Gardening in a Florida Winter

 It is October in Florida and time to put in our winter garden. We garden all year round here. I might add that my dear husband does most of the gardening, now. I like to garden in the spring, after I have had a bit of a break from all the summer gardening. I am not at all enthusiastic about starting it all back up in October, so he does the majority of the winter garden.  This year we bought some new bare root strawberries, so we could beef up our small strawberry patch. We have not concentrated on it much in the past and just picked what berries appeared in the spring. In the past I was unaware we had to put in the berry starters in October, so this year I am on top of it and remembered to ask my husband to pick them up at the seed store. Yay! Here they are, all put in the little patch I have had set up for many years. I weeded it all, then had my teenage son put some compost on it all. When I came out to take pictures (because I did not actually put the plants in the ground, my two teens did) I noticed clothes laying on the ground in the garden. No one was going to pick it up so that is what I did to help.

 

The berry plants look limp, but that is because they were just put in. We watered them and after a couple of days they perked up. To be honest, I am not sure what to do next. I think I need to cover/protect them from the winter weather and uncover them in the spring, when they will produce lovely strawberries. Guess I need to check into that.

On the other side of the garden we are putting in garlic and sweet onions. I use the term we, liberally. My husband and son actually put in all the plants. My husband picked up the onions at the seed store and I ordered the garlic online (notice the box they came in).   The garlic and onion will take all winter to grow and mature. We will harvest them in late spring to early summer.

 

We have also have started beets, cabbage, collards and fennel. We have started them inside because we find it easier and have chickens and turkeys who LOVE to mess with our starter plants. I have had all of our starter plants destroyed on more than one occasion. Note: I bought all the seed, my son cleaned the trays
and filled them with soil and my husband did the rest. ;0)

Good things to come

I haven't written lately but that does not mean I have not been busy. I have made a few little girl skirts and have gone shopping for costume materials. During all this I have had two little ones sick with a fever. Mysteriously I seem to get more sewing done when they are sick. I am sure that is because they are just laying around unable to move around and get things messy or want me for much. Luckily I have a bed in my sewing room and a small t.v. that I can pop a DVD in. I only had to ask my 5yr old to get up once so I could measure her waist for the elastic I needed to cut for her skirt. She didn't want to budge, so I had to do some creative measuring. She is fine now and loves her new skirt. I still have one more skirt to put together, so pictures are to follow.
In the meantime, I have been working on costumes. I haven't actually made them yet but it did take me 2 hours at JoAnn Fabrics yesterday to figure out what I needed. I need a costume for myself and my 12 yr old daughter. We as a family do not "celebrate" Halloween. I have not dressed up for this day in 16 years, when it was just our oldest son, Zach, at home. He was a pumpkin and I still call him that.  Anyway, this year I am attending a Masquerade Ball for the High Springs Farmers Market Fund Raiser.

                                                          High Springs Farmers Market

 I support the local farmers market and used to sell stuff there. So I am eager and ready to attend. I love sewing, so I found this to be challenge. O fcourse, I chose a costume that does not offer a pattern to sew. I am going to attempt to be Effie Trinket from the Hunger Games.
                                       

I have studied the outfits she wore in the movie and searched the internet for ideas. I have bought a wig  from Amazon.com and bought the fabric and a pattern I can use and alter to what I want. Those pictures will be on here when I finish.
For my 12 yr old daughter I have been a bit of a challenge as well. She wanted to be Supergirl. Her church youth group has a super hero theme going on and will be sponsoring a Trick or Trunk at their church. We wanted it to be fun and found a great idea on Pinterest, but making it for an older girl.
                                 Thank you Goody Goody Tutus for the cute idea.
                              
                     The idea to put a tutu on Supergirl was way too cute to pass up.
This is what I have been up to and updates on these projects will follow soon. Of course I get distracted from time to time and start another project. I will make sure to post those pictures as well, if they happen.

Making Hermit Cookies

It's 3 o'clock in the afternoon. I have spent my day so far running from one kid to the next "teaching" numbers, math, spelling, reading comprehension, writing and doing chores around the house that I have been able to get to. The one thing I do not want to hear from my 9 yr old daughter is "Mom, can I cook/bake something?" But of course this is what she said. Now, I have to be honest and say that she ask this question often and I keep telling her no. I have put her off enough to where I feel a bit guilty about it. But really, who is actually doing the majority of the preparing and cleaning? Me. I feel so guilty that I say yes. It is quiet with the older kids doing their school work in another part of the house and I have finished everything I had to do with her and my youngest (which is playing happily in her room).
To get started we had to go on Pinterest to look for a recipe for a cookie. Now, this is my daughter who does NOT make decisions easily. Nothing with chocolate was her only requirement. Really! Who is this girl who does not want chocolate? Where did she come from? Pinterest was not much help cause the majority was chocolate or nutella based cookies. I had to think quick or we would be there all day either looking for recipes or because I got distracted looking at house ideas, sewing ideas, quilts, funny saying or.... well, you get the idea.

