There Must Be Something In The Water

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Weighing in at 4 pounds this zucchini was discovered hiding among the lower leaves of a tomato plant in my garden. I swear I think our rain water has steroids in it. One day the cute little zuchs are almost ripe the next day they attempting a complete take-over of my garden! We shredded this sucker up and made 1 zucchini bunt cake, 2 dozen zucchini muffins, 2 loaves of zucchini bread, and put 6 cups shredded zucchini in the freezer for later.

Anybody want any zucchini?

Spittle Bug Spittle Bug Go Away

Oh no! My grapes, my grapes! See the nasty white blob of foam in the pictures? That icky froth is the spittle bug’s way of invading my grape vines and getting all snugly-cozy like and well I’m not going to take it. No I’m not!

After doing a little bit of online research I found a recipe for organic bug killer to rid these pests of my grape vines once and for all.

I think.

So here is my plan of attack.

Fresh habañero peppers are not a kitchen staple in the Chinobilly house. We use the canned stuff; don't judge me it’s just how we roll. Oh and cheesecloth was another item I had to purchase at exorbitant prices here at our local grocery store.

The author at ehow.com recommended I “spray each of my plants with the spittle bug spray. Squirt some on the ground around the plant, too. Then spread a band of the spray around the outer boundaries of my garden, creating a spittle bug barrier. It will repel other garden pests, as well.”

First, I sprayed down all of the white frothy stuff before I sprayed like crazy in hopes to really get the bugs not just their happy little love nests. Hopefully that will send a message to all their buddies and we won’t have further infestations issues.

I used the entire spray bottle in one visit so maybe my barrier is more like Fort Knox.


Here's hopin' anyhow...

Tomatoes

Wow! In the last two days I have picked over 10 pounds of tomatoes from our little garden. It's very exciting to see our little garden do so well yet quite intimidating to think I have to can all this goodness. I've been skimming through a few canning manuals that my mom gave me. For now I think I'm going to stick with the basics of canned tomatoes then work my way into the sauces and pastes. I think I might have bitten off more than I can chew...ha!

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Journal reads:

I planted 17 tomato plants in our garden this year in hopes that three would survive. All 17 plants are thriving…much to my dismay. The plants are yielding about 5 pounds a day so I guess I better get this canning thing figured out again. I know it will be so nice this winter to make salsa with tomatoes grown in our very own garden.  

A journey of a thousand tiles: Part 4 (yes this could take a while)

Step 4: Let the tiling begin!

Here is a sneaky peaky...It matches Chino dirt beautifully. (Is that an oxymoron?)

To be continued, when I'm old and grey.

"A journey of a thousand tiles begins with 19,387,489,1347,917 trips to Home Depot. "

Jenn, The Chinobilly Mamma
Chinobilly philosopher (not to be confused with Lao-tzu~Chinese philosopher)

A journey of a thousand tiles: Part 3

Step 3: Remove A LOT of glue

This was the most time consuming step. Partly due to the beating Matt took in ripping up the wood with that crazy hammer gizmo. (His hands were numb for days)

My hands were numb from using a teeny tiny razor blade to scrape up all the glue. If you squint and look really hard at the lower right corner of the picture above you may see said teeny tiny razor. Ouch! I cringe looking at it! 

Then Matt brought this beauty home. (Yes, it takes us a few "go-rounds" before we figure things out)

 

This scraper and some magical chemicals made everything right with the world again.

Thank goodness that leg of the journey is behind us!

"A journey of a thousand tiles begins with a thousand and one nerve endings in your fingers dying a slow.painful.death."

Jenn, The Chinobilly Mamma
Chinobilly philosopher (not to be confused with Lao-tzu~Chinese philosopher)

A journey of a thousand tiles: Part 2

Step 2: Wood floor demolition

We thought these tools would be all we'd need.

It became quite obvious we were mistaken!

This photo was taken a few hours into our...a-hem.... adventure

My job was to remove all the pieces as Matt wore "his self plum out"

We borrowed my dad's crowbar...it was a bit easier.

The next weekend Matt borrowed this thing-a-magig from our brother-in-law, thanks Mark

That worked a little better.

Are we

done yet?

"A journey of a thousand tiles begins with a lot of demolition. "
Jenn, The Chinobilly Mamma
Chinobilly philosopher (not to be confused with Lao-tzu~Chinese philosopher)

A journey of a thousand tiles: Part 1

Step one: Remove awful carpet.

