Garden May 31st

The berries are ready soon.
We ate this last night. It was the first of many that are on the vines.
It seems everyday the garden grows 6" or more.

Growing Garden & Offical Member of the Clean Plate Club

Here is Boo Boo wishing that plate wasn't so clean.

Our Garden this morning. The first crop of potatoes are almost ready. Corn should be knee high by the 4th of July...we might be there now. Maybe that is only a Wisconsin saying.

Studio

The last few days I have been using the last of the floor boards to create a studio desk, printer table and framing table for myself. When we first arrived here I just pulled the mouldings off the wall and turned them into the tables I was using. There hasn't been much posted about this room as I wasn't to happy with the old tables that were slapped together looked. This is what the studio looked like in April 2008.
This is the studio a few weeks ago. It worked but......

This is the new studio, with a new layout, desk and tables. Mostly all made from the floor boards from the back porch.
Boo Boo has found his spot on the rug, I think.

The Finished Desk

Today the desk was finished. We put a little cabinet door, with some screen that we painted with the same color as the desk top.

The door knob came from an auction that I went to in Wisconsin. Who knew at that time it was meant for a desk.

My wife found this fabric that we outlined the desk top with.

Here is the finished product, right off the kitchen. I am now finishing up a printer stand that matches the desk.

Free Grass (not that kind of grass)

While mowing the yard I have come up against the fact that I need more grass for the compost pile as well as laying down mulch between the rows. So I mow the neighbors yard with my eco mower, making sure everyone knows I really do have a screw loose. (It's only two and a half neighbors and it makes me feel like Forrest Gump.) One such neighbor thought it was so nice of me, that she went to the big city to visit her family. While there her son in law mowed his perfectly grromed, chemically treated lawn and bagged the clippings for curb side pick up. A light bulb went off in my neighbors head and she snapped those grass clippings up for me as a thank you for mowing her yard. She stuck them inside her car and there they sat for a few days. The temp. outside was a nice & warm 75 degrees. We she left her family she drove two hours home with the windows down as it was little smelly in the car. She did bring me those clippings as she set out to do. The only problem in an organic garden, is chemically treated lawn clippings do not work out so well. I put them in the corner of the yard where they proceeded to stink up the neighborhood. Everyone thought my compost pile was bad. I was afraid someone would call the city on me and I wouldn't be allowed to make compost anymore. So I dug them into the ground to stop the stench. My neighbors car still stinks however. While at the Farmers Market on Friday, it became apparent that we have everything in our own backyard. Well except for a bunch of people for Boo Boo to meet and greet.

Right from the garden. Yum Yum.

How the Garden grows

It seems every week that passes the garden grows by leaps and bounds. This week it will be in the 80's and sunny so I would think it will double in size. If you click the photo above you can see a close up.

Close ups of the garden

Eco Mower

On Earth day, the UPS man brought me my grass catcher for my lawn mower. Last year at a yard sale I picked this little gem up for $20. The grass catcher was $24.00. Because our lot is 50' x 150' it works great. I know people who mow 5 acres and using this would be a challenge for that big of a job. In the city however I am going to preach these gasless wonders. It takes no more effort to push one of these than a gas lawn mower. Actually less effort. The modern versions are so much easier to use than the type Grandpa had years ago. They actually cut the same way a golf course mower would so your yard looks wonderful.

If I could have any push mower in the world I would have to say the scotts 20 inch classic push reel lawn mower or the Gilmour 20-Inch Reel Mower with Grass Catcher #RM30 is the ticket. What we have is a American Lawn Mower 1414-16 16-Inch Standard Push Full Feature Reel Lawn Mower With T-Style Handle and it works just fine for us. Because we do not have a shed and just an outside entrance to our basement for lawn and garden storage, it is nice to pick up the mower in one hand and walk down the stairs in the basement. The process to get our gas mower downstairs is a little more involved. I also like the fact that it is one less dollar every week that is going into the "big oil" pocket book. I figure I would have spent far more than $44 in gas to mow the yard this year.

Some of the last Irises for the table

Bikes & bricks

There is a bike trail by our house that we try to do 8 miles a day on. On this bike trail there are plenty of old bricks and rocks. Every day we pick up a brick or two and cart them home on our bike to put around the garden beds. Some people think we are placing them on the bikes for resistance training but now you blog readers know the truth.

1st Strawberries

This morning my wife and I went to the garden to pick our 1st strawberries. There are many more just needing a few more days to ripen, but we are having these two this morning for breakfast.

Strawberries are the only fruit with seeds on the outside.

The average strawberry has 200 seeds.

The ancient Romans believed that strawberries alleviated symptoms of melancholy, fainting, all inflammations, fevers, throat infections, kidney stones, bad breath, attacks of gout, and diseases of the blood, liver and spleen.

