Artsy Fartsy

I have sewing projects for my sister’s birthday to finish, seeds to plant in the garden, plants to mulch, trees to water… but I also have all these new books to read, and a sunny spot on the deck to sit and relax.

What to do, what to do?

I have a wonderful, patient husband.

Luke started off his Sunday morning by rattling his joints loose, rototilling the vegetable garden in the hot sun for me. Then he waded across the icy cold river to pull a rusty, old swing set frame that the flood waters washed down to our property a couple of years ago off the riverbank. Then he cut holes in the bottoms of four perfectly good buckets. For me. Without entirely understanding or agreeing with what I was planning to do. Now that’s love.

And what is it that I’m planning? I’m growing upside down tomatoes. It’s crazy, I know. Last year I saw this post, which had great results, and which intrigued me greatly. I thought about the upside down tomatoes last summer when my giant, unruly tomatoes resisted every type of stake and cage I tied them to, and fell to the ground over and OVER again. This year these plants will not be falling over. Nope.

The idea is that the tomato plants can grow long and bear heavy fruit, but will never need staking because gravity lets them hang loose and never fall over. Google “upside down tomatoes” and you’ll see millions of gadgets and growing systems for the tomatoes. Mine are simple and copied from Frecklewonder: 5-gallon buckets with holes in the bottoms hanging from a support.

I had planned to force Luke to build me a structure to hold the buckets, but then one day I was thinking out loud and said, “you know what would be perfect to hold my tomato buckets? An old swing set frame”. To which Luke replied, “I know where we can get one”.

Each fall and sometimes spring, we get enough rain to cause the river to swell and flood the banks. This sometimes wipes out trees or moves furniture, and sometimes it brings us presents from upriver, like a string trimmer, a portable toilet, and even a swing set frame. The frame stayed in our section of the river for a while, then one heavy rain washed it further down river where Luke and our neighbor pulled it out of the water and threw it on the opposite side of the bank. There it sat until a good use for it was dreamed up. It’s small, like it only held a swinging bench, and it’s kind of short, but I think it’s perfect.

I bought two varieties of heirloom tomatoes, Tiffen Mennonite and Glacier Red, at the farmers’ market and they are the lucky new dizzy, upside down plants in my experimental upside down garden. I’m also planning to make a grid of twine up the sides of the swing set frame to grow cucumbers and squash. Those I’ll grow right side up. Not as interesting, but hopefully just as successful.

Wow, remember last year when I was grumpy and blue on my birthday? Not this year! The day did start out with me cleaning the bathroom, and I did have to stop at one point and pay $4.15 a gallon for gas, but other than that, there was nothing bad about this birthday. The weather was phenomenal. Luke took me to lunch at the Willimantic Brewing Company and we had a nice motorcycle ride there and back. I met my mom and sister and went to see Made of Honor tonight and then went to Shady Glen for ice cream. I had several email birthday wishes, some e-cards, a couple of blog shout-outs, a bunch of messages on Facebook, and even two birthday songs on my answering machine. You guys are the best. I feel like a birthday princess. Thank you everyone for making my day perfect! I’d hug you all if I could.

I don’t remember planting this.  It’s marked “Tarragon” maybe I should change it to “Terrier”.

She was scratching at the door all morning, I’d let her out and she’d go five feet off the deck, turn around and sit in the garden facing the house.  Weird little dog.

What a weekend. I want to go back and live it all over again, it was just too perfect. It was one of those weekends where I was having too much fun to remember to take pictures. Now that’s something. I took Friday off to go to Sturbridge and shop with my mom. The weather was fantastic, we had lunch, we bought shoes, it was the most wonderful day.

Saturday we worked on the deck and in the yard. We went for a motorcycle ride and to a picnic with friends. Sunday we had a repeat of Saturday, complete with a picnic in the evening and a relaxing afternoon of sitting on the deck with our neighbors, enjoying the fact that we were SITTING ON THE DECK! Woo-hoo!  Monday we finished up a few things in the yard and I planted some new things in the garden. Luke put up a screen door off the kitchen so I can leave the door to the deck open and not have to chase wasps and flies out of the house.

I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect weekend. Oh wait, yes I could. Yesterday we went across the yard to our neighbor’s house so Luke could help our neighbor uncover his camper. We were sitting in his driveway on the side of the house facing our house, but now that the leaves are on the trees, we can’t see our house from our neighbor’s anymore. We were there for maybe a half hour, then we walked home and saw a note written in the dirt just off the deck left by Paula and Karlo! I can’t believe we missed that. I’m sorry Paula! That surprise visit would have really topped off the weekend.

