That's about all you can do with tomatoes

Apparently, the best thing I can do for our garden is... leave. We arrived home after our lovely three week holiday to a garden that had absolutely exploded while we were gone. We went from having eight spindly tomato plants to a huge mass of veggie producing goodness! There are-- and I'm not exaggerating-- at least 200 tomatoes on our plants, all of which will be ripe in the next couple of weeks. What this means, effectively, is that if I know you and you're in Canberra, you will be getting tomatoes. I might even throw in a little basil, which has now grown to knee height (and I was worried it wouldn't make it while we were gone!). But what to do with the inevitable leftovers? Here are my ideas. If anybody has any good tomato recipes, send 'em my way! 1. Linguine with Tomatoes, Baby Zucchini and Herbs: This one is perfect because it uses so many of the things that we've got growing. Tomatoes? Check. Basil? Check. Parsley? Check. Chilies? Big, huge, overgrown check. And we're soon to have garlic, too! (speaking of, does anybody know when you harvest garlic? That's the latest Google project, but so far I'm still stumped). 2. Oven Roasted Tomatoes Stuffed with Goat Cheese: I'm totally into taking healthy things and killing them with cheese, so this is right up my alley. 3. Pico de Gallo: Mexican food is a luxury that Canberrians have yet to embrace, so I've got to make my own. No matter what I make, though, it never tastes quite like home! 4. Tomato Pie: Found on my favorite recipe site, simplyrecipes.com. I've never made anything from there that wasn't marvelously delicious, so it's bound to be a winner. 5. Tomato Mozzerella Salad: Again with the cheese. 6. Festa al Fresco: This looks really yummy, but would require me to buy cherry tomatoes, which pretty much defeats the purpose. Still, I might try it with just stuff from the garden. 7. Fried Green Tomatoes: Why not? If anyone finds Rory's car at the bottom of Lake Burley Griffen, it was the tomatoes that did it. (And if you didn't get that joke, please watch the movie before you report me) 8. Tomato Chutney: Could be an interesting endevour. I've never really canned anything before, but might give it a go. I feel a bit like Bubba from Forest Gump. Tomato Soup, Tomato Pie, Roasted Tomatoes, Fried Tomaotes... I guess that's about all you can do with tomatoes!

Usual Ramblings...

We got our gravel delivered this weekend and Rory and I spent a back-breaking Sunday spreading it into the areas he had tilled up the week before. But it was worth it, and I think we have the best looking yard on the street now! We also spread mulch into all of our flowerbeds in a desperate bid to get things to GROW. It was the first real hot weekend we've had, and I came away from the gardening experience with a back like a lobster's. Rory celebrated our finished (for now) landscaping by buying a birdbath. The neighbors have one, and birds treat it like a real Roman Bathhouse, flocking to it in droves. Unfortunately, those same birds have yet to discover ours... maybe the bird population on our street can only support one bathhouse? The bath is positioned so that we have a perfect view of it from our sitting room, so I'm hoping they come soon!! I've this idea in my head that its going to be fabulously peaceful to sit and watch these birds in the mornings. Keeping in mind that I can hardly drag myself out of bed in the mornings and tend to fall back to sleep if I sit down for any length of time, I don't know how often I will actually take advantage of this blissful peace. But I at least want the option to watch them, if I so choose! Do you notice Harry's haircut? He got his summer buzz last weekend and he feels fabulous. He might not look the greatest... as you can see, I'm not the best doggie hairdresser, and his buzz goes from very short to quite a bit longer in no particular pattern. He wouldn't let me get his tail, legs or very close to his head, and I decided not to push the matter too far... for a little dog, he's got a vicious streak that I don't particularly want to cross!! He looks fairly pissed off in his 'After' picture, below. Before: After: But, like I said, he feels a lot better. You could tell he was getting very hot underneath all his hair! Alfie also got a paddle pool in preparation for the summer heat, and he spends ages on end just standing stock still in the water. When Harry comes near it to have a drink Alfie sometimes paws at the water and splashes it everywhere, making Harry growl and sulk away. I'm not sure if Alfie does it out of protectiveness of his new toy or just to piss Harry off, but either way, its hilarious. Getting Alfie his paddle pool has also taken his interest away from the veggie patch, which is really beginning to thrive! The picture below is of our salad bar, which we should be able to start picking next week or so! Here are a couple of pictures of some of our other projects... The first is our gas heater, which was an ugly fake brown color that was driving me crazy. I painted it gray to match the rest of the house and it looks so much better! Its amazing what a coat of paint can do! And our bedroom. Rory did this for me when I was gone to Brisbane last week... it was an excellent surprise! Our bedroom was painted a light eggshell blue color that I really disliked... one of those looks-excellent-on-the-paint-chip-not-so-good-on-the-walls type of things. But I really, really like it now. Most of the walls are still the eggshell blue, but this 'focus wall' somehow makes them look much less blah. Very happy with it! And in totally unrelated news, I got my $500 Myer Gift Certificate!!!! I bought a fancy new ipod touch that doubles as a KINDLE, which is another thing I've been coveting. I took it with me to Brisbane and read Phillipa Gregory's The White Queen on the trip. I didn't finish it, actually... but the ipod's really not to blame for that, the book was just a bit crap. I was actually quite surprised how enjoyable it was to read the book on the ipod screen as I tend to dislike reading things on computer screens. It didn't strain your eyes, and it wasn't the least bit annoying to only get to read a bit of the book at a time. Plus, it means you can take several books with you on vacation-- on your ipod. No lugging around big, heavy bags. Technology, eh?

