Wanted to start off with a picture of my variegated lemon. LOL. I told you it looked very funny. Probably looks even funnier because of the angle that I was holding my phone. Not sure you can see it but this tree also has some incredibly wicked thorns, similar to a sour orange tree. Youch! The thing will jump out and tag you with a sticker just for thinking about walking too close. It is short and small at the moment, I'm hoping with a little extra care and feeding it will grow up rather than out and be less of a monster to have to deal with.
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I've got about six or seven more trees to plant and I want to get them in the ground this week before the rainy season ends. Need to make sure those little roots are all sealed in the sand/dirt/compost with no air pockets so they don't dry out and kill the trees ... and waste the money I spent on the trees. I like my landscape to feed my family, not be a drain on the income.
My papaya and Surinam cherry are fruiting in their pots. I love the abundance but it drives me crazy that I might injure the tree re-planting it now. And my lime trees still in the pots are going bonkers too. They are small but have about a dozen fruit each that look like they intend to hang on and mature. I hope they do as well or better once I've transplanted them. Limes are getting crazy expensive even here in zones 9 and 10.
Have a new product that I really like (not a sponsor or anything it is just cool beans in my opinion). The Clorox brand that is made for outdoor use. It is concentrated so goes a long way, strong bleach smell that lingers so that will be a consideration for some, and really does what I need it to do. Instead of pressure washing the patio, porches, and other outdoor things like the picnic table I put that stuff in my hand sprayer and it did a really good job without making a mess I had to clean up. It is thick so stays where you spray it. Killed all of the algae, etc. down in the sand between the blocks, the grout of the locked blocks, and prettied everything right back up to almost new despite it being done over four years ago. Killed off all of the stuff that was trying to rot the picnic table as well and now I can repaint the wood with deck preservative (assuming it ever dries since it is out in the rain) so that it will last years longer.
What I also learned ... re-learned? ... this weekend is that someone that burns the candle at both ends isn't necessarily all that bright. That would be me. So while I did some editing on Sunday I mostly tried to finish up small tasks to knock them off my to do list and then got a little extra rest. It helped though and I've been busy as all get out today with my middle child starting college (going to school locally and for now nursing is her chosen major) and miscellaneous other stuff going on. It is Monday after all. (insert eye roll because generally people go crazy on that day of the week for some reason)
So here is what I managed to get accomplished on the stories over the last two days:
Zombies Aren't Real ... Are They?!
http://zombiesarentrealarethey.blogspot.com/
Up On Hartford Ridge
http://uponhartfordridge.blogspot.com/
Teaghan
http://teaghanandsloan.blogspot.com/
Larkspur in Eden
http://larkspurineden.blogspot.com/
There Is No Such Thing As A Thornless Garden
http://thornlessgarden.blogspot.com/
When All Doors Close
http://whenalldoorsclose.blogspot.com/
Eidetic Sunshine
http://eideticsunshine.blogspot.com/
Life Is A Fractured Fairytale
http://lifeisafracturedfairytale.blogspot.com/
Mother Hen's Recipes
http://motherhensrecipes.blogspot.com/
Mom's Journal of the Zombie Years
http://mjoyzy.blogspot.com/
I'm finding this one a little hard to get formatted. First I have to clean up the old print copy I had of what I'd written for Zombie Squad. Then I have to block it down by "months" and "days". I'm trying to post each month together so the story has cohesiveness. The problem is that each "month" is so long that BlogSpot chokes on it and hangs up. So then I have to break it down ... but BlogSpot is still choking on it. I've got parts 1 and 2 up but still need part 3 for April/Year 1 and I'll try and get the third part formatted tonight.
I'm hoping that later I can edit a piece for Enduring on the Lake and Georgie. I have the parts written for both but it is long-hand and I need to type it into the computer for final editing. If I don't get to it today I'll try and put those two at the top of the list for tomorrow.
It is raining ... again ... so I decided that some indoor work is in order and while I cleaned up my desk/office space that unfortunately currently resides in the living room (pretty distracting with everyone moving this way and that around the house) I took the time to get some cheese out of the freezer and do another couple of food storage experiment. I followed the directions in the two videos I have included today.
First video here is on canning cheese. I'm experimenting with this method to see just how stable it is long term. Definitely not recommended by TPTB in the food industry but I want to check it out for myself.
Second video is on dehydrating cheese and then powdering it for storage. I'm a little leery here as well primarily because of the oils in cheese but perhaps for shorter term storage if your freezer goes bust or if you get an unbelievably good sale ... or like has happened to me a couple of times and you inherit someone's food because they seem to think I won't let it go to waste. Well I never would but it is still unusual. LOL.
lol don't count on that lemon not turning into a bigger monster. Mine did and looks like yours with its Winter covering. It is nearly Spring in Tazzie and mine is covered in fruit. I will be doing juicing and slicing peel today. My daughter starts college next February and will be doing nursing too.
