Preparing the Feast

Yesterday (Halloween) was Gloria's birthday, so it was time for a birthday celebration.  We usually stay home to answer the door for trick or treaters so I get to have fun in the kitchen and pull out all the stops for a birthday dinner.  This year we also have her Mom living with us so it was a formal dinner for three.

Soup

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

Entree

Crown Rack of Lamb

Warm Mustard Sauce

Parsleyed Red Potatoes

Sauteed Vegetables Provencal

Dinner Rolls

Far Eastern Shore Autumn Swan

Dessert

Smith Island Coconut Cake 

Before I got busy in the kitchen, I needed to set the table. The presentation is important, and it gives us a chance to use the good china and crystal that we usually keep in the china cabinet behind glass doors.  We like to actually use it (once in awhile) to be able to enjoy eating off of it instead of just looking at it. When Mom saw the table set she asked "is someone coming over?" I said no, it's just the three of us. I guess she's not used to making a special meal just for the special people we live with.  But I figure, the people we choose to share our lives with are the ones most deserving of a special effort. 

Table for Three

Had to be sure we had all the flatware, china, and crystal that we would need in place.

Also had to be sure there was space for the serving dishes and the carving set was sharpened and serving utensils in place.  Can't overlook any details that would distract from the experience.

I set the table early in the afternoon to have time to get into the kitchen and still have dinner ready by 6:00. I wanted to eat a little early because we expected the trick or treaters to start coming by after about 6:30. In years past I've done dinner later, but it was interrupted repeatedly so I went for an earlier service where we could enjoy the dinner.

Before we started eating I told Mom what each of the different pieces of silverware were for so she knew which one to use for each course.  She's never eaten such a formal dinner before and I was hoping she would enjoy the experience since it was just family and she didn't have to go out to a fancy restaurant, but she could still have a fancy dinner.

I also went out and cut the last of the daisies that looked presentable for a formal dinner.

Most of the daisies have withered now that we've had a couple of cool nights, but there were enough left to decorate Gloria's dinner table.

After a couple more hours in the kitchen, it was time for dinner.

The lamb is ready, the soup is hot, and the wine is open.

I surrounded the lamb on one side with the potatoes and on the other with the vegetables. The potatoes were made with parsley fresh from our garden.

The vegetables were a mix of red and yellow peppers, mushrooms, zucchini, yellow squash, and onions sauteed in butter and olive oil.

We were lucky and there were no interruptions until after we finished eating dinner, dessert waited until later (we were all full.)

It was just the right size for three and coconut cake is one of Gloria's favorites. Tonight, Jacob and Amanda are coming over and we're having home made pizzas.  We'll keep the celebration going, but more casual tonight.

Bloom Day

Last month I came across an interesting blog post.  The May Dreams Garden blog invites people to take pictures of what is blooming on the 15th of the month and write a post and share a link to show what's going on in the garden.  This month's post is at Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day - June 2014.  So, I've taken some pictures (what a surprise.)  It also fits well with my project this summer to take panorama pictures of the back hill at the beginning and middle of each month to keep a video diary of what blooms and when.

So I'll start with a panorama of the back garden from pictures taken yesterday afternoon.

The flowers in bloom right now are Yellow Primrose, Rose Campion, and Cucumbers, Zucchini, and Tomatoes. 

I'll let the Primrose go first since they are the flashiest.

They are all over the hill, but they're so pretty that I'm happy to see them.  They are also accompanied by Rose Campions.

It's taken a couple years, and some help, to identify what the Rose Campions are, but now I know what they are so that I can call them by name.

Over on the far right of the yard (in the big square planter) is the vegetable garden. This is our first year planting vegetables so we're excited to see all the blossoms and nascent vegetables on the vines.  I didn't get pictures of the zucchini blossoms or the tomato flowers, but here is a picture of some cucumber flowers.

We've put bird netting over the vegetable garden to try and protect the veggies until we can harvest them.

And it wouldn't be a celebration around here (Father's Day this weekend) without food.  I butterflied a chicken and rubbed some garlic herb butter under the skin before I grilled it. We also had corn on the cob, roasted veggies, grilled pineapple and (not shown) cowboy beans, bread and brie, and a bottle of Far Eastern Shore wine - Lotus.

And some no sugar added blueberry pie for dessert.   It was a good day to enjoy the flowering garden and family gathered for dinner.

It's Mulch Time

It's Mulch Time.

After building (and filling) the raised garden bed last week it was time to get to mulching the garden on the hill.  This is the first year I've tackled the project myself and not paid a landscaper to do the heavy lifting. (But I guess the heavy lifting was last weekend and the dirt for the raised bed,)

So I started by making two trips to Lowe's to get 30 bags of mulch.

It took two trips because I couldn't fit that much into one load in the Rav.  This is when I remember my red pick up for so many years ago...

