Lavender Love

I've been growing lavender for the past 4 years in my herb garden. I just love the colorful pops of purple growing through the parsley this time of year! I also dug some up and planted it in some pots around the yard just to insert a little color in all the green expanse of the dogwood and lawn.
I had quite a few questions on what to do with lavender during the garden tour last weekend, so I thought I'd share a couple of ideas with you. Many people grow lavender in Klamath Falls because it is one of the very few things that the deer won't eat...and chickens don't care for it, either!
So, I cut all the purple stems I could find, and gently rinsed them. Then, I laid them out on a clean kitchen towel and placed them in trays in a sunny location. I dry herbs in the house because it gets chilly and moist outside at night here in the summer.

When the stems are completely dry (at least a week) I gently remove the purple flower heads.

At this point, you can store them in clean jars for later use.
One of my favorite ways to use dried lavender is as a natural dryer cloth! Take a couple of tablespoons of the dried flowers, place them in a small, clean cotton or muslin bag and tie the top tightly. Toss it in with your clothes in the dryer. It's a natural softener and it gives the clothes a fresh light scent!

I also make lavender sugar for sweet iced tea. Take 2 tablespoons of dried lavender flowers and wrap in cheesecloth or another of those little cotton bags. Bury it in a canister of sugar and close tightly. After two weeks, remove the bag of lavender and you will have a lightly scented sugar. Well, that's one method, but I'm too impatient for that! Shoot, two weeks is half the summer! What I REALLY do is take 1 teaspoon of lavender flowers and toss it in a food processor with 1 cup of sugar. I process it for at least a minute to make a very fine sugar that is loaded with lavender flavor! Keep in a tightly closed bin or in a plastic baggie. Yes, you will have some little floating pieces of lavender in your tea, but it's worth it!

My latest recipe came from a friend who posted an intriguing cocktail on Facebook using lavender- a lavender/blueberry mojito. I decided that I could use the lavender simple syrup in lots of ways, so I made a jar!

First, I added one cup of sugar to one cup of water in a heavy bottom pan. Bring it to a boil and add 1 cup of lavender flowers...and stems, if you have saved them. Stems have a lot of flavor, too!

Let it boil for at least 5 minutes, until all the sugar is dissolved and the liquid is clear.
Turn off the heat and let it cool slightly. Don't chill it or it will be impossible to strain!
Strain and continue to let it cool.

Pour into a clean mason jar and store in the refrigerator. It will keep for a week...if it lasts that long :)

Klamath Sustainable Community Garden Tour

I was excited to read in the paper a couple of weeks ago that the Klamath Sustainable Community was actively looking for people who would like to be on the Garden Tour this year. I've never felt as if our garden looked "good enough" for a tour in the past. Although we do still have many garden projects, I thought I'd give it a try this year.
Dwight Long, the coordinator, came over for an inspection and approved our yard. They are not just looking for beautiful landscaping, but ideas for a sustainable community.
The tour was yesterday.

We just completed a drip system for the vegetable garden/chicken garden, and it has been working beautifully. It's a very efficient system, so added to the rainbarrels we are hoping to reduce our water usage in the summer.

The people were very impressed with our use of space for growing vegetables and herbs. They loved the cages for the string beans and tomatoes! It didn't hurt that everything is producing like gangbusters right now! About half the corn stalks have a couple of ears, the tomato plants are bursting with tons of beautiful green tomatoes, and the Swiss Chard and Tuscan Kale, well you can see from the photo that they are giving us lots of delicious greens! 

Of course, the girls all added their own special flair...

And Kevin worked his gardening magic to make the front of the house the envy of the neighborhood!

Everyone was delighted with the lavender sugar I made for the iced tea, and the homemade zucchini chocolate muffins were also a big hit! I had a little display of things you can do with the bounty from the garden, as well as posters all around the yard pointing out the sustainable practices we use- from mulching the grass clippings, to our two composting barrels ( one is for only 'hot' chicken litter) to rain barrels and raising chickens for eggs.
It was a really fun afternoon, in spite of the hot and humid day.
Later that evening, we had a huge thunderstorm and enough rain to fill all 3 nearly empty rainbarrels. We had a lot of fun sitting on the porch, watching the light show and cooling down after such a muggy afternoon...but some of our neighbors were not so fortunate...

