Rain, rain, go away.

Rain, rain, rain. That is all this Summer has been. July 4th began three days of intermittent downpours that brought a seasons worth of rain all at once. Floods everywhere.



On the plus side, I have been doing allot of dancing in the rain. The air has been quite warm, but doesn't reach above 70 degrees often.  Our back garden is a swampy jungle, but this has not been a good year for the garden I had started.  The strawberry plants are huge and trying to produce strawberries,but they rot before they turn red.  The peas were successful, but then the snails got to the pods before we did.  Our corn is tiny and the leaves are shredded.  We have two corn plants growing inside to see if we can get something.  I am still waiting on the success of a cauliflower plant and some slow growing onions.

My sunflowers, on the other hand, are blooming and are at least 5 feet tall.  Our fushia bushes, which were tiny last year, are huge and bushy, and the roses are finally full of blossoms.



But let's talk about snails.  I am amazed at the quantity and size of this years snails.  Today I found a snail whose home was 1 inch in length. and about that in height.  I do not come from a place where snails are common place.  I am used to huge slugs in mass quantities, snails are almost a welcomed guest.  My mom is an amazing slug hunter.  I have this vision of her in her garden impaling slugs without a second thought.   Last year, after dark, I would go snail hunting.  I would smash any snail of a small to medium size and throw large snails over the fence into the road.  I felt awful.  So this year I put out poison.  The only problem is that you are left with hundreds of snail shells all over the garden and then I still feel awful.  The recent rain has made it difficult to keep the poison around, so the Sprout and I routinely scour the garden collecting snails and throwing them over the fence.

This Summer has been a total bummer in terms of weather.  It is a good thing that so many cool things (the Jubilee, Wimbledon, and the Olympics) are happening to detour us from the weather.

1 1/2

From 2011-04-15

I never get to be on the internet any more and when I am, I certainly don't have enough time to type something.  So while the Sprout is entertaining himself in his crib and not taking a nap like he is supposed to be, I will write a few things.

The Sprout is officially 1 1/2 years now, but it seems like he has been this old for a while now.  He tantrums and demands and screams allot.  He is constantly running and playing outside.  The neighbours gave us their toy slide, so he plays on that allot.  Because the garden lines up with our windows, I don't have to be there every second.  This doesn't mean I am not paying attention, but it does mean I can empty the washing machine or get a drink while he is playing.  But he did manage to eat a snail when I wasn't looking a couple of days ago.  I think that would have happened regardless.

We went to get his first pair of shoes from a shoes store on Saturday.  He was fitted and everything  and although he was wary of the sales girl, we found two pairs we liked.  He wears a 4 1/2 G.

The Sprout is 79 cm tall, but I haven't had him weighed for 6 months, I suppose I should do that tomorrow.

To my relief, he now uses crayon to draw instead of to eat.  We have a growing collection of art piling up.  I want to get some paints now that it is warm and sunny so we can make a mess outside.

From 2011-04-15

Speaking of messes, we have been gardening.  The Sprout loves digging in the dirt and dumping it all over the front porch.  He also loves to dig up the plants I just planted and then try to plant them again.  He is fascinated by bugs, but is not yet aware that they are living things, oh well, a dead snail is a good snail.

We still don't really say real words, but I am not worried about that.  We think his first word is "shoes" just because he pointed and made a sound that sounded incredibly like "shoes."  We also think he has said "love you" but that is under speculation.

We finally kicked the binki habit.  All I had to do was keep it out of sight.  I do have to admit that on days where he has been incredibly difficult I will put it in his mouth and it makes him tolerable.  I think it is weird that he won't put a finger in his mouth.  He did find his nose though...

Richard and I have slipped him some ice cream, and of course he loves it.  I just bought some popcicle moulds so we can make healthy popcicles.  The ones in the store are incredibly bad for you.

As for me, I am stuck at Costa.  I didn't get the jobs in the States, so I will be studying for my "Life in Britain" test so I can get my English Citizenship in July.  I saw my first movie in the cinema since I had the Sprout.  I saw Scream 4 and thought it was stupid.  To be fair, I slept through half of it, and I am not a big fan of the Scream movies.  But I wanted to go anyway.

