Happy Christmakwanzikah!

Merry Christmas, Feliz Navidad, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, enjoy a Festivus for the rest of us, or whatever it is you like to do during this time of year.  Seasons Greetings, if you prefer.  

♫♪ It's the most wonderful time of the year!  ♪♫

I know I am ready.  Tuesday I got a tree - in the rain.  More like a mist, really.  The nice folks at Capitol Rental had a pretty good selection of little trees for $25 & the nice fellow even delivered it for me.  Mind you, I live across the street, but he did walk it over in the rain & placed it in my living room.  Shawn and I decorated it that night & we've been enjoying the aroma of fresh pine every day since then.  ☺

mmm, sugar

I only posted my favorite goodies that I made for Halloween, the white chocolate eyeball lollipops...  and it seems a bit unfair not to mention the rest of the chocolates.  I made tons of pretzel rods - some with molds & most just rolled in chocolate and topped off with festive sprinkles.

nom nom nom

By request: COOKIES & CREAM
(white chocolate + Oreo pieces)

I also acquired several new molds this year.  No paintbrush for the colors, but FYI a Q-Tip in a Dixie cup does just fine!  COLOR TIP: no use in buying specialty chocolate coloring, or bags of multicolored melting wafers...  use normal food coloring & a tiny bit of vegetable oil.  Works like a charm: best to work in small quantities when working with color.

Peanut butter & chocolate candy is ridiculously easy to make if you cheat like I do.  Toss a bag of Reese's morsels in the double-boiler and voila it melts just like chocolate wafers & can be poured into molds.  Also, it's super delish.

Boo!

Happy Halloween

snowtober 2011

Pennsylvania plays host to some fascinating weather patterns.  It's the sort of place where you can start your day using the heat and end it with the A/C running.  This month has been no different, full of sunny days & mild temperatures.  Next we got some rain, and yesterday forecasters began to tell us we'd see snow today.  I never believe snow predictions when I hear them and this time was certainly no different.  When I was a kid I'd get all revved up hearing snow, snow, snow - getting big dreams of a snow day only to wake up to nary a flake on the ground.  Not the case this morning.  Not only was it snowing like crazy, but it was laying on the ground.  Imagine that, the forecast was accurate.  You can't really blame me for being a non-believer since the last time we had measurable snow in October was 1972, same year Hurricane Agnes dumped large amounts of rain on our state.  Here we are nearly 40 years later - Irene flooded the midstate and we had several inches of snow.  Perhaps I should investigate the winter of  '72 so I know what to expect this winter!

10AM, snowing like mad

A lovely Christmas-y panoramic...
Two days before Halloween.

A lonely lil flake

By 5:00 it was nearly done

The life & times of Jack O. Lantern

Part of my gardening experiment this year was pumpkins.  I love Halloween & with that comes carving pumpkins.  I saved some seeds from the pumpkin I carved last year, determined to grow my own.  My micro pumpkin patch started off with a whopping three plants - two regular pumpkins and one Big Max.  You may recall Audrey III and how impressive she was looking at the beginning of the growing season.  As you may already know things have a tendency to change, and that's how it was with the great pumpkin, Charlie Brown.  Let's take a peek at the pictures, shall we?

July 11: pumpkin #1 lookin' good!

July 11: pumpkin #2 growing nicely.

July 11: all's well in the pumpkin patch.

All of July the pumpkin patch was cruising right along in the growth department.  Had some new blooms, but I picked them off so the plant would send more nutrients to the existing pumpkins.  Towards the end of the month the vines were not so fantastic looking but I wasn't worried as long as my pumpkins remained healthy.  At some point, Audrey III managed to cough up a pumpkin & I was pretty excited.

July 27: Pumpkin #1 looks excellent

July 27: Audrey III finally growing a pumpkin!
Hey, better late than never.

July 27: Pumpkin #2 looks fantastic!

