Snapshots

~~~1~~~

Our goal is to have all the wedding invitations mailed by this weekend. I suppose that would require me to work on addressing envelopes, wouldn't it? Or work on printing invitations? Or other stuff like that? Yes, that would be correct. And yet again, I am sitting here typing a blog post rather than doing something semi-productive. Oops.

~~~2~~~

On the wedding, my dress is here! Yay! I got to try it on last weekend, and it fits pretty well. It will need a few nips and tucks, but that's typical. The bodice actually needs to be taken in an inch or two, because while it has a lace-up back closure, it will look better if you can actually see the lacing. It will also fit better if it can be tied up tighter. Of course, I could consider gaining weight...or NOT! After all, Thanksgiving and Christmas are both between now and the wedding, so I can't help but gain some weight...especially if I eat too many of the green cornflake wreath cookies. I could probably live on those for a whole day.

~~~3~~~

I went into Walmart yesterday to buy some tulip bulbs to teach a class this morning, and I found that I had to wade my way through Christmas decorations and Christmas dishes, and wrapping paper and ribbons and fake poinsettias (ACK!). Seriously. Isn't this a little bit much? I did see some very pretty blue ribbon that could be nice for wedding decorations. But that does not redeem the fact that Walmart is decked out for Christmas before Halloween.

~~~4~~~

Does anyone else find it annoying that Barack Obama has bought 30 minutes of airtime tonight? Good. I would be disturbed if you didn't. I think I would still find it annoying if it was John McCain buying airtime. Ugh. I will be SO HAPPY when this election is over. I will be even happier after the media gets over drooling over Obama. Double ugh.

~~~5~~~

Tomorrow I'm teaching the fruit class for our Master Gardener Basic Training. I feel like I'm trying to cram too much information into 3 hours. You want to try fitting comprehensive information on apples, pears, cherries, peaches, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and grapes into 3 hours with a break and an activity? Yeah, it doesn't work too well. The problem is that so few of our MGs are even interested in fruit, let alone have any experience with growing it. The only reason they need the information is to answer questions on Hotline, which won't apply to all of them. They probably will forget most of the information by the time they need to use it anyway.

However, I will make the attempt to teach the information in an interesting way, force them to think a little bit, and hope to encourage a few of them to try growing fruit in the future.

~~~6~~~

Next Monday begins the craziness that is the month of November. My classes for market farmers/gardeners is getting some nice publicity, and I have people registered from a number of locations, so that makes me feel good that I'm offering something that is needed. Hopefully the classes go well, the participants get some good information and ideas, and I get some good contacts. I'm also seeing an increase in people coming in to ask about planting fruit for commercial production, which I think is a wide open market in this area. We have next to no commercial fruit operations. Agritourism places could do a booming business here.

~~~7~~~

Ummm.....ok. I guess I ran out of things to say. I guess this means that I have to go to addressing envelopes. On that note, if you know that you have changed your address in the last couple months, please let me know so I don't have to hunt it down!

A Timely Prayer

I came across this prayer yesterday, and I thought that it seemed timely with everything that has been going on in the world in the past few months.

Jesus, Help Me

In every need let me come to You with humble trust, saying,
Jesus, help me.

In all my doubts, perplexities, and temptations,
Jesus, help me.

In hours of loneliness, weariness and trials,
Jesus, help me.

In the failure of my plans and hopes; in disappointments, troubles and sorrows,
Jesus, help me.

When others fail me, and Your grace alone can assist me,
Jesus, help me.

When I throw myself on Your tender love as a Brother and Savior,
Jesus, help me.

When my heart is cast down by failure to see any good come from my efforts,
Jesus, help me.

When I feel impatient, and my cross irritates me,
Jesus, help me.

When I am ill, and my head and hands cannot work and I am lonely,
Jesus, help me.

Always, always, in spite of weakness, falls and shortcomings of every kind,
Jesus, help me and never forsake me.

Plant of the Week

Name: Watermelon Radish, aka Red Meat Radish, aka Mantanghong Radish, aka Beauty Heart
Latin Name: umm...I couldn't actually find this, so I think I'm going to go with Raphanus sativus barring a better solution.
Origin: east Asia

I personally prefer the name Watermelon Radish, because it is simple, beautiful, and it confuses people. Therefore, that is what I will be calling it for this post. Watermelon radish is a type of daikon radish. Hence, it is a fall/winter radish. (Um, for those of you in northern Wisconsin, that makes it a 'summer' radish...you can probably plant it in July and harvest in September.)

Anyway, unlike a "normal" radish, it is not spicy. It does taste like a radish, but the interior pink part is sweet and nutty with no heat. The white/green edge has a kick to it though. Also unlike a "normal" radish, it does not get woody and disgusting when its diameter exceeds 1 inch. This radish is supposed to have a diameter in excess of 3 inches.

Other than those differences, it really is similar to other radishes. The leaves are similar, although they do make a bigger plant. The seeds germinate quickly, and the plant itself grows quite quickly too. Flea beetles or a rogue cabbageworm (also known as those green worms on my broccoli/cauliflower/cabbage) will cause the most damage to the plants, but even they are relatively uncommon.

I really like eating watermelon radishes raw, but there are numerous recipes for them. Because they are Chinese radishes, there are a number of recipes for stir-fry and such things.

5 Things...

5 Things I Like about My New Apartment:

1. It's on the first floor...no more icy stairs, wet stairs, sheets of rain, fighting the wind, or climbing to the third floor loaded down with groceries for me!

2. My closet...it is big, with more than enough space for even 2 people's clothing!

3. Space! Also known as a second bedroom where all the miscellaneous stuff can be stored happily out of sight and mind.

4. A full size stove/oven. Yes, I appreciate being able to fit more than one thing in the oven at once.

5. Less wind and other weather noise. No strange whistling noises around the eaves. Oh, and so far fewer spiders. (Okay, okay, so this is really 2-in-1. Sorry. I am too lazy to change the title. And 5 sounds sexier than 6.)

5 Things I Dislike about My New Apartment:

1. No exercise of climbing lots of stairs every day.

2. I'm farther from the mailbox...I guess I could walk over and get that exercise I lost in #1, huh?

3. More noise from neighbors...both upstairs and to the side.

4. My garbage disposal. I have used it twice, and it has broken twice. This is not a good record.

5. My water heater. The maintenance man claims there is nothing wrong with it, but I end up with cold water after only 10-15 minutes in the shower. I do NOT like cold water in the mornings. Definitely NOT.

Sunday Sandwich

I really like ham, so I'm going to start going through the ham sandwiches in this book. Some of them sound quite edible, if somewhat lacking in creativity!

Ham Sandwich
Grind boiled ham find; mix with a little chopped celery and mayonnaise. Place between slices of thinly cut buttered bread.

(There, that was relatively painless, wasn't it? I was going to question why every single meat has to be chopped or sent through the meat grinder. Then I figured that it was probably because they were using much less "perfect quality" meats than we have today on the average. It makes tough meat much easier to chew and digest if the meat grinder has already done one "chew" for you, I would imagine. )

Ham Sandwich No. 2
Chop ham fine, mix with a little mayonnaise dressing, and place between thing slices of lightly buttered white bread. Garnish with parsley and a pickle.

Snapshots

