Business Busy-ness

I know I've neglected this blog, but for the past month I've been creating a new business with a friend who's also a floral designer. We worked together and when our employer closed their storefront we decided we loved what we were doing so much we didn't want to stop. So the flowers live on through DellaBlooms and Gifts. Here's the link to the business blog http://www.dellabloomsandgifts.vpweb.com/ There are photos of samples of our work. If you live in the Maryland, Virginia or DC area we can help you with your event, large or small. Call us for a free consultation.

I have a huge garden update with pictures coming soon. Stay posted you faithful few readers, and comment to let me know you're out there. Several friends say they follow my blog but never make a peep. I love comments and want to hear from you! I'm off to a wedding consultation.

Phillipians 4:4-7 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand. do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Spontaneous Date

See Thomas Jefferson inside looking out over the tourists?

The low hanging branches arching out over the water look like sticks with pink glittery jewels.

Over the years of visiting this sight it's common to see a Japanese bride and groom having wedding photos taken with these gorgeous blossoms paling to the gorgeous couple.

The tulip library is much more stunning than this picture allows. Over one hundred varieties are displayed here in a very small space.

There are so many photo ops with the branches framing the Washington Monument which stands as a sentinel over our nation's capitol.

We live near Washington, D.C. and have incredible opportunities of sight-seeing. But our normal routine marches on and we don't always take time to make the trek to the city. Clever husband said recently he'd never gone down to the the Tidal Basin to see the cherry blossoms and he'd like to do so this year. We've had some typical strange spring weather here which ranges from sunny and warm to brisk and flurries within 24 hours. Planning to go before the winds blew the blossoms off, yet avoiding the parade of tourists was like walking a tight-rope. Clever husband called yesterday and asked me to be ready in an hour; we were going to the Tidal Basin.
Parking was a breeze, and the walk around the basin was magnificent. Thanks CH for a wonderful spontaneous date. And thank you Japan for your gift of these beautiful trees to our country.

What would you see if you were a spontaneous tourist in your area? Where would you like to go on a spontaneous date with your mate? Hmmm..... I'm thinking of making a list to keep on hand for those times when we've got time to go. Afterall, this is an advantage of having an Open Nest in this season of life.

Garden questions and catch of the day

I''ve had several friends and family members ask questions regarding my garden, so I'll attempt to answer them here for all to benefit. First of all, check out the beds once they've been grided with twine. Cool, huh? In the second edition of Square Foot Gardening they suggest using lath, but to grid the beds and it is very white and pretty, but also pricey, so we found twine works just as well.

This second pic. shows a close up so you can see the holes and seedlings. It's amazing how many plants you can put in these beds. So far we've planted sweet, yellow, and red onions, radishes, peas, several lettuce varieties, swiss chard, beets, broccoli, cauliflower, and corn. A friend asked for the dirt recipe. Ha! I've had lots of recipe requests over the years, but I think this is my first one for "dirt." Here it is:

1 part compost

1 part peat moss

1 part vermiculite

Mix all together and fill beds. Our layers are: Newspapers, shredded leaves, and then the special dirt.

Someone else asked why this method might be better than container gardening. It's a huge space saver, and like I said above you can plant so much more in these 4x4 or 8x4 beds. Square Foot Gardening suggest you feed the plants some kind of fertilizer as the soil will become depleted eventually. This is why container medium should be replaced each year. There's nothing left to give to the plants.

These next photos are not gardening related, but I guess they would fall into the category of clever self-sufficiency. Kudos to my sons Carter and Blake who caught these trout on opening day in the Patapsco River.
The before and after shots of the trout. See that beautiful golden crust with all the flecks of orange zest and cilantro? Mmmmmmmm...... my mouth is watering just looking at it and remembering how good it was.

