Monday, June 30, 2008

Family Guy - Stewie Beats Brian

This is really just going into my blog because it makes me laugh. I can think of several situations that I could have used this. The latest is that I owe one of my friends for tickets to Reefer Madness. It's like $15, but I wanted to send this link to her today because it seemed appropriate. I love Stewie.

Belinda

Thursday, June 26, 2008

I can't tell you how much I hate...

Squash bugs. In the last couple of days, I have seen signs of the little bastards, although no actual bugs. A handful of the leaves have a few eggs (very few, so must have done something right). I am choosing the "tear the leaf up and burn the stupid thing" approach. I hate these bugs, they make me shudder in revulsion. I think this weekend will be spent trying to draw out the adults. Supposedly, you put a board down at night and they will all hide there. Then early, early in the morning, you just raise the board and start stomping. Not sure how well this will work as I have so many plants all in a row, but I might just get some good ol' Sevin and have it handy to spray them down as they scatter for cover. They like to hide so are hard to find. I think there's not a lot of them as I'm not seeing a ton of eggs, but who knows. For your enjoyment, here's a photo description of their life cycle (which I totally swiped from some webpage somewhere). I think I may quit my job and dedicate my life to erradicating squash bugs.


Overview of evil. You cannot really get the full creepiness of these without color. So, I swiped some color photos too for your total enjoyment.

The adult. The exoskeleton makes them extremely difficult to kill. Damn evolution.

The eggs. They are actually surprising pretty. A really nice gold color. They shimmer a little in the light. I am still grossed out by them because I know what's growing in there.

Freshly hatched. Looks like spiders. Ugh.



They have five instars or "growing-up" phases. This is an early one. The adults and these albino nasties are what gross me out the most. I despise these stupid things. What use are they?

As you can see, I am starting to throw up my hands in a little disgust because I know what's coming. The complete destruction of all of my lovely zucchini. According to most of the "official" websites, they aren't supposed to kill or hurt mature plants. Bullshit. Two years ago, I had my zucchini completely destroyed by them. I am now officially on a SQUASH BUG HUNT! I will let you know how the board trick goes this weekend. I might also try an organic coffee thing, but the two years ago, I tried the whole organic thing and it did nothing. I've never tried coffee (with dishsoap they say), but I'm tempted because I would prefer not to poison everything, but if it will get me my zucchini, I'll poison everything within a 10 mile radius. Cuz I'm selfish like that. And screw the environment. I want my ZUCCHINI!

Belinda

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Brooklyn and Macy

The girls came over tonight and had some dinner. Prior to dinner, Brooklyn wanted to check out the garden (consensus by both is "It's big"). They then discovered the wonderful mulberry tree we have in the backyard (I myself have only just learned of it, cuz I'm crazy smart like that). Then after getting muddy (it had just rained) and mulberry juicy, they wanted to take a bath after dinner. Then they pretended to fish off the porch (Brooklyn was very good at catching red BIG fish, Macy, little purple fish). Here's some photos.

Brooklyn's showing me her stash. You can't see her mouth, but trust me, she was totally snacking on those berries.


The girls finding berries. It took Macy a little while to realize that the white and red ones were nasty, but after biting down on one of each, she wholly concentrated on eating every black one she could find.


See. Told ya so. Notice the berry juice all over her face (and to Mommy's delight, her shirt).


Natasha helping to harvest.


Macy was having problems finding all the lower hanging fruit, because every time she did, Brooklyn came over and got them. Tash was helping Macy out with getting them.


Macy didn't really get why it wasn't okay to go for the ones on the ground. I think if we weren't there, she would have been grazing.


Brooklyn is obviously really enjoying her harvesting. She's such a little gardener!


Wow. This is rock star. Macy looks like she fell into a mulberry patch and had to eat her way to freedom.


Them both having fun in Auntie's really big tub. At one point, they were sliding off the side into the water, ala water park slide fun. I eventually had to put the kibash on that as they were dumping a pretty good bunch of water on the floor. I hate to be a party poop.


