Around the Home and Garden

Gardening

Update on our garden. We have some very well fed ground hogs!! One garden does not have a fence around it and the ground hogs think it is their own personal dinner buffet. So, I have only managed to get one cucumber, all others had big bites taken out of them. The sunflowers, kale, beets, green beans and broccoli were all eaten by the ground hogs as they emerged from the soil. For the most part the watermelon and canteloupe plants have not been touched by the ground hogs and the melons are growing well. The other garden is fenced, I am really enjoying the abundance of fresh tomatoes, and I don't think a day goes by that I don't eat one or two of them. The green peppers are doing really well and I eat at least one a day. The potatoes are probably ready to dig up now. The kale in this garden grew well, I cut a bunch off and enjoyed it, went out a day or two later to cut more and all of it was eaten by caterpillars and basically resembled lace, more holes than leaf. But as they say, there is always next year.

Ground hogs don't like Zinnia, thank goodness, they are one of my most favorite flowers, so colorful.

My beautiful kale a day or two before the great caterpillar invasion of 2020.

Yummy, delicious green peppers.

I spy with my little eye a watermelon.

The tomato plants a little earlier this year. Oh there is nothing like a fresh picked tomato, still warm from the sunshine, truly heavenly.

Baking

I have baked bread recently, something I used to do all of the time, and now feel it is a habit I should get back into. I was pleased with my recent batch, a basic white bread recipe but I used a few cups of whole-wheat flour mixed in with the white bread flour. 

I am going to make a Thirded Bread, I had never heard of this type of bread until reading a recent blog post over at Affectioknit. I googled Thirded bread and found a recipe here and am going to give it a try.  It is always fun to try new things. I picked up some rye flour and coarsely ground cornmeal yesterday as they were the only ingredients I did not have in the house.  In the fall I am going to try the recipe from affectioknit which is similar to a Boston Brown Bread.

Sewing

 I have made many, many face masks for the family. Alivia and Aubrey really liked their cute little kitten masks. I have since found a new pattern that I really like and now use exclusively for mask making, you can find it here.  I will say the video is a bit like watching paint dry, but it is best to watch it through two or three times. I made the pattern with sturdy paper from a brown paper bag. I purchased an 18 yard roll of 1/4 inch elastic online and between fabric in my stash and the purchase of a few fun fat quarters I am set to make masks for quite some time.

 

Alivia modeling her mask.

Aubrey modeling her mask.

 

 And finally, another Zinnia, this one just coming into it's own.