Our carpet was toast.

It was embarrassing.

It's gone! Out-a-here!

Let's do a happy dance!

They had no idea...

"A journey of a thousand tiles begins with a single cut. "

Jenn, The Chinobilly Mamma

Chinobilly philosopher (not to be confused with Lao-tzu~Chinese philosopher)

Mud

I've been spending quite a bit of time in the garden lately. The garden wannabe bug has bitten me again but more on that later. I just wanted to show you what can happen when you allow two little girls to water your garden for you. All of this occurred in less than ten minutes even! They claim the earthworms "need'n a dwink"...mamma thinks they just wanted to make sure they got another bath!

Playhouse Progress

Back in January, Matt decided it was high time the girls leave the nest. But babe they're only 3! I pleaded...and his hands flew in the air. They can't live with us forever darlin'. We gotta love 'em and let 'em go...

to the back yard anyway!

Seriously, if he had his way his babies wouldn't marry until they turned 39!

He NEEDS them, they NEED him!

The weather hasn't been so cooperative.

But that hasn't stopped him.

He worked on siding the little house over the weekend.

Rain or shine

He has worked hard.

And the smiles are worth it all!

Softy

Once upon a time, in chinobilly land, there lived two little girls who dreamed of having a playhouse. A playhouse with pink walls, a shady porch and a flowerbed like the one mommy has. Their handsome chinobilly father was kind, loving and couldn’t say no.

I just love that man!

Garden Reminisce

I was sorting through some blog posts the other day and realized I had this page scheduled to post but I never posted it. How funny I find this after my rant on garden invaders. This gives me hope to try again. Good thing I have a few months to “lick my wounds” before I start again. You can’t keep this Chinobilly down!

Garden Friends and Foes

This Chinobilly has worked pretty dang hard on preparing and planting our garden –

only to have these annoying pests move in and destroy what we’ve worked so hard to build up. It seems that aphids can damage plants within a matter of hours and what they don’t consume the pesky grasshopper chomp away at the fruits of our labor. Aaaaahhh! No one wants to see their labor of love go down the drain by losing their plants to those icky pests who are shacking up in the garden.

Even our helpful friendly pals like ladybugs and spiders…the best bodyguards a Chinobilly garden could have aren’t able to combat this evil brood.
The aphids are so bad that even the recommended simple solution of anti-bacterial soap and water can’t combat them.

Well, maybe we’ll have better luck next year. For now I’ll try to nurse the remaining tomatoes through the rest of the season.

Chronicles of a chinobilly gardening wannabe: Part 4

Man do I have big plans, hopes and dreams for our garden. We planted the garden on the first of May, a little premature perhaps considering how cool it's been here lately. My great helpers lasted all of 3 and a half minutes before they got sidetracked by lizards teasing Oli. The nice thing about their short attention spans is that it meant they were out of my hair and I could plant in peace. Truly though they are great little helpers and the garden has been a joy a lot of work for all of us. The kids really love to help me weed and water the garden.
So in the past several weeks, I’ve been rambling about how this chinobilly gardening wannabe started a garden from scratch —preparing the soil, sprouting our plants, and now planting and caring for our new masterpiece. I treasured the garden so much as I watched it grow from nothing but a speck in our backyard to the prettiest garden I’ve ever seen. I’d ground even the dogs if they so much as thought about setting foot in it. But after The Great Strawberry Massacre One Sunday in 2009, as well as several stealing-more-than-one-unripe-strawberries-while-mommy-wasn’t-looking-episodes, and even a few plants suffered death by overwatering, I learned to roll with the punches and not take the whole dadgum thing so seriously.
So I hope all of you experienced vegetable gardeners got a kick out of watching these rookies chinobillies at work. I've enjoyed the journey too! You know where to find me…'til next time.

Chronicles of a chinobilly gardening wannabe: Part 3

GOT DIRT?

There is nothing more reviving to a chinobilly as the smell of dirt.

And nothing brightened my day quite like running to the chinobilly greenhouse in the peacefulness of a spring morning to see if there is a wisp of green shoving its way out of the dark loamy soil. I needed the smell of dirt. Our neighbors started pulling their shades closed but I ignored that. Although, you have to admit that the sight of a grown, half dressed, wild haired woman huffing dirt has got to be unnerving to most people. Maybe this would explain why we currently don’t have any neighbors on either side of us…hmm...interesting.

