How Does Your Garden Grow

When I got home from crafting weekend a couple weekends back, I swear the veggies in our garden had doubled in size.Although winter took a while in leaving this year, we've had a decent growing year so far, with plenty of rain and a bit of heat. I've been marveling at how well the garden seems to be doing this year and then I remember that's because we simply gave up on some veggies (salad greens, spinach, onions, to name a few) that have always struggled in our garden and have devoted their previous (and precious) garden space to veggies that consistently thrive, like beans and kohlrabi. At the moment, everything points to a very productive garden year.

 

These potatoes are growing in soil this year rather than straw bales and seem to be quite happy. 

 

We did end up recycling the straw from last year's straw bale potato experiment and have potatoes growing there too. 

 

I've been trying to keep up with pruning suckers on the tomatoes to make them more productive and to make them a little more manageable. Still, we're well on our way to have "monster" tomatoes that need to be tied up so we can get to the front door.

 

Beans and cabbage in a corner of the raised bed.

Baby gherkin.

Herbs and a baby eggplant.

We're growing kossak kohlrabi this year, which can grow up to 10 inches in diameter and 10 lbs! I'm planning to have a freezer full of kohlrabi for winter dinners this year.

Peppers (bell and jalapeno) and a not so baby eggplant.

The guys with the party hats are here!

The watermelon (with cosmos in the back) is finally coming into its own.

How does your garden grow?

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The Best Baby Shower

A couple weekends back, I had the distinct honor of attending one of the best baby showers that ever was. The shower was really just a formal component of a regular old (and very, very informal) crafting weekend and had been in the works ever since we learned at the last crafting weekend that two of our "gang of eight" were expecting their first babies within ten days of each other.(Royal babies and crafting babies this summer, oh my!) To honor the two very special mamas-to-be, we wanted to hold a baby shower that showered them with handmade baby items.

It was truly a shower where every present was even more incredible than the last. The mamas received personalized picture books, binders of their baby's genealogy, beautiful quilts and burp clothes, and of course, lots of knit goods. As for really practical things like diapers and teething rings, they'll have to wait for a shower where people actually follow a registry. ;)

Remember those sheep cardigans? Dubbed "The Dirty Lionel Cardigan" after a sheep we named while we were all in Ireland together (five of us studied abroad in Ireland during Spring 2005), the cardigans finally made it to their owners.

Let's see if they fit!

As is to be expected at an event where everyone has a bit of a flair for the creative and homemade, the food was delicious. I'm still dreaming about the lemon curd filled cupcakes, although let me tell you, the chocolate ones weren't half bad either. Even the party favors were homemade: jars of strawberry margarita jam. Oh nom nom nom.

Games and activities were kept low-key and we avoided poop themes (no baby food was wasted at this baby shower) and any "who knows the mom best" sort of games. One of the favorite activities was decorating onesies with puff paint. I'm not sure how many onesies a new mom needs, but you can rest assured that these two mamas-to-be now have onesies - mostly covered in movie quotes or inside jokes - coming out of their ears.

Of course, the baby shower, as wonderful as it was, was just one teeny bit of a four day (!!! hold the phones!) weekend that included a surprise birthday party with an Anchorman theme, s'mores, Skittles, Wimbledon (and Pimm's Cup and strawberries and cream -heaven!), playing on the playground just down the road, evening walks, Pitch Perfect, and so much noise and laughter. I'm so lucky to be part of this wonderful tribe of women!

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Why Hello There

And with that, we marked the longest stretch without posts, ever, on Of Woods and Words. Sorry about the radio silence there. The end of last month and the start of this month have been filled with seven day stretches of workdays, baby showers, social obligations, and company. Needless to say, I'm awash in blog material that just needs to morphed into actual blog posts. I plan to work on that this week, as well tackle the mountain of laundry currently living behind our bedroom door.

But don't worry, I'm still here, alive and kicking.

 

Well, hey there!

Before we move forward, can we just take a moment to remember Google Reader, the Google blog feed organizer that had its last day in the sun last Monday. If you're like me and used Google Reader to organize all of the blogs you follow, it was a sad day indeed. Like so many have with the demise of Google Reader, I've transitioned over to BlogLovin' this week, which of course I don't like nearly as well as Google Reader. Change is hard! If you're also experiencing Google Reader withdrawal, fear not, you can follow Of Woods and Words on BlogLovin' or subscribe via email and never miss a post again. Of course that would require me to actually write posts. Erm, about that . . . .

I actually had a bunch of photos dating back to 6/25 hanging out in an unpublished blog post that I thought I'd share with you. The photos from the garden are pretty funny because the garden has exploded in size since I took them. Nevertheless, here are some snapshots of summertime around here. Over the next week or so, I'll update you on the garden, knitting projects, baby showers, running and a lot more.