The Shutterbug Returns

I got the camera charger from ebay yesterday, and spent the evening taking pictures of anything and everything. Here's a few winners: PART ONE: Gardening Improvements Remember that big pile of dirt we had delivered several weeks ago? Alfie does: Its out of our front yard now, and our flowerbeds are looking fabulous! We bought a park bench for the front yard as well, and we've been enjoying sitting on it in the evenings, enjoying the warm weather. Look how well our rose bushes are blooming! There are five of these bushes altogether, marking the boundary between our house and our neighbor's yard. We had a rose-related surprise last weekend... there's a bush growing behind the shed, in a part of the yard that we rarely venture into. As it happens, its a climbing rose bush that's gone wild... and hundreds of the most beautiful pink roses are blooming on it. Here's some I picked and put into a champagne-glass-vase... later, I added some lavender that is growing behind the house, and it smells fabulous! Here's another one of our flower beds out front... as you can see, while Rory is quite adept at making the flower beds, I'm not nearly as good at keeping the plants we put in them alive. But, whatever. The sun-crisped plant look is totally in. Our veggie patch: We're growing peas, spinach, several types of lettuce, herbs, tomatoes, an eggplant, and peppers. And we cannot keep Alfie out of it! This is our latest project... Rory has tilled up the dirt in the front of the yard and by the driveway (which you can't see). He's going to gravel it all and make a path and parking place. I think its going to look perfect!! Do you like the brick path he's laid through the flowerbed? That's so you can get from the parking spot to the lawn without going through the beds. Part two: Messing around with the dogs This is a very silly picture, but I like it. I was holding the camera away from me trying to get a picture of all three of us, but no luck... Alfie started biting at my hair at the last moment, and Harry looked around to see what he was doing. But this is a cute picture of Alfie. I turned it into the "Pet of the Month" contest, and hope to win a $50 gift certificate (see my new obsession with contests). One more cute shot: And a close up of Harry. Harry had to go to the vet on Wednesday... he was hurting and wouldn't let us pick him up or even touch him. The vets did an ultrasound and decided he has Pancreatitis... so he's on a low-fat, no-treat diet from here to eternity. And its not cheap. That's all for today!!

Rory is handy. I am not.

