Monkeys and Lions Mmmmm!

My daughter and I like to have fun with cupcakes. Here are the homemade cupcakes we made for my nephew's second birthday.

 

Miss B showing off our handy work.

Lions-Vanilla cupcakes with vanilla cream cheese frosting. The mane is Carmel corn, whiskers are pretzels, and the ears are Cheerios. 

Monkeys-Vanilla Cupcakes with chocolate cream cheese frosting. The ears are Junior Mints and white of the eyes are mini marshmallows. The eyes and mouth on both is melted chocolate chips.

 

 

Linked to:
homegrownandhealthy mostly-homemade-mondays
littlehomesteadonthehill the-creative-home-garden-hop
backyardfarmingconnection the-backyard-farming-connection-hop

Random Rambling for a Country Girl

1. If red sky at night means sailors delight, what does orange sky mean?

2. Planting Dill and Thyme in your garden will help deter cabbage  moths. Basil deters aphids and Nasturtiums deter squash beetles and aphids.

3. Homemade dill relish is soooo good and easy to make.

4. Fall is my favorite season. The only thing I can't stand is walking through spider webs!

 

5. We have used electric heat, gas stove, pellet stove and wood stove. Wood heat is the only way to go for me.

 

Linked to:

back2basichealth-creative-home-garden-hop

 

 

Growing your own Garlic

Last year was my first experience growing garlic. It is fairly easy to grow. I bought 4 bulbs of German White  Hardneck garlic from a local guy. He told me to plant it with fish bone meal, then top with dirt and chicken manure. And plant it in October. So that is what I did.

 

Here is half of the garlic I harvested in July.

These are the things I learned.
1. Hardneck garlic grow a scape. When the scape is curled, cut it off. This is so the plant puts energy into growing the garlic bulb and not a flower.

2. The scape are delicious, I found many recipes on the web to use them in.

3. When I planted the garlic I just dug a little hole and planted a clove. Well some of the soil was looser in some areas then others. The garlic that was planted in the looser soil was bigger and easier to dig at harvest time.

This weekend I planted my garlic again, but this time the garlic cloves came from the bulbs I harvested.

What I did differently:
 I put a layer of chicken manure with hay, then a layer of leaves.

Then my son helped me add a layer of top soil and bone meal.

Last I planted my garlic cloves.

These are the garlic bulbs I got the cloves from.

 

I hope this process will produce bigger bulbs and easy to dig garlic.

 

 

Do you grow your own garlic, if so what kind?



Linked to:
Mostly-Homemade-Mondays
the-creative-home-garden-hop
the-backyard-farming-connection-hop



Example of Autumn

Weekly Top Shot

 
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theviewfromrighthere-weekly top shot

Weekly Top Shot

It looks like someone needs a hug.

 

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Natures Shades of Yellow

For this week the Nurture Photography prompt was Yellow/ Shine. These are natures shades of yellow I found around my yard.

 Linked to:Nurture Photography






 

17th Annual Clallam Co. Farm Tour

Annual Mother-Daughter time spent at the farm tours.
Dungeness Valley Creamery

Nash's Organic Farm

Lokalie Gaare (Sheep Farm)

Freedom Farm

Linked to:
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dearlittleredhouse-mosaic-monday-orange

What's GREEN and ACTIVE in my garden.

 

Corn

Pumpkins

More pumpkins

I don't think this one will be ready for Halloween.

Cucumbers

The Bean Patch

 

Rattlesnake Beans

Strawberries

 

 

Linked to:
bumblesandlight-greenactive-nurture-photography
littlehomesteadonthehill-creative-home-garden-hop-11

 

 

A Week of Preserving

Canned 12 half pints and 6 pints of dill pickle relish.

 

Froze 16 serving of corn.

 

Still working on tomato sauce.

Surprise Potatoes Plant

I always seem to unknowingly leave one or two potatoes in the garden each year. So in the spring up pops a surprise potato plant or two.  I rotate my crops each year and this very big potato plant was in the way of other crops, so I pulled it.

I was happy to see so many potatoes. I have a hard time keeping reds from going bad. I decided to can these but I didn't want to peel them.  Some are very tiny and I couldn't just throw out the little ones. So I did some web surfing and found a couple of people who can their red potatoes peel on. Step one scrub potatoes until they shine.

I used my dollar store scrub brush and scrubbed until they were shiny. As I scrubbed a very thin skin came off the potatoes. Then I cut the bigger ones into smaller chunks and stuffed into hot quart jars with a teaspoon of salt.

Notice some of the potatoes have a reddish centers. I added boiling water to each jar and put on the warmed lids and rings. Then processed them for 40 minutes at 10 pounds pressure.

Ok all done and the potatoes are all white. Hmm, I didn't expect that. Seven quarts from a surprise potato plant, not bad.

Linked to:
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homegrownonthehill-homeacre-hop-32
theviewfromrighthere- rurality blog hop

Scavenger Hunt Sunday

1. Family- This is my family of Indian Runner Ducks.

2.Grass- I use my grass clipping in my garden. It works great as a weed block.

3.Silly-This is Harry my angora bunny. He's a little silly looking.

4 Half- This is my corn at half size.

5. Bow-Meet Franky (short for Franken Feet) her feet curl and bow.

Linked to:Ramblings&photos scavenger hunt Sunday

Our Family Vacation

7 Nights ~7 States

Washington~Idaho~Utah~Arizona~Nevada~California~Oregon

Rest stop Idaho, Blue Mountains.

Utah, Dixie National Forest, Red Canyon

Desert Flowers.

 

Utah, Bryce Canyon

 

                  Utah, Zion National Park

 

St. George, Utah

 

Arizona

  

Pinetop, AZ

 

Plant life at Fort Apache, AZ

 

Structures at Fort Apache (dated 1871-1892)

 

Kinishba Ruins, AZ

 

 

Petrified Forest National Park, AZ

 

Williams, AZ

 

Grand Canyon National Park, AZ

 

Hoover Dam, AZ-NV

 

Las Vegas, NV

 

No pictures from Reno, NV to Washington.

 

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http://www.thelongroadtochina.com

floral friday foto

scenic weekends