Smart Blanket

Well, I'm not sure how smart this blanket is, but the textures on it are great for getting those little baby brains working.

 There are 4 fabric pieces on the top: Denim (recycled blue jeans), terry cloth, printed fleece, and slipper foot fabric (you know that nubby stuff they put on the bottom of footie jammies?). It's backed with a solid fleece (this one matches the terry cloth), and edges with coordinating satin blanket binding.

Here's a pic of most of the top altogether. 

I just gave my third one as baby gifts. I hope the babies like them! I also made some with a pink & green color scheme. I think they turned out pretty cute and am making a batch to have on hand for gifts or to sell.

It's been busy around here with back-to-school/work, then Halloween (with costumes I forgot to take pictures of), but I'm hoping to get back with craft-of-the-week, just in time for the holidays.

I hope this Fall is treating you well so far!!
Happy Crafting!!

Try-it Tuesday: Homemade Larabars *updated 8/14*

Yes, I know it isn't Tuesday, but I tried something new yesterday: Homemade Larabars.
I have been wanting to do this ever since I tried a Larabar and my sister sent me a recipe from her Cross-fit group. I found more recipes online and sucked it up and bought the ingredients at Costco.
Here is the link to the awesome homemade larabar recipes that I used.
Flavors chosen based on the ingredients I had: Cherry Pie, Gingerbread, and Dark Chocolate Brownie.

 I forgot to take pictures during the making of, so I apologize that you have to make-do with the after pics.
They turned out so good!! I'm partial to the Cherry Pie ones -which ironically was the recipe with the biggest substitution. I found a smokin' deal on the Craisins flavored with cherry juice and figured I try that rather than spending a small fortune on dried cherries. So good!! Probably adds a little extra sugar though.
I opted to make these more of a snack-size so I formed them using a 2T scoop which comes out to be approx 1/2 a regular bar size.
My picky eldest happened to be in the kitchen when I discovered a Gingerbread one that had missed getting into the bag -she gobbled it down and pleaded for another. Win for me!! Everyone had a Brownie one for dessert and the kids were begging for seconds. More win!
There are two things I LOVE about these: First, they are made with no added sugars, have lots of protein and fiber, and are in general a great snack option that the kids truly enjoy. Second, the great value -I'm a sucker for a bargain.
At my Costco you can get an 18 count box of Larabars for just under $16 which comes out to just under $0.88/bar. Good price, I'm not arguing that. I just get bored with the lack of flavor options. Enter the plethora of recipe options.
Here is what I purchased from my local Costco (unless otherwise noted):
Dates: about $8 **found a pitted variety for $5 in yesterday's trip to Costco, bought them instead*
Almonds: 3lbs for 15.69 (48 1/4C servings)
Pecans: 2lbs for 13.69 (32 1/4C servings)
Cherry flavored Craisins: 10oz bag for .99 (a deal from the back-rack at QFC) (7 1/4C servings)
*I also got a sack of cashews from Trader Joe's, but did not use them in this round of "baking", so did not count them in the calculations.
I used all of the dates (save for 1/4C): approx $8.00
8 servings of almonds: $2.62
4 servings of pecans: $1.71
4 servings Cherry Craisins: $0.57
I got the equivalent of 19.5 bars with those 3 recipes, so the total comes out to approx $0.66/bar. That's a 25% savings. :)
Granted, I did not include the 2T cocoa powder, 3T chocolate chips, 3/4t ginger, 3/4t cinnamon, and 1/4t cloves. These are all in my regular pantry stock, but I can't imagine they would add more than a couple of cents on per bar.

As the Garden Grows

Well, as I've been trying to keep the school garden updated in this blog, I've neglected updating my own home garden, which is doing rather well. Bear with me, this post may get long-ish.

Marionberries: Sadly a week or so ago we said farewell with this final handful of super-ripe goodness:

We harvested well over 20lbs of fruit and my freezer runneth over of their goodness. Now I need to suck it up and start canning and baking. The weather has been unusual in that it has been continuously warm. We usually have some cool days/rain breaks. This summer we've had maybe two.

Strawberries: Still chugging away. They are in an upswing right now. Kiddos are happy. 

