Tuesday = Garden Tour

With all the berries around here, you'd think it was summer....

alas, it's still Juneuary around here.

And things ain't looking that great for the 4th, either?

Supposedly, summer will arrive July 5th.

I'll believe it when i see it.

We've had some colourful friends visiting, bring a little wonder and joy to our days...

Gold finch :: photo by Cookie Monster

Thankfully, the dome was closed without a test of the sprinkler system this weekend.
It helped my beloved Moose and i knock some garden chores off our list.

The trellises for the boysenberries and grape are set. A few of the posts i've designed for a little "double duty". On the far right, by the raspberries, we'll be mounting a hummingbird feeder. The one here on the left end we left bigger intentionally for a different kind of little garden accent.

Hopefully, we'll be the proud landlords to a family of chickadees next Spring.

Moose set the tomato stakes too.

They're a little cattywhompous, so Moose refers to them as "The Art Walk".

We'll call that functional & stylish--depending on your angle "Art Deco" even!

One thing is for sure....with all this Juneuary weather around the Sound here, you'd think you were in Ireland. The potatoes and the greens are growin' great guns! I planted the corn. In vain, most likely, as if the weather isn't going to cooperate isn't bad enough, the neighbourhood kitties certainly won't respect a few square feet of fine soil with their "the world is my litter box" mentality.

Where's my cayenne pepper and bbq skewers??

We're having tremendous luck with the cauliflower!
We planted white and "cheddar", and the orange cauli seems to be growing best.

Our flowers seem to be enjoying themselves in the veggie garden,

as well as some unwelcomed guests.

"Intruder alert! Intruder alert! All hands on deck! This is not a test. Repeat. Not a test."

"Code Slime! Code Slime!"

"Uh, Vicki, can i get some help over here?"

I *heart* Dylan Ratigan

May I make a suggestion to your daily tv schedule?

I know I mentioned about a millennium ago that I was going to post about Mr. Ratigan and my growing admiration for him--like my agri-crush on Joel Salatin or my foodie-crush on Michael Pollen or Barbara Kingsolver. The post i promised hadn't happened till now cause I was homeschooling and watching The DR Show with my free time, people!

But I digress.

Mr. Ratigan's show is a wonderful take on the real news during this time in our history. The storytellers we've elected to office or the thieves that have greased their way up to the corner office are exposed everyday in many different publications that are virtually too numerous to keep track of. Facts seem to disappear just as fast as they appeared on the tickers on the bottom of the tv screen. A person can say or do one thing in the morning, then by the afternoon, media updates have them rewriting history and it's up to us to try to keep track of it all and figure out which one , if not both, were coverups for the truth. And let's not forget this two-fold crisis we have in our society now: 1. People are working too hard to actually listen or read news that isn't a brief synapse--say 5 seconds (as most of us are working with an attention span that has nothing on that of a goldfish) and 2. people don't look into news anymore--rather if someone said it, than it must be true!! Mr. Ratigan's show touches on so many points and provides so many guests, topics, and organisations to check out later online should you choose as he provides sources and names of people and reporters who he finds are trustworthy.

And he doesn't sugar-coat it either.

I have to admit that I am envious of what he knows in his year's so far (he's only 3 years older than I am) and how talented he is at being able to convey complex happenings to the everyday man or woman. Watching him, you'd get the idea that he knows a thing or two about a thing or two, and isn't just some pundit. He's been around the block, so to speak, previously working in the financial sector and all. The best part is that he doesn't get distracted by all that hoopla of minutia that occurs day to day. He keeps our financial crisis front and centre and shows how it could be fixed on a day to day basis.

Watch Dylan Ratigan's show on MSNBC. Not just because he's a nice piece of eye candy, either, but because he's got the noggin to go with the looks....just like us smart, geeky girls like our men, eh? Should you pick any week to watch, this would be a great one--it's his 1 year anniversary week, and although you missed the cool puppet show a few months ago regarding how Wall Street helped our elected gov't stick it to us middle class people, you can rest assured that there will be plenty more of that where it came from this week with all his buckets of Monopoly money for financial props.

See learning can be fun.
And infuriating.

Sunday Stills :: History: pre-1950

This week's Sunday Still's Challenge is to photograph something at least 60 years old. In a perfect world, i would have had time to photograph some older homes south of here, however last week was the week for playdates and ....

So you will see parts of my pharmacy bottle collection instead. :o)

Below is the bottle that started it all--freshly admitted to the local pharmacy tech program in Northern ID in the late 90's, my mom and i cruised through some antique stores and i found this gem. It's from Osseward's Pharmacy in Seattle. Handwritten label with no date. The only info on the pharmacy Google turns up is a listing in the ERA pharmacy's in 1911.

I believe this to be the oldest bottle i have in my collection of pharmacy paraphernalia.

.

Next is this great bottle of Dr. Schenck's Syrup.

Once i found an archive of a NYTimes article stating that this gent's business dated back to 1895. I doubt this bottle is from way back then.

Here are some more bottles of "medicines" from pharmacy's early history.

And another prescription bottle from a Portland pharmacy called, "The Owl Drug Co."
The Portland Owl Drug is not listed in the 1911 ERA.
Neither is Clinton Drug Co.

