The White House

The White House

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Ooops! Almost Blew The Party!

Got the front yard mowed this morning (no photos),but decided to pass on the ditch. It really isn’t that long.
Then I made my pickles. For the second time every in zillions of quarts I had a jar explode. Of course it was one of the expensive Beer Brine Pickle batches so I ended with only two pints. I’m not making more until we see if  Mr. White likes them. If he does I’ll find a cheaper dark beer to use.
A dried hot pepper, (a tsp. of each) salt, peppercorn, yellow mustard seed and a garlic clove (that I picked from the greenhouse). Then half fill with the hot reduced beer (2 12 ounce bottles of medium to full bodied….used Anchor Steam….brought to boiling and then simmered 15 minutes) and then topped with white vinegar. I think that is why the jar exploded… because it was too cool to go into the boiling water. If I do this again I would boil the vinegar as well.
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When making my list last night I totally forgot about the birthday we had to attend today. It was up at UAF’s Botanical Gardens (which, incidentally, has had huge funding cuts and really wasn’t very impressive, but a fun spot for a summer birthday).
This is a photo of a giant maze for kids to wander through. If you look hard you can see the tops of heads in the top left. Fencing was put up and Siberian Peas planted to eventually make a hedge. Unfortunately, the ones that didn’t make it haven’t been replanted so there are gaps. Nothing a child would notice, though.
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This is the gazebo that is available to rent for $50. It had a couple bouncy bridges to walk across. Tables and chairs were provided. There was a wedding setting up on the other end of the gardens.
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This is a kids garden area. Not sure how into the flowers the kids were, but there were rocks to climb on.
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This is the wall to the shed which truly didn’t do a thing for me, but man, the kids thought it was the coolest!
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A little cabin with flowers.
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Apparently a creek was built….
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…but then a sluice box type set-up replaced it. Not sure the reasoning as the “natural” creek looks much better.
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It all flowed to here….
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…and then down to the left. The place is nice, but the upkeep really isn’t there compared to gardens you would find in other cities. I was disappointed as I’m sure the University has the money to budget and just doesn’t. There was a sign saying that guided tours had been cut and offered a brochure to do it yourself.
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The kids were waiting to have a turn at the piñata. It was a cool Angry Bird, but should have been made thicker. It broke on the third child.
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This is the birthday man Wanzell who turned 6.
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This is his sister Wanzetta who is one of Olivia’s friends.
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Look at the size of that peony!! (When taking photos with the phone I don’t always catch that they suck).
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Emily is going to have Homer bring her home some rebar so she can make a tunnel like this one. Maybe we’ll do it up where the bird sitting area is going to be.
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So the list was hard to get to. After the party we hauled a load of water, dumped the tank and went to town for straw, barley and pallets (didn’t find any of the latter, but my husband brought me some…as well as a trailer load of more rocks!!). The grass seed isn’t staying wet enough to grow and the ground is soft so we threw down 1. 5 bags of barley. That will grow, Daisy will eat it and then the ground with have a nice root base. We covered it with straw to keep it moist.
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Homer mixed up some concrete for the girls to make stepping stones which I’ll show you tomorrow. This was the first trail-and-error. They plan on making me dozens to put all around my vegetable gardens. :)
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I got the laundry done. I guess the grass/barley/straw/watering of Daisy’s pen more than replaced weeding three beds (but man…my pretty flower beds needed weeded). Those stupid stupid rocks are still sitting there waiting to go to the pool. I tried to get help from Nick who simply said no and drove off. Yesterday. Can’t wait until he needs something. :) *insert evil laugh* And where is Tinkerbelle's friend the Fertilizer Fairy? Still didn’t get to it and everything desperately needs it. And we didn’t give camping a thought. So where do we want to go? Anywhere there aren’t other people!! :) We won’t go far. Probably up the Hot Springs road again. I’m going to see if I can get it set up for us to ride horses at the Hot Springs before we come back.
For tomorrow…..
FERTILIZE
√ move rocks off concrete to pool
√ unload pallets
stack wood on said pallets (ick)
weed ONE bed. please.
√ √ √ three loads of laundry (you’re wondering just how one family can have so much dirty stuff, aren’t you?).
make some kind of pickles as the greenhouse needs picked
That’s all I’m writing down. I fully intend to do this and more. It’s gonna be a good day tomorrow!! :) Hope it is for you, too.
p/s We have two new family members but you’ll have to wait until tomorrow.

4 comments:

Nancy J said...

Wow, your blog is so much better than the website for the UAF botanical garden. AND, there are so many " Do Nots", the party looked as though it was a great success. Waiting for tomorrow, not even a hint for us??What will they be, 2 new ones?? And Gayle, welcome to my members, great to have you there.Cheers from Jean.

FlowerLady Lorraine said...

Good morning Gayle ~ I bet those pickles will be delicious! Sorry you had one jar blow up on you though. Canning is something I've never done, and personally don't know of anyone who does. How wonderful that you can so much for your family, and how neat to eat it all during the winter months.

I liked the pictures of the park. I loved that cement wall with the bottles and slabs of wood. Really neat.

Not sure what I'll be doing today, as it's already rained. We have a 75% chance of thunderstorms for the next three days, so I may not be doing anything outside at all.

I look forward to seeing the stepping stones the kids make.

Have a nice Sunday ~ FlowerLady

Kim@Snug Harbor said...

The views at the gardens were beautiful. I hope you go horseback riding when you go camping -that will be fun.

Snowbird said...

I'm just curious. After all that you do, when do you have time to blog???