I think I figured out what got up Hubby's butt about my cooking. He's showing all the signs of trying to lose weight. All of a sudden in the fridge we've got low fat yogurt & skim milk. In the cabinet beef jerky which I can only assume is his version of getting quick easy protein - but holy salt & preservatives! I'm keeping my big fat trap shut about it because I know how I feel when someone starts telling me what to / not to eat. I've made my decision about what I want to do - it's up to him to make his own decisions.
As far as my meal plan this week I kept it kind of loose. I've got 3 recipes I've pulled and am kind of 'working around' to fill in the rest. It's not all planned out each night like I'd been doing before but hopefully I can figure out how to throw things together. I'm not good at that. Cooks have always blown me away with how they can just know what is going to taste good together. Places like Hu Hot Mongolian Grill restaurant? Um ... no ... because my combinations SUCK! But just like learning to cook I'm sure this will have some hits and misses. I can't figure it out without experimentation.
Dinner tonight was a veggie sandwich - just homemade pesto, some fresh mozarella, tomato & roasted zucchini and eggplant. I think doing this I'll have quite a few quicker meals in terms of preparation - which will be nice. Who wants to spend 2 hours a night cooking & cleaning up afterwards? Plus this time of year hot meals just don't feel right to me. Maybe something on the grill but not casseroles or other oven dishes.
I'm excited about the back yard. Most of it is landscaping for aesthetic purposes - two areas for seating, a spot for the grill, some bushes & flowers, mulch & grass. I'll have two raised beds for vegetables and then two wooden planters as well. Later in the summer a fruit cocktail tree will go in that has several types of apple on it.
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DURING (porch ripped out & we'd already done the fence but as close to 'before' as I've got)
ALMOST DONE!
During
Rose bushes & planter that I'll use to plant herbs this weekend. I've got one more of these against the garage. Not sure what I'll put in it. I may try a watermelon & kind of let it grow over the side? Not sure yet.
Before
Now - raised bed (that's white primer - will paint over soon), arbor / fence blocks dogs from a little garden back there. Sitting area & grill area.
During
Now - little garden area back by garage. The raised bed for veggies.
Looks pathetic now - eh? There are tomatoes, peppers & bush beans ... they are just tiny!
One of the few seedlings I'd started in my attic that actually survived. Little guy has one tiny tomato starting. Will get cage for it this weekend. The pot behind it I'm starting another one from seed. Ran out of mulch but will fill in the rest this weekend.
Another original seedling - this is a bell pepper. I've got green, red, yellow & purple growing.
Bush bean
The second raised bed is back near the lilacs. They are both made of just basic cinder blocks so we are painting them.)
It has a bunch of sunflowers & then the cucumbers will grow up them.
If you'll remember my little dog ate the original set of sunflower seedlings (stinker!) so this is the second set I'd started. A mix between regular large yellow, some reddish ones and white. Not sure which ones survived - most of them look about the same so could just be one variety. Right now they are just about a foot tall.
Only one of the original cucumbers survived. I' have three different sizes - the original one, then three about this size and then two more that are much smaller that I'd started later. I've got the cages around them now but I may move these to the other bed as they should later be able to grow up the sunflowers.
My apple tree won't be plated until later b/c the landscape designer / owner of the company asked to keep it for a bit. He hasn't been around them and wanted to baby it for a bit and learn about it before planting it. One of Hubby's coworkers has one that is stone fruits. I'd never heard of a fruit cocktail tree but the idea attracted me immediately. There are four kinds - citrus, apple, pear and stone fruit. I went with apple because we constantly are buying them and I thought it would make the most sense. The citrus doesn't grow in zone 5 but If the apple does well I would definitely consider the stone fruit and the pear later! I'm also curious about blueberry bushes but don't want to go too crazy too fast! After all I've not even successfully grown my first tomato plant ... can't become an expert overnight no matter how much I want to!
I can't have the dogs on the grass for 3 weeks so right now I've got them in the side yard. Later there will be a shade garden over there but for right now it is just mulch so it works well.
We put additional fence / gates inside the main fence on purpose. It gives me some areas the dogs can't get to so I can plant whatever I want but more so this is an attempt to get reign in Oliver's barking.
Believe it or not this sweet little face is one that of the yippiest dog on the face of the earth. When we first moved in we decided on an aluminum fence because we wanted one that would keep the dogs in but not block out the neighbors. Little did we realize we'd get a dog that would bark at a leaf across the street if he could see it. When he sees people or dogs OH MY GOD he's the worst! He runs from one side of the house to the other ... over and over and over barking. He looks so happy doing it that it is somewhat endearing but it gets old fast. Especially when it is 6AM and you can imagine your neighbors groaning as he wakes them up. This little guy has my heart big time. We got him from the local Jack Russell rescue. Initially we were just going to be fostering him. My new years resolution had been to do some type of volunteer work and with being a freak for dogs what better choice than to be a foster home. Our two Jacks at the time had always gotten along with every other male dog (sweet pea has to be the head bitch in charge so no girls!) and at first everything went perfectly but sadly we found out he had heart worms. Treatment for heart-worms on dogs is rough! They have to have shots of basically a version of arsenic that kills the worms. Kind of like chemo it's the cure that makes you sicker before you get better.
For the time he had the series of shots he had to have almost no activity- literally nothing but walking a few steps to go out. No stairs, no jumping, no walks, no nothing else. Since he's little and I just couldn't stick him in a crate all day I ended up carrying him around like he was a baby ... and we are talking about three months b/c he already had adult heart-worms & they'd started to go into his lungs too. After 3 months of him completely dependent on me and unfortunately some pretty severe complications during the treatment (the pieces of the worm as they are dying break off and can block blood flow - in the lungs or the brain is the most dangerous as it is basically the same as a pulmonary or regular aneurysm). My best advice - GIVE YOUR DOG HEART-WORK PREVENTATIVE ALL YEAR LONG even if you live in a climate with a winter do not miss a dose. It isn't worth it! The rescue had been giving him preventative and even tested him when he came in but the tests came up false negative & the worms were too strong for the monthly pill / treat thingies to hurt them. It just takes one.
By the time treatment was over there was no way in hell that dog was ever leaving me. He was too attached and I was whooped! So we officially became a 'foster failure' and adopted him. Once he finally was done and feeling better the 'perfect' dog showed his true colors. (We'd been so amazed at how calm he was compared to other Jacks ... we should have known he was sick!) That's when the barker emerged ... it was great to see him happy and running again but the 'oh shit' realization came quickly after. We tried everything from the sensors that give a high pitched noise to even the bark collars but nothing worked. He'd just grit his teeth and bark through the shock of the collar. Yes I did test it on myself before ever putting it on him and it doesn't truly hurt - it's just irritating ... which would work for most dogs & then they'd never bark again but Olie is a terrier and terrier = STUBBORN and he wanted to bark ... Anyway as we planned the back yard part of our goal was to limit his view at least to the front where there is more activity. I'm thinking I'll grow vines up the fence / arbors to further block it off and just to be pretty. Even if it doesn't stop the barking wonder it will be nice to have those little gardens where I can put more tender plants & not have to worry about them getting trampled or peed on!
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I'd love to know you visited and what you think! I'm also thankful for any ideas, tips or suggestions as I'm still learning to cook and to live a real / whole foods lifestyle.