Let me tell you, by the end of August I was doing a jig every time I went in the back yard.  These things went from seedlings growing in my bath tub to actual pumpkins and it just blows my mind.  It was killing me not to carve them mid-summer.  Another month zipped by - I finally moved the vines to mow underneath them because it was driving me insane.  A few leaves fell victim to the mower (oops) but even though the vines looked scraggly the pumpkins did wonderfully.  Except for Audrey III, who decided to just rot away and die, so I tossed the whole plant.  Seemed late in the season to be trying for a giant pumpkin anyway. I would also like to mention that there is nothing to prevent critters from feasting on these plants aside from a few marigolds.  They did a fine job repelling pests!

August 24: #1, the largest, is on the left. 
#2 waits patiently in the background.

#1

#2

You may recall around the time I was taking those pictures (end of August) there was a storm brewing along the East Coast.  Scratch that, Irene beat the Bejesus out of the East coast.  She gave us days, nay, weeks of rain.  Constant rain.  The ground gave up at some point and water just sat in puddles on every surface imaginable.  The grass grew like mad during all of this, and there was no way I could mow...  we just had to wait it out.  We got a brief pause in the rains - right before Irene hit our part of the coast.  A short calm before the storm.  Bad news on the pumpkin front: my beautiful pumpkins I'd spent all summer admiring had been laying in water & were starting to rot.  #2 was a lost cause, but #1 only had a few spots.  No actual rot of the flesh, just minor discoloration, the threat of something bad.  That one I could save.  #1 got picked & placed on the back porch.  I waited as long as I could but at some point gnats started to feast on the back & there were some tiny craters in the back of my pumpkin.  It was then I decided to carve my pumpkin before it just turned to a pile of mush.

I carved it September 27 & it just got thrown out about a week ago.  Not because I was reluctant to toss it, but because it still  looked good.  Actually, if I had been diligent about spraying it I bet it would still be nice.  The trick to preserving the jack-o-lantern you've put so much time into is soak it in a bleach solution.  Visit this site to see the results of many different preservation techniques, and you will see that bleach is the best method.  Also, the most cost effective.  You only need 1 tsp. bleach per gallon of water.  I soaked my pumpkin over night - and have a spray bottle filled with some of the solution to keep it hydrated once it goes out side.  All you have to do is soak your pumpkin (preferably for 8 hrs but I have gone as low as 3 hrs) and spray it with the solution daily.  It won't wither because you're keeping it hydrated and the bleach keeps the funk out.  If you do allow the solution to pool in the bottom of the pumpkin it will get moldy, trust me!  So regularly dump the stuff out of the bottom or carve a hole in the bottom for drainage.  Alternatively, you could slice the entire bottom off then there's no need to cut out a lid!

..::Happy Halloween::..

Beefalo! In Pennsylvania?

Yesterday was a fantastic fall day in PA - an excellent day for a road trip.  I have been wanting to go to Little Buffalo State Park for a while, so I decided to make the trek up there.  Lots of beautiful foliage to to see in PA at this time of the year.  Some of the rain last week beat up the trees so they're already looking pretty bare, but still lots of fall colors.  My GPS was not really thrilled about the address I punched in for the park so I went with whatever it wanted to do.  Bad plan.  When I turned right onto Dix Hill Rd I sort of thought to myself it didn't seem right but eh, let's see what happens.  Turns out that sort of attitude will take you onto a gravel road with various NO TRESPASSING signs and at least one BEWARE OF OWNER sign.  So, I went ahead and turned around.  But not before snapping some pictures and searching for the park on the GPS.  Thank you, kind folks at Garmin, for making my trip a bit more eventful.

Can you hear the banjos?

Dix Hill Rd: sorta creepy but very scenic.

Once I got my route figured out - I was on my merry way once again.  When I was a few minutes from my destination, I spotted an old cemetery on a hillside.  In the interest of old timey stuff (and Halloween) I pulled over to check it out.  1864 was the oldest I could read and the newest was 1941.  Lots of tiny markers were too worn to read but for the age most were remarkably clear. 

I

A quiet hillside resting spot.

Once I finished my tour, I resumed my trek to Little Buffalo.  I was less than impressed with finding the place, and not just because of my GPS.  I did not see 85% of the signs until I was exiting the park.  I say that as a traveler who was looking for signs, so, not good.  On the upside, it's very pretty.

Entrance to "pavilion area" that leads you to a port-a-potty in a small parking lot.
Pavilions are tucked into the woods a bit.