Urban farming movement hits Seattle

 http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2012049158_urbanfarms07m.html?prmid=obinsite 

Tuesday = Garden Tour

Summer decided to visit for another 5 hours today. :o)

Yesterday, it was only here for two hours. Tomorrow, it will hopefully come back all day, as we are having friends to the house for a majourly overdue playdate. Cookie Monster is bursting at the seams!

Life's the berries around here, you could say....

That is unless you are a hormonal Momma chicken that doesn't have a man around to help her fulfill her life's calling and she has this annoyingly pesky chicken herder that dutifully plucks her from her nest in which there are no babies.

Then life ain't so rosy, you know?

The good news from the garden is that the chickens didn't get the best of my Tango lettuce. The seedlings are sprouting up everywhere (just in time for the hot weather to cause them to bolt...oy!)

My man, Steve Pool (aka local weather guess-caster), says not to worry...the Summer of Lettuce shall return by Thursday with an "unseasonably cool on shore flow." Mr. Pool's minons were also so kind today to point out that it has been 290+ long days since it's been above 75 degrees here in the Seattle area. I never thought i say this, but maybe it's time to move back to AZ. :o)

This is my favourite part of the veggie garden right now.

It makes me look like i know what i am doing. :o)

Actually, this whole bed in the foreground makes us look like rockstars...it's weeded, plants are growing, flowers blooming. What more could you ask for, eh?

Well, can i share a secret? Apparently you can ask for a lot more!!

I found a miracle in the garden too!

Not a single night has it been over 55 degrees, so the tomatoes are ready to pack it in.

But today i found this:

Hallelujah!!

And this little beaut was lounging under the hot cap!

Would you look at that stem??

I grew that from those sad little seedlings i started in Feb!

Still waiting for feathered friends to find my birthday present...

And the coup de gras of the week:

our first harvest of twenty-ten!

4 oz of "Victoria" rhubarb!

Now to figure out what one can make with only 4 oz of rhubarb. :o)

Sunday Stills: Got to Get Low to Get High

Currently in Seattle this week, we are experencing the little known month of June-uary. That is to say that it is sorta warm ... ish, like an educated person would reason June to be. However, Mother Nature has been conducting a week long flushing of her sprinkler system and the sky actually seems to get darker rather than lighter upon the sun's rise just as it does here in January. Drat! Tough luck for the photographers in the area, eh?

So as not to bore you with horrid exposure of pictures of seemingly black trees against the grey skies or to save myself from wallowing in mud puddles and slug slime to capture this week's shots, i will have to bust one of my rules i set for myself upon joining the Stillers :: this week i am going to have to dig in my archives to find some worthy pictures to submit to you all. They still adhere to my second rule i set for myself as they are SOOC.

Hoping you aren't experiencing June-uary wherever you may be!

Fondly,

Whit

embrace the camera :: june 18

embrace the camera
Originally uploaded by Whit-2-tis

It was a day full of errands and not so much fun. We are plum tuckered...well one of us more than the other. She's serenading me to sleep with songs from Just Dance & Imagination Movers.

Bedtime for Bonzo, my little monkey.

Tuesday's Garden Tour

Everything's going pretty well in the garden despite all the rain. The last couple days of sun have actually helped the seedlings along. I haven't planted the corn yet, because i am afraid that upon doing so it will rain until August.

This is great weather if you are a beet, carrot, lettuce, pea or potato apparently.

The great bag experiment is swell too!
Even the peppers in the bags seem to be growing well in bags in this cool weather.

Maybe it's the "snake effect"....a garter snake scared the dickens out of me this weekend, hiding over by the peppers. When i screamed, Moose came running...not to see what might potentially be devouring his sweetheart--oh no, but to hunt down the snake of course. ;o)

Me: "Oh my heck, he was 300 ft long and about to gnaw my right foot down to the bone!"
Moose: "Which way did he go?"

ME: (pointed at the tree while rolling my eyes)

Moose: (getting down on all fours to see if crawling under the tree would actual yield his slithery treasured matey.) Gaaaaw!!

The only unlucky plant in the bags are the sweet meats.

Dang slugs are eating all the new growth the plants put out, and i think they finally did them in. Nasturiums are doing great though. Why couldn't the slugs eat them instead?

We're blushin' too...the blueberries are getting a little blue tinge to them and

looks like we'll be up to our ears in razzies soon.

Not much planting happened this weekend other than flowers.

The corn still desparately needs to go in, but the variety i am trying only needs 68 days to mature?! I'm hoping to a warmer week to plant them in.

I've been trying to plant up flowers in the veggie beds to reduce the bare sq. footage to reduce time spent weeding. The zinna seeds i planted on Saturday have sprouted already!?!?!

And to get the other side of the cross garden in shape, i planted these adorable little daisy-ish looking things called Felicia. After i stared at them for a while, i realised they were in the perfect spot as they are paired with the pink poppies, foxgloves, white currant, and purple alliums.

I could just lay here in this spot all day...


apparently like someone else who's been busy in the garden lately.

Maybe she's digging to China?

Sunday Stills :: Eyes

This week's challenge was tough for me, because everything around here with eyes to photograph moves way too quickly.

Souffle, our chicken

Sandwich, our cat

My lil Cookie Monster

self portrait

Embrace the Camera :: Piano class

We started hitting piano lessons today.

we played The Moon, learned the difference between quarter, half, and whole notes,

and made up our own tune.

Cookie Monster loves the way our voices sound when we harmonise together.

Thank God for homeschooling!