Once I had it all unloaded I had to get it staged.

Mr Hill, meet Mr Mulch.

Of course once I had it staged, and the fence closed (most importantly "and the fence closed") I had helpers trying to see what was going on.

What's you doing Daddy?

So, to make a long story short - it's DONE.  It took most of the day, but I still had time to run up to the store and get the makings for cheeseburgers on the grill and a bottle of Dragonfly from Far Eastern Shore Winery.  Gloria had spent the afternoon cleaning patio furniture, so she was ready for dinner alfresco and a bottle of wine.

Here's the results of another long (but rewarding) day in the garden.

The red mulch really makes the daffodils pop.

Later this spring we hope to see signs of life on the blueberry bushes and the butterfly bushes (center and top of hill respectively.).

The entrance to the garden path, with two guardians with solar lanterns to light the way.

A dogwood tree near the top center, and a lilac bush to the left and down from the dogwood.

This is a big garden - I was beat by the time I made it to this end.

I'm tired, but it is so rewarding to do something where I can see results immediately.  The new plantings take awhile to see if they've taken hold, but something like building the raised bed, and putting down the mulch has an immediacy like I can find when I'm cooking.  Not the sort of intangible results of leading a software development team (my full time job.) I'm sure that this is a big part of why I'm finding the gardening to be so rewarding. (But being able to play with the electric trimmer and the chainsaw do have their charms as well.)

I put the snow shovel away

Enough of THIS:

We had a chance to get beyond basic clean-up of the garden over the weekend.  We’ve been talking (and researching) about different options for a raised garden bed for a few weeks.   In a couple of the places we’re lived, I’ve build garden beds for Gloria to plant flowers or vegetables.  Last spring we got a couple of big planters for the patio (a ½ whiskey barrel and other pot just a little smaller,) but this year we wanted to go bigger.  But we also wanted something high off the ground that would be easy to tend.

I’ve looked at plans for DIY beds and at kits available from local sources.  I wasn’t sure about the DIY options because I didn’t know how we would be able to get the lumber home so that I could start working on it.  Not to mention that the scratch built boxes are a lot more work.

So last week, Gloria found a kit at Lowe's that makes a 4 foot by 4 foot by 6 inch raised bed. They’re designed so that they can be stacked. We were out most of the day Saturday, but after we got home and took care of the kids, we went up and picked up 4 kits. So I had the makings of a box 4’ x 4’ x 24 inches.

Sunday’s project was putting it together. It was pretty easy and went together quickly. It was also nice that the corners are designed with a spike that anchor it into the ground and serve to lock the upper layers together.

½ way up

The completed box

Then it was time to add the dirt.

This is most of it, I had to go back and get 3 more bags of garden soil.  It totaled to 30 cubic feet of dirt. I had 12 cubic feet of plain topsoil and 18 cubic feet of flower and vegetable garden soil. 

The bird seed was also in the Rav and had to be unloaded. I left it up there for the picture figuring on making a comment like:

I wonder what I'll get from these seeds?

I did a little research this morning and it came in somewhere around 2600 pounds of dirt.  I put in over 1 ¼ tons of dirt yesterday.  The research was after taking a couple extra strength Tylenol.

But now it’s ready for planting.

Gloria has already picked out a selection of bedding plants to go in there and in the two planters from last year.  She has 3 kinds of tomatoes, 4 bell pepper plants, some romaine lettuce, a rosemary plant, and some basil. (There might be something else, but I can’t remember all the specifics from as far back as Saturday, it was a long weekend.)

While I was working on the new garden bed, Gloria was cleaning and putting preservative on the patio furniture.

They've gotten a "weathered" look that we're trying to recover from.

I did take a break after the box was built and started working on dinner. I butterflied a whole chicken. I made a rub of pesto and some roasted red pepper sauce we had and rubbed it under the skin of the chicken. I put it back in the refrigerator for a couple of hours while I filled up the garden box with dirt. Gloria made our springtime favorite salad – asparagus and tomatoes. We had some pasta salad and I decided to cut up a pineapple and grill some spears since I had the grill hot.

I got the chicken going and we got ready for our neighbor to join us.

On Saturday we had gotten some new wines form our friends at Far Eastern Shore Winery http://www.fareasternshorewinery.com/ . They have two new wines, Lotus and Dragonfly.

We approve of the new wines. J  We actually went through 3 bottles while we were relaxing from our toils of the day.  I think that had something to do with my not being too sore when I went to bed last night.

Well, dinner was relaxed with fun company and a feeling of accomplishment after a busy weekend.

I still have work to do in the front yard, and I need to put mulch down on the back garden.  But, I put the snow shovels away in the shed and we’re moving on to Spring.  (The final confirmation will be the cherry blossoms in the back yard.  They’re budding now and should be out within a week or two.)