First of all, I got the braces off! And my teeth are absolutely fabulous!! Seriously, they are. Flossing is kind of interesting, in that I have permanent retainers on behind my teeth - they're just tiny bits of wire cemented onto my teeth. In order to floss where the retainers are, I have to use a floss threader and poke it between my teeth at the gums and pull the floss through. It was a bit goofy at first, but I've gotten used to it.
And the things I've been able to eat!! The raw carrots and corn on the cob are my favorites, although the celery hasn't been too bad either. Mostly it's so nice to be able to eat and not have to worry about mung being stuck all over my teeth/braces afterwards. Sure, there's the occasional bit of debris, but at least I can carry on a conversation (when I don't have food in my mouth!)!
Other than that, I've been working on the vege garden quite a lot and trying to toilet train our three-year old. Each has its good and bad points.
She now seems to have embraced the toilet, less than a week before preschool starts - she is adamant that she will not wear pull-ups or plastics pants over her panties. She's wearing panties and pants or shorts like the other kids, and that's that. "I won't pee," she says. She actually starts crying if I try to make her wear the plastic pants over top - apparently they're crunchy, they put lines on her legs and they make her bum feel sweaty. I can see how that could happen. She even wants to wear panties to bed, but I make her put the pull-up on. Just in case. She's usually dry when she wakes up, which is awesome, but guaranteed, the day I let her wear panties to bed, will be the day she'll pee twice in the night! Not that I'm being pessimistic or anything, but after toilet-training two other kids, I'm very familiar with how Murphy's Law works!!
The garden. Well, it has been a productive growing season. Once again the spuds taste great, and this year, the carrots turned out fabulously and we have been eating them regularly, and I've been freezing them too - I think I have 11 pounds in the freezer at the moment, and quite a bit more still in the garden. I peeled and sliced 37 carrots the other day (6 lbs) and got a blister on my thumb! The peas were great, the beans seem to be a bit slower to grow than last year, I think I might've planted a different type by mistake. But there's a lot of those, so I think I'll be freezing some of those shortly too. Good eating this winter.
This year, I tried a different experiment. Last year's was squash and that was a dismal failure. This time, I tried corn. And although the plants grew well, there's something wrong with my corn. It's all white and shrivelled looking. I have no idea if it's past being ready, because the silk only just turned brown. But it looks weird. Maybe I didn't fertilize it enough. Or maybe it was the lack of heat at a crucial stage in development. Who knows. I think I'll try it again next year, maybe with a different type of corn. Might even grow it in the greenhouse for a bit and see if that makes a difference.
Oh yeah, the greenhouse - that has been a saga and a half. I ordered a greenhouse from Home Hardware on April 3rd. It'll be in in 2 weeks they said. Not so. After calling them repeatedly and getting the run-around, do you know when it arrived?? In time for my birthday. In June. Not good. But then, we had a problem with regulating the heat inside the greenhouse - apparently, shade is required to keep the plants from cooking. Totally makes sense, but I had no idea. So the greenhouse was another experiment - along with the tomatoes which were supposed to be growing in it - which failed. However, once I get this shade business sussed out, I'm sure it will be fabulous. Also, greenhouses require constant attention - according to The Greenhouse Expert, a wonderful book I found, which has pointed out to me, the extent of my mistakes in the greenhouse. The greenhouse doesn't get the attention it needs with me living 10 km away from it. Thank God for the well and water timers, eh? Turns out, water cools it down as it evaporates. I had no idea.
Clearly, this gardening etc., is an on-going learning experience.
But I have to share my biggest success with regards to my various experiments - I made jam and it's good!! I made strawberry jam and what was supposed to be plum jam, but it turned out I bought some funky new fruit called a Pluot, which is a plum-apricot hybrid. But it's tasty. I took photos, which I'll add in later, of the cooking and the finished product. So now, I have 12 little jars of jam in the pantry. Made by me! Fabulous!!
Today's project, since it's raining, is to pickle some beets. I have 5 giant ones ready to be cooked. The smaller, sweeter ones are still in the ground, but I"m not picking any of those today - the garden will be a mud pit after the awesome thunderstorm we had last night! Maybe tomorrow. Or maybe I'll just pick beans and peas tomorrow.
As always, thanks for reading!
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