Fall Garden

October 24, 2024

It's time to clean up the garden and put the pond to bed. There are a few warmer days coming up this week, and I want to get the pond drained while we have those warmer temps. That way the froggos will have time to find a better place to hunker down for the winter. Every year there have been frogs hanging out in the bottom of the pond when I emptied it; I can't assume this year will be different. And the pond will freeze solid over the winter, I have no doubt about that.

Also the tomatoes and most of the flowers are done. Ok, we did get some new blossoms on the tomatoes, and the nasturtiums are still blooming, but the growing season is over. 

The Black Beauty tomatoes were beautiful, but not as tasty as the Rose de Berne, but I think I'll try a completely different variety next year. Now that I've had some success. 

Beets were not a success and I do not know why. Same as last year's lettuce. Maybe I'm a little too haphazard when sowing them?

The pawpaw seedlings are growing well. I hope to keep them well protected this winter and plant them in the ground late next summer.

Time to start thinking about what to grow next year! Beans of some type, I think. Maybe a fast growing watermelon and some kind of squash or pumpkin. MAYBE some corn...??? No I don't think I am ready for that. For sure, I want to map out some gardens and wild areas and plan for more "taming" of the woods.

Beets

When we went and purchased our tomato plants this spring, we also purchased some beet seeds.

April 27, 2024. Tomatoes and beets purchased.

We planted about half the seeds when planting the tomatoes, but we didn't really get any thing. A few leaves, but no beets, and not enough greens to even add to a salad. I never even took pics of them.

August 31, 2024. No beets yet!

On August 25th, after most of the heat had settled down for the season, we tried again, planting them in the pool garden. They should have germinated by September 11th.

September 12, 2024. Still no beets.

We didn't see them by then, but it had turned a little colder than anticipated, so we were patient.

September 22, 2024. Still nothing.

Another ten days and still nothing. 

September 27, 2024. I think the garden is done.

How long does one have to have patience? I think I'm not getting any beets. :(

Finally!

 After waiting and watching for what felt like forever, our tomatoes are finally ripening and ready for picking!

On the left, Black Beauty; on the right, Rose de Berne.

Although I tried, they didn't get consistent watering, thanks to several major rain storms, some of which lasted for days. Even with the cracking, there was no spoiling and still plenty of fruit!

Cracking can happen when the plant is heavily watered, particularly after a drought.

Although I just love the color of the black beauty tomatoes, the flavor of the Rose de Berne is so good!

Tomato sandwich for dinner!

Messages from the Universe

I've been trying to learn this lesson for many years, but I guess now is the time that the Universe *really* wants me to remember it.

First, my calendar page for August had this quote on it:

Instead of laying down a list of expectation for what your life should be, you can participate in the ongoing discovery of what your life was meant to be. ~ Thomas Kinkade 

Then, a friend on Facebook shared the following image with her thoughts:

This shift in thinking helped me ... shift how I approach my work.

It shifted me away from goals and towards trajectory and curation. Curation is gentle. It shifts with circumstances and allows one to continue with the work regardless of how people treat you, regardless of circumstance.

Curating with loving intention. That doesn’t mean always gentle. It does mean finding a way back to love over and over. It does mean focusing on what I can create rather than what others are or are not doing.

Sometimes love looks like defending the vulnerable, standing up for the oppressed, and speaking truth when it isn’t comfortable.

 And today, reading emails from the last two weeks, I find this pdf coloring page from Amy at the Coloring Book of Shadows, a 3-card, reflection tarot reading for Lughnasadh:

1. Sacrifice: What haven't I received that is a blessing in disguise?
2. Patience: What is worth waiting for?
3. Gratitude: How can I find peace in what I already have?

via GIPHY

Is the Universe sending any messages your way?

Have you met my friends?

 Just look at these lovely creatures.

I love them so much.

Planter Painted

Last spring, I decided to paint my planter box. So I took a lot of measurements and did a lot of math to figure out how much paint I'd need of the colors I wanted. Then I had a hard time finding the right exterior paints in the right sized containers in the right colors. And all of a sudden it was winter! So the project was paused.