Naked pictures of kids in tubs. They will hate me when they are older. But for now, they were totally hamming it up.


Aww...so cute!


I asked Brooklyn to "pose" and this is what she gave me. Crack me up.


This is Macy's pose. See below for the 'devil' part. Here' s she's all angel.


Yep. Future as a stripper is secure. I black-boxed out the chest because I don't know what the rules are and figured it's better to be safe than sorry. But it actually looks dirtier than the original picture does. She's such a ham (or her favorite word right now...nincompoop).


Pretend fishing! They were doing it without poles, but we rigged up some fake fishing poles for them. Macy was like a ninja. No one was safe for a 200 yard radius from her. She was whipping that thing around like crazy.


Showing me her "BIG CATCH".


Next is Brooklyn, showing me her big fish. If anyone actually sees a fish, I would go to the doctor immediately. Or share whatever you're taking. No child labor this time as it was a mud pit in the garden, but maybe we'll get some labor pics next time.

Belinda

Monday, June 23, 2008

George Carlin 2008



Thanks for the laughs! He will be dearly missed.

Belinda

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Fried Zucchini Flowers

So, I decided to try out the whole zucchini flower thing. I checked online for some recipes on the whole deep frying thing and how to do it. I decided on a simple egg/flour/water/garlic salt batter, but didn't have a lot of time. I just threw some flour in a bowl then added egg and water (this isn't the best way to do it in case you were wondering). I think it will be better next time and just add flour bit by bit to make a much lighter batter. Also, I think it needs some more flavor, but I'm not sure on seasoning since it was over-powered by the batter. Anywhoo, I went and harvested some of the flowers. I did a mixture of the female and male to see which was better.

The female are on the left with the baby zucchini. Obviously, the male are on the right. They have no zucchini. I chose flowers that were still pretty tight. I did cringe when cutting off the baby zucchini, but told myself the other 20 that are growing right now will probably be enough. I then washed then very well and did get one ant that was not happy. He's dead now. Drowning.

After washing, I sliced them all in half and removed the reproductive organs (spayed and neutered the flowers if you will).

Here's the ovaries and penises. Heh. That's funny.

A little oil goes a long way in a wok. Here's the battered females frying up. The females take quite a bit longer than the males. Heh. Just like people. Anyway, these are cooking in med-high oil, but I turned it down because it was too hot.

Yummy! I love deep fried stuff.

Finished product. Definately it's better to let them get golden crispy. Those were the best. Paul thought they'd be better with a little spicy horseradish dip, so we'l try that next time. I think a much lighter batter would also help.

Single finished product. I have to say it was delicious and I'm definately going to be doing this again!

Belinda

Oh...look, more garden nonsense

Here's some updated photos of the garden after I cleaned out as much of the grass as I could stand. It took two days, but I did make a decent dent in it. Stupid grass anyway. Thought you'd enjoy some pics of the pretty flowers that are popping up everywhere. Flowers are good because flowers=veggies, hehe.


Tomatoes! No clue if they're Roma or cherry yet. It's kind of exciting this way. I should just mystery plant everything for some fun in my life. My sad...sad life.


Overview of the massiveness. I've decided that I should never look at the entire garden but just keep myself limited to small blocks of it. It's overwhelming the amount of work that needs to be done otherwise.


Do you see the little itty bitty cucumbers at the base of the flowers? Awww...so damn cute. Grow bitches, grow.


Cantaloupe. I've never been successful in growing this, so hopefully these flowers are a good sign that I might get some. Once again, my ignorance is stunning.


Portofino squash. I just harvested three from here, but it's already accommodating me and making some more. See below for the update, but in case you're lazy, here's a tip. Not yellow squash. Ahhh, the things I learn from the Internet (or in this case, just looking at what the hell I actually bought).


Up close of the flower. The zucchini flowers are supposed to be edible and delicious. I haven't ventured that yet. Maybe this year will be my year to be brave.


