Oh Punxsutawney Phil, You Prankster!

Not only have I been sewing this week, but I have been sowing as well. I actually believed the Groundhog, and his associates-the actual meteorologists- when they said it was Spring. It is April 10th, after all. So I put in my worm-weather garden. Ha!

After struggling to find a place for all the brand new, old favorite and different varieties of veggies I wanted to put in this year, I decided that a 10’x14' space would no longer cut it. I had already busted out of the garden and built the garden beds out of the drawers and doors, but now it was time to beg additional space from the rest of the family.

I had my arguments ready, my reasons why an expanded garden made sense.

I approached the hubby with my plan casually.

"I would like to make the garden bigger," I mentioned, as he pulled lawn weeds.

"Okay, how much bigger?"

"About double."

"Okay."

I went on.

"It would take in that whole area there, but the fig trees are already in that section so it's not really useable play space."

"Okay."

"So you're okay with it?"

"Yes."

Whew-tough negotiating on both sides!

So, I fenced in the new section and got ready to expand. I pulled weeds, grass and dug holes. I dumped compost and soil and organic humus and edged beds

with reclaimed logs. I planted sweet potato slips (more on those later), peanuts, and green beans and moved the potatoes-in-coffee-sacks project from the upper garden to the lower one.

The hubby helped me move the composter to the new fenced area. I planted sunflowers along the perimeter of the fence to add to the fence height, bring bees, look awesome and be living trellises for vining peas and beans. Later in the year we will have free birdseed as well. So giving, those flowers.

I had to leave plenty of room for the fig trees to do their giant summer expansion thing. So pretty. I plan to move some shade-loving plants under them at some point.

A few weeks back I was fortunate enough to acquire some old, worn-out bike tires. I zip-tied them into a tent shape over the green beans. They should provide some protection (I can drape row cover cloth or plastic if it gets too cold like today when it is raining with a high of 47 and a wind chill of 35 in April!) or to protect if hail threatens. I can also reconfigure the wheels into a tall trellis wall down the road. Recycled and versatile! Perfect.

I found a couple of wire gates at the large home improvement store and put those in at either garden entrance. Easy-peasy, lemon squeezy!

And tonight it all has to be covered. Sweet potatoes, tomatoes, eggplants. None of them like the low temps. The tiny new sunflower and okra seedlings, the potato sprouts. All will die in the cold. Even if it doesn't freeze, I like to give them a little buffer, but we do have a freeze warning so it is much more critical. I use hay to mulch most of my plants. I used to buy it at the wonderful, and now closed, Lewisville Feed Mill. Sniff, sniff. Now I buy hay at the Argyle Feed Store at 407 and 377.

I like to bank a good pile of hay around the guys that hate the cold and it seems to work well. Then after the cold I just spread the hay out and have instant mulch! I was bemoaning that I had to cover all this stuff, breaking out extra towels, sheets, fabric, etc., and the oldest child, horrified, asked, "Are you going to go put those sheets in our front yard?"

"As a matter of fact, I am," I said. 

If you have or know any sixth-grade kids, please drive them by my house tonight and point out the super-embarrassing bedding in the bushes. It would make my week!  

I’m a bit torn because the cold weather is a good thing for the broccoli, chard, collards, peas, lettuce and cilantro I'm still trying to keep growing. This is great because the kids have been eating all that stuff like crazy-especially the middle child who has started a love affair with Swiss chard.  However, the rest of the plants are just struggling to get started. Buck up, little campers, the blistering temps of June are right around the corner!

So back to sweet potatoes...they are a whipping! I started them ages ago inside the house on the kitchen counter. I cut a sweet potato in half, did the toothpicks in the side trick like everyone has done to an avocado pit.

After leafy shoots grew out the top about six or so inches, I broke them off at the potato and put the ends of the shoots in a shallow bowl of water. After a few weeks, roots of over an inch had grown off of them.

When it had been warm for about a week (trickery) I planted them in really loose good soil, with plenty of room to vine and spread out.

Gotta run. I have to go cover everything up. Love this Texas weather! And for a fun side-read, check out this dude's lawsuit against Punxsutawney Phil. Wow.

Calm Before the Freeze

Trash to Treasure-Part 4: I Shutter to Think How Easy This Was

Waiting in the school car line when I wrote this, so sue me if I go too fast...

...or have too many typos...

Sorry.

I thought I'd surprise you with a "Part 4" to my Trash to Treasure series, even though I only pitched three. See how generous I am?!

I made the doll furniture for my youngsters, and then thought to myself, "Self, you made the dolls each a bed but you have no bed."

