We have been busy with… everything. My mom was here to visit, then we had lots of hot days, and a few rainy days, and ok, we were tired and didn’t get out to the garden as much as we should have. That is lesson #1 – if you have a garden as large as ours, missing one day of picking and/or weeding is bad. Missing a week or more of weeding? Catastrophic. And, to think some people believe that weeding is bad for plant growth.

A curious thing started to happen with our squash and pumpkin plants – white spots.  And, I ignored it, thinking it was “normal-ish”?  Lesson #2…  if it is any color other than green on the leaves, it is not normal.  I waited too long, and the damage has been done, so there is not other recourse than to harvest what we can, and hope for the best outcome with what isn’t ready.

We pulled the pea plants last week, which is a really good thing – now we could lower the pole bean crane over to make it easier to harvest…

The zucchini are coming along well, and we are beginning to get a great harvest of ripe tomatoes.  Our peppers (sweet, and HABANERO!) are coming in pretty good, finally.  Our cucumbers are at the end of their life cycle, too.  Tomorrow, we are going to be harvesting the remaining bush beans (Hi, Mom!) and then pulling those plants.

Other lessons we’ve learned?  Too many to count, but for next year, we are:

1. NOT planting lettuce – we don’t use it.
2. If we can afford it, black plastic will become our best friend.
3. So will homemade irrigation as apparently overhead watering can contribute to all sorts of problems.
4. Roundup before the season is also going to be our friend.
5. Child Labor Laws are going out the window, and our precious little children will be driven until their fingers bleed.  Or, they whine enough.
6. Build more trellises as they seem to provide a healthier growing environment (exhibit A:  Pole Beans taller than Paul Bunyan).
7. Weeding.  Every.  Day.

We have been following many of the northern Michigan primary races with much interest, and even greater disgust. At a time when our country needs to unify, even our potential elected officials can’t seem to get out of the high school mentality long enough to run a clean campaign.
To all potential candidates – it is with greater interest to the people whom you will be serving to show the integrity and leadership abilities that you possess rather than what kind of dirt you can bring up regarding your opponent. In today’s economical and political climate, it behooves you to stand tall and take the higher road.
It was with great disgust that I became aware of Mr. Dennis Lennox’s trashy campaign strategy with regard to Greg MacMaster. Mr. Lennox, your grandmother would be ashamed of your tactics. For someone who specifically states that he is “Pro Family”, I must say that your actions speak volumes. Mr. MacMaster addressed many of the issues on his website that he knew would come up during the campaign, and to blatantly disregard the facts, and testimony of all parties involved lends itself not only to a poor leader, but just poor character.
The same, though, can be said about many of the candidates vying for various spots throughout the state – Mike Cox, and Rick Snyder both have, from the onset of the campaign, chosen to go for the jugular. Aren’t we all supposed to be united? To be proactively working toward the common good of the state, of her people? To me, these types of strategies only further cement my resolve to vote for the person least likely to do things the way they’ve always been done, because the old way has not worked.
My fellow voters, this year, let’s proactively do things different – don’t vote for the person who is most likely to win, or that has more face time in the media. Look at what values you hold true – what candidate best represents YOU and what you view the goals of the state should be, regardless of their perceived “chances” at winning. Because it is time to take our state, and our country back.

Dana Potocki
www.daybydana.com

Oh.  man!

Things got just a little crazy around here.  How is it that summer is half way through already??

The garden has taken on a life of its own, and that life is taking up a LOT of time.  Plus, well, our camera completely died, making it harder to get pictures up.

As mentioned in the last garden post, I’m just including a slideshow of the garden from the beginning to now.  There are just too many pictures.

We have been picking cucumbers and bush beans, and last night we put up 12 or 13 1/2 pints of dill relish, and put about 15 quart freezer bags of green beans away.  Right now, we have two baskets full of beans to deal with.  Wow.

Tomatoes are on the vine, just not ripening, plenty of peas, pole beans, and boy howdy, if all our squash & pumpkin come in, we could rival Libby.

The zucchini is coming up nicely, but the Cabbage, Broccoli, and Cauliflower are not.  Which, I’m not surprised at since we put it in so late.

Miraculously, the melons have popped nicely, though it will be interesting to see if we get any fruit off them.

Probably in the next few posts I’ll be talking more about preserving…  I’m no expert, but I’ll share what we are doing with everything!

