Foraging in the Backyard

I am embracing it. I cannot keep control of the weeds outside of the raised beds without herbicides and I won't use herbicides.  This year I hopefully put down the straw to keep it under control...it has made pulling them easier. ::snort:: Instead of beating myself up for not spending an hour or two a day pulling weeds in the rain, I am simply embracing the adventure. We don't garden - we FORAGE IN THE BACKYARD! 

However, when we get a morning that isn't rainy - we weed. LOL I am NOT joking about foraging...today we pulled weeds around the spot we had planted pumpkins. Success, we found the pumpkin patch. 

See those weeds behind Stacia? Yes, THAT is what I mean by WEEDS.  When you buy a place with a horse pasture do not glibly think it will make an "easy garden" spot. You need a HORSE to keep the weeds in check. LOL We got into stinging nettle - which stings for days afterwards. One whole row of plants disappeared...I guess the chick weed murdered them. 

I have my doubts these little guys are going to mature before frost. We shall see. 

Next, we turned to foraging... the Kale I planted (much less than typical) fed us well and amounted to a gallon of dried kale on the shelves to sneak into food and soups. 

We harvested the rest of the radishes and discovered they needed to be harvested earlier. I don't know if it was the rain or how big they got but they were all nasty when I went to use them. Lesson learned. I will plant much less next year. 

Ye Old Baptistry is filling up with dead and useless things...new life on it's way. I love having a lasagna bed to work on each garden season. It makes dealing with the overabundance of green after we harvest much easier. 

Millie had a grooming appointment today. The groomers thought she should be seen every 6 weeks. We liked the way she looks now. They didn't even really trim much...but we tried it their way this time and in six weeks we try a new groomer. We don't like her having to be shaved to the skin due to matts....but seriously, it seems to me they simply blew her out...ah well, we'll figure out what works. At this point I'm thinking 8 - 10 weeks may be a better bet.  It's CRAZY to me that we've had to wait 3 months to get into the new groomer. Grandpa HAD to come with us to pick up Millie as Michael had an appointment at the chiropractor. I think it did him good to get up and move. LOL 

Stacia is working on a new cake. It will be shaped like a question mark. Rumor is she's going to try the air brush kit she got for Christmas. She usually has specific requests for cakes, but she is playing with this one. 

I made pesto.  The basil is doing well. I hope to move it inside when it becomes too cold in the greenhouse. I love fresh basil for pesto. I made pesto - so I could make homemade pesto chicken artichoke sundried tomato PIZZA. 

In my on-going rubber band challenge...Michael had a brilliant suggestion. He thinks I should outfit others with bands and snap them when they irritate me instead of snapping myself.  Come to think of that is the norm I'm trying to change. ::snort::  I am getting better. I'm discovering I need to find the line between wit and sarcasm...AND FIND IT FAST BEFORE MY ARM IS TOTALLY DESTROYED. Who knew renewing a mind, taking thoughts captive could be so painful. LOL