When you see this, you know you've got a lot of work ahead of you: Daylight Savings hit this Sunday, so the weather around here is getting warmer and the days are a bit longer. We also just had a three day weekend to boot! To celebrate, we've started working on our garden, and have gotten quite a bit done! Its even starting to look (gasp) landscaped. Or, at least, the garden beds are there so that it WILL look lanscaped when we finally get around to putting in the plants. Rory bought a heapload of sleepers at Bunnings and created garden beds in the front and back yards. The layout below shows where we put in the new beds... they're the bits of blue. So, Rory spent the weekend sawing away at sleepers, drilling them in place, tilling the soil, and hauling the 5 cubic metres of dirt we got delivered. I helped a bit, but frankly all that drilling and manual labour is a bit out of my skill set. I'm more a running-to-the-hardware-store and making-lunch-for-the-workers sorta gal. But I do that really well. Except that when I went to the hardware store to get more sleepers, nobody was there to help me load them up and I banged myself in the head with one of them. I'm such a handy person. He created (as you can see from my rather ugly graphic) 5 beds in the front and 5 beds in the back. These three are going to be my veggie patch: (Picture coming soon. As soon as I find my camera charger, charge my camera, take more pictures and put them up. So maybe not so soon.) This one is going to be flanked by a fruit tree on either side. Think I might plant some colorful flowers here: (See above) And these are along the fence in the front yard and surrounding a tree in the front yard that used to be kinda lonely:

Obviously, this isn't the picture I had envisioned. I was going to take pictures of the BEDS, not of Alfie. But my camera ran out ofbatteries and I have been unable to find the charger. If you look in the background, however, you can see one of the beds Rory made... this one is surrounding the tree in the front yard.

There are a few more, but I might just wait and post pictures once I've planted something in them. Pictures of empty flower beds are, alas, pictures of dirt. Which, by the way, Alfie loves:

This is where Alfie laid for... well, pretty much for the whole weekend. He was in Doggie Heaven. Ah, to be a dog.

I think he was just the tiniest bit disappointed that we didn't leave the dirt in a huge pile on the front lawn. He played in it for hours on Saturday and then again on Sunday, digging giant, Alfie-sized holes, napping in the cool dirt, and burying assorted playtoys and objects, to be found later by Rory as he carted the dirt. Speaking of carting dirt, I was rather useful, come to remember. Our wheelbarrow's wheel had a most unfortunate puncture that rendered it all but useless for carting dirt, so I went and bought a new one at Bunnings. A self-assembled one. Now, wheelbarrows might look like fairly simple apparatuses, and they might appear fairly straightforward to put together, but, lemme tell ya... looks can be decieving. First, I put the wedges in wrong, so the angle to the wheelbarrow was all wrong and the wheel didn't touch the ground. Then, I did a step out of order, so the kneeguard thing wouldn't go in properly (not that I think that was a crucial component to the wheelbarrow anyway). Finally, I had the whole thing put together. Rory came over, examined it, then grabbed the wrench and started unscrewing with great abandon. Apparently I had put the bolts in the wrong way. As if that really matters.

Putting together the wheelbarrow, phase one. Note the incorrect angle of the handles. I put the wheel on and it didn't touch the ground. Oops. This stupid thing took about an hour to put together! That's another flower bed in the background. Alfie coming to have a look. He was somewhat concerned about the cursing and banging going on... this was about when I realized the wheel problem and had to dismantle. That's our new park bench in the foreground, by the way. I'm going to paint it, but haven't decided what color yet.

Next weekend we start the fun part, where I get to be in charge. The planting. I'm still trying to decide what sorts of things I want in each of the beds... any ideas? Keeping in mind, of course, that THREE of the plants I planted two weeks ago have already made their way to Botanical Heaven. Its been raining constantly since I planted them, but somehow, inexplicably, they're parched. Rory thinks it might have been because they were under the overhang of the house. Seriously, though. Its not that big of an overhang. They really should have been able to figure that one out. So I'm on the lookout for some leave 'em and forget 'em type of plants. As in, really forget about them. But I still want them to smell nice, have flowers I can cut and put in a vase, and attract lots of nifty butterflies and birds. Wishful thinking?