Thankfully, once I had kids, or rather, when I found out I was pregnant with my first, I began to realize how little control one has over things that happen.  You can have the best laid plans, but at the end of the day, you really aren’t in that much control.  Granted, we all have choices that we make, and we can either reap the reward, or pay the consequence, but when it comes to just… how life goes, you really have to figure that you don’t have it all figured out.

Sure, it is important to set goals, and work toward them – you don’t want to be lazy, or settle with mediocrity.  Ever.

I’ve been looking for work since last fall.  Things are tough, and I could see some things that were going to change, so I actively tried to get ahead of the game.  Nine months later… no real solid potential.  I’ve stressed out about it – got sucked into the “what-ifs”.  But, really?  that doesn’t get you anywhere.

You begin to realize that sometimes, it doesn’t matter how hard you try, things are just out of your control.  It doesn’t mean you did anything wrong, it just “il est quel il est” (it is what it is).

I’ve scoured the ads, craigslist, off the beaten path places, submitted my resume a million times (ok, maybe not that many, but a lot), and nothing.  Then, out of the blue, I got a design job.  It wasn’t something I was looking or trying for, but there it was.

Isn’t that just how life goes?  It was as if God was saying “you know, that’s great your going that way, but, I need to remind you that I have it under control.  I have a plan”.

And, for now, its enough to know that I don’t have to have everything figured out.  I can peruse, plan, and think, but if it doesn’t go my way, I’m ok with that, too.  Because, I much rather follow God’s plan than my own.  There’s a much better reward, anyway.

Things are going fairly well.  We’ve been blessed with a lot of rain and sunshine, so we haven’t needed to water – that may change this week, though.  Likewise, we’ve been “blessed” with bugs, so the other day, we sprayed everything down with Sevin.  Hey – I never claimed I was going to be an organic gardener!  A couple days after that application, we did a MiracleGro application – and will continue to do so with the maximum amount.  Our soil is still in need of nutrients, so this was the best way for us to go.  If, by chance, in the Fall we can afford a couple loads of poop, we will do that.

Tomatoes:

They are growing like crazy, except two plants that had a black spotty, wilty leaf thing going on – they are both stunted compared to the other 5 of the same variety.  We trimmed the affected leaves and stems off, hoping for the best.  In the event that they do not “go”, I went ahead and purchased nine (yes, nine) more plants.  The roma’s are looking good… are they supposed to be a more “stubby” plant?  There are flowers on all plants, and even a couple tomato babies – awww….

Peppers:

Meh – they aren’t cooperating real well, and I don’t get it, but they aren’t dead, so we’ll count that as a “yay”!

Bush Squash:

Doing great – they haven’t started to vine quite yet, but should soon.

Carrots & Beets:

Gone.  Well, the carrots were there, then they vanished.  We don’t have above ground critters around here due to our three alarm sound system dogs, so I have to assume something underground got them.  I already ripped out said 10 rows and will be planting cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower in its place.

Sugar Pumpkins (mounds):

Doing phenomenal!  I’m really excited about these since canned pumpkin is becoming so hard to find in the grocery store.

Watermelon (mounds):

They were looking pretty sickly, but we’ve been babying them, making sure a lot of the weeds were cleared out, and the bug & fertilizer treatment.  They seem to be coming back, but are still on the small side.

Kaitlyn’s Garden:

The corn she sowed from seed has caught up to the corn plants – knee high by the 4th of July already happened.  Her carrots puked as well, so I may use that area for some fillers – like zucchini, or maybe a broccoli or something.  Her peas and tomato plant are looking good.

Potatoes:

I think we have 8 official plants that made it, but everything I say “that’s all we got” I find another one poking through.

Peas, Beans, Cucumbers, Squash, Pumpkin, Melons (all trellised):

Peas and beans are doing awesome.  Squash is holding their own.  Pumpkin is doing alright, and the melons… eh.  I think the pumpkins need more sun than they are getting in that area.  The trellises Mr. P came up with are working like a charm!

Lettuce:

Doing much better now with the dual treatments.

Bush Beans:

Great!  We actually put too much room in between rows, so we are going to fill some more beans in for a later crop.

Dill & Cumin:

There one day, gone the next.  Maybe put beans in there.