Carter's girlfriend, April found a tasty recipe for Salt-Crusted Trout and they treated us to a lovely dinner. The salt mixture included cilantro, orange zest, pepper, lemon juice, and basil. When it was baked the crust was cracked and each fish brushed off. It was incredibly moist and yummilicious. I know that's not a word, but it was the perfect word to describe the trout. They served it with rice, and this wonderful Thai cucumber salad.

You don't know how much it thrills me that my kids are clever enough to fish and are also creative in the kitchen with the catch of the day.

I'm leaving you with a gorgeous Maryland spring sunset. Enjoy your weekend with those you love. If you can't be with them, commit to praying for them.

Neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the Love of God that is in Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 8:39

Recession Gardening in pictures

We're not calling this a Victory Garden, but instead a Recession Garden. This is our way of fighting the cost of foods in the grocery stores, and making sure we're eating local and organic. As you can see we're giving up lawn to add more gardening space. We have other beds on the sides of the house, too, but it's time to get serious about our endeavors.

Here are the square foot garden boxes my clever husband built two weeks ago. Hopefully you can see the boxes in the background are lined with several layers of newspaper, and then shredded leaves. Thankfully the night he added these layers we got eight inches of snow to wet them nicely.

Shadow is the "super" for any work we do in the backyard. Here she is trying out one of the boxes. She made sure she sat in each box while keeping an eye on the master.

This photo shows me raking more leaves. My husband mows over the leaves, bags them and dumps them into the compost bin, and a couple of holding bins we have just for leaves. Our compost bin is in the background. We sometime see deer helping themselves to goodies at the top of the bin.
Composting our leaves and our kitchen scraps is an added benefit to our garden, and it's very easy to do. It's our version of "Black Gold."

Here is my husband dumping a wheelbarrow of our compost onto a tarp. The bags you see are vermiculite and peat moss which he'll dump out also onto the tarp. We've been reading Square Foot Gardening and Lasagne Gardening and have learned a way to mix these three things all together.

We had to really put some muscle into dragging this mixture in the tarp to combine it, but it only took fifteen minutes of back and forth mixing.

We mixed the components by walking and dragging the tarp to combine everything together. We were surprised at how well this worked without any raking.Here we are dragging it back down the hill to mix again.

One more time up the hill.

See that nice rich soil. My husband added fifteen shovels full to the wheelbarrow and then it took two loads to fill the four by four foot boxes, and doubled that amount for the large boxes.
Here a pic of our cute photographer taking a break from laundry and homework to see what mom and dad are up to. Of course some lovin' time with Maggie, our thirteen year old lab is always in order.

Here's one of the boxes filled and waiting to by planted. We sprinkled them all down with the hose and then it began to rain. We're supposed to have a drizzly rain for the next two or three days so a weather-imposed break from the garden will give us time to get our seeds organized and ready for their new homes. MMMmmmmm...... I can just taste those home-grown tomatoes now.

Five years ago this Brandywine tomato from our garden won a blue ribbon at our county fair, and we'll be growing them again this year.

It weighed 2 lbs. 6 ounces!
Working in the garden on these cold March weekends will have it's rewards! Tell me about your Recession Garden plans and what you'll be growing.

Here's to vine ripe tomatoes and the Lord's favor upon our gardens~

Dana

St. Patrick's Day

In our home St. Patrick's Day is a fun day to celebrate with family, food, and traditions. Even if you didn't celebrate yesterday, make this bread! It's basically a large buttermilk biscuit studded with raisins. Slather it with good organic salted butter if you want to go to Shamrock heaven. LOL!

You don't have to be Catholic or even Irish to celebrate this saint. He was a follower of Jesus Christ and sacrificed his life to spread the gospel in Ireland. Go to the library and find a book about this saint before you don your green, or even think about putting green food coloring in everything you eat March 17th.


Although not the traditional way to celebrate St. Patrick's day in Ireland, we enjoy corned beef and cabbage along with Irish Soda Bread each year. Below is a recipe shared by my husband's boss's wife. This man was from Ireland and came to America with the name of one man to contact for a job. He was given the job, and then later when he became President of that same company, he gave my husband a job in the same circumstances. My husband became Vice President of that company and then later went on to start his own business.
Try this bread recipe, it's more like a large biscuit with a nice crust and yummy raisins.