Wait a minute the cookies are done and I need to pull them out because the little girl is no where to be found (see, ME doing the cooking)

Anyway, I remembered a recipe in my trusty Betty Crocker Cookbook, that my husband loves with his coffee or tea. All I had to say to this little Daddy's girl is that her daddy LOVES these cookies and that was all it took. Plus, this is an easy recipe, put everything in then mix.

I have her pull out all the ingredients, but she is not familiar with most so I am the one getting them and she hasn't really covered fractions yet(measuring spoons and cups) so I am helping her with what she needs to do. I am using this experience to sneak in math, which she hates. Yeah! I am beginning to enjoy this. She is not familiar with reading a recipe either so I have made this a lesson, which covers reading comprehension. HA!   I go over all the fractions on the measuring spoons and cups and help her choose which ones she needs and she does the rest. She even put them in the oven. She cleaned up some of it so I will have her come in and finish in a little bit. First I want to sneak the first cookie. hehehe!
YUM!

I am glad we did this. It was fun and she is smiling.

Snickerdoodle muffins

I am a lucky mom.  My 12yr old daughter loves to bake. Today my house smells wonderfully like cinnamon. My daughter loves Pinterest, just as I do.  A few days ago we were perusing Pinterest looking for a different basic bread recipe to make, we came upon this Snickerdoodle bread recipe. We/she could not make it that day since it called for cinnamon chips and we did not have this item, nor had we ever heard of it.  The next day after our homeschool co-op classes we stopped by Winn-Dixie and were surprised to find they had it. YEAH! This is the result

The recipe and inspiration came from Lil' Luna blog. Thank you Lil' Luna for the wonderful recipe and Thank You, Zara, for making them.

Menu Calendar 2

In my last post  I talked about the Pinterest inspired idea of monthly meal planning. I showed off  my paper calender with recipes I hang up on my fridge. While the papers clipped together and hung on the side of my fridge did not bother me, I felt I would like something that that I could write and erase on with ease.  I tend to  move meals around a bit during the week (sometimes I did not feel like what I had written down or we had more leftovers in the fridge than I had anticipated). So once I realized the menu planning  was working for me and my family I set out to search my favorite "idea" site, Pinterest, and my boards there, to see if there was anything that would work to make my meal planning easier for me. Of course there was and here is the result.

 
This Pinterest inspired idea came from Cottage Hill. It was easy to make and I love my adaption of her idea. The only real change I made was the background. I wanted to use what I had on hand and I used linen. I do not like my letter "T" right now and plan on changing it to something with more bulk and maybe a black and white printed fabric. I haven't decided and am taking my time and looking at it for a while so I can decide. For now I can write my menu on it and keep my recipes for each month in the cabinet (all clipped together). When I want to move something around, it is easy. Yeah!

Menu Calendar 1

Today I woke up thinking up a new blog post. I like to lay in bed and think, in the quietness of the early morn because that is the ONLY quiet time around here. All the little ones are still asleep so they do not make noises. In the evening it is not quiet because they are NOT asleep but in and out of bed. The bathroom is visited often after bed time. They each have different bedtimes depending on their ages and the older ones make sure any younger siblings knows when it is their bed time and hollers out through the house if anyone gets up when they are not suppose to. I guess they hope I or their father will ultimately do something about it, thus they yell real loud at their sibling "Get back in bed"

Anyway, back to my original thought. I am sure it was because before I went to bed last night I was reading one of my friends blogs about restocking her freezer and freezer meals, frugallygroovin. I, too, have been on a mission to make meals easier. Why it has taken me 22 years into my marriage to try this, I do not know. All I can say is that after 1 month I have had great success. I do not make meals ahead of time and stock my freezer, like my friend, but I plan my meals out 1 month in advance, shop for all the ingredients and stock my freezer and pantry with what I need.