Our neighbor's 30' maple tree bit the dust in the incredible winds! And there are still parts of Klamath County without power.

Living La Vida Loca :)

My life has been a little hectic the past couple of months...you can probably tell from the lack of blog posts that I have been a bit busy!
I am so glad that Kevin (my dear husband) and I decided to take a little 'vacay' mixed in with a family wedding last week! It was an amazingly fun and relaxing time for us...and we also got to see both of our sons (and our daughter in law) at the same time! It does not happen too often, since our sons live on opposite coasts.
We started our trip with a short visit to our old stomping grounds- Mammoth Lakes, CA. I know they have been in the news lately because of their declaration of bankruptcy, but, really, Mammoth Lakes is one of the most beautiful places in the world- at least, in our eyes.
Mammoth is the place I really fell in love with Kevin. He took the time to teach me to ski back in 1978. Some of you know how difficult I can be when I'm cold, or tired, or frustrated- and learning to ski is all about being cold, and tired and frustrated. Today, I am a halfway decent skier because of Kevin and his patience, and, Mammoth.

Next, we drove to the OC to attend the wedding of our niece, Colleen, and our new nephew, Eric! It was an epic wedding reception- Tricia and Erin, the Maids of Honor, gave a fantastic and hilarious speech, and got the party started by chugging PBR...needless to say, I danced holes in my shoes. I may be a little jiggly, but I do love to dance! Oh, and sing...did I mention that I like to sing?  Alll I can say is that the girls at the wedding rocked, "Africa" by Toto. And, of course, we all did, "The Time Warp" with great enthusiasm...including my Mom, the Great Grandma of the family. I think everyone who attended the wedding sang, "Piano Man" Living On A Prayer" and several other family favorites.  We also met some very interesting 'local color' in San Clemente at 2 in the morning, waiting an hour for a taxi home (we paid attention to those PSA commercials telling us to 'drink responsibly') . Thanks, Knuckleheads Bar for the advanced lesson in dive bar-ism.

We spent an extra day in the OC visiting family, and of course, making a de riguer visit to In N Out. Trust me, it's iconic. If you ever get to eat at In N Out, try the Animal Style fries that are not on the menu.

Although it was not on the original schedule, Mammoth Lakes called us back.
We drove back and spent a few more days there, walking down memory lane, going to familiar restaurants, hiking, and fishing. Well, I watched Kevin fly fish. It was AWESOME!

We also had an opportunity to visit with one of the young people I  had the privilege to work with in Youth Ministry at San Francisco Solano Parish. Alisa is a smart and sweet young lady who has traded the rat race of the OC for the outdoor mecca of Mammoth Lakes for the past couple of years. She had lunch with us and shared a little window into her life. I am so glad I got to reconnect with her! Sometimes, you get to see some of the fruit of the work in the labor of love that you perform in serving Christ and his Church...and in Mammoth Lakes, I found a deeply spiritual, mature, sensible young lady who walks in the way of the Lord.

It was a very fun trip with a lot of laughs...I still crack up when I remember that I told Kevin we had to be on the lookout for the 'Nippies' in Nevada (Chippies in California, Nippies in Nevada). I loved meeting the 'new' priest assigned to Mammoth Lakes- Fr. Paul Beaudreau. I kept thinking, I had this nagging feeling that his name sounded familiar. I later found out that he is a columnist for a magazine I read all the time, "Today's Parish" by 23rd Publications, and that he is also a 'mover and shaker' in the life of the Church.
Kevin and I had tears rolling down our cheeks one night, because we were laughing so hard...we played a game with the ipad where we played the first opening bars of a song from the 70s when we met and the other person had to name the song...we had a lot of cocktails, a lot of wonderful meals, a lot of fun with our family, and most important, a time to relax and fall in love with each other all over again.

