i ordered my seeds!

this is what i ordered this year:

candy hybrid onion
redwing red onion
bunny tails ornamental grass
tarahumara sunflower
lemon queen sunflower
butterflyweed
amish paste tomato
mortgage lifter tomato
stevia
minnesota midget muskmelon
alaska mix nasturtium


i've grown the candy onions before. they're sweet onions, and they are absolutely FABULOUS. being able to grow my own sweet onions this far north is awesome. not so awesome, monsanto owns the rights to candy onion. it is most assuredly NOT a gmo seed, but it is a hybrid (not open pollinated). it was developed and introduced long before monsanto bought the company that made it. but i really hate monsanto. i waffled back and forth on trying a different sweet onion seed, but wasnt impressed with what little i could find. so i stuck with what i know. maybe in another year or two i can find something better to try.

i've grown the amish paste before and prefer them over the other types of tomatoes i've grown for sauce. i need to make more tomato sauce this year, i'm all out now. i decided to try the mortgage lifter for fun and variety. i have trouble with septoria leaf spot on my tomato leaves and of all the many tomato varieties, only ONE has any resistance to that. the iron lady hybrid, which i purchased last year. it was ok. it did have resistance. but it didnt make very many tomatoes. and if i'm saucing, i need LOTS. last year was also not a very hot summer either tho. and tomatoes like it better when we have warm summers.

i think i have enough leftover seeds of everything else.

to get everything i wanted, i had to order from
seed savers exchange http://www.seedsavers.org/onlinestore/
baker creek seeds http://www.rareseeds.com/store/
park seeds http://parkseed.com/ (where i got the candy onion seeds from)

but i also perused the catalogs of
seeds of change http://www.seedsofchange.com/Home.aspx
pinetree gardens http://www.superseeds.com/
high mowing organic seeds http:/www.highmowingseeds.com/
territorial seeds http://www.territorialseed.com/
abundant life seeds http://www.abundantlifeseedscom/
the natural gardening company http:/www.naturalgardening.com/
john scheepers kitchen garden seeds http:/www.kitchengardenseeds.com/

and recycled catalogs from about 6 other places that didnt have either the 'safe seed pledge' or state that the seeds were guaranteed 'non-gmo'. i get SO many damn seed catalogs.

this year the new things i'm going to try are the 'bunny tails' ornamental grass, and the butterfly weed. most of my gardening experience is with veggies. so these are outside of what i know. it will be another grand experiment.

i need to get the back room cleaned up and ready to start seeds now that its february.

book darts

i got these neat book darts to mark all the things i want to take notes from or things i identify with in books.


book dart front and back


in use, you can point to exactly where you wanted to take the note from


view from the edge of the book


i ReALLY liked this book

lettuce on her head

crunch n munch


sweetpea wearing her food on her head and hanging out her mouth

potato ham soup

it was so good i had to make it again.

boiled potato slices for potato ham soup


reserve two cups of the potato boiling water to use in the soup


chop up some carrots


and some celery. i chopped up a bunch of celery and divided it into 1 cup portions and froze them for easy soup making.


cooking onions in lots of butter


making a roux out of that butter and onions


brown the roux slightly


dump everything in the pot. i dont generally keep milk in the house, so i buy heavy cream and freeze it in ice cube trays. each one measures about one tablespoon. then i dump them out of the ice cube trays into a zip lock bag and help myself to a couple whenever a recipe calls for milk. this recipe calls for milk, so i added the cream cubes. you can see the frozen celery as well.


because i dont do pepper of any kind, i add ham flavored soup base (like bouillon)


as usual i had an audience


yummy yummy soup get in my tummy


recipe back here http://yesididit.livejournal.com/1611529.html

doggies lounging in the sun

puppy and molly both really enjoy hanging out by the front window. molly is watching, puppy is resting his head on molly


what are you doing with that damn flashy thing


still with the flashy thing, i see you!


nope, not fooling us


molly decides to snooze, puppys watching out the window


both dogs snoozing in the bright sunshine

homemade peanutbutter apple dog treats

making dog biscuits. peanut butter and apple. i had a dog bone shaped cookie cutter. it was 3", maybe 3.5" long.


i chopped up bits of apple nice and small.


as usual i had an audience. a VERY captivated audience. i cant imagine why...


behold the power of peanut butter


rolling the dough out went smoothly.


it was very easy to work with, even with the little apple bits in it.


however i made these as an xmas gift for my brother and sister in laws little dog, which is a brussels griffon. its like maybe 5 pounds or something, so small compared to mine. so even my smallest cookie cutter was kinda too big. so i gathered up the scraps, rolled them out again and used a pizza cutter to make little squares. this dough was so nice to work with.


they puffed up a little bit when baked. both my dogs and their dog love these. i'll make these again.


recipe
Ingredients:
1 cup of flour
1/4 cup oats
1/2 tablepoon of baking powder
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup apple sauce (I used my Homemade)
1 tablespoon of olive oil.

Preheat oven to 350
1. Mix all ingredients in a bowl. If it seems too dry add a tablespoons of water until it is a cookie-dough like consistency. I started using a spoon and switched to mixing with my hand to really make sure everything was incorporated.
2. Sprinkle flour on a surface and roll out to about 1/2 of an inch thick. You can use a cookie cutter, knife or what ever you want to make the desired shape/size of your treats.
3. Place baking paper or a baking mat on a cookie sheet. Place the treats on the sheet leaving a bit of room between them. They won’t expand too much.
4. Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown.
5. Remove from the oven and allow to cool before tossing them to the dogs!

from here https://brunetteswithbrains.wordpress.com/2014/12/15/apple-peanut-butter-dog-treats/

einstein rocks

when einstein saw this photo of himself for the first time, he didnt wince or turn away. he didnt issue a public apology or vow to be more mature (having won a nobel prize and all). he asked for a copy of the photo. and then he had copies printed up as note cards so that when he was moved to jot a note to one of his very learned and dignified colleagues, the person first had to look at einstein sticking out his tongue.