little cool. Watched other people’s children run around and kick their soccer balls into the (cold, cold) lake. Ate good food, visited and caught up with some old friends and met some new ones.

We came home and I discovered the lid wasn’t QUITE closed on the cole slaw and cole slaw juice had leaked out and filled the bottom of the reusable bag I was using as well as dripped in a trail behind me all through the house. There may have been muttering and cursing. That bag went straight into the trash.

Then we decided to go to Kohl’s because we had a 30 percent off coupon, I was looking for clothes and so was Ken. We bought: socks, a rug, and shoes for me, so we didn’t quite meet those objectives, but we saved money.

Then we came home and I made enchilada casserole for dinner (recipe here). Always a favorite and makes good leftovers.

Some of the baby plants spent the day in the house, since it was still pretty cool in the sun room. Some of them got a little wilty on Saturday morning when I put them out there, so they got to spend the day in the bathtub. Monday night I did finally plant the sweet peas outside, they were getting a little crazy and attempting to strangle some of the other babies, so they were the first to go outside.

And I just knocked over a picture of my niece, which fortunately didn’t break, while answering the phone, so the MONDAY continues.

Coughlin Dip (named after my sister-in-law, we were introduced to this dip at their wedding rehearsal dinner)

1 pint mayo
12 oz cottage cheese
12 oz sour cream
1 pkg ranch dressing

Blend well and refrigerate overnight. Serve with potato chips and vegetables.

This dip sounds kind of gross but it is delicious. I don’t even like cottage cheese and I like it. It makes a huge batch so I only make it if we are going to a picnic or a pot luck.

MaryAnne being unladylike again.

What?

Leo would like you to know he would never do such a thing.

He does, however, say: Don’t hate me because I am so beautiful.

Fried Chicken at Wishbone and the Seed Starting Project

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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!

K & S Come to Denver to Visit, Part II

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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! :  )