Grandmother’s Garden

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This was by far on of my most favorite gardening projects this fall. My grandparents love to garden. But they are old, and its not so easy anymore. Their garden in recent years has turned into a weed patch with a few veggies. Now that I’m in Utah County, I was able to help them out. One big project was getting rid of the quackgrass. I also helped maintain the rest of the garden and helped them put in their veggie garden.

Last week, we pulled out the tomatoes that had far outgrown the small tomato cages. We held them up–over six feet tall! (I had the thought that one key to getting tall tomatoes is to have large tomato cages.) They raved the weeks they harvest dozens of large cantaloupes. There was a constant supply of zucchini, cucumbers, beans and grapes. They struggled to harvest all the peaches.  It was a successful year: better than they’ve had for a while.

I didn’t do a lot. Just enough to get them started, and lots of tricks to keep it going with minimal maintenance. I was there every couple of weeks or so, and thoroughly enjoyed my time. Not just out in the garden, but getting to know them more. It’s easy for me to get out of touch with my family members, but in my grandmother’s case, the garden brought us together.

Next year, no vine-type tomatoes in the grow boxes, and no peppers planted too close to the tomatoes. The raspberries and strawberries we killed off with the weeds will be replaced. I’m excited to spend another summer gardening with my grandparents.

Diamond Fork

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We decided to go up Diamond Fork canyon to go hiking this week. The trails are a bit confusing and not clearly marked at the beginning, but I think we ended up going up Brimhall canyon road several miles up the canyon on the right. There seems to be a lot of private land intermixed with the national forest which was why I was confused. We didn’t have a whole lot of time anyway and just went about a mile or so up the trail. It was quite a nice autumn hike. It would have been terribly hot in the summer, but was a nice hike now with more range type vegetation and hills not mountains.

So do you always stick to established hiking trails? How about one marked on maps with with little signage or upkeep? Or ones used for purposes other than hiking, like ranching and hunting? I’m still generally don’t bushwhack, except in the winter snowshoeing. There seems to be more possible hiking trails than there are established ones, and I like to hike new places. Sometimes finding the new places is the hard part. Up in Cache Valley, they have a wonderful guidebook you can buy that has all the trails around, with lots of great information. I have not found anything remotely similar down here. I usually get trails off of USGS maps which is not as good as a good trail guide. I’m also writing about all of them, so I can make a guide of sorts for future reference. Any resources I haven’t found yet?

Chocolate Chip Cookies

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  • Cream:
  • 1 lbs butter softened
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 2 cups brown sugar
  • Mix in:
  • 3 eggs
  • 3 tablespoon vanilla
  • 2 cups oatmeal
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon soda
  • 6-8 cups flour (stop when it gets stiff and crumbly. I use 100% whole wheat flour too, and don’t even notice the difference)
  • 1 package chocolate chips

 

Bake 375F for no longer than 10 minutes. (if you do it longer shame on you and enjoy your not so great cookies)

Best cookie recipe ever, that I grew up with. I took dinner to a neighbor’s house and she asked for the recipe. (Which, by the way, never experiment when you have to take dinner to someone. Didn’t turn out great, but I took it anyway. I really just don’t have the patience to do everything right, so I approximate measurements and take shortcuts. Doesn’t always turn out good.) I thought that everyone should have it. So here it is.

Fall

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It is cold. But it didn’t freeze last night. I was still ready for it. The tomatoes are gone. I brought in the last few green ones yesterday. My small child proceeded to use them as balls and bite them. Now I’m not sure what to do with the teeth-marked green tomatoes. There’s got to be something better than throwing them away or letting them go moldy.

Can you believe it is the end of October and it hasn’t froze yet? I’m thoroughly impressed with this nice warm, long fall. Although waking up to snow on the mountains was just lovely yesterday. It’s rained a bunch, knocking all the leaves off the trees. It’s all very pretty. Fall is just so wonderful–even the snow and cold. Tonight it should get down to 28F–so here comes the freeze with a bang. I kinda like the sudden hard freeze. No trying to dance around protecting everything with blankets. It’ll be too cold for that to matter.

The only bad thing is my bulbs have not arrived yet. Whose bright idea was it to deliver them so late? I might be digging through snow to get them in. I finally checked with the company, and they should come this week. Should have checked sooner so I could have gotten them earlier. But the soil will be nice and moist. Okay, the soil will be soggy wet. Gotta be better than bone dry, which was how it was a week ago.

Lots of rambling. But I love fall so very much.

*A note on the bigtooth maple. The reminded me of searching for bigtooth maples for a job. I was on Google earth trying to find trees like this from the satellite image. I walked all around it, and was very disappointed all I had was my phone to take a picture. It’s gorgeous.

Example Moms

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Why is it that so many moms are able to pull off amazing feats? My one child is all I can handle right now. A large part of me aspires to be on of those moms with too many kids to fit in a normal car, that have impecable houses, homeschools, do all these amazing projects, cooks amazing food for nearly nothing, and even finds a way to run a good home buisness.

But do they really exist? No one can do everything, and especially not all at the same time. But I do not think its a bad thing to look up to other mothers. So here are some I look up to.

