On 5/4/2014 12:02 PM, songbird wrote:
> bluechick wrote:
>> songbird wrote:
>>
>>> you're welcome, also there are a few other good newsgroups
>>> for gardening and lawn care topics to follow if you have
>>> the time:
>>>
>>> rec.gardening, rec.gardening.edible, alt.home.lawn.garden
>>>
>>
>> Thanks! I've followed a couple of those from time to time over the
>> years. Might have to take a look at them again. Time is the problem,
>> though, this time of the year. Especially since dear husband has
>> about 1000 projects for us to do.
>
> oh yea, i know that feeling, Ma keeps stacking
> them up too this time of the year, when i've got
> my own list full already.
>
> the weather has been so odd the past few days
> that i've not gotten far on anything other than
> a few indoors projects.
>
>
> songbird
>
Same here, my list of honey do'es covers two pages now. Yesterday middle
grandson (he's only 31 yo) and I installed a new kitchen sink and faucet
set. His first time to do that job, he's a lot younger and more able to
crawl under a sink than I am. We got a nice American Standard, single
bowl sink that also has a colander and a smaller sink that can be put in
the big one. It's 22 inches wide by 33 inches long so now I can get my
canning pots in there to fill them up. One of these days I'm going to
put in a faucet over the stove as I'm getting a bit long in the teeth
and weak in muscles to be picking up huge pots of water. Only took us
five hours with multiple trips to the hardware store for this and that
plus digging around in my fifty year stash of odd parts of that and
this. Nice sink once it was done.

We will start canning whole blackberries somewhere around the fifteenth
of May, the nearby blackberry farm sent me an email to let me know they
would be ready to pick by then if not sooner. We made so much jam and
jelly from them last year that we only need a bunch for homemade
cobblers this year and, alas, the both freezers are completely full as
it is.

We harvest our first summer squash yesterday, about six inches long and
a couple of inches in diameter. Will be chopped into a salad for our
main meal today along with fresh spinach leaves, Swiss chard, scallions,
fresh lettuce, radishes, and sweet chiles, all from our gardens. I cut
up some boneless, skinless chicken thighs and pan fried them in a little
Spanish olive oil just to have some meat in there. May even turn some
carrot and candied ginger bread I made the other day into croutons for
it. That bread is odd looking, a bright yellow with dark spots (ginger)
in it but is very tasty. Now I will have to make another loaf of
something to replace it plus we need another sweet as the tropical fruit
cobbler I made earlier in the week is about gone. I guess y'all can tell
I like to cook and to eat both.

Probably be cutting, blanching, and freezing more chard this week as it
looks to be about ready to bolt. We've had days with high forties temps
lately and that is unusually cool for this season here in Houston, TX
area. Won't be long until we have to buy lettuce and carrots but we do
have green tomatoes about golf ball size growing on the vines.

George