Amanda’s Garden:

Cilantro picked up nicely as did her other stuff – only thing not going real well is her peppers.  A neighbor’s dog stopped by and bumped into her tomato plant, so Mr. P constructed a “cage” all from wood – kind of looks good, and is working great!

That’s it for the garden update!  My next post is going to be on weeds because there are enough around here to warrant a dedicated post.

Tonight I was walking through the garden after weeding, just checking on things, and out of the corner of my eye, I spotted two pea plants hanging on together.  The one was closer to the trellis, and had already started to grow up on it, but the other one was just out of reach (thanks to my inability of making a straight line).  It was as if the first pea plant had reached out its hand to help along the other one who couldn’t reach.

Much like a friend who reaches out to help you, to give you a hand.

Psalm 18:16 (AMP)

He reached from on high, He took me; He drew me out of many waters.

Summer is a great time for fresh veggies, don’t you think?  There is a recipe that I just have to share with you.

Last summer, while in Missouri, my mom made this, and I fell in love.   I just recently made it again for a Father’s Day BBQ, but left the leftovers.  So, of course I had to make my own batch, and let me tell you something… you will thank me later.

Now, generally speaking, I don’t really follow a bulleted recipe, well, sometimes I do, but when I share something, I don’t give exact measurements, and it usually works out good.

Cowboy Cavier

Take some tomatoes – I used about 5 this time, and dice them up – I took most of the membrane and seeds out, but you don’t have to be OCD about it. (You can also use a couple cans if you like).

Cut up an onion – 1/2 of a ginormous one, or a full small one.  It can be white, sweet, red – whatever makes you happy.

Dice up one sweet pepper – I used green this time, red the time before.  Yellow would be nice, too.  Or orange.

Throw a can of rinsed black eye peas into the mix.  This time, I actually did beans from scratch, and if you cook up an entire pot, you’ll only need about a cup or so, then freeze the rest for later.

Chop up a good amount of fresh cilantro.

Throw in a couple minced cloves of garlic.

Salt, pepper, and best of all… CUMIN!  I love cumin a lot, so I use a lot, but just put in enough to taste.

Cover and refrigerate to let the flavors blend.  This is something that gets better with age!

Serve with tortilla chips, pita bread, or as my mother in law did – on top of a burrito!  YUM!

There have been many moments over as many months where she just stops me dead in my tracks.  Is this really my baby?  Where has the time gone?

But, with that comes a sense of pride, of wonderment in who she has become, and yet again, what a beautiful piece of art God created, and we helped to nurture.

Yesterday was one of those days – she looked so grown up with her hair up, earrings in place… well put together as opposed to the child-like way of throwing something on.  Does that make sense?

It has been predicted she will be my height by Christmas – that is possible since she is already about wearing my shoes (and, uh, its a size 11 if that tells you something – she’s actually a 9/10).

She has a way of looking at the world through glasses I never knew fit, and yet… they do.  Her creativity isn’t just a talent – it is who she is.  She can sing, she can draw… but, she also just views the world in a creative manner.  Being able to see things that most of us just pass by – coming at projects and life in general with a very different perspective – one that makes you go “wow – I never thought of that!”.

She is beautiful, inside and out.

Anyway, I couldn’t pick just one, so I decided to post them all…

On the right side of the garden, it looks like there still isn’t enough light – that is the trellis row Phil planted with watermelons.  Hopefully they will get moving soon, otherwise, we have to keep our hope in the mounds we planted of watermelon in the back.

Only one plant died – a habenero, and I have no reason to explain it?  Very weird.  I’m hoping to pick up another plant or two to take its place.  The tomatoes and sweet peppers are coming along great, as are the peas, pole beans, trellised pumpkins, bush beans, beets, and the mound pumpkins.  Do carrots take a long time?  I’m pretty sure they do, but they are just now popping out.  No news from the potato patch yet, but we did plant them pretty deep.

Kaitlyn’s corn is coming along nicely, as is the rest of “her garden”.  Amanda’s is looking good, too, and her favorite part is the corner where her and Mr. P just threw a menagerie of seeds.

Strawberries are coming in good, when I can get to them before the dogs get them (I am not kidding, they sniff out the ripe ones).

(Roll your mouse over each photo to see the May 31st pictures)

Left side of the garden

Right side of the garden

Beans, baby

Strawberries