Happy Labor Day!

Today is not just an American national holiday, it also happens to be the birthday of my baby brother. That's him in the picture having been karate chopped on his sunburned shoulders by Annie. When Uncle Philip's around, there are no holds barred. The children wrestle with him, beat him, beg him to toss them in the air or swing them in all manner of dangerous ways, etc. He's the only adult I know that has enough energy to keep up with all three of my kids! We miss him everyday and wish that he lived much, much closer. Happy birthday, little brother. Exactly two years and two days after I was born, you entered the world to torture me for the next 18 years, but we all still love you!

My birthday just passed, but the celebration has yet to take place. Even today, on Labor Day, The Husband is working. He won't have a day off until Wednesday, at which point he will have worked eight days and countless hours in a row. Tuesday he's doing 16 hours, so I plan to let him sleep in a little on Wednesday before I head off to my first ultrasound for this baby! The whole family is excited about seeing this little one for the very first time. Then we have the open house for Head Start that evening, so maybe Thursday. Of course, there are dentist appointments for all of us (excluding The Bean) that day, and we have to drive an hour each way for those, so... If I can just get my chicken paprikas in on one of those days, I'll be happy! The recipe is forthcoming, I promise. Now, I'm off to do some more laundry.

I hope all of you are having a joyful and restful day.

What's Blooming in My Garden-- August 31, 2008

It's been awhile since I've posted what's blooming in my garden. It's not that nothing new has been blooming, it's just that I've been... off. Today, though, I'm catching up!


The surprisingly lovely violet blossoms of black turtle beans (Phaseolus vulgaris). The pods are purple too! Love it.


My current favorite plant, marshmallow (Althaea officinalis). Marshmallow is mostly considered a biennial, but this blossom appears on a first-year plant. I'll leave some of these "early" bloomers and see if they come back next year, but I'm digging up the roots of some this year for various sorts of medicine.


Another squash blossom, this time Early Prolific Yellow Straightneck (Cucurbita pepo). Not so prolific in my garden. This blossom, captured in the camera a couple of weeks ago, is long since gone. Its parent plant has fallen almost completely to powdery mildew (my fault, I know).


Store-bought potatoes (Solanum tuberosum) setting flowers. These have since been followed by fruit typical of all the Nightshade family plants.


Tasty and cheerful nasturtium (Tropaeolum majus). Last year, plants from this same seed were enormous! This year, they're limping along. Of course, it could be my insistence on not watering this year... or the fact that they weren't planted until, like, June... or the fact that they're being shaded by the corn, buckwheat, and asparagus ferns... or...


The marigolds (Tagetes spp.) are doing their very best to keep non-existant pests from the non-existant peppers. *sigh*



Helping along those workhorse marigolds is a lonely little sweet basil plant (Ocimum basilicum). I think my seed was old. Then again, they are in the failure of a pepper bed. Hmmmm... I think a little more water would have been appreciated. Since this basil was hardy enough to make it, despite the odds against it, I'm letting it go to seed. A plant that tenacious should have its lineage continued, right?

There are more flower pictures to come, but I think this is enough for this week. Hope all your gardens are blooming prolifically!

Sweet Corn Dilemmas

Ahhhh... sweet corn. It's definitely one of my favorite fresh-from-the-garden vegetables. A few minutes of boiling, a small pat of butter, and I'm in absolute heaven. Maybe it comes from being born at the height of corn season, maybe not. This is my first year growing my own sweet corn, and I've finally run into my first real problem (excluding the squirrels): bitter corn.

The kids and I had the three ears in the picture for dinner last week. Two of the ears were tasty and near perfect, but one tasted sour. It was the first ear to ripen and had large, plump, well formed kernels. The variety is Golden Bantam. Anyone have any ideas?

As I was googling every variation of "sweet corn tastes bitter", my neighbor called me over to his house. He was holding an entire stalk of corn, roots dangling and pole beans still rambling up its height. The ear of corn was very small and not near to being ripe. "There's something looking at me from inside this ear of corn!"

Oh, great.