Myself had a good point. Actually, we just had no bed frame. We had a bed. A new mattress, that is. A MEMORY FOAM bed in a huge king size. Yippee for no more back pain!

The problem with the new, larger mattress is that it came naked. No sheets, no comforter, pillows, skirt or frame. Crazy!

After the expense of the mattress, bedding and pillows, there was a dearth of cash for a frame. That's when my brain drifted to the salvage pile that was in our garage. I knew I had snagged several shutters in the Great Score of '13 and they were all pretty intact. Bonus!

After laying them out on the driveway, moving them around and consulting the creative oracle (Pinterest) I had a decent plan. A headboard!

As I was fleshing this whole thing out, the eldest came out to see what I was doing.

"Making a headboard for our new bed out of these old shutters," I told her.

"Where does all of this stuff keep coming from?" She almost wailed, a very confused look on her face.

"You know how you had to squeeze through the garage like a maze to get out here?"

"Yeah."

"That's where it's all coming from. Oh, and it is all still from that house that was being gutted."

"Wow."

"I know!"

Anyway. I measured the mattress width and then measured the four shutters laid side-to-side. Too short. Blast!

A quick run to the large home improvement store and a few cuts by a super-helpful lumber guy gave me some lengths of 2x4" that would fit perfectly between the shutters.

I had two shutters that had thinner slate and two with thicker. I didn't care. The tops all matched up and the thickness of the shutters was the same. I put the larger ones on the outsides, then a 2x4"next to each, then the thinner-slatted shutters, and a 2x4"in the middle. Perfect size! Well, a little bit wide, but pretty good!

Because the shutters were torn out to go in the trash, the bottoms of a few were broken and the slats were loose. One was splintered. I put wood glue on all of the bottom slats where they joined the frames of the shutters. Where the side of the shutter was splintered, I sanded the wood, squeezed wood glue up into the splintered part and then sanded it smooth after the glue dried.

I unscrewed all of the hinges and hardware so they would fit together well.

I lay the shutters all face down with the boards between them and squared off the tops with a level. The nice lumber man also cut some 1x4" for me into two long boards-the length of the thing. I wound up with four shorter chunks from his cutting-not sure why-and I used those to brace all the boards together.

As you can see, I put the short boards diagonally across each section. I drilled pilot holes in the boards then screwed into a shutter, 2x4" and next shutter. I used deck screws to make sure it was stable. And I already had deck screws, so...

Once I had braced all the joining spots, I put the long 1x4" boards at the top and bottom, drilled pilot holes and screwed them to each piece. Now it was one stable piece.

I flipped it over and sanded the whole thing like crazy. I busted out the tack cloth and wiped the whole thing down.

I picked up two trim pieces at the store as well. One 1" wide, slightly tapered piece. The other was about 3" wide and baseboard-ish. At this point I borrowed three super heavy-duty clamps from my Padre. I ran wood glue down the backside of the thinner trip piece and slapped it on the front of the headboard at the top. I held it in place with small clamps and used my staple gun/brad nailer to shoot brads along the length of the trim piece. The brads and glue together would hold it tight.

I took the wider trim piece and ran wood glue down the back of it. I used the large clamps to hold it in place and brad nailed it down also. I left the big clamps on for most of the day to make sure it stayed tight. I forgot to take pics of this part. Sorry!

Once it was all attached, screwed, nailed, glued, sanded, clamped and dry, I started to paint it. I had several cans of paint already so I started with dark brown and painted the whole thing.

Then let it dry.

Then lightly sanded it.

Then painted it red.

 Then let it dry

Then I stared distressing it. I scuffed it and sanded some spots lightly, some a little more to see the brown through. Some a lot more to see the white through. Some a whole lot more to see bare wood through.  Distressed.

I finished it with a clear coat of polyurethane. Again, I had it, so I used it.

 We let the thing air dry, and after carrying it upstairs and propping it behind the bed, we discovered it is a bit wider than intended, but okay. I wanted to leave it just standing there until we get a feel for how high we want to hang it. We will hang it a bit higher than this but here is the finished product.

TOTALS:

One 2x4" board

Two 1x4" boards

One 1" trim board

One 3" trim board

Paint (the rest I didn't have)

Pack of sanding disks for orbital sander

Total cost: $26

Oh, and here is the second set of American Girl doll furniture and bedding

I made after the last post. The youngest obviously had to have her own set too!

If you were wondering why I was writing this in the car line at school, it was Ben and Jerry's free scoop day. You have to get to school reeeeeally early to get a front spot so we could take off and beat the after-school crowds! Annual tradition!

Ice Cream Hijinks with Friends!