This spring, when the weather warmed up a little, I went to Walmart, picked out some cheap craft paints in the colors I wanted, and just started slapping paint on! I thinned it out so it would be more like a stain than an actual layer of paint, and I love how it looks!

The spring flowers in the box are pretty much done for the season, but I don't want to cut them down  until they've dispersed their seeds, since I thinned them so much last year. However, I've planted some summer flowers amongst them, which will hopefully, before too long, fill everything out nicely. The frogs have even found the pond already!

My next project is getting the garden along the house all mulched and easier to tell from the lawn.

Happy Mother's Day

 

Mommy & Me, August 19, 2023

This is the woman who raised me. She did her best. I love her to the moon and back. ♥♥♥

Hoppy Easter!

 If you're in the mood for some bunny-themed art, check out my RedBubble shop!

A Year of Morning Walks

Last year on March 19th I took my first daily morning walk. It went something like this:

Sunday, March 19, 2023, 7:52 AM

It wasn't the first morning walk I had taken, but I am surprised that it wasn't the last. Every day we've walked, I've stopped at the end of the driveway to take a photo, or several, to post on Instagram & Facebook. (Originally I was posting them weekly here, but after the photo-inserter tool stopped connecting to my Google Photos, I moved to IG, cross posting from there to FB.)

Wednesday, August 9, 2023, 6:39 AM | Photo credit to Jacqueline

We didn't walk every day: if it was raining too hard, we wouldn't go. It's one thing to get cold -- we can handle the cold for the short time it takes to do our walk -- but it's entirely different thing to get cold and soaked through. That kind of cold sticks for the whole day.

Tuesday, December 19, 2023, 6:44 AM

The hardest days to go were when it was DARK and cold. Sure it got dark in the fall before Daylight Savings Time ended but it wasn't too cold yet, so not too hard, but the days in December and January, when the clouds blocked any light, when the temps were below freezing.... Those were the days I didn't want to leave my cozy bed and wander about outside. It almost seemed pointless.

Tuesday, December 26, 2023, 7:44 AM

But the dark mornings made these gloriously light & color-filled morning all the better. And the benefits to my mental & physical health are worth it. The purpose of taking the walks when first waking up is to get those photons into my eyeballs, to signal to my circadian clock that about 16 hours from now, I need to get sleepy and go to bed. And it has done that. It's also been a mood booster. I might not like getting up and going to work, but taking just these few minutes before jumping into the hustle & bustle of all that really seems to make a difference.

So I plan to continue these daily walks when I first wake up, but after Tuesday, I won't be posting them every single day anymore.

Rum Raisin Rice Pudding on Peach Halves

 When I was little and went to my grandparents' house for dinner, we always had a little dessert afterwards, ice cream, cookies, Jell-O, or a pudding, kind of like this one, rice or tapioca with a canned peach half on the bottom. I don't know how she made hers, but I looked through several recipes and picked out bits & pieces I liked to come up with something that would use only what we had on hand and would still feel like a fancy treat.

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups of milk
2 tablespoons of uncooked rice
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
canned peach halves (2 halves)
1 tablespoon raisins
1 tablespoon spiced rum
cinnamon

Instructions

1. In a saucepan, bring milk to a boil.
2. Add rice and stir well.
3. Cook covered with lid cracked for 40 minutes - 1 hour over low heat, stirring every 15 minutes or so.
4. While the rice is cooking, soak your raisins in the rum.
5. When the rice has cooked for at least 40 minutes, add the raisins & rum to the rice and cook for 5-10 minutes more.
6. Remove from heat and stir in the sugar and vanilla.
7. Let sit for 10 minutes to allow sugar to dissolve and flavors to blend.
8. Put the peach halves on the bottom of a bowl or dessert dish.
9. Spoon the pudding into dishes and sprinkle with a touch of cinnamon.

The finished puddings!