Mary Ward's Irish Soda Bread
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter 9 inch round pie plate or cast iron skillet.
4 cups flour3 Tbsp. sugar1 Tbsp. baking powder1 tsp. baking soda1 tsp. salt6 Tbsp. butter, cold and cut into pats1 1/2 cup raisins1 1/2 cups buttermilk2 eggs, beaten. Reserve 2 Tbsp. for brushing on the top.Extra flour for kneading.
Mix the first 5 ingredients together. Cut in butter with two knives or a pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in raisins until they are well coated with flour and separated.Mix buttermilk in with remaining beaten eggs. DON'T forget to reserve two Tablespoons. Stir into flour mixture until flour is moistened. Don't over mix. Dough will be sticky.
Turn dough onto well-floured surface. With floured hands knead into a ball for about 10 strokes to mix thoroughly. Shape dough into a neat ball, place in plate or skillet. ( I prefer the skillet)In center of bread with a sharp knife cut a 4 inch cross about 1/4 inch deep. Brush with reserved beaten egg.
Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour and 20 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes.
This is best eaten hot out of the oven and slathered with butter. My family fights over the big, chunky, crusty parts.It's also good toasted the next day. Enjoy.

Our St. Patrick's Day menu:

Roasted Salmon with Pesto
Corned Beef
Colcannon, a mixture of cabbage and mashed potatoes, and onions
Regular Mashed Potatoes
Sauteed Cabbage
Irish Soda Bread
Guiness
Yingling (for the beer wimps, uh, that would be me!)
Key Lime Pie

No, Key Lime Pie is NOT Irish, it's just this Irish family's favorite so my daugther makes and we eats it, with lots of whipped cream. Yum!

Surprise Giveaway

I love surprises AND giveaways, and I also love this new blog I found while browsing today, The Farm Chicks. They've recently published a new cookbook, so my bet is the cookbook just might be their (shhhh.....surprise) giveaway. Who knows, but I'm willing to take a chance and encourage YOU to go check it out.

Searching for Wintering Owls

My husband and I enjoy many things together and one hobby we've developed over the past few years is birding. Our local bird club announced an Owl hike in a stand of pine trees on the western side of our county and we immediately put it on the calendar. Saturday was the day, and I was closely watching the weather. I don't do high winds, or precipitation, whereas that would not stop the hubs.

It was a beautiful day with temps pushing the high forties and the sun was shining. The morning was filled with busy activity packing the birding backpack with the following: Binoculars with straps for hands-free hiking, Field Guide for confirming identification, Camera to record sightings, fiber bars for gurgling tummies, and extra hats and gloves.

The club asked a local expert on owls to speak to us before the hike. Here he is explaining about why owls regurgitate every evening the undigested bones, feathers, fur etc. from the white-footed mice, meadow voles, and song birds they ate the night before.He's getting out his pocket knife to dissect one of the pellets.

The long-eared owl pellet contained a cardinal beak, identified by it's orange tint.

The above photo is the pellets Jay found on his early expedition. The pellet closest to you is that of the Saw-whet owl, which is a small owl which lives in the woodlands and their daytime roosts are designed to avoid larger owls. The larger pellets are those of the long-eared, and the skull on the right is that of a Meadow Vole.

Not too deep into the forest we found the Saw-whet trying to nap after a long night of feeding. It was precious as it peered down at our cameras, scopes, and awe-filled faces. It's very tame and was not spooked at all by our activity.

After two hours of tromping in the forest, satisfied at the addition of this sweet bird to our year's list. On the way home we drove by a favorite farm and I spotted a Kestral, another to add to the year's list.

What a fun way to spend the afternoon exercising our minds and bodies together.

And God said, "Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens." So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. Genesis 1:20-21