So I gingerly peel back the layers. Nothing's moving, but there's a large, soft white mass inside. Beneath the somewhat translucent white exterior, I could see a muddy, granular, black interior. "Looks like a fungus to me. I've never seen it before though, so I'll look it up on the laptop later."

The result:

Corn smut, or Ustilago maydis

Hopefully, they'll follow the instructions I printed out for them and destroy the ears. Now I'm wondering if I'll find any galls on my corn. I hope not because I'm planning to serve some to my two best girlfriends who are coming for my birthday! I can't wait to see them...

Back to School Thrifting for Clothes

Two dresses, three shirts, and two Wiggles puzzles for good measure. Total: $13.76. Annie was in heaven trying on garment after garment, though it was frustrating for me because there was so very little available in her size. Of course, we only hit the Goodwill store. The Salvation Army store usually has a much wider variety of clothing, so we'll try that one next. Airius is set for this year, and probably the next, because The Husband's aunt passed down all the clothes of her TWO older boys to us. Love that!



The puzzles were only $0.50 a piece for 25-piece puzzles, one Captain Feathersword and one Wags the Dog. That's just enough pieces to keep a preschooler busy but not so many that they get frustrated and give up. And I love the Wiggles, probably more than the kids do. We haven't seen an episode in years, but the kids remember them. I love to see the twins helping each other to put them together, and it sure beats sitting in front of the tv on a rainy day. Anyone who has a boy knows that, at the age of 4, they are much more appreciative of more mechanical, tactile activities like puzzles.



After our trip to Goodwill, we headed home. I dug a bit around the potato plants but felt nothing. Annie was begging me to dig up a carrot for her, even though I knew they weren't ready. The one I pulled up was maybe the size of my thumb, but she chowed it down right there in the garden, dirt and all! Airius asked for one too but wasn't nearly as delighted with his. I ate half of his. Mmmmm...

What I Really Need...

Is an awesome article on picture railing in 1920's bungalows. Anyone have one they'd like to share?

Though the weather has warmed once more from what was feeling very autumnal, my cold weather nesting is in full force. The garden is not really winding down yet (pictures to come if I can get myself to upload them). In fact, many things are just beginning, like tomatoes and peppers. Still, I feel the gardening season winding down, and my focus is slowly shifting back to the house. The attic is almost completely cleaned out, and once preschool starts for the twins, I plan to get working on decluttering and reorganizing their rooms. Something's gotta give if we're going to fit a 4th baby in this 3 bedroom house! Cross your fingers for a boy, y'all...

Oh. Yeah, so the picture rail thingy... Since I'm planning to start work on the bedrooms, part of that work is restoration. Picture rails were standard at this time, so I'm assuming our house had them originally. The problem is, I've been in several neighborhood houses very similar to ours and not a one of 'em has the picture rail. Hmph. Most of our walls (I think all the bedroom walls) are now drywall rather than plaster, so the rail isn't necessary, but well... It's authentic! I tend to get really picky about these things though, so I'm freaking out over the fact that I don't know what the original picture rails looked like. How could I possibly choose one without having something to go on!? Um, right? Well, so far I'm loving the 2 1/4" Stain Grade Hemlock Picture Rail Molding from House of Antique Hardware the best, but I'm having trouble actually picturing it in the room. I need a sample, I think, to see how well it goes with the rest of the trim in the house.



Of course, since the picture rail needs to be stained, that means the rest of the wood in the room is probably going to need to be redone. Oy. Just to be clear, most of it doesn't "match" now, simply from age fading, and the previous owner did the most lovely splattery paint job with apparently not a bit of painter's tape in sight, so the trim really needs to be redone anyway. I'll have to get a picture of all the horrifying paint details up sometime.

Man, I'm tired just writing about redoing all that wood.

Literature Inspired Food

If you haven't noticed before (perhaps in this post or that one), raspberries and I are an inseparable pair, especially during pregnancy when they both nourish me and inspire great feelings of nostalgia. It's my way of connecting with the woman who birthed me and who never got to see me give birth myself. One of the things that both my mother and I loved when I was growing up was Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery. We raced each other to get through the books and watched the movies together at least once a year. I used to make fun of my mom for crying during the movies, but I'm sure she'd be chuckling now to see how misty-eyed I get just at the first notes of the movie's theme song. Yes, Mom. Now I understand. I really do.