To symbolize perfection and righteousness, medieval stone masons carved strawberry designs on altars and around the tops of pillars in churches and cathedrals.

In parts of Bavaria, country folk still practice the annual rite each spring of tying small baskets of wild strawberries to the horns of their cattle as an offering to elves. They believe that the elves, are passionately fond of strawberries, will help to produce healthy calves and an abundance of milk in return.

Madame Tallien, a prominent figure at the court of the Emperor Napoleon, was famous for bathing in the juice of fresh strawberries. She used 22 pounds per basin. Needless to say, she did not bathe daily.

Strawberries are the first fruit to ripen in the spring.

There is a museum in Belgium just for strawberries.

Strawberries are a member of the rose family.

Ninety-four percent of US households consume strawberries.

Americans eat 3.4 pounds of fresh strawberries each year plus another 1.8 pounds frozen per capita.

Strawberries are low fat, low calorie; high in vitamin C, fiber, folic acid, potassium

Strawberries, as part of a 5 a day fruit & vegetable program, can help reduce the risk of cancer & heart attacks.

In medieval times, strawberries were served at important functions to bring peace & prosperity.

Folk lore states that if you split a double strawberry in half and share it with the opposite sex, you’ll soon fall in love. (this is what happened with my wife and I. lol)

In France, Strawberries were thought to be an aphrodisiac. A soup made of strawberries, thinned sour cream, borage, & powered sugar was served to newlyweds. (we didn't get this desert, but we are still kind of newlywed so perhaps we will try it with this years crop of strawberries.)

Over 53 percent of seven to nine-year-olds picked strawberries as their favorite fruit. (me too!)

The desk

So here is the desk from the floor boards that came out of the back room. The top of the desk is a section of moulding that came out of the house as well. I figure my wife can put pictures of her favorite guy on there. Maybe she will even put one of me up there. :) Now we still have a few more things to do to the desk but this is as far as I got today.

Storm gifts & washing the desk

Today we had a great storm, in which the power was out, trees were down and most schools were closed. As far as I know everyone is ok. It was a blessing to us because last year when I trimmed the trees there were two branches I couldn't reach. The storm did it for me. I took the branches and made something for the tomatoes to grow on. My bride replanted some uprooted plants and weeded a few of the beds. It always looks so nice when she is done with that. Here she is working on the sweet corn bed. While she did that I scrubbed the floor boards that use to be the floor in the back porch. You can't tell right now but those are actually a desk for my wife.......well, just wait until tomorrow and you will be able to see that a little easier.

Garden table

Last night we were driving along and someone put this little table out in the trash. My wife said that will be perfect for inbetween these two chairs we have and we could sit outside and have lunch. So that is what we did. We also used up the rest of the floor joist making the Lasagna garden edges today.

Iris Season

It is "Iris Season" down here. This year I hope to come up with enough paintings to open a new website with paintings I have always wanted to do. So I am collecting photographs of Irises. Which is something I have been doing for a several years now. I always think, how many more times do I get to see Irises on this planet. I hope at least another 40 seasons. :) With the way my wife cooks for us, maybe even more!

On this edition of "Fix This Old House"

We went to a yard sale yesterday and came across this couch. It was perfect in the sense that it had hand tied springs and goose down cushions. I learned how to reupholster furniture in New York so it didn't really matter to me what color the fabric was. The nice thing was the fabric works just fine for now and my wife talked the people down to $75 for the couch. We bought it from a couple who own this big mansion that was built in 1886. It rained while we were there so we learned a few things about the house. Like it was haunted for many years. The lady of the house said her mother lived with the ghost for 20 years or so, but one day became angry because the ghost would take the dishes and throw them on the floor, breaking them. So her Mom went in there and yelled at the ghost to leave and the ghost did. This is just the story I was told. Any way’s they bought this at a fancy store in Springfield and it has been recovered twice and you don't recover junk, so we were happy to steal it for $75. Now my bride and I can sit in the same chair and watch a movie. :) So we brought our find home and last night we watched a movie. We realized we needed a coffee table to put our feet up on. So you know I am tearing out the porch and I took a little of the old cabinets, some floor boards and one floor joist, to build the coffee table/bench you see there. I put a few coats of wax on it and tada, you have a coffee table/bench. It is kind of cool because it has the old nail holes from when it was all something else. Under the bench some of the 1927 newspaper wouldn't come off. So there is an article about Dr. Ward who was captured in Springfield, MO and returned to Joplin to face charges of "wife abandonment." He is being held on $500 bail. I don't think Dr. Ward had a good 1927.

Today's project cost $0.00. Dr Wards project cost much more.