Our apple tree has beautiful white and pink flowers on it, I should take a picture.  It is amazing how all the flowering trees and spring flowers lifts your spirit and turns the city into a beautiful place.  We have been lucky to have had such beautiful weather for the past month or so.  We have been able to turn off the heating.

My new favourite baby gear is the 360 degree cup.  It looks like a plastic tumbler but it has a ring at the top that is leak proof.  The kid still has to suck on it, but they can do it at any place on the lip like a real cup.  It has been helpful because the Sprout is always wanting to drink out of my cup and results in really soggy clothes.

360 Junior All-Round Sippy Cup 

(just checked, you can't get these in the States!!  

Guess I will have to bring some back)

Why am I eating an apple from New Zealand?

Ms. Molly mentioned a book she was reading called Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbra Kingslover in one of her blogs a while back and I decided it sounded really interesting, so I picked it up from the library (yes these still exist).  It is about a lady who decides to eating seasonally by growing her own food and only buying local products for one year to help reduce her family's carbon footprint.  I am not very far through the book, even though I have had it for 3 months (I can't read and entertain a baby at the same time), but it got me thinking about where our food comes from and why we don't eat seasonally.  I remember my mom saying "we will have to wait until it is in season" for fruits and vegetables such as melon, berries, asparagus, and artichokes.  I don't remember having many apples around in the winter, and, as I do now, corn, oranges and grapefruit only show up in the fall and winter months.  So I am not a stranger to eating seasonally, however, I have gotten used to having anything I want RIGHT NOW!!!

I went to the store today to do a little shopping (something I never do anymore, I do everything online) and I noticed how almost nothing I bought was from the UK.  I bought apples from New Zealand; pears and cucumbers from Holland; butternut squash from Portugal and sweet potatoes from Ecuador.  The only things from Britain were the cauliflower and the eggs.  I thought "this is so stupid, why am I buying apples from New Zealand"?

I feel guilty in some ways.  There are three reasons, in my opinion, to eat locally and seasonally.  Fuel consumption, local economy and taste.  Have you ever had a peach, apple or watermelon in the winter?  Yuck!  When I was living in Bradford, I loved going to the market to go shopping, but the market is too far away now (I am not even sure how much of the produce there was local).  There is a market in Saltaire once a month (I need fruits and vegis more than once a month) but I have never been and these are not Farmer's markets.  I also feel guilty because I looked at the apples I was buying, saw they were from New Zealand and bought them anyway.

In most cases I do eat seasonally.  I eat zucchini, melon, peaches and nectarines in the summer.  But I like to eat my apples all year round (though I tend to skip out on the Jan-March crop).  I would never dream of eating an artichoke, asparagus, pumpkin or peach out of season.  And I do eat meat that is locally produced, they don't give you much choice on this end.  Also, have you noticed how the fruits and vegis that are on sale are the ones in season?

I am so excited to finally be moving to a house with usable land that Richard and I can grow a vegetable garden on.  I doubt we will be able to grow enough to stop shopping at the grocery store, but it will be fun try.  I also found a cool website called "What's in Season" which will remind me of the items I should be eating and when.  I also want the Sprout to like eating fruits and vegis and in order to make sure he likes them, they need to taste good, which means buying them when they are at their best.

Gardening

I am not feeling the daily post topics, so I will update you on our gardening.  Well like last year, somehow we didn't really get around to it.  Next year will be awesome because we will have a whole backyard to dig up and sculpt for our own.  I plan on doing a seasonal vegi/ edible plant/herb garden, a flower garden and the Sprout garden.  I am really excited to plan it and to have a yard to work in.  We are going to have allot of work to do because there is no kind of garden in the back it is all just grass.  We will probably do raised beds.  I am also excited to be able to have a real compost.

I got around to planting leeks, carrots, radishes, strawberries and we had some impromptu tomatoes from my compost.  The radishes flowered early, I think it got too hot in late Spring).

Here are some pictures of how they are doing.

Check out our impromptu tomato plant.  We have done nothing for this plant.  It is growing out of our carrot pot.

Leeks.  I just divided them into another pot.  I hope they survive.

Strawberries.  They are in tiny containers on the porch.  They will have space next year.