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A Botanical Field Trip

Andy and I took a botanical field trip down the lake yesterday. Last week, I'd received an inquiry at work from an individual who'd discovered a small structure while camping on the lake a few weeks back. The individual who "found" the structure (I'm sure people have been finding this at least a couple times a year for the last 70 or so years) seemed to think it might be part of a trapper's shack, while I was more inclined to think it was a root cellar left behind from a resort that closed down in the early 1950s.

After visiting the site myself, I'm still leaning towards root cellar and also maybe bear den? The entrance seemed really wide open for a structure that's mostly sunken into the side of a small hill for a good 70 years, which makes me think "somebody's been sleeping in my root cellar." The inside of the small structure (which is maybe 8x6x6 - I could stand up in it) is filled with sheet metal and other scraps - maybe an easy way to clean up the site without actually having to bring all the junk from the old resort operation down the lake to dispose?

We also found a stone retaining wall that was probably part of the resort and it seemed pretty obvious where the main lodge building would have stood. 

Another reason I wanted to visit the site was because I'd always heard about the domesticated flowers that still bloom there, decades after the last permanent residents packed up. I'd heard that tea roses bloom in the mid-summer and the person who reported the structure above also mentioned daffodils blooming. After poking around the site a bit, I wonder if he didn't confuse daffodils with dandelions. There were plenty of dandelions to be found (which are too common of a weed to indicate any sort of civilization, I think) and I also think we found the tea roses, although they were just leafing out and appeared to be covered with some sort of fungus.

In our haste to find the structure once we got to shore yesterday, Andy and I breezed right past the shrub above. Yep, that's a ginormous lilac bush - a shrub that thrives into the Northwoods but which doesn't get here unless someone plants it.

There were also domesticated lily of the valley (easy to distinguish from the "false lily of the valley" wildflower that are very common in this area) and forget-me-nots galore which may or may not have been intentionally planted. Technically a wildflower is any flower that's not intentionally planted.

As I poked around looking for botanical signs of civilization, I actually happened upon a wildflower I'd never seen before. At first I thought it was some sort of orchid, but it's actually a type of milkwort known commonly as Bird-on-the-Wing. Google failed me completely for identifying it when I got home and I actually had to use two books (shocking, I know) to figure out what it was. It's just budding out - usually it has two petals that stick out perpendicularly from the center of the flower so it looks like a bird in flight.

We also found plenty of blueberry bushes loaded with blossoms. Another good picking season ahead. :)

If you're in the woods on a still morning or evening this time of year, you get a heady whiff of something floral. Turns out that wonderful intoxicating aroma comes from the red osier dogwood blossoms. I will be sad when the dogwood blossoms start to fall - they've been making my morning runs pretty delicious.

 

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I'm Loving It

Rather than spend this post regaling you with how busy I've been (I decided to take a second job that has me working 6-7 days a week through the end of September . . . hullo Ireland next spring!) I thought I'd take a cue from Katherine over at Irish Italian Blessings and do a fun little post about all the stuff I've been digging lately.

Know what makes your life worth living? Fuzzy, felted slippers that make you slightly resemble a Muppet. I made these back in April and they are seriously the best thing to bum around the house in at the end of the day. Even after a day filled with the nuttiest tourist questions, as soon as I slip on these cushy slippers, my whole body and mind goes "Ahhh!"

And once I've got my fuzzy slippers on, what better to do then settle in on the couch with the Harry Potter flick du jour. That's right, over the last couple weeks, Andy (who was a Harry Potter virgin when we started this film fest) and I watched all eight of the Harry Potter films in order. Because I was so darn old by the time all the books got published (I'd graduated from college when the last book came out) I'd only read the last three books once and I've never even seen the last three movies. It was really fun to watch the whole story unfold in order and without two year gaps between watching each movie. I may actually be motivated to reread all the books next winter. The only issue? We ate so much popcorn while watching the movies that I'm not sure I will ever be able to enjoy this story again without a big bag of greasy popcorn next to me.

Also deserving of a spot on the "I'm Loving It" list? Yep . . . popcorn. Oh nom nom nom.

As someone who works with tourists everyday (they call me "Miss Information") I'm really loving this pin of one of fellow Minnesotan Andrew Zimmern's quotes. I think if you read between the lines of this post, I think you'll find the message "stop freakin' asking me where to see moose, already." 

Source: pinerly.com via Ada on Pinterest

I'm loving that even though Andy and I are basically ships passing in the night, we still managed to get out for a little brook trout fishing last Tuesday. We caught some beautiful young trout and then returned them right back to the stream. 

I'm loving that when I need to a green pepper when I'm making dinner that I just head out to the porch and pick one. And they say you can't grow peppers in northern Minnesota . . . .

I'm loving designing fun new headbands for my Etsy shop. They're just the right sized project for my pea-sized attention span these days and they're so cute.

Charcoal grey braid headband


I'm loving the never-ending batch of fridge pickles in our fridge. Our cucumber trellis is absolutely loaded with cucumbers this year. I may try my hand at some dill relish soon. Because who doesn't love a canning project?

What are you loving these days?

 

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