When in Worry Mode, Think About Food

We think Mysti girl might be in the early stages of labor! I don't know who's more nervous -- Mysti or me! So, I'm going to beg off having to think and punt to . . .

FOOD PORN!!!

  Shrimp and Garlic Cheese Grits! I have one of the best recipes around, if I do say so myself.

Lemon Blueberry Trifle, to be enjoyed this evening while watching the Saints trounce the Rams.

Caprese Salad with basil from the garden. Tomatoes are another story.

This is my total tomato harvest. One sad, lonely little cherry tomato. The marauding chipmunks got the rest before I could pick them to take them inside so they could finish ripening. I ate it with today's lunch.

A few more harvest pics. Who knew what a Quince is? I do now, having asked about it on Facebook. If I could find my canning pot, I'd make jelly. We also have crabapples!

I've had the most luck with (some of) the herbs and the jalapenos. Here are basil, lemon thyme, and chives. Several other herbs, plus the zucchini and bell peppers, drowned in all the rain we've had. Who knew that plants can drown in Arkansas? Louisiana, maybe, but in Arkansas?!?! I have one sad green bell pepper plant left in a container on the deck that set flowers this week. Maybe I'll get a few more peppers yet.

Anyway, it's been fun learning about the yard and having fresh herbs again.

Please keep my little puppy girl in your thoughts -- her life is about to be turned upside down!

As is ours.

April Showers and April Flowers

Have I mentioned before just how very fascinating the yard is at Moogie's Manor?  Spring has been a season of continual discovery.  Something new pops up every day!

There are several varieties of Maple.  This is the flower/seed pod from one of them. How pretty is that!

The Harry Lauder's Walking Stick that was featured here so prominently during the ice storms is interesting in the Spring, too.

My herb garden survived the gully-washer of a rain that we had a few nights ago -- and the dips into sub-freezing temperatures.  I think I'm going to give peppers -- both bell and jalapeno -- a shot. Bunnies and chipmunks don't eat peppers, do they?  After that rain, we now understand why it is so difficult to keep mulch in the downstairs flower beds.  We could have done a little white-water rafting if we had been so inclined!

Wishing you a glorious day before Easter.  I hope you get all the jelly beans your little hearts desire.  I'm off to babysit with #4 so his parents can have an early 4th Anniversary celebration.  Can you believe it's been FOUR years?!?!

A Little Dirt Under the Fingernails Can Be Pretty Therapeutic

A Louisiana friend swears by the notion that on gorgeous days like today, by day's end you should smell like dirt. Pepper and I are doing our best. Spring is bustin' out all over at Moogie's Manor!  Look at these gorgeous trees that greet visitors from their spot next to the front door.

When we moved in late June, the Japanese Maple was identifiable, but I didn't really pay much attention to its companion tree.  We didn't realize that it's a magnificent, mature white dogwood until a week ago.  Wow! What a color contrast! There are Encore azaleas, too, and we put in an orange Hibiscus a few days ago (because I'm pretty sure the big Firecracker plant didn't survive the winter). I can't wait for the peonies to bloom!

There was not a whole lot of dirt at Moogie's Mansion, and that caused me to have to grow my herbs in containers where they didn't always survive the brutally hot summers. So, I'm understandably super excited to have tons of rich soil, brimming with friendly earthworms at the Manor!  You probably can't tell from the pic, but in the two beds I've put in sweet basil, lemon thyme, rosemary, both curly and flat-leaf parsley, lavender, chocolate mint, and chives!  They're already growing!  I'm thinking that I need to add a little cilantro and dill now, too. There's also a new baby gardenia in the curve of the back bed to give us a little gardenia action before I plant JB's in the front side-yard next fall.  I'm letting it grow strong in the controlled indoor environment before subjecting it to the whims of Mother Nature.

We lost our minds yesterday and went to Home Depot (which honors the military discount now, by the way, so they no longer have to bite me) where we invested in three flowering fruit trees and a pink dogwood. Pepper planted them this morning while I was out, so he'll be stove up for a few days.  He put the peach next to the hibiscus and hydrangea we planted earlier in the week. I also added some solar landscaping lights.  I'm looking forward to this evening to see how the configuration looks.  That's a good thing about solars -- you can move them around if you need to. And, you can bring them indoors when you have a power failure and don't want to bust out a bunch of heat-generating candles. (Helpful Tip of the Day!)

We also got some hanging baskets for the deck and colorful plants for the containers. One of them is a fern. I'm a little leery of the fern -- I've never been successful at keeping them alive in baskets, so we shall see. This one will be in a nice shady spot when the trees get through leafing out so it at least stands a fighting chance.

It's good to immerse oneself in happy, life-affirming things after a week like this. Please think of Younger Daughter and SIL#2 tomorrow -- the funeral will be in the afternoon.

Then go play in the dirt.