I divided them into the very same leaded crystal glasses my grandmother used to use and set them in the fridge to chill. After dinner last night, I had one. SO GOOD. And so nostalgic! But with an upgrade! Tonight I beat a little heavy cream into a topping and had the second dish. (My family doesn't like the texture, so it was all mine!)

Topped with homemade whipped cream!

Let me know if you had rice pudding on peach halves growing up and if you still make it!

Fall Out Boy Fanart

Last month I started playing around with some small-sized watercolor paper that I was given in a Sketchbox the year before and made these Fall Out Boy icon images.

I realized this morning that I never posted the finished paintings anywhere!

I tried to have it uploaded to my RedBubble, but it's been taken down already. :'(

Sadly photos and prints don't do the Opera Pink or shimmery inks any kind of justice. I still love them all though.

Happy Lunar New Year!

I've just posted my latest State of the Artist post on my Patreon! The first for 2024! Come see what I've been up to!

Diana *BunnyKissd* Bukowski on Patreon

Hoppy New Year 2024!

 

May your 2024 be blessed with love & health, happiness & prosperity!

Beef Stroganoff & Poppy Seed Noodles

So I chose another meal to try from The Cat Who... Cookbook: Beef Stroganoff & Poppy Seed Noodles.

This is a nice meal for when it's chilly out, as the meat simmers for an hour and a half. 

I think in the future, I'll add way more mushrooms to this dish, because I love mushrooms.

And I would probably let it cook down a little more, so there is less liquid.

The poppy seed noodles were a great side to serve with the stroganoff as an alternative to plain noodles.

 Be sure to see the TikTok for the completed dish: https://www.tiktok.com/@bunnykissd/video/7313586217944239402

Next Level Cookies

Every once in a while, I like to bake. I used to cook & bake a lot - I was once even in the paper with my Buffalo Chicken Pizza recipe before it was a staple at most pizza places - but some where along the way, I lost confidence in my abilities and stopped. I couldn't point to one thing and say, Ah yes, that's why, but nonetheless, I always feel like I've accomplished a miracle when I make something in the kitchen and it's good.

Today, I decided to make these Dark Chocolate Pistachio Tahini Cookies. We had all the ingredients in the house, except the pistachios, which we picked up when we last got groceries. We had come close to having none of some of the ingredients, because THANKSGIVING happened after the last time I checked, and the vanilla, chocolate, and brown sugar were almost out or completely out, but we had some other substitutes ready to go: I used about 7/8 teaspoon vanilla + 1/8 teaspoon almond + 1 teaspoon rum extract to make up the 2 teaspoons of vanilla, the brown sugar was *just* enough, and there are three different kinds of chocolate in these: the bigger dark chocolate chips, mini-semisweet chips, and a bunch of 80% cacao chocolate bars rough-chopped. Also, I could not find plain pistachios, only roasted and salted, so I left out the sea salt.

UH MUH GUH! They are soooooo good! The tahini and browned butter add an incredible depth of flavor, and combined with the dark chocolate and pistachios take your basic chocolate chip cookies to the next level! I highly recommend trying them out for yourself!

Putting the Garden to Bed

Yesterday was a yardwork day. I wish I had stayed home from work the day before to get it done when the sun was shining and the day was a wee bit warmer, but I did the dutiful thing, went to work on Friday, and did my yardwork in the cold, grey rain.

First up was the pond. With freezing weather coming, it was time to empty it of bricks and water and frogs, before it froze solid. I used the pump to siphon the water out, down the last few inches, removed the brick steps, then brought the pond into the woods, close to the stone wall, and slowly dumped the rest of the water, leaves, and my frog friend out. I was sorry to have to wake them on such a chilly day, but if we wait much longer, they won't be waking up!

Then it was time to move the paw paw seedlings to a more sheltered place in the yard (just under the south-facing side of the back porch), dig up the elephant ear for overwintering inside, and plant the dappled willow in the ground. (Many thanks to Jacqueline & Snow for digging the hole!) Erm, and play some Pokémon GO too of course...

