Blame it on the Rain that keeps fallin’ fallin’

daphne on May 25, 2011

Ahhhh.  Hello my beautiful sunny iris.

If you squint just right it don’t you think it almost looks like that smoking hot orb that used to hang in the sky above this fair land?

Forgive me the sarcasm.

It’s not as if I’m one of those cheery sunshiny types.  I don’t need the sun to make me smile.  I like dreary rainy days that dispense permission to lounge in sweatpants with each thirst-quenching drop.

But enough is enough. I’m getting kind of cranky.

Maybe that has something to do with swim team practices in the cold rain and my inability to differentiate between a character-building, commitment-keeping lesson and being a mean parent.

But never mind a couple of wet, whiny kids, we’ve got strawberries bursting out of their patch–

My favorite flower flax is flexing its, um, floral-ness

And speaking of things that are taking delight in this everlasting deluge, there’s this, er, thing

This unidentified random weed that I neglected and it grew and grew and just when it started towering over me and hungrily licking its chops it burst into lovely light pink blossoms and now it’s not that scary anymore. In fact, I’m renaming it ‘flowering bush’ and inviting it to stay.

This is the garden.

Unfortunately, that big bare spot to the south represents the broccoli, pepper and eggplant sprouts that, like my shivering swimmers, proved not to be fans of icy rain.   But it’s okay, because I’m sure these guys will fit in just fine–

They look so hearty and tough.

And I’ll just bet they don’t complain to their mother even though she’s hardly the one who voluntarily begged to be signed up to swim.

Outside.

In Colorado.

In stupid old unpredictable May.

Little House in the ‘burbs

daphne on September 26, 2008

With half-pint and quarter-pint off to school it was time Ole Ma got that kettle on the fire. That food’s not going to put itself up, you know. How this family expects to make it through an unforgiving winter without a hefty supply of tomatoes in the freezer is beyond me. You know that Slow Joe can’t make it over a snowy pass and Nellie won’t give much milk with the ground covered in snow…

Can’t have the family facing starvation, but wait, wasn’t Ole Ma supposed to work on her novel this morning? And what about those updates to the blog, and never mind a certain five year old who’s expecting a birthday party to be planned. Oh well, there’s always tomorrow. Meanwhile, I’ve got 40 pounds of mean tomatoes roaring my name.

Last Sunday was the harvest festival at Monroe farm (yeah, I know that was a week ago, but you see, I’ve been dealing with these tomatoes…) This is the place that supplies our luscious veggies every week, and where we went to pick strawberries earlier in the summer. Something happens when you’re in a field with a green light to pick until your heart grows content (or until your back gives out.) What happens? I’ll tell you, this–

You go a little nuts. Picking with thoughts of packing pickled peppers, even if you have little idea what that means and even less of a clue of how to accomplish such a feat. Needless to say, we went a tad overboard.

Particularly in respect to the peppers.

Now, I’m not sure how many jalepenos and poblanos your family plows through in a year, but a rational estimate for our foursome is somewhere between none and one. Not that we let a silly thing like that stand in our way.

So, we had a ton of peppers to deal with, and by ‘we’ I mean, Pa, who was happy to settle down in front of the Giants game with a peck of said peppers. His plan? To slice and dice in preparation for making some of the killer salsa (recipe coming as soon as I get it out of Dave) we’ve been downing lately. All was well and good, what with the Giants winning and all….

Until, WHAM, the peppers went wild, attacking Dave’s sensibilities and filling the living room air with a pungent, powerful spice. It took two days for his eyes to stop tearing, at which point he loaded said poblanos in the car and hauled them down to the office.

Which is all well and good, except for the couple of distractions that remain to keep me from completing (ok, beginning) my great American novel. First, there’s the little matter of pinata-prep for Acadia’s party tomorrow–

And second, this overflowing box of jalepenos. Not as potent as the poblanos, but still, I’d be pretty unpopular around here if I slid a couple of these bad boys into a grilled cheese or two.

Ah-hah! I’ve got it. It’s perfect, don’t you see? I can avoid stuffing the butterfly with plastic bobbles and high fructose corn syrup AND be rid of these pesky peppers once and for all. Imagine the smiling faces of the children as they are rained down upon by these multi-colored treats.  Fiesta Time!