——————————————————————-

S’Mores Bites Update: I took them to two picnics this weekend and was frankly shocked at the response they got. People were coming up to me and thanking me personally for bringing them. They were a huge hit! I still think I’ll make the again with Fluff and see if I like them better, but apparently I’m in the minority. Everyone else seemed to think they were pretty yummy as they were.

Last night I was trying to come up with a quick and easy way to use the ingredients I already had in my kitchen to make a fun and interesting treat to take to one of the barbecues we’re going to this weekend. Among the random ingredients I had on hand were graham crackers, a bag of stale mini marshmallows (only the best for my friends), a bag of chocolate chips, and half a bag of mini chocolate chips. Hmm… I smell S’mores.

Now you may remember when I tried to make S’mores Becky Balls (on a stick). Those, while delicious, were a failure. I figured that this new idea couldn’t possible fail. I would warm four mini marshmallows on graham crackers in the oven, then smoosh them, sandwich-style, with another graham cracker and dip the whole business in melted chocolate. Sounds good, doesn’t it?

Well… they’re pretty. And they’re good in the way that anything dipped in chocolate is good, but they just don’t taste s’mores-y enough. Perhaps if I had used fresh marshmallows? Full-size marshmallows? Or maybe Marshmallow Fluff? Ohhh… Fluff! I bet that would have worked. Oh well, I’m out of chocolate and graham crackers. If anyone has the urge to try this out with Fluff, let me know how it comes out!

I made myself a new bag last night and I am in love with it.  I bought this apple and pear fabric months ago with no idea of what I’d make with it.  I just knew that every time I walked past it at Jo-Ann’s, I’d pick it up and admire it and for some reason I loved it.  Last night it finally found its purpose.  Cute, huh?

It’s really not that big.  It’s only wide enough to fit my checkbook, and just a bit taller, but plenty big for me!  Tonight I think I might make a matching checkbook cover.  I just typed that sentence and thought, how lame does that sound?  A matching checkbook cover?  What has become of me?  OK, how about I make a funky, coordinated pouch for my checkbook.  There, that sounds much better.

I was just looking through the set of pictures I have on Flickr of our deck construction. Here’s the progress from one vantage point throughout the project:

OK, so in the last two I slacked in my consistent picture-taking position, but it’s from the same general area. The change is amazing to me. The stairs should be finished today, and this weekend the railing should be finished. We have 845 feet of cable to lace through the posts and supports… ug. It’s almost party time!

-Enjoying the amazing weather. (Wonderful perfect weather, please come back to stay!)

-Having Luke make breakfast for me everyday. It’s the best.

-Starting to install our deck railing (yay!)

-Working with my dad at his shop to make the supports for the deck hand rail.

-Finally going for a motorcycle ride just for fun. Man, I missed riding…

-Planting seeds and moving plants around in the garden.

-Painting two more of our exterior doors BRIGHT RED. Seriously, you can’t miss them.

-Walking out on the deck to find Molly with her head in my coffee mug, just finishing my entire cup of coffee. Such a dork. I wasn’t sure how the caffeine would affect her but she seemed fine. A little jumpy, but fine.

-Looking out the kitchen window and seeing a railing on the deck. Sigh… almost done!

A couple of weeks ago I bought a large tub of plain yogurt and I have no idea why.  I must have been planning to make something but I can’t remember what it was.  I can’t let a big tub of yogurt go bad, so I’ve been using it here and there - in a potato salad, a creamy tomato sauce, etc. - but tonight I looked at that sad, purposeless container in the fridge and thought: frozen yogurt.

I had to look all over for my ice cream machine, I almost forgot I had one.  I used to use it so often, I considered buying another bowl for it because the one bowl I have takes about 24 hours to refreeze and sometimes that was too much time.  It’s been a couple of years since my last batch of homemade ice cream, so I dusted off the machine and started trying to figure out how to make this yogurt into something delicious.

The last time I made frozen yogurt, I tossed vanilla yogurt into the machine and hoped for the best.  What  I got didn’t taste like dessert, it tasted like cold yogurt (go figure).  This time I had to make it better.  Since I was using plain yogurt, I knew it was going to need sweetening.   I went to the fridge… well I had a batch of “nectar” I made for the hummingbird feeder.  It’s really just simple syrup.  That would do.  I had a third of a jar of caramel ice cream topping, too.  Yum.  And half of a chocolate candy bar I shouldn’t have bought at the store.  Perfect!

Let me tell you… if you’re afraid to cook, go buy yourself an ice cream machine.  You can’t go wrong.  I let the yogurt-syrup-caramel blend in the machine for about 20 minutes, then layered it with the chopped chocolate and froze it for an hour.  It was amazing.

I can’t think of anything else to say now because the inner battle I’m having is distracting me.  Part of me wants desperately to go back to the refrigerator and eat more.  Part of me is so full it wants to throw up.  That’s some good frozen yogurt.