Blackberries: They're here -early!! I picked my first sampling last week (we don't usually get to do it until later in the month as we have a later-producing, thornless variety), and they were good. A little on the tart side, but very flavorful. Now it is time to start seriously picking. A lot of them are right in the center of the bush, which because of it's height, means I'll need a step-stool to snag these beauties:

Cucumbers: We put these into what had become a compost bed, then hubby added soil, turned it a bit, and BOOM, you get seriously crazy cucumber growth -not to mention the good-sized tomatillo volunteers in the back (right of the picture).

These plants are so densely packed it's kind of a challenge to find the cucumbers themselved. We're going to find some monsters in there, I know it!!

Tomatillos: These are all volunteers from our experimental (bumper) crop last year. Looks like we'll get enough to make a few batches of Salsa Verde again this year -YUM!! Here is the recipe I used from Ball Canning: Tomatillo Salsa, and I love to use it in this family favorite crock-pot recipe: Chile Verde

Corn: This is probably our 3rd or 4th go at corn. Our first couple tries were unsuccessful, but last year worked out well, hence, an attempted repeat this year. Hubby bought twice as many plant starts this year, and so far it's looking good. I just wish it would ripen already! I want to roast those ears up on the grill and butter 'em up!

Beans: We've got some green pole beans flanking either side of the corn. They got planted at least a month later than they should have been, so are taking their sweet time, but have held up beautifully in the heat, and have got some teeny little beans going. 

Watermelon: This was a random, fill in an empty patch, we have some leftover seeds from last year, planting. Hubby was not really inclined to have them planted as they were a total bust last year, and from all the times we've attempted them, we've gotten maybe 2 or 3 edible small melons. I am very hopeful this year:

Peppers: Aside from the berries, we consider these to be the biggest success this year. Hubby and the Eldest love peppers, and we've grown them for the past few years with varying degrees of success. Nothing like this though. We've got 2 Green Bells, 2 Yellow Bells, and 2 Hungarian Hot Wax. They are all amazing this year!! The size and quantity are at least doubled on our previous "best crop". We've already eaten up a few, and I plan to smoke/roast a bunch of the Hot Wax to use later in the year, and some will, of course, go into the salsa mentioned above.

Tomatoes: Ripen already would ya?? We have what feels like a zillion tomatoes, but nothing has ripened yet. Not even the Green Zebras. 8 plants this year that have gone berserk. Canned tomato sauce will be happening this year.

Cool-weather crops: Not pictured. Last Fall, rather late-Summer, I made another unsuccessful attempt at growing turnips. I love turnips and have had the worst luck growing them as a spring crop (if you have a secret/tip/etc. let me know), so I thought we'd try the Fall/Winter crop route. Planted broccoli, turnips, and I think kale. NOTHING! We got a couple of sprouts, and then NOTHING! Fast forward to end of June: Beds have been turned, left same bed unplanted. I see some "weeds" that don't look like the usual fare. We left them to see what would become of them...Ta-Da! Turnips! There were 4, but not even more have started growing. Go figure! A friend had given me some Pak Choi starts and we planted those nearby the turnips using their leaves for shade. This has worked out really well for the pak choi. Reason there is no picture: When the weather started getting really warm about 4 weeks ago, we draped a sheet around the puppy fencing to keep the plants from getting completely scorched. It has worked beautifully, but doesn't provide the best photo setting. It'll probably come down in a couple weeks, then I'll take a pic for ya.

Herbs: Here are my new herbs that I received from my Hubby and my dear co-worker between Mother's Day & my Birthday. Beautiful!!

From foreground->back: Tri-Color Sage, Purple Sage, Golden Sage, Pineapple Mint, Oregano, & African Blue Basil. Yoga Frog keeps them all peaceful and happy. :)

Last, a sample of yesterday's harvest (what didn't get eaten or passed around):

Oops, honorable mention to our zucchini, yellow squash, and onion plants who are among our early producers, and we're happy they're a part of our garden too!

Have a great day!!

We Be Jammin'...Again

So, local fruit market has some beautiful Eastern Washington apricots for a great deal. Recognizing that I didn't get my 1/2 flats x2 of raspberries this year (gasp!), and that apricot jam is second only to raspberry as my favorite kind of jam, it was a no-brainer.

So lovely, and large too! The ones on the bottom looked a little green, so I figured we could start off by eating our fill of the perfectly ripe one, then start jamming when the others began ripening. Hubby, Middle Monkey, and I ate quite a few this week, and what you see in the box is after I took out a jam-batch worth.
So good! The picture gives them a green hue for some reason, but as I was chopping them up, I was reveling in their beautiful rosiness.