Anyway if there's one thing I love about my garden, it's digging in it. It smells so rich, so life-giving, so...so much like bacteria?

No way! Waaaay.

Some of you smarty pants might know that the smell of dirt is not in fact the smell of dirt at all but a bacteria which produces a chemical which in turn is what we think of as “ahhh this smells like dirt”. *snoring Actually, the bacteria produces that smell when it is dying. In wet soil, it can’t breath and it suffocates. And that absolutely lovely smell of “dirt’ is the smell of dead bacteria. See mom and dad I really did pay attention in school!

Humans, and apparently all animals, are very sensitive to this smell. God programmed us to be attracted to the smell to indicate there is water nearby. Very handy for our ancestors that got stuck in the desert without a camel. Ha! It’s a symbiotic relationship really. We find water and the remaining living bacteria get a free ride out of a death trap on our boots to a new location where, hopefully, they will not die. Not a bad deal.

Of course now that you know this you'll probably stop reading my blog all together but for those of you who decided, for whatever reason to stick it out, it puts a whole new spin on my chinobilly garden. It is not a nursery for new seedlings now it’s a mass graveyard for bacteria! Lovely. Sometimes I can be a real killjoy…I know.

Oh well…it is the smell I will come to take for granted round about June, so use to it that it will be as normal as the smell of oxygen and horse poop (at least here in my little corner of the world). But right now, the smell is pure heaven and I’m off to weed my garden.

Happy trails!
The crazy bacteria huffin’ chinobilly!

Chronicles of a chinobilly gardening wannabe: Part 2

My fancy-shmancy garden was becoming one of those every weekend kind of projects. Both Matt and I tend to obsess about our projects until they are done. This tendency is great if you don’t have other domestic responsibilities looming about, or pets, or children needing to be raised and fed.

Fortunately, Matt and the girls whipped up the raised vegetable beds in no time. Speaking of the girls. They are great helpers. No really! They fetch things for Matt like the tape measure, drill bits, or screws. They even got to operate the drill with only a little bit of help from daddy. I love to watch the three of them work together while I just stand around under the guise of needing to document this moment for generations to come.

Shh…don’t tell them! I’m living the good life…don’t ruin it for me…

Yahoo! I have vegetable beds. I can now go on living. Someone hand me my seed catalog and check back for part 3 soon.

Chronicles of a chinobilly gardening wannabe part 1:

Do you remember that gardening journal I said would start? Well, I’m finally getting around to sharing it with you. Do you know what reminded me of the journal I said I would start? I was in my garden doing exactly what I was worried will happen in this post so long ago. I was Weeding dang it!

But that’s ok. I’d rather weed than do laundry.

So I'll begin with the garden fence.

Have I ever mentioned I have an AMAZING husband? Have I ever mentioned that he doesn’t do anything halfway? Have I ever mentioned that I love his forearms? I love his forearms!

Uhh were was I?

Oh yea garden fence. When I asked for a garden, I gave Matt a rough sketch of what I'd been dreaming of and he outdid himself! He gave me a fancy-shmancy garden that every chinobilly within a hundred miles is envious of!

Hopefully you enjoyed the photos of the garden fence Matt put together for us. I am blessed beyond measure.

Stupid Stupid Wind

The wind just blew like crazy today. Did you know that wind makes children hyper? Yep, I saw it first hand when I worked at Dexter and now with my own children. I can't explain it but it does. My guess is it's because they have been cooped up in the house all day. Which is why I didn't know about the dirty little trick the wind played on my chinobilly greenhouse until around 7:30 this evening. My poor baby plants got tumbled all over our yard and now I don't really know what is what. Thank goodness my little greenhouse had a nice tight lid on it. I've tried to salvage as much as I can but I pretty much just replanted seeds into the jumbled pots. Stupid, stupid wind.

Spring

The grass is turning green.

Little yellow daffodils are shouting good morning.

Bees are buzzing around the apricot tree.

Hello warmer days

Welcome back spring! I've missed you...

And to think these pictures were taken almost a month ago (yep I'm that far behind in sorting through my photos)...only 16 days after the infamous snow-woman beheading incident of '09.

Crazy isn't it?

In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather inside of four and twenty hours. ~Mark Twain

I think Mark Twain must have been speaking of Arizona.