  • My own mother. She made a career out of being the mother of seven kids all squished together. It certainly wasn’t easy for her: but we are all smart, successful kids .
  • A neighbor who has two kids under two, works from home, whose husband is way busy. And she does some of the coolest sewing projects ever.
  • The blog-mommies. I’ve come across several moms on the web that are raising unique families, with some really cool ideas they share. (Owl-haven, crock-pot lady, are some of my favorite)

Even though I admire these other women, I always need to remember that my life will be different. We are all made differently, and so our lives will be different. The worst I can do is try to be better than others I see (and yes, I have a problem with taking pride in doing just that) or try to live up to someone else’s standard of living that I see from the outside. I need to be content and non-prideful with who I am, what I can do, and what the Lord expects from me.

Hike

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We meant to go here a few weeks ago. But we made it Tuesday night. It was a great little afternoon/evening hike, and the fall color was gorgeous. Better, I think, than a few weeks ago. The colors are more vibrant: the reds are deeper reds, there was more yellow, and it all sticks out more. The oaks are turning brown. Not that pretty, but marking the further growth of fall. This fall has been long and warm: it looks like this week it’s time to bring in the tomatoes. But not having to do that until the end of October? Awesome.

Back to the hike. It seemed to be mostly a cattle ranch trail: we even met a group of cowboys herding down the cows for winter on our way up. That had us trying to get Peter to say “moo,” unsuccesfully. (But he does say “up” and its adorable.) The trailhead was a few miles up the right fork in Hobble Creek canyon, right next to a large corral. Besides the cowboys down the road, we didn’t meet a soul. I love Hobble Creek because of that. The hike was pleasent, minus the missing jackets. (I forgot it was fall, and fall means jackets. It’s just been so warm.) We took the right side of every fork, and our trail dead-ended at a spring about a mile and a half up.

I love hiking in the fall. Best hiking season ever. Minus the deer hunt, but that was easily avoided this year. The color of the leaves, the cool air. It’s wonderful. This time of year is also when I had baby Pete last year. I enjoyed that time, and took lots of walks out in the leaves with my tiny infant. I’m even looking forward to the snow this week. (If you include snow in fall and spring it greatly extends those seasons. Isn’t part of fall waking up to snow on the ground, only to have it melt away in hours?)

Disneyland

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I went to Disneyland on vacation. I ended up admiring plants. Plants aren’t the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Disneyland, but they are there and thriving. I’m impressed at the amount they have, even with millions of people going through every year. I didn’t see a single gardener either. (Does this mean they are out there with flashlights?)

The gardens are definitely formal gardens. There are tons of hedges, topiaries, annual plantings in the shape of Mickey Mouse, even a knot garden. Not always my style. But that trip, combined with this post has me thinking that maybe I should give hedge pruners more of a chance. (Sidenote: hedging is a good horticultural practice, but it can’t replace regular good old pruning and should be attempted after someone knows how to prune with a pair of loppers. I’ve seen a lot of butterball figures that are ugly and not healthy for plants.)

My favorite was the Storybook Canal. I went for the enjoyment of my one-year-old son. The rest in my group had very little desire to go on the “boring” ride. So, not expecting much, I found myself in the midst of wonderful miniature gardens. The ride ended up being one of my favorite just because of the cool plants. The guide mentioned that some of the trees (at least one bonsai) were actually planted by Walt Disney himself.

Utah Botanical Center

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I love the UBC. I caught on to their vision after working there one summer, and I love to go back and see all the progress they’ve made. I keep blogging about them too. (I just checked and I really haven’t: one post and mentions elsewhere is not constantly blogging about them. So this post is muchly needed.) I love it there. Not saying it’s perfect. There’s around 100 acres, and a lot of it is mowed weeds. Another good portion is under construction, and there are also experiments that didn’t quite work out as planned. (Including a naturalized planting that had me weed whacking for weeks. I’m not kidding. Weeks. Good old internships.)

But here is one thing I love about them, that has not yet received a lot of attention by me. I love there perennial gardens. Anne Spranger is the one behind them, and she does beautiful work. She can also be found in work boots bailing out irrigation leaks, and doing all the dirty jobs as well. Anne was my boss when I was an intern, and she was also my design teacher in school. Here is some of her work:

The UBC has influenced me to focus on regional-specific landscaping. Use the climate, soil, and surroundings to create unique gardens for the area. The UBC creates unique gardens that mirror the needs of the Utah area–lots of water-wise plantings, use of native plants, not a lot of lawn, tons of plant material etc. But it’s a good idea for anywhere: don’t fight your surroundings, embrace them.

Disneyland

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My dad had a conference in Anaheim, so Peter and I tagged along with some of my family and went to the beach and Disneyland. Peter would wake up in the morning and just rock in his stroller, excited to go to back to Disneyland. We were there three days of magical fun, and rode nearly all the rides. Peter did wonderfully the entire trip, and it was fun to have him along. The more cheesy rides made him excited: so they were better for us all. The only thing bad about the trip was Joe had to stay home and go to school and work. Thanks Mom, for letting me come!

Peter’s Birthday

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Peter is now a year old. Wow. We had a rip-roaring birthday party with a whole bunch of family last Sunday. Peter loved all the food and people, but didn’t really get opening presents. Thanks to everyone that came and for all the presents.

Every one year old should have a cake all to themselves. He just dug right in. Horrible manners, unlike his cute little cousins who would very carefully pinch off a piece while Peter was digging in. He’s quite messy, but is eating almost everything we eat. Makes meals a little more simple.

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He is walking a little, but not as a primary mode of transportation. Besides mama and dada he has one little word he uses all the time–up. He’s constantly saying up and pointing. It’s very cute.