~~~1~~~

Well, I'm back from the Annual Extension Conference. The actual "conference" part left quite a bit to be desired...there were good bits, bad bits, and tedious bits...but it was nice to see other agents and have time to network and share ideas. I will say that I'm ready to be back in the office. Between Master Gardener Conference, being sick last month, and now Annual Conference, I feel like I've been out of the office a long time. I have a lot to do to get several classes ready to go and advertised!

~~~2~~~

My dress is here! Yay! It was scheduled to ship yesterday, so I was hoping that they were shipping it overnight or something like that. The idea of an expensive dress sitting in a shipping dock or bouncing cross country in a truck for several days was not to my liking. So in the plans for the weekend is going to try on my dress. Hopefully I will then have a better idea about what accessories I need to go with it. I really need to find shoes, too...

~~~3~~~

Also on the wedding front, I need to start addressing envelopes. And I really need to spend more than a passing thought on what we are doing for reception decorations. Yeah. Really. On the positive side, you can probably look forward to more blog posts as I am looking for a way to procrastinate on wedding details!

~~~4~~~

Is anyone else ready for the election to be over? Ugh. If only there was a way to make sure all the morons were gone after the election... Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that all the morons will disappear... Ah well. I worked my way through a sample ballot that the Wichita Eagle had available. There are 32 races/issues on my ballot. That's ridiculous. Luckily (or maybe unluckily), about half of those are judge races, and more than half of the judge races are uncontested. That is easier, if perhaps not ideal in all respects.

Anyway, they had semi-helpful bios and answers to questions, which was nice. Although...well...I did say only semi-helpful. I just don't know as much about some of the candidates and races as I would like to. I think that takes time when you live in a new location.

~~~5~~~

Hmm....I know I had other extremely interesting things to say, but they have slipped my mind. Ah well. I expect you'll all be able to wait until next time I write.

Moved

Whew! I am all moved to my (eventually "our") new apartment. With some extra help, we got everything moved in about 5 hours. Unfortunately, my calf muscles are still complaining vociferously about the number of trips up and down the stairs to my 3rd floor apartment. At least we were moving everything down rather than up.

The new apartment is nice and home-y. As of this afternoon, I have everything...yes, EVERYTHING, unpacked and put away. The few things that don't have a home have been sorted and repacked into boxes and stored in the closet of the second bedroom. We might even be able to fit most of Steven's stuff in!

As soon as I got done unpacking, I started packing again - this time to go to our Extension Annual Conference. Three and a half days of meetings, seminars, sessions, luncheons, etc. Hmm...yeah, I'm not sure how I feel about this yet. Perhaps I'll have a report later on.

Perhaps I'll also get back to posting the regular sandwiches and plants and other such updates by next week, although I don't really make any promises that my schedule is slowing down!