Look at the beauty there! It was a bit foamy, and I didn't put butter in, but knew hubby would be thrilled. The scum is his favorite.

My eldest comes in after I'd gotten them canned up (save for the remnant jar in front). "Oh, did you caramelize that Mom??" "Oh yeah, isn't that great?", is my response while trying not to laugh. The color is gorgeous, however, not the color I aim for while making apricot jam. After I had cleaned up the stovetop area and gotten utensil loaded into the dishwasher, I 'fessed up with this:

Not so lovely scorched spot in the pot. I had forgotten that apricots have a tendency to burn more easily than the normal berries I use (this has happened to me before), but was so very careful not to scrape it while stirring so there wouldn't be any nasty flecks in the jam. End result: Yummy apricot jam with a hint of smoke at the finish. I've been using the Ball brand classic pectin. I get more jam for the money than using the pre-measured pectin, and I get it at my favorite hardware store, where they also have jars, lids, etc. cheaper than anyone else around here. I have to admit though, I cheat a little. According to the recipe, you aren't supposed to do more than 5x the batch listed on the label. I consistently do 6x as the numbers come out a little more even for measuring, and I like that.
And, hubby likes this:

Happy Crafting!

A Very Welcome Wet Wednesday

And, we have rain:

 It has been a long time since we've had "real rain". Very light sprinkles yes, but this was an honest-to-God downpour. The rain woke me up in the middle of the night, I smiled, and promptly fell back into a peaceful sleep. Fast forward a few hours: dragged myself out of comfy bed to go on a morning walk, and enter the thunder. Hmmm...walk on. Enter thunder and friend lightning and mild rain. Walk off. Before I knew it thunder and lightning were overlapping, rain became pour...

 Here is a glimpse of the gushing gutters (there was plenty of overflow off of the roof as well), and standing water in the garden.

Here's a peek at the new garden space...the new plants seemed to be holding up okay. I was a little worried about them in the downpour.
Just ran some buckets out to catch the rain to save on watering when the rain does go away in a day or so. It looks to be in the mid-80's again by Monday.
Welcome to the Pacific Northwest.

Enjoy your welcome wet Wednesday PNWers. Hope it helps the firefighters on the East side of the Mountains.
I'm going to work and craft inside, guilt-free, today.

School Garden Weekly Update

It's still chugging away...

The garden definitely wasn't loving the heat we had the past couple of weeks, but it's still hanging in there, and the weeds haven't come back either.

Tomato and tomatillos had some blossom drop which could be attributed to the heat, or lack of pollination. I haven't seen many bees when we've visited. 

The cukes seem pretty happy, or at least pleasantly green. It's time to watch for their tendrils and get those running up the side so they don't latch onto the tomatillos. 

Onions and nasturtiums are growing well. I am really wanting those nasturtiums to go nuts and call in the bees. :) 

The rest of the seeds are still showing, but not showing a lot of development. We'll see. 

I'm chomping at the bit to get those fall/winter crop seeds in, but need to wait a few more weeks.

Still hoping someone will come in once school starts with a plan for Garden Club or for one of the classrooms. 

Until then, I'm happy to keep it "presentable". 

Have a great afternoon!

School Garden Update

Happy Wednesday!
It's starting to heat up around here -starting Saturday it looks to be in the low-mid 90's around here. Pretty warm for us. About time for us to drag the portable a/c unit in.
Because it's been warm, and about to get warmer -I've been checking in on the school garden a little more frequently. The school sprinkler system comes on about 3 times per week, but I'm concerned about those little transplants and seeds getting enough water.
I've started taking my watering can down a couple times a week to supplement.
They seem pretty happy:

The tomatillos are starting to sport some fruit and get some new growth at the base. Tomato looks happy, but no blossoms yet, same with the cukes.

 Tiny mustard and chard sprouts coming out...hopefully they won't bolt immediately.

A lone nasturtium sprout.
And...

Happy onions! 

It's hard to see, but to the right of the onions, there are a zillion little lettuce sprouts.

So far so good.

I'm hoping with enough moisture and all this warm weather, the sprouts should be all up by next week. My plan is to do a weekly school garden update. So look for more (green!) next week. 

This little bed has definitely inspired us to look at some square foot gardening next year in our own garden beds. Maybe even do one specifically for a fall/winter crop this year -we've got room to add in one more bed. :) 

Have a great day!