Shout Out to My Peeps

It all started with science. Weird science, yes, but science. Our physics-wielding friend Dave was trying to "educate" his children on Easter with a little good-natured Peep jousting. I could have been mildly amused and logged it away for future use, but who sees a video of Peeps jousting and doesn't want to immediately do that?! I choose to believe no one. Let me believe it, it makes me feel better.

Anyway, we fought our poor remaining two Peeps in a death match that very day. 

We were hooked. I even went to the grocery store for more.

"We're sold out of Peeps."

What? Have those words EVER been uttered? One thing I am sure of every year is the Technicolor rows of unwanted Peeps, languishing on clearance shelves until they petrify and get tossed. Did the secret get out about the jousting? I vowed to keep looking.

The next day I sought out potential jousting champions at the behemoth store down the road. You know the one. The one that rhymes with "ball cart". NO PEEPS! Seriously? The day after Easter and none? It was just weird.

Not to be deterred, I tried one more large chain store that sounds much better when pronounced in a French accent. Props to my Peep Scout Tara for the heads up.

Finally. PEEPS! Glorious rows of Peeps. They were all there. I snagged a pack in every color.

Side note-food should never be these colors!

Here is where I was probably put on some grocery store watch list.

I hauled all my peeps (still talking about the sugar birds, not my family and friends) to the register. The lovely woman behind the counter said, "looks like someone at your house really likes Peeps."

As my good friend Amy said, "You should have just said yes. In the immortal Ghostbusters tradition-'When someone asks you if you are a god, you say yes!' So you should have said yes."

But I didn't. I looked this sweet, unassuming woman in the face and said, "Oh, no. We're going to fight them."

Crickets.

Of course I kept going.

"Like jousting, in a sort-of microwave Thunderdome? No?"

Really getting a weird look now.

"You put toothpicks under their wings and face them at each other then turn on the microwave. As they heat up, they puff up and lunge at each other."

Finally, a wave of understanding crossed her face and she said, "Oh! You have boys."

Sigh...

Could have let it go, but no.

"Nope, three girls."

I lost her for good there. She didn't talk much after that.

So later, back at the house...

"When is it time for Peep jousting?"

"You said we would do Peep jousting!"

"Can we start Peep jousting?"

The natives were getting restless, obviously. They had already called colors and were grabbing paper. The oldest was coordinating a score chart and the jockeying for positions had begun.

The youngest loudly claimed, “I’m the pink one! I’m the pink one! I’m the pink one!”

I wonder what color she wanted.

The middle child just said simply, “I’m purple.”

The youngest was impatient: “Let’s do this thing!”

The oldest was the judge in the first match as the buttons were pushed, the door closed and the joust begun.

The youngest was a trash-talker. “I am gonna DOM-i-nate!”

The middle child said, “No.”

I uttered (in my best Vince McMahon voice) "Two Peeps enter, one Peep leaves! Let's get ready to rumbuuuuuule."

Turns out, the youngest did dominate. “Ha! I stabbed you first!”

Maybe this was gratuitous violence. 

Still better than them eating the Peeps.

She moved on to face the challenger-the eldest. This is when they discovered the inherent tragedy of Peep jousting. The champion never made it to round two.

 They queued up their next contenders and started off. “You are going down!” taunted the oldest.

“If I stab, I stab,” asserted the youngest, with logic I certainly couldn’t argue with.

This time, it was looking like a stalemate. Both Peeps were blowing up, but without any actual lance (toothpick) contact.

“Um, the one that gets biggest wins,” said the oldest quickly. The impending tie had sent her grasping for an alternate method of victory.

“Maybe it is just a practice round,” the youngest said diplomatically.

I noticed that the middle child was quietly scraping the burned remains of the first jousters off the plate and eating them.

“Quit eating Peeps!” I told her.

“But the Peeps are delicious!!!!” she said with despair.

The rounds went on and on, getting more heated. No pun intended. I finally stepped in to shut the thing down.

“Final joust, All Peep Open!” I declared. “Pick your Peep!”

Everyone got involved, Daddy and all.

The youngest was doing a happy dance, singing, “All Peeps to the arena!”

As they were all crowded onto a plate and started to heat up, the girls started chanting, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!”

Daddy said, “Wait a minute! You totally have my lance pointing way off to the side. You are all cheating! This is rigged!”

The girls just giggled as the Daddy Peep was put out of its misery.

 

Turns out, clearance Peeps can provide way more entertainment that snack value. Hooray for Peeps. And a mop. There was sugar everywhere!

Oh, and there was science in there somewhere. I’m sure of it!