All in a Dog's Day

I know I post a lot about the dogs, but, what can I say? I guess I'm going to be one of those people who pull out fifty pictures of their kids to bore guests to death with. "And this is little Junior burping"... but, I don't have any kids, and my dogs are cuter and more intelligent than most people's kids anyway, so I know you want to hear all about them. Alas, without further ado, I present another post about..... The dogs. Sunday was a big day for Dogs In Canberra. The local dog park, down by the lake, hosted a fabulous event called "Dogs Day Out". Alfie loved it. He met, sniffed and licked hundreds of dogs, big and small, waded chest deep in the lake, got checked out at the free vet stand, almost stole somebody's egg sandwich off a picnic table (oops), and drank as much water as he could possibly hold in an attempt to mark every tree in the park. Harry just growled the whole time, but that's beside the point. Everybody else had a blast.

Alfie at Dog's Day Out, meeting his first friend.

I even bought both the dogs a Doggachino from a fancy gourmet, organic dog treat company. Classy, huh? All the other dogs at the park lapped up the stirred-soy-milk, liver-treat -sprinkled, Starbucks-inspired goodness like it was the last treat on earth, but not our dogs. Alfie and Harry sniffed it and turned their noses up, totally un-interested. Trust my dogs to have no class. Look at these dogs lapping up their Doggachinos: Our dogs' pathetic interest wasn't even worth a picture. In honesty, though, I think Alfie was just really, really interested in everything else that was going around him. Sensory overload. We also had a nice chat with the Canberra Greyhound Adoption Service, who are going to come out to our house to do a house check this next week. If we pass, we'll get to become foster parents for greyhounds through Friends of the Hound, an adoption group in Sydney. They were impressed with Alfie's outfit... Rory made him wear St.Kilda's uniform all weekend, in celebration of their AFL win on Friday night. But he was very, very cute, wasn't he? Now, do you want to see a picture of him burping?.....

Harry, on his way back from Dog's Day Out. He hangs his head out the window like nobody's business.

After the Dog's Day Out, we spent Sunday afternoon gardening. We mowed the lawn, which had gotten so bad that the Mommie Possum who made a home in the front had to send out search parties to find her young in the tall, tall grass. It tickled Alfie's belly, it was so long, and was definitely getting to be a snake hazard. I also made a flower bed in the front yard, up under the front windows. We are now growing jasmine, Lady O (a native shrub that has red flowers), and some ornamental cabbage. Its been a week now since I planted my pansies, and they're still alive, which I think is probably a good sign. Generally speaking I have a thumb blacker than coal when it comes to gardening.

See? Still alive.

Cool lettuce thing I bought at Bunnings. It was half off, apparently (according to dad), cause we're ending the lettuce growing period around here. Ah, well. Looks like I'll be having a nice salad soon!

That's the flower bed I made this weekend to the right. Obviously, its not very established yet. And we badly need to paint the outside of the house... we're hoping to get some small shrubby things to border this landing.

In the backyard, we planted lemon and lime trees and some native trees. Alfie was quite funny... we've very nearly won the Battle Of The Digging Dog in the backyard, and neighbours probably hear more of us sticking our heads out of windows saying 'No, Alfie! Alfie, that's a No!' than they would like. But he's a good dog, and he's almost broken the habit. So seeing us digging big holes without any yelling at all threw him for a HUGE loop. 'What?' his expression seemed to say. 'I thought this was a No.' But he got into it pretty quickly, and helped deepen one of the holes. We put the tree in, and, much to Alfie's confusion, started filling in the hole. When we were finished, Alfie looked at us, looked at the tree, and, very slowly, lowered his paw to start digging it up. "NO, Alfie!" we both yelled. But the seeds have been sown, and I'm willing to bet the trees won't last the week. Oh well, who likes lemonade anyway?