Lots of random stuff

Happy Halloween! The little one is going to be some sort of vampire princess - the costume is pretty ornate and the natural fangs (since the top two teeth are missing) complete the look. It'th juth tho cute!!! (that's the missing front teeth lisp)


Today, it snowed all day! The fall scene looks a little odd dotted with the large flakes of snow. My husband said it was being called "The Rare October Snow". Wonder which creative genius coined that?


I must thank all those who commented about Scamp in my last post. It was a really stressful and emotional week. This is Scamp above, bored out of his freaking sweet and gentle mind during this 2 week period of crate confinement. I've been waxing poetic (and melodramatic) in a journal about this whole thing so I'll spare the readers of this public blog, but if anyone happens upon this, is going through it, and would like to e-mail me for more of my/Scamp's personal story, please feel free. But for the rest of the garden readers here, I'll just say it's been a difficult time, but we're feeling optimistic after seeing his tail wag ever so slightly yesterday. Yesterday, I'm pretty sure I saw him pick up and move one of his back legs ever so slightly as well. We're now about 11 days post-op. Anyway, your comments have meant a lot and have been reassuring and so helpful!!! Thank you!!!!! :)

For my husband, the month of October becomes "Shocktober". He spends all his spare time watching horror (many b-rated) and other Halloween themed movies. He noticed that in this scene from Attack of the Giant Leeches, the main character was apparently getting his spring seed order together!!! See the seed catalog on the table?


This photo was taken of Scamp the (hot) dog during one of the 4 days we spent with him before he ruptured a disk. The costume was so much cuter on the slimmer dog on the website. So it's the same story for the canine world, huh.

Since I basically do not cook anymore due to my schedule and recent stress, my husband's little concoction is this week's Garden to Table Challenge entry. These jalapenos are stuffed with a combination of different fillings - garlic, garlic/blue cheese, blue cheese/cream cheese, and other combinations of the three ingredients. These were then stuck on a skewer and grilled. He and his friend Walter sure had a good time trying each combo. I personally made sure he kept his distance until we got a fresh bottle of Listerine. Anyone still harvesting out there? In what ways are you using your harvests? Link below and tell about it!

Finally, my friend Grace sent this lovely short video of blooms opening set to music. You may have seen something like this, but it's always nice to watch again.

GTTC, earthquakes, hurricanes

The sliders I made this week are topped with balsamic mustard and grilled onions. The jalapenos were simply grilled (on a wood skewer soaked in water first). It was a bittersweet evening as my husband kept calling it the "end of summer bbq" and I had to return to work full time the next day.

What "end of summer" (or other seasons for those of you far from North America) dishes are you making with your harvests? Post about it with a link to this blog, provide a link below and qualify for random periodic prizes!

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Anyone on my coast experience the earthquake (and aftershock) this week? I really can't imagine what it would be like to experience earthquakes regularly - people say you get jaded pretty fast. Maybe it would be just annoying after a while to have to straighten out all the wall art, and sweep up any broken glass. For me though, it was pretty freaking scary. We had one about a year ago in the middle of the night - my first. I thought it felt pretty much like a low-flying helicopter hovering right above the house - of course, that's a pretty scary feeling too. I sort of knew what was really going on, and when I looked at my husband and asked, "Was that an earthquake?" the words were really surreal coming out of my mouth - it's something most people from the East Coast have never uttered before. But to tell you the truth, despite my typical calm facade, in my head, a voice was yelling, "WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE"! Having never experienced an earthquake, my only frame of reference comes from disaster movies like 2012 where the ground opens up and swallows houses whole. The first inclination was to grab the poor kids sleeping innocently in their beds, but I was really in shock too... and then the rational side kicked in - ok, what are we supposed to do... get in a bathtub? go to the basement? run outside? I just couldn't remember anything I'd ever heard or read!!! But then before I even needed to reach a decision, it was all over.

Later, it's all anyone has to talk about. I think West Coasters must have sore eye sockets after so many eye-rolls about our East Coast earthquake excitement. In reality though, there are some very real dangers even for a small earthquake - gas lines breaking, traffic signals down, etc. And when we experienced our daytime earthquake last week and were all separated, I realized we were all probably fine, but I guess there was a maternal anxiousness that my kids (especially the 6 year old) would be scared. I think an earthquake is just so sudden, so unpredictable, so natural, and with all that - there is such a feeling of a loss of control. You just want all your family members safe and around you.

I certainly don't mean to compare our pitiful little earthquake to any true devastation that comes from more serious earthquakes and other natural disasters. It's just such a new and weird thing for us. And I do count myself lucky that this is something we don't normally experience.

Anyway, we were just coming down from all the exhilaration and all everyone's talking about now is Hurricane Irene. Geez, how do you prepare for this one? Get milk and toilet paper? Fill the tub with water? Are you supposed to stay away from windows - or is it that you're supposed to nail boards over your windows???

How to prepare for a hurricane...

What to do in an earthquake...

Storm's a-brewing

If this doesn't make you ache for a rain barrel, I don't know what will! Within the first few minutes of a very severe (yet brief) thunderstorm, the rain barrel was completely full. If we have a dry week, this volume will keep my vegetables watered. You would not have wanted to be caught outside during this very short storm we just had!

Edited to add the photo below: 20 minutes after the storm started, the sun's rays beat down upon us once again (we had another 100+degree day today). Out and about, the storm appears to have been more serious than I thought!

Below, the 12-year old bracing herself with her skateboarding helmet during the thunder and power outage. After she realized I was taking pictures, she began running around avoiding my camera. Maybe because she still had that nasal strip on her nose that we were playing with earlier in the day. Maybe because she was frantically busy preparing a "disaster pack" (canned food, her favorite stuffed animal, her cell phone, etc.).

Here she is, running upstairs to avoid the camera because she's not too old to pack her favorite things during a scary thunderstorm, but too old to want any physical record of it! Too precious.

Here's the 5 year old, not too embarrassed to show us what she put in her disaster pack. She's wrapped in Nana's blanket (which prevents bad dreams), and in her box - a wind-up flashlight, 2 cheese sticks, a juice box, and a picture she'd just drawn. What else would one possibly need?