ReplyDeleteWe love the story updates but not at the expense of you getting sick from doing too much. Please dont expend yourself too much.
Thanks for the vids. I look forward to seeing how the cheese does. Thanks for sharing your talents. Now for a early morning read.
It has taken a few years (a few years too many LOL) but I've learned my limitations. I was actually a pretty sick kid, caught everything that went around, almost died several times. Grace of God and all that. It left me with a mild form of dyslexia and APD. I'm hard headed but not suicidal. LOL. Now I'm just having to learn that it is your 40s when all the rent comes due on the abuse you gave your body when you were younger.
DeleteAs far as the lemon, kinda wishful thinking for the thing to behave. I have a sour orange tree that is wicked mean like that. If it hadn't been so large I would have planted the lemon beside it but the orange would have shaded it out..
So far so good on the cheese. Except I've decided to store the dried cheese in the frig. Even powdered it has a kind of oily texture that reminds me of a fresh parmesan. I might try drying it again to see if I can get rid of some of that.
My hubby used to be a burn the candle on both ends and it caught up with him, now me I did it because there always seemed to be a child that needed taken care of during the night. Good luck with all the work and getting those trees in the ground.
ReplyDeleteI think I caught this from my husband who is a legitimate workaholic. I sure wasn't like this when we first got married. Wow that first year was a sharp learning curve. After a while though it just sort of creeps in and before you know it there isn't a pit of white on the calendar unless you count the white out I had to use when I made changes to the to-do list. LOL
DeleteI can't imagine walking outside and picking a lemon! It would be kinda magical for me because I have always lived up north. Your world sounds like a gardeners paradise, while mine gives me about 3 months to grow what I want then here comes the rain!
ReplyDeleteI only have three fruit tree's and only one bearing fruit. I had a really cool apricot type but a storm split it in half and killed it :( I was going to grab some grafts from it but dh had it in the fire pit before I knew it . :'( I do have an apple tree that is finally making. Im excited about that, but nothing else so far .
Im going to try that outdoor clorox. Almost every year I slip and fall on my deck. this year I broke a rib lol. The deck hates me. Im off to enjoy your stories now. Iv got all my nasty world reading done, and now its kathy calgon take me away time!!
I'd love to be able to grow deciduous fruit. I've got an Anna apple and a Hood pear growing and both are good size but have yet to fruit. Both of those at our property in north Florida however have fruited though they are a couple of years older. So if you can grow apples then I'm jealous. Every growing zone has something to offer.
DeleteAnd do try that Clorox if you get the chance. The other thing that I did for my mother who has a deck with four steps coming down is we painted the steps with a texture ... it is actually made for stairs and has like sand or similar in it. This way the stairs at least are "no skid". Last thing my parents need at their ages is to take a tumble. I've had a cracked rib but not a broken one ... must have been horrible and one heck of a fall.
I'll trade my apples and plums for your oranges and lemons!
ReplyDeletemy dh actually nailed roofing tiles on the stairs because I fall off them so much. Im so graceful lol. In my defense its always something like.. oh my gosh i left the chickens out at like 2 am .
It wasn't the first time I had broken a rib, the last time was when we first started dating and I think it was 4 then, then just as they started to heal after about 2 weeks, I was full of percocet and saw an old friend and he hugged me and rebroke them all plus one more lol. I was married in a sling from a broken collarbone from falling.. at the beach.. in the sand... who does that? I remember dislocating my elbow which you would think is not that big of a deal, but when they put the weight on it to reset it, It didn't work because my tendon or something got squished in it somehow. my forearm was really gross after that because you could push a finger into it and it would stay like that .. like play-dough haha! Iv also broken my knee, an arm, and multiple toes. All I can say is... This is why I haven't drank Alcohol for years. Booze plus my natural grace is something to behold lol.
Holy mackerel! I've never broken a bone which is a blessing I'm sure. I did grow up with family calling me "Grace" and it wasn't because that's my name. ROFL! I used to fall out of chairs I was sitting in and run into doorframes with my shoulders and wind up with weird bruises. Oh well, such is life. I now were bifocals and am actually surprised at how many fewer "accidents" that I have. Used to be my stigmatism wasn't bad enough to need glasses or something like that but after getting conjunctivitis as an adult (caught it from a child) my eyesight has deteriorated significantly over the years. I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm blind without my glasses on but I will say that it's like looking through mashed potatoes. I can navigate better on a dark, moonless night than I can during the day without my glasses on. ROFL. I'm not kidding.
DeleteAs far as the fruit, we need to make a trade agreement ... north and south. We can trade tropicals and deciduous and then we'll both be happy. LOL!