I decided to cut back my pansies to see if they will flower in the fall.  They were starting to get straggly.  I will miss their little flowers though.  Now you can see the rosemary and my really cool bobble mushroom.

Summer for a weekend

The National Blog people didn't give us anything to write about this weekend so I will comment on the lovely Friday and Saturday we had.  It got into the mid 70's and was sunny, with that awesome 4 o'clock downpour that I love.

The Sprout and I went to the park yesterday and he played with a stick (because it was the only thing I would let him put into his mouth).  We had fun.  The best part was looking up at the leaves under a tree while the wind blew.  He got his little dancey legs going and wiggled away with little pterodactyl noises.  I have a video, but am having a hard time getting it off my phone.

I actually planted some flowers this year and they have really bushed out.

I also planted some golf ball carrots, radishes and leeks.  We also have a few tomato plants that came from the compost, so I put some of those in pots.

Gardening and my worms

Gardening

I have been doing some gardening. I planted some butternut squash, tomatoes, lettuce and carrots on our porch. Everything is really starting to grow and it is pretty fun.

However, I am most proud of my compost. When we moved in, I decided we had to have a compost. I ordered a compost container, but it never came, so I decided to turn one of my pots into a make shift compost bin...and it has worked brilliantly. I keep it uncovered. I started it with some cardboard, scraps and a small amount of potting soil that came from some fresh herbs I bought at the store. After a couple of weeks I had 3 permanent resident worms that came out of nowhere (I wish I could mark them to keep track that they are the same ones). I was so excited and made it my duty to keep those worms happy. I love having a worm bin, but I wasn't about to go buy worms...and these are real worms, big, thick earthworms...I always think they look good to eat, but I don't think I will be trying that.

I turn the compost every couple of days and when it gets dry I water it. Every couple of weeks I add some cardboard to it to keep things going, and I only add non-cooked food to ensure we don't get any pests (although I don't think it is possible to have any pests because of the 20 cats in the back yard).

As I turn my compost, I happily count my worms, and there is never less than three...sometimes more, but never less than three. Today, to my surprise, I counted 15!!! I have never had that many before! And they are all big and healthy worms...I have had spurts of smaller thinner worms, but they didn't stick around, these are other earthworms!! I was so excited that I upgraded the bin to the biggest pot I had and I will have to add more scraps. It has been rainy the past couple of days and I kind of think that is why so many worms found my compost, but by-golly, I am gonna see how long I can keep them around!

What's going on???

The cake from Richard's parents

Well as you may have noticed, I am not in the US, but still at home waiting for my passport...WHOOPEE!! I just decided to get my plane fare credited for whenever my passport does arrive, I am hoping soon.

On Saturday for my birthday, I took Richard to see the Transformers new movie (very cool animation, but in true Jessika style, I fell asleep...the movie is 2 and 1/2 hrs long!!! I have decided that I need a movie to be 90-100 min to not fall asleep.) We also had lunch at one of the newer Indian restaurants called Tulsi. It is a vegetarian restaurant and is very good...the weird part is that it has a bar. In Bradford it is very strange for an Indian restaurant to serve alcohol. you can usually bring your own, but they don't sell it.

On Sunday, Richard's parents came up and we went for Sunday Dinner in Shipley, but otherwise I had a very uneventful birthday day.

Richard and I have finally started a bit of gardening. We have some lettuce and tomatoes coming up and some squash and carrots on the way. At the moment everything is planted in temporary pots until we can get to the store to buy HUGE pots to put them all in. Last week I had to declare war on our back neighbour's big flowering bush that hangs over our garden. The bush is beautiful, but it was covered in aphids, so the bulbs I planted when we moved in were COVERED in aphids. So I cut the branches on my side off...and it seems to have worked. I was very proud of myself.

Miki in the garden

Miki is getting more brave outside, although she still needs the door to be open and prefers that we are outside with her. She goes to greet most of the cats, but because our fence is high, she can't figure out how to get to them, which I think is OK. Recently she has found herself a hidy-hole under the deck that she curls up in...but then I forget about her and she ends up being outside with the door closed...OH NO!! I am hoping she will find that it isn't scary to be outside without a straight shot to the inside.

I have managed to knit 2 ridiculous hats from scratch that the sprout will have to wear because they are hilarious...