long day

i'm too tired to even try to post anything better than this crappy black and white is snapped outside of the Tahoe Environmental Research Center today while I was waiting for someone to let me into the lab to pick up my veg samples.  here it is...

now its time to sleeeeeep.

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my garden!

its been a while since i gave you an update on my little plant babies!  so heres my photo of the day, a happy little pansy:

And here is a photo of all of them:

i now have enough lettuce to make the worlds tiniest salad!

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crazy weather!

Today has been a raining, thundering, sunny, cold, warm, wet, crazy, hail-y, ridiculous day.  So here's todays shot of the hailstones in my plants!  i ran out and got all sorts of ice all down my shirt and in my hair, just to bring these little babies into the house and they were already filled with ice.

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april showers, hairy grass, and pink strawberries

April showers drenched this little town today, and i learned that the grass here is just a little bit...hairy.  It makes the rain hold onto the grass in big beautiful droplets, you can just barely see the hairs in this photo on the edge of the blade of grass, and if you look at the big droplet you can see where the bottom of it pokes out where its hanging onto grass hairs! (click on the image to enlarge and get a better view)

And those big beautiful droplets of rain have been keeping my plants happy and healthy!  Just take a look at my first amazing little strawberry baby!  

oh and P.S. those little cheesecakes that i made last night were a BIG hit!  and so easy to make!  2 thumbs up for that recipe for sure!

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early update!

I'm posting my photo early today because I won't be here this evening and I don't want to forget again.  So what do I have for you?  Whats this?  A strawberry with a rosie-reddish hue?  Thats right...these little buggers are ripening!  My first strawberries that I have grown all on my own!  Hurray!  Look at how cute too!  Photos can be a little deceiving sometimes, I know it looks pretty large, but its really about the size of a marble....still, its awesome! :o)

Also, I made some fabulous rocky road fudge this morning from this recipe I remembered from longggg ago, the last time I made it I still lived in Peru.  It is the easiest fudge recipe in the world and you can find it online in millions of places under the name Super Easy Rocky Road Fudge, but I'll put the recipe here for you, since its so simple.  I know that I originally found this recipe on the inside of a label of a can of sweetened condensed milk, so I'm sure its by Nestle or something...anywho here it is, seriously give it a try.  You won't regret it!

Super Easy Rocky Road Fudge

• 2 cups Chocolate Chips (I used Ghirardelli 60% Cacao chips)
• 1 14oz Can of Sweetened Condensed Milk
• 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
• ~3 cups Mini Marshmallows
• 1 1/4 cups Chopped Walnuts

Line a pan with waxed paper or lightly greased tinfoil.  Combine condensed milk and chocolate chips in a large, microwave safe bowl.  Microwave on high for 1 minute and then stir, if the chips are not completely melted continue microwaving in 10 second intervals and stirring until mixture is smooth.  Stir in vanilla extract, then fold in marshmallows and nuts.  Press into a 13x9 pan (for ~48 thinner pieces) or 9x9 pan (for ~24 thicker pieces) and refrigerate until set.  

This is the basic recipe, but you can mix in anything you want....some of my favorites:  peanut butter chips and mini pretzels, coconut and butterscotch chips, mint extract and crushed oreos.  I dare you not to love these!

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new babies and new cookies!

I planted my lettuce seeds a few days ago and already I have some new babies growing up before my eyes!

I also found this very interesting recipe today on a website called cooking for engineers, which I find hilarious, and also awesome.  The recipe is represented graphically at the bottom of the page, which i found especially neat.  I followed the recipe almost exactly (rare for me, i know) except i used whole wheat flour and chilled the dough for a few hours, then formed the cookies and skipped the re-chilling part and just baked the darn things, for 15 minutes at 300.  When I took them out I thought they would be crumbly and awful for transporting to a party but after they cooled a bit they turned out pretty great.

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in the field...

I worked from 6:30 am to 6:30 pm today, helping out with the IMS program at work (an irrigation management program provided to Ag customers).  I spent the day cruising from vineyard to orchard to vineyard again, using a neutron probe to monitor soil moisture levels with my colleague.  I saw quail, turkeys, llamas, tons of deer, several very sweet and very friendly dogs, and even dozens of peacocks being kept as pets at 2 different vineyards.  We crossed the oldest suspension bridge in California (so i'm told) and this is the view of the river canyon that bridge spans.  The river you see is the South Fork American (a watershed very close to my heart, as I have done most of my learning out here thus far on and in this very watershed).  River levels are historically much higher than this (you can see where the water level used to be, the tops of the bare rock) but these days its running much lower because of upstream dams and a series of drought years.  At least now, for four hours a day, 6 days a week, all summer long, the dams are required to release a minimum of 1500 cfs (guestimate, since i don't have the actual value right here, but its close to this) for the rafting companies.  Rafters got these levels guaranteed years ago, and without it i'm sure they'd all be out of business by now.  Theres so much more I could share about this river, but I'm not all that sure you folks are that interested so I'll leave some for later.  

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i love food.

we all know i love taking pictures of my food, so heres a colorful shot of my lunch, a delicious garden salad with dried fruit and maple vinaigrette dressing, and a little bowl of grapes.   Mom, these are the dishes you talked me into buying today.  I didn't get the mugs, but I might go back for them because I really like them!

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you say tomato...

i say why does my tomato plant look like its been in a knife fight?  a bit of poor leaf health...but its green and blooming, so it can't be tooooooooo unhealthy....

I made chocolate coconut butterscotch cookies again, since tomorrow a few volunteers are getting together for dinner.  I ate way too much cookie dough but i have lots of yummmy lookin cookies to share tomorrow!  Hurray!

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whats this you say?

An itty bitty strawberry?  Persevering through the snow and the rain, my strawberries live on!  

Even my basil babies appear to be pulling through!

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update!

I haven't posted a picture of my babies lately, so I thought I would give you an update.  The Pansies are doing very well (as Pansies always do!) and I get to see their little smiling faces every day before and after work.  The strawberries have the beginnings of fruit, not anywhere near ripe, but still conspicuously strawberr-ily looking, so I can't wait until they're all rosy red!  My tomato is probably twice the size it was when I got it, all fuzzy and such, but the most exciting news of all is that my little baby basils are poking out their happy little heads!  And here is their first (partial, as there are many more not shown here) family portrait:

(The red in the top left is just the tag from the tomato plant)

What do you know, I can grow things! Hopefully they make it even bigger, like full size, or something crazy like that, but I'm already pretty proud of myself!  Its already warm enough here to where they don't have to come in at night anymore, so they don't get to listen to music with me in the evenings anymore, which I'm sure they miss.  I'll have to start pointing my speakers out the window for them.  I did sit outside with them for about an hour today while I drew a picture of a pansy, so at least they aren't lonely.  :o)

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