Back to the raspberries. I was drinking my raspberry leaf tea this morning and my mind began to drift to the scene in Anne of Green Gables where Anne mistakenly gives Diana red currant wine instead of the permitted, non-alcoholic raspberry cordial. Oh, the mayhem that ensues! Bosom buddies ripped apart! Again, I'm being diverted. The point is, I kept wondering just what raspberry cordial was and how wonderful it must taste and how transported I would feel to roll the bright pink liquid over my tongue. I googled recipes, and lo and behold! Apparently, I too can learn how to make P.E.I.'s traditional raspberry cordial. W00T!

It was about this time that I remembered another literary favorite that's inspired food traditions in my family: Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House series. There's a chapter in Little House in the Big Woods where Ma and Pa bring in some fresh snow from the first snow of the season and allow the girls to make maple syrup candy, 'cause "maple sugar never hurt anybody." I had poured through boxes and boxes of books in the attic (before the big declutter, of course) in order to find my worn copy of Little House in the Big Woods on a whim, and after that chapter I waited desperately for the first powdery drifts of the winter to come. When it did, I surprised the kids with the making of this little treat. Thus was born a brand new (to us) first snow family tradition. You can bet that we'll be doing it again this year, and I'll be blogging about it too!

Raspberry cordial and maple syrup candy are just bits and pieces of the culinary traditions held within these favorite books of mine. Tomorrow we head to the library to pick up the two cookbooks featured above (thank goodness for the home internet accessible Marion Public Library catalog), and hopefully my morning sickness will give me enough of a break to whip up some delicious, literature inspired eats. Not only will my body and unborn baby be nourished, but so will my spirit and my inner child.

Do you have any favorite foods or family traditions inspired by literature? Please share if you do!

The Big School Decision

Yesterday the kids and I met with two "family advocates" from the Head Start program. Both women were very kind and LOVED the children, but I can't say I'm convinced yet that we're doing the right thing. The decision to send my kids to public school or to homeschool has been weighing on my mind for years, and there just hasn't seemed to be one of those moments yet where I feel that yes-THIS-is-the-way-things-are-supposed-to-be feeling. There were a lot of factors that went into me finally signing the kids up for the Head Start program:

1. This isn't really school yet. It's preschool. It'll give me a chance to feel out how the kids develop with other kids around, other authority figures, and more structure than they'd get at home (well, maybe not. I'm a diehard fan of the schedule.). Are they really learning more than they do at home?

2. My kids (and I) are very socially isolated. Our closest family members are at least an hour away, and the only friends we have in the neighborhood are our next door neighbors whom we love, but... In fact, the only little boy Airius knows that is his own age is his cousin whom we see only at family functions. I've looked at the homeschool groups in our area, and all of them are, well, Christian. I have a deep respect for Christianity, but our religion doesn't fall into that category. I'd feel like a bit of a fraud.

3. Annie has shown a keen interest in going to school. I've told her that she could stay at home and learn as a family, but the idea kind of bums her out. That bums me out, but this isn't about me. I won't even hope for her to change her mind, promise. Yesterday after our meeting, Annie grabbed the hands of one of the women and said, "can I go to school with you now?" lol Airius was asking the same thing but wasn't quite bold enough to grab their hands. He serenaded them for awhile though. ;)

4. I'm not convinced that a child's success in school or life is dependent upon how or where they were schooled. Maybe I've read Freakonomics one too many times, but I think that if we encourage and support our children through their education, the returns will be great regardless of their schooling.

5. I'm really not at all confident that I could do homeschooling successfully. There I said it. Happy?

Anyway, the book isn't closed on this topic yet, and I plan to do a lot more research throughout this school year, but I wholeheartedly welcome respectful opinions on this subject. Do you homeschool your kids? Why or why not? Any book/website recommendations on the subject?