Back to reality....but, now, we know, we need to do this more often. Isn't that what 'retirement' is all about?

Memorial Day Weekend

Kevin decided to surprise me and take me with him fly fishing on Spring Creek today. We had a freeze last night- not sure the yellow squash is going to make it!- so it was very cold when we headed out this morning after a BLT breakfast.

He offered to let me wear his winter neoprene chest waders. They almost fit. NOT!
OK I looked like a moose wading in the water, but it was pretty cool! By the way, the water was FREEZING cold!

I stayed in the water and took some awesome pictures downriver...

And, eventually, I took some pictures of Kevin actually fishing ....

He didn't catch anything, but, it was a lot of fun!
I love living here.....snow, rain, thunder, lightning, sunshine, clouds, gardening, fly fishing, new truck buying...all in one weekend!

Happy Memorial Day, everyone...and NEVER forget the sacrifice of our veterans. Kevin's Dad is a Vet of the Korean War, our son Patrick is a Veteran of Iraqi Freedom...and we have many friend who have served over the years....we honor them all this weekend.

Last night, we watched, "The Devil's Brigade", and tonight we will watch, "The Longest Day"...and tomorrow, I can rest assured that we will most likely watch, "Heartbreak Ridge", "Glory" (best movie EVER) ,"The Dirty Dozen", " The Outlaw Jesse Wales", "She Wore A Yellow Ribbon" and "In Harm's Way.". Maybe "The Big Red One" or "A Bridge Too Far"...all of which we own on DVD.

Snow and the Chicks

Foggy refused to exit the coop yesterday. We had a little snowstorm (usual for Memorial Day!) and she did not like the snow. She made little chicken noises of distress....and paced back and forth in the run.

She finally jumped out and walked around a little bit with the other girls...

But she was very vocal about her objection to the cold white stufff!

Of course, by today, we had snow, rain, hail, sunshine and wind...again. Here are the girls relaxing in the garden, hanging out on the tomato cages. We keep catching them trying to eat the squash plants....I am hoping we will at least get a zucchini plant to maturity! Oh, and the green things are called "Walls of Water". Greatest invention for gardeners who have a very short growing season and unpredictable spring/summer weather!

Ceili the German Shepherd

Ceili, our German Shepherd, will be 12 years old in a couple of weeks. We got her from Deblyn's in Gustine, CA in 2000. Her AKC name is "Deblyn's Irish Ceili". She has certainly lived up to her name!
Ceili has been slowing down a lot in the past few months. She loves to romp around the yard in either the snow or the grass...but her back legs have been giving her some trouble for the past couple of months and she just can't run around like a nut anymore.
Ceili has always loved babies...of all types. She was the one who guarded the Yorkie puppies and let them sleep on her head and between her paws. She still loves it when Bridget the Yorkie lays on her back or uses her as a ladder to look out the window! She has also developed a great curiosity about the chickens.

She will lay on the grass, endlessly, and just watch them. They chickens drive the Yorkies berserk...but Ceili just wants to watch them.

This is Ceili's couch. She hangs out in the living room with us, just watching TV or snoozing.

This is another very common pose...fast asleep and snoring on the living room floor. For a 90 lb. GSD, she spends a lot of time napping...but just wait until the UPS truck drives down our street or someone rings the doorbell....it's TIME TO BARK!

We hope she has many more years with us, but I wanted to post about this special girl in case her time is coming to a close.She has been a very faithful companion. I spend a lot of time with her, and we have done some very fun training. And-she is the biggest lap dog I've ever had!

Moving to Blogger!

I have decided to move my blog to Blogger. I can connect with my Google+ account, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook and it looks like I'll have a LOT less problems with posting!

This is a pretty funny picture of the girls...they do enjoy roosting on Kevin's tomato cages. Bo is mid-flight to join Moa in the bug hunt!
This is before they got scared and ran into the coop--we have had rain, sunshine and hail on and off all day.