Zucchini (plainol ' green stuff). There's so many flowers in the jungle that I can't quite get my head around how many zucchini I might get. I was checking over the leaves and did see signs of squash bugs, but they must camouflaging themselves well. There were three or four leaves with the eggs that I destroyed, but no bugs. Go figure. It's like a mini-miracle.

Well, that's it for the garden. Paul and I had a nice anniversary. We went down to the Plaza and had lunch then walked (and walked) around the Nelson-Atkins Art Museum. This is one of those places that although we've lived here for numerous years, we haven't yet visited. It was pretty awesome for free! We were there for several hours, but didn't even get to the outside sculpture parkthingee or the third floor, so we plan on trying to go back. We have a CarMax picnic in a couple of hours, so I'm going to lay down for a bit and try to de -compress after working so hard in the garden. I'm still trying to get over this stupid cold and need sleep. Have a great Sunday!!

Belinda

I'm an idiot

I checked online because the internet is the source of all information (and probably evil). I'm a nob. I ordered these portofino squash (see posts below) and thought they were the yellow squash. Apparently all those hallucinogens are working because they look like this (per gurneys.com where I bought them) when ripe and ready to eat.



Hmmm....yep, I'm an idiot.

Belinda

Friday, June 20, 2008

Time flies...

My husband and I are celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary on the 20th (technically today). Not to get all mushy, but these 10 years flew by! Here's to another 10 and then another 10, then another 10...you get the idea! Thanks for the last fabulous 10 years and all the love and support you give me every day (and the insults, keeps me grounded).

Love you pookie!






Thursday, June 19, 2008

For all the garden-o-philes

Yeah, it's a jungle out there. Here's some pictures of the "garden." We're not sure what to call it as it's gotten crazy out of control. I need to spend some quality time dealing with all the stupid grass that keeps popping up.

Here's a nice overview of the wilderness that is the garden. We just enjoyed another rain so the zucchini are feeling awfully droopy. But you can see how very large they are. They are also way too close together, but I can't tear them out. I figure the damn things will choke out the weak ones and only the strong will survive. I'm not sure why, but right now all I hear in my head is that stupid "Eye of the Tiger" song. Must be all the Nyquil I've been drinking lately (super nasty cold).


Cucumbers. The picture is rotated totally the incorrect way, but I didn't notice it until after I'd already posted it. So, deal.


I made Paul stand in the middle for perspective purposes. He whined like a mucho biatch. But then did it and even gave me a smile. Hehe. Wuss.


Portofino (yellow squash). I have four of them growing, but don't have a clue if I'm supposed to harvest them. Here's the thing though. They are green. They're supposed to be yellow to eat them. I wonder if they turn yellow and then I harvest? Or if I harvest and then they turn yellow? Why can't this be easier?


Here's the tomatoes with their super awesome support bamboo things. Florida weave baby. I weaved and then I woved and then I weaved some more. Then the tomatoes were happy and supported. I'm a nerd.


Check out the corn! Sweet. It's sweet corn. I'm not sure where the "knee high by the 4th of July" nonsense came from, but these guys didn't get that memo. Paul is totally loving being Vanna for the garden. He was making me giggle.


Here's the other side of the zucchini. They are so perky and fabulous. And so far, not really many squash bugs. I did have to pluck out a couple of the little bastards, but I killed them and they never got to send the smoke signals to the other bugs. Haha! Sweet revenge!


Umm....so where's my damn Brussels sprouts? I want some. I hate these stupid plants. 90 days until germination is too long. I think these should be the most expensive vegetables on the planet because it takes more patience than I have to grow these evil, stupid plants.


See above for the broccoli and cabbage. I feel the same way about the Brussels sprouts as the broccoli and cabbage. Although these guys aren't really supposed to take as long as the bloody sprout things. So, I probably just won't get any broccoli or cabbage. They should have been in the ground forever ago and I couldn't because Max decimated my plants. Curse you, Max.


The strawberries are out of control. I have to get in there and massacre the daughter plants. I finally did some research and found out that I should have been cutting them up. Aw well, I can't be perfect.

Love,
B