Your Botany Lesson of the Day

Someone who really knew what  they were doing landscaped Moogie's Manor.  There is always something flashing color, no matter the season.  Right now we have scads of bright red holly berries showing off next to the deep green leaves.  And there is always visual interest.  My gosh, Autumn was fabulous!! There was so much color you could almost hear it.

One of my favorite plants is pictured above -- it's a Harry Lauder's Walking Stick.  The leaves are very soft -- almost fuzzy.  Ours is just outside the front door, and you look right at it from the office windows.  See it on the left?

It's a member of the Filbert family, but doesn't usually produce.  This is what it looks like today, wearing a "dusting" of snow (Yep, the weatherfolk predicted a "dusting" of snow last night.  Cars were crashing into one another all night out there in the dust storm. We got over 3" of dust.):

And a closer-up, after the ice storm on Sunday:

I mean, how cool is that ?!?!

The literature says it flowers in the spring before leafing out.  I can't wait!

Class dismissed.

Moogie 1, Thieves 0!

Ah ha!!!  Victory over the thugs is mine!!

Remember when we discovered the theft of our lawn mower (and other stuff) from our garage after Thanksgiving?  Remember how I bought padlocks and heavy chains to reinforce the gate closures?

They worked!

Since Pepper has been out of town for a few days, the Bouie-poop-walk duty has fallen to me.  As we rounded the corner and approached the gate on the side street this morning, I noticed the gate to the back courtyard looked a little whoppy-jawed (translation for those not fluent in Southern: misaligned; crooked; off-center).  Sure enough, upon closer observation, I found the tongue was out of its little slot, meaning that someone had tried to unlatch the gate, to-wit:

And, this time the miscreant thief couldn't simply reach over to unlatch the clasp!  The padlock held! 

Ah, the smell of victory over reprobates is sweet indeed!  But, it's also a little creepy to know that someone was trying to gain access to the yard while Pepper was gone and I was here alone.  Fortunately, I am armed with both weapons and a large black dog who loves me.  He loves to squish plants in the sun, too. 

Nonetheless, I'm glad Pepper comes home tonight.

This has been the strangest winter -- it never got cold enough, for long enough, to kill my potted jalapeno plant, and now it has set five flowers!  And last year's petunia just went a little dormant and has now exploded in purple blossoms!  It was just too mild to kill the annuals, I suppose, except for the basil, whose remains you see beside the pepper plant.

Or, maybe I've become a magical gardener.  Yeah -- I'll go with that.  I'm magical. 

You'd best beware Moogie the Magical, thieving scum, or I'll transform you into the literal slime that you are and deliver you up to Obama's algae-based energy experiments!  At least there you'll be among your own kind, and potentially productive, instead of just another leeching wart on the nose of society.

There.  I feel better.  Can you tell I overdosed on Harry Potter movies this weekend?
          

There Are Dogs, and Then There Are Dogs

I've had kind of a busy week, what with Ball planning and the NFL schedule starting up tomorrow right here in NOLA.  The parade and concerts should make for a good time, but I imagine I'll pass them up so I won't miss seeing the unfurling of the XLIV Championship banner in the Dome on tv.  Yep, on tv.  No tickets.  Oh well.  I helped my Saints win mostly from home last year -- the mojo should still be good.  Who D@!!!!

So, since the Young President set me off so badly with his Labor Day campaign speech, I haven't engaged my brain much the past few days, except to notice that Bouie is escalating his war against the landscaping.  Forthwith is the latest casualty of his "watering" strategy:

Another Dusty Miller bites the dust.

Speaking of dogs, the Young President seems to have had his feelings hurt a little bit lately.  He told the union folk that mean people "treat him like a dog" (which, by the way, ain't all that bad at Moogie's Mansion).  Bobby Gibbs backed him up when he pointed out, "If you look at some of what is said about the president and match them up against the facts, on occasion dogs get better representation."

Well, my take on the matter is: if the flea collar fits . . . .

The Canine-effected Short Life Expectancy of Plants at Moogie's Mansion

Look at this precious puppy, our Bouligny Voodoo, known more commonly as "Bouie." Valiant hunter. Loving lapdog. This sweet, loyal, fun-loving maelstrom on four gigantic paws!

Last fall, I posted about his character flaw as a plant-unplanter extraordinaire.

This year, he has eased up on the foliage shredding thing, but, through the clever connecting of withered dots, I have discovered a new weapon in his arsenal in the never-ending war against flora: he "waters" them to death.

So far, the body count includes 3 begonias, 3 red salvia, a peetunia (heh -- I crack myself up sometimes), and a boxwood basil, with a geranium and a caladium on life support.

There used to be lots of colorful planters on the steps leading to the front porch of Moogie's Mansion, but now the vacancies produced by attrition (usually accomplished via shattering and/or uprooting) haven't been replaced.

Boy dogs. What can you do but love 'em? And rinse the mint very carefully!