There's not much left to do outside now. The green tomatoes were harvested a week or so ago and made into fried green tomatoes, and before everything is buried in snow, I will want to cut all the potted annual plants down and move the pots to a sheltered place. I also still need to cut the geraniums back, and move them to a cold dark place, so they can go dormant too. I never did move the daffodils from one side of the steps to the other, but there won't be a porch built over them yet. So maybe next summer. 

Hoppy Halloween!

 

Seasonal Soup: Bowl o' Bones

About a month or so ago on Facebook, I was advertised a soup recipe that turned out not to be what it looked like, which made me want to make the soup I thought it was. So I pinned a few recipes and fiddled about with ideas, but never really got it together to put the stuff on the grocery list or anything like that. 

But when we were shopping last night I saw these Cheetos Mac'n Cheese Bold & Cheesy Box of Bones. And I'm a sucker for these. Once a year I need my Cheetos Bag of Bones, and this year I was having them with these made into a cheesy sausage soup.

I started by shredding two carrots and then nearly died trying to chop this onion. Seriously, my eyes were burning so bad, I had to have Jacqueline take over. And not shown here was a little bit of leftover celery, about two short stalks' worth. I cooked them all up in some oil until tender (yes, a mirepoix), and while they were cooking, I cut up some kielbasa and browned it.

When the veggies were softened, I melted in half a stick of butter, then added two tablespoons of flour (to make a roux with the butter) and some herbs and seasonings (salt, pepper, garlic powder, etc.).

Then it was time to add liquids! Two cups of milk, added one at a time, and mixed into the veggies thoroughly. Then the cheese powder from the two boxes of mac'n cheese, as shown below. (This powder was WAY more intensely neon orange than my camera picked up.) 

Now at this point, if you have someone who doesn't want small chunks of veggies in their soup, you could put the whole thing in a blender or food processer, or use an immersion blender, to make the soup smooth, but I love chunky soup, so I did not. I did however add an additional cup of shredded cheddar to the soup because I also like my soup cheesy.

Because I know this type of pasta tends to not cook evenly, I cooked the pasta separately, while letting the soup simmer. After the pasta was done al dente (seven minutes-ish), I added it and the kielbasa to the soup. Then I decided it needed more liquid to be more like soup, so I also added about a cup or so of beef broth made from bouillon.

The last step was adding heavy cream. I don't know why they always say to add it last, but that's what I did. Then I let it simmer for another 10 minutes and served with more cheesy bones! \^o^/ (And other assorted cheesy snacks...)

Everyone had a bowl which I assume they enjoyed, because no one complained! Success!

Garden Harvest

 Time for another garden update! Is this a gardening blog now? Maybe...

I started by planting radishes on May 31st, and although they should have germinated in 7-10 days (June 7-10), they didn't actually start germinating until the 13th. First with one one sprout then more and more until the 17th. The packet said to thin them when 1-2 inches tall and on the 18th, I thinned some. And again, although the packet claimed they would mature in 29 days none were big enough to pick until my birthday, July 22nd. I got about 5 or 6 radishes and they were HOT. So while as beautiful as they are, I might not grow them again.

Watermelon radishes, July 22, 2023

The Roma tomatoes were planted by a co-worker as part of an educational program and were leftover. I was surprised to get any tomatoes from them at all, but did get quite a few, albeit small, hard, and not too flavorful. I did purchase a beefsteak tomato plant from a nursery, but got only one tomato from the whole plant. There are just a few of the Roma tomatoes left to ripen, and several green ones that we'll pick before the first frost to make fried green tomatoes from.

September 11, 2023 - tomatoes ripening in the back

After the radishes were all picked, we decided to fill the empty space with some lettuce. So on August 13th we planted seeds which said they would germinate in 10-14 days. By the 17th (FOUR DAYS) many had germinated, but after another three days they started to disappear, and we never saw them even get to an inch tall. No idea where they went.

October 7, 2023

Now, we've put up the Halloween décor, and are just waiting for those last few tomatoes. All said, I think the garden placement was successful enough that I'll try some other things next year.