Snapshots

Hi! Yes, I do still exist. This seems to be a trend. I post a bunch of stuff, then disappear for awhile. This disappearance is really less about me being a delinquent blogger and more about me being sick and then busy as a result of being sick. Anyway, this post will invariably be long, because instead of posting 16 mini-posts, I'm going to just post a miscellaneous bunch of stuff at once.

~~~1~~~

The last time I posted was way back in September, and I was sick for then entire following week. Then I got put on antibiotics and spent another week recovering. I missed 5 days of work (well...technically it was only 4, because I was silly and went in for a couple hours on a couple different days even though I was feeling horrible.). When I finally went to the doctor, the diagnosis was a great combo of flu-sinus infection-bronchitis. Yuck! No wonder I felt terrible.

~~~2~~~

I have a new blog in my sidebar! And...you guessed it...hence a Blog of the Week! The new blog is called Heart of the Mission. It is written by my dear friend Nettie, who belongs to a awesome group called InnerChange. She's going to be sharing stories about her life in the crazy city of San Francisco, CA! So stop by and visit her occasionally!

~~~3~~~

I am sitting here in the middle of making Chai Latte Cupcakes. The recipe is from a book of vegan cupcake recipes that I received as a shower gift from Ruth and Nicole. No, I haven't gone vegan. But since I'm just starting to try the recipes, I want to see how they are going to work with both non-dairy and dairy ingredients. So I'm making 2 batches...one with soy milk and yogurt and the other with cow milk and yogurt. I don't think it should make a big difference, but it will be an interesting comparison.

In case you were wondering how I can blog "in the middle" of making cupcakes...well...I'm at Steven's place, and so I discovered that I'm missing some of the spices I needed (ground cloves and cardamom). I asked if he had them when we were at the grocery store, and he said yes. When I actually got to the baking part though, I discovered that what he actually had were whole cloves and coriander. Coriander and cardamom are not equivalent. So he's out buying me spices, and I'm blogging. (Actually, he just got back, so I'm going back to cupcake making. I'll be back to finish this post shortly...)

Okay, the vegan batch is cooling and the dairy batch is in the oven. These cupcakes are topped with a dusting of powdered sugar, cocoa powder, cinnamon, and nutmeg after they are completely cool. They smell pretty tasty! They aren't too hard to make. The most "complicated" part is almost-boiling the milk and steeping black tea in it for 10 minutes. Otherwise, very easy.

I'm making these cupcakes to take to potluck at the office tomorrow. No, Steven and I aren't going to eat 24 cupcakes all by ourselves.

UPDATE: After a taste test, both versions are very good. The vegan version was a touch fluffier while the dairy version had a stronger flavor of the spices and tea. I don't know if the fluffiness was due to the different ingredients or due to the fact that the batter sat with the leavening agents in it for 30 minutes while waiting for the final spices.

~~~4~~~

Tomorrow is Columbus Day, which means that our offices are closed. It is not a holiday however. It is a staff inservice day. So in the morning we are doing True Colors training, which should be interesting. Then we are having potluck. The afternoon will be devoted to office/file cleaning and departmental work. We are going to be doing some long-range (read: 3 months) planning and Garden Show planning. Then maybe I will do some file cleaning. I have 3 file drawers of stuff, and I can probbaly throw away some of it.

~~~5~~~

This past Thursday-Saturday was State Master Gardener Advanced Training Conference. (Why do conferences always have such cumbersome long names? Seriously. Maybe they have doubts about their own value and importance?) So I was in Manhattan, KS with the other Hort staff, 50 of our MGs, and a bunch of other MGs and Hort agents from around the state. I taught a class about edible flowers on Friday afternoon. Most of the classes I attended were not very earth-shattering or exciting. A couple of them were well done. But they were also on a level for the Master Gardeners, not professional horticulturists. I did discover that one of the other hort agents, who we characterize as a "turf guy" actually loves tree fruit. And I spent 15 minutes sharing about growing potatoes and what exactly are "new potatoes" with one of the other hort agents.

~~~6~~~

This week is moving week. Yes, I'm moving...again! I'm actually sick of moving. Rather, I'm sick of all the details involved in changing your address. My address isn't really changing this time, just my apartment number. I'm moving from Apt. 624 to Apt. 903 at the same address. So this may be your notice. I'm moving from my one bedroom, third floor apartment to a two bedroom, first floor apartment. The theory is that after Steven and I are married, we will be able to fit all our stuff in...or at least stack a bunch of stuff in that second bedroom, er...storage room. So we will have a guest bed, you are welcome to visit us. We just make no guarantee that you will be able to find the bed.

~~~7~~~

I'm teaching the vegetable class of our MG Basic Training this coming Thursday. Hopefully I will encourage a lot of our MGs to think outside the box regarding growing vegetables. I'm also planning to make a salad for the lunch potluck with a bunch of veggies from our demo garden. We have some very tasty Watermelon Radishes out there that I think will really set off a salad. The Cucamelons are finally producing, and we still have a few cherry tomatoes on the vines. I think I'll be able to get a good salad out of it.

Okay, I guess that's it for now. I'll try to get around to more updating later this week.