So many have told me that they have tried this and it failed. I ask why, how can this not work. If everything is there and it is written down what you are making, then, in theory, it should work. So, I was determined to try it and know for myself. Let me say, this was a Pinterest inspired goal. I am constantly seeing ideas on crockpot meals, feed your family of 6 for only $250 a month, freezer meals and so forth on Pinterest. I looked at almost all of them to get ideas and see how someone can feed so many mouths for so little. Those that feed 6 mouths with so little are feeding little mouths. I do not have many of those here any longer, so the $250 budget is not something I can set my sights on. Even though we have our own garden and grow most of our veggies, butcher our own chickens and collect our own eggs, I still spend a good amount of money on food (mostly snacks, I will admit).

Here is what I did in only one evening of planning, for that is all it took. I printed a blank calender for the month and pulled out my cookbook. My cookbook is a 3 ring binder with printouts of recipes we use (mostly from epicurious.com ). I like to pull out my recipe and hang it up so I can follow it as I cook. Anyway, I went thru my binder and pulled out everything I knew we would like (well,most of us). I then started writing them on my calender. I made sure I had one chicken meal, one beef meal, beans meal, fish meal each week. By looking at what I was making I could determine if I would have a left over night that week and found that each week I had atleast one. Some meals were reapeated in one month, but not many. Ofcourse, there are some meals without recipes and they get filled in where needed.  I then made a list of groceries that were needed to make the meals. I already have a freezer full of whole chickens (see above about butchering, LOL), and have lots of venison (thanks to my good friend, Tamara) and stocked up on fish the last time Winn-Dixie had a sale (frozen wild caught salmon) I had most of my main ingredients already.  My list was not very long. I went to the grocery store later that week and finished all I needed. I noticed that if I had stuck to my list I would have saved money on my monthly grocery bill, but I went while I was hungry and bought way too many snacks.  Here is a picture of my calender with recipes attached

Yes, it is quite crumpled. I attach the calender and the recipes together with a clip and hang them on my fridge. I have marked thru a few and moved things around, depending on if I just did not feel like making it that night or I got home late and did not have time.  I tried to plan meals depending on what was going on that day in the month, but things change and I know I have everything to make something else.
Tomorrow I will show how I made this calendar easier to use and made a pretty addition to my hall near my pantry. Also, a Pinterest inspired project.

Wall Mural

Here I am contemplating whether to start writing on my blog again. I started this blog thinking I would write on it all the time but, of course, I did not. I thought I would post numerous witty thoughts and many creative doings. HAHA! Boy was I wrong. After my one and only attempt of taking pictures of a project in progress I found the process to be tedious. I kept having to take a break to locate my camera to take pictures of the process, and those pictures never turned out as pretty as other photos I have seen on other blogs. So I suppose I would need to take a class on taking photos. I haven't the time for that (unless there is a special deal on Groupon or Livingsocial). I am a stay at home (except for my Saturday Job) mother of 4 (the 5th is already out on his own) and I homeschool those who need it
Lately I have spent way too much time on Pinterest.com. I have 'pinned' enough projects to last me a lifetime. So in that vein, I have dreamed up the idea that I would start posting the completed projects on my blog. I literally had a dream that I did this, so I guess that means I should give it a try. Does anyone actuallly care what I have worked on and completed, succeeded or failed? Probably not, but I will have a record of it and if someone else gets inspired by my words or creations of others ideas, then I have done good.

Today I will display my wall mural from fabric.  I have loved the vinyl wall murals but do not want to spend the money on it when I think I could just make it (as I do with most things). I looked into how to make them but did not come across any site that gave easy home instructions. So when I came across the idea to make a wall mural from frabic on Pinterest, I knew what I needed to do. I had dreams about it and searched for the right design. I wanted something easy but colorful to fit in my down to earth, small living room. Here is what I came up with.

I really like my finished product and think it added a lot of color where color was needed in my little room. The following pictures shows how my youngest daughter, age 5, thought that the birds were lonely and needed some company.

She drew a picture of herself to play with the birds. I do believe she made my mural better. ;0)

As for instructions for this project all I can tell you is that it was easy. The birds and leaves are sillouhetes I found on line then traced on back of fabric and cut out. The branch I actually drew out on paper, used a glue stick to stick it to fabric then cut out around the edges. I then used spray starch to attach it to the wall. I did keep a paper towel handy to wipe up the drips since I had to soak the pieces. The branch was the hardest, so I used that blue tacky stuff you hang things up on the wall with that does not permanently stick, I would tack parts of the branch to the wall and when I got to it with the starch I would take it off. The starch cleans up easy and when I don't want the mural anymore it will come off easy and I will just clean off the starch.

This concludes my 1st "completed successfully" Pinterest idea thanks to deliacreates.