There is a swimming pool behind the lake - no swimming in the lake - that is currently closed.  The road leading to it is closed as well so I was unable to investigate what the PA DCNR site describes as, "A state-of-the art swimming pool which is nearly half an acre in size."  Sounds cool but I'll have to return in the summer to verify the accuracy of that particular statement.  I stopped at the visitors center and used a map I got there to find the "meat & potatoes" of the park.  It was OK - some picnic tables along a little stream, restrooms, amphitheater, little learning center.  I went back a short path to see the bridge & mill.

 

Across from the parking lot, there's a butterfly garden halfway up the hill.  Some benches, many flowers, not really spectacular at this time of year.  I saw no butterflies there, but I did at the top of the hill where the big SCENIC VIEW is.  OooOoOo.  Be warned I stitched the panoramic together on my camera so there is a bit of a flaw in the banks.

Holman Lake

* Click on any image to see it larger *

tempus fugit: garden style

It's amazing to think that over two months have passed since the last post!  I'm afraid the summer just slipped right through my fingers - you'll have that from time to time. 

I am quite pleased with the way the garden turned out.  We harvested literally hundreds of peppers. We picked quite a few, still have several quarts in the cupboard.  There's also several bags of frozen slices in the freezer - and we can't forget the stuffed peppers we've had for dinner and the mounds we've given to friends. Believe it or not, there's more growing out there now! Should be harvesting some this weekend. 

Pepperoncini grow like crazy!

Ahh, if only you could smell these pictures.

Bit of everything in this harvest:
Sweet banana, multi-colored bell, and of course
PEPPERONCINI.

The green/yellow/purple beans did very well, the second crop much better than the first.  Lower yield of beans but beefier.  We had many large radishes, the carrots are still growing, rabbits ate all the cabbage (oh well they have to eat, too) and we ate a fair amount of cucumbers.  The last radish I pulled was the largest - it would have looked at home being used in a baseball game!

Tomatoes were, eh not too impressive.  I'm afraid we screwed them up the way we watered them....  Got weird spots and whatnot.  Also the squirrels carted off a great deal of the salsa tomatoes.  They were kind enough to leave the remnants scattered through the yard.  I did get a large Supersteak Hybrid that I made a tasty BLT out of  - Shawn topped his bacon cheeseburger off with a slice.

Mmm, bacon cheeseburger.

Now that's a tomato!

BLT = Bacon-Licious & Tasty

I do have to blame some of the tomato casualties to hurricane Irene.  It seems a little silly that I live in central PA and blame a hurricane for my gardening woes, but it is what it is.  We had some pretty mean rain & wind thanks to Irene.  My garden troubles are certainly nothing compared to what thousands of others have had to deal with that's for sure.

Tomato cages ripped out of the ground.Thanks, Irene.

Peppers have been growing at an angle ever since Irene.

The flowers sort of fizzled out as they will once it cools off.  The daisies that I grew in the tub earlier this year really flourished.  They're quite large and a few of them did bloom so they should be really fantastic next year. My ornamental grass took off as well - most of it is taller than me - and Shawn got me a nice pot of chrysanthemums to spruce up the yard a bit for the fall.

oOoooOoo

I just noticed I never shared this lovely lily in front of the shed that bloomed while we were on vacation.

psssst

Well, hello again, wide wide world of web.  It is a BEAUTIFUL last day of August here in Central Pennsylvanie and I am going out to enjoy it!  I know the official start of fall is not for a few weeks, but tomorrow starts September which to me is most certainly fall.  ANYWAY, I am taking a long overdue micro-road trip to Kings Gap so I can squeeze one last drop out of summer.  I have not forgotten about this small space of the web, and this evening I intend to post a great deal of updates :-)

Update: in 5 photos.

We are literally going to have 100s of peppers.
I counted the largest ones and came up with 80.
That's not including the blooms & mini-peps.

Shawn and I measured the longest vine...  15' long!

One of the many pumpkins on the biiig vine.

I still can't believe I grew these things from a seed.

The last of the lilies to bloom.

Star Spangled Greetings

Happy Independence Day!

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