Snapshots

~~~1~~~

I've had a couple of busy weeks at work, which is nice, and not wholly unexpected. Between meetings and teaching classes, I've had 2-3 nights taken up each week, as well as a couple of exhausting days. This last week I taught a class on Tuesday evening about "Growing a 'Fruitful' Landscape," discussing ways to incorporate fruiting plants in the home landscape. There were 99 people at that class, which was excellent attendance for a very specific topic of interest.

The next morning was my first gardening class in the Hispanic community. I had to go into work a little early, because I'd been too busy and hadn't had time to finish translating the presentation into Spanish. (I was teaching in English, but had handouts available in Spanish in order to facilitate both languages.) So I spent 2 hours translating, then rushed off to that class. Sadly, I only had 2 people in attendance, neither of whom needed the Spanish handouts.

This is pretty consistent with the ups and downs of Extension work. Some things go over well, others don't, and it's hard to predict which will be which. With all fairness to the program in the Hispanic community - it's a very new program, and I'm still making contacts and getting established. It can take years to develop something like that.

~~~2~~~

Steven's family gave us a Mushroom Patch for Christmas, and we are watching it grow mushrooms as we speak! It's a Shiitake patch, and it seems to be behaving itself admirably. Hopefully I'll get around to taking a picture or two and posting them, eventually. It has only been sitting out in the living room under it's humidity tent for 1 week, but already there are many baby mushrooms poking out!

~~~3~~~

Last night we ate Indian food for dinner, and it was tasty! Steven cooked up some Tandoori Chicken from the Joy of Cooking and I made some stir-fried cabbage. Sounds disgusting, right? Wrong! It was really tasty, and simple to make. We had half a head of purple cabbage left from making a bean soup last weekend, so I decided to try this recipe. To paraphrase the recipe, I heated 1/4 c. oil to the smoking point, threw in 1/2 tsp. mustard seeds, then 1/2 tsp. turmeric, 2 crushed cloves of garlic, 1/2 tsp. salt, and 1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper. After a quick stir, in goes the cabbage, sliced thin. Stir to coat, then pop the lid on and let it steam for 5 minutes. Mmm...tasty!

~~~4~~~

We are finally getting mostly settled in the apartment. I got a lot of cleaning done yesterday, and I think the second bedroom is organized to a livable state. There is even some floor space! Unfortunately, we are still short on bookshelves. Even more unfortunately, I'm not sure where we'd put another bookshelf, even if we had one! Sadly, clutter seems to accumulate on the counters and floors no matter how hard I try to keep them clean.

~~~5~~~

We are quickly winding towards the Wichita Garden Show. I have to say, that I really wish that it was March 8th rather than February 8th today! I just want the whole thing to be done with! The show itself isn't so bad. It's the preparations that are a killer! Since I'm in charge of our display garden this year, I have to manage the construction and the herds of volunteers working on it. It is rather a daunting task, all things considered.