Grapes, grapes and more grapes

We started harvesting our Merlot grapes this evening. Started... it is only one vine, but we have been inundated! No plums, not many cherries, but we got the grapes!

Skadi... not so sure about these things...

Oooh! Sweeeet!

I had to bribe him for this picture. He didn't want to hold THESE grapes. Not the ones *I* picked.

Nope, he wanted to hold THESE grapes. The ones HE picked.

Finally we reached a compromise:

Now... what to do with all these grapes. They will become juice tomorrow. I know, those clusters don't look like that much. I am talking about the bucket off to the side that I (foolishly) didn't take a picture of and the remaining bunches left on the vines ready to come off when I am feeling like it this weekend.

Making up for at least three weeks

We finally got a weekend with everyone healthy.

After a trip to Home Depot we went home and started on the back yard. AB rented a rototiller and amended and broke up our soil. Leif and I planted four planters/baskets in the back. And it was HOT.

99F.

Sunday we planted some more ground cover under the fruit trees - something I have been meaning to do for a few years now. I just so happened to find the type I wanted while shopping Saturday.

We planted the garden... three tomato plants, three broccoli plants, six or so peppers of different varieties (something came over AB, peppers suck in our garden, always have) and Leif planted his little packet of carrots by dumping the entire contents of one packet into his little 12" trough.

We will thin.

We also planted six beautiful pumpkin seeds. We will also thin here. Probably down to two plants eventually.

Two more planters out front. Then a foray into the sprinkler with the kids.

And just to drive it home a little harder? I had not a scrap of dirty laundry in my house for a whole two hours.

And now?

Now I am ready to collapse.

Goals

So if you haven't been keeping up, my goal for 2008 is to not only get my house organized, but to get it ready to sell in 9 months to a year. My plan has been to address one room a month, every month. January was the library, February was Leif's room and the guest bathroom (since it is small), March was Skadi's room.

Skadi's room, for all intensive purposes is 95% done. My sewing table needs to be replaced by her crib, and we need to do something with the queen sized bed in that room.

But finishing her room has been put on hold. Meanwhile, Skadi's crib sits in our closet - where she sleeps so that we don't wake her up (me reading at night with the light on, AB snoring...). Our crib seems to be on its last legs and AB fears moving it very much. So given that my mom and stepdad are coming out in a few weeks, we have put off moving Skadi into her room for our own ease. So that also means that her room will remain at being 95% done beyond March (i.e., tomorrow).

So the next question became, which room is next? I was leaning pretty solidly to our Master Suite - to include the bathroom.

AB, despite all his whining about my goals that he thinks have become his goals, had another suggestion yesterday. We need to treat outside as "a room".

He is right. April is the perfect month to get our backyard in shape. As long as it quits snowing freak snow showers on us and warms up. In theory we will be able to plant the garden in a few weeks. Plus, I want my patio to be in good shape for when my mom and stepdad visit... sitting outside with a gin and tonic or glass of wine, eating BBQ, is always a favorite activity for us all when they visit.

The indoor rooms can wait until it is too hot and miserable to go outside and work. And it is a chance to switch things up a little. And when my husband starts whining about "my goals", I can remind him that this one, was his idea.

The "to do list" includes coating the patio with an epoxy resin so the two cement slabs become one that is much more appealing to the eye and to tender bare feet. Clean out the awful corner that is the bane of my existance. If I ever feel like I need to complain to my husband about something I just walk over to the west side of our house. Where my brow immediately furrows...

I need to clean out my flower beds front and back. I pruned my roses last weekend. And we need to plant the vegetable garden (broccoli, brussel sprouts, carrots, a tomato or two and mostly room for giant pumpkin rearing).

The goal is set!

Garden picture

Request...

Here is a picture of our vegetable garden. I knew this picture that Leif requested I take "standing over by the tree" would come in handy someday.

We have 10 tomato plants along the west (sunny side) of the fence. In front of those you can see the three brussel sprout plants. Next is where the cabbage used to be that was taken over by cucumbers and pumpkins.

In the front are chives gone to seed and the pumpkins. The carrots are also in front of the pumpkins. Behind the pumpkins are three broccoli plants. Behind those, sunflowers.

On the south side of the fence is cabernet sauvignon grapes. (West fence holds merlot grapes.)

The south side of the garden is mostly pumpkin plant, but you will also find swiss chard in there too.

I do a "zen gardening" approach. I have basically figured out where things grow best and what needs sun, what doesn't. We mix in steer manure every year and then lay down garden fabric. I use a ton of fabric staples to keep it all down. I do a combination of planting from seed and from starters. Once everything is planted, AB starts piling on the grass clippings. Clippings do an amazing job at keeping the weeds out without the use of chemicals.

At the end of the year we compost what we can on top of the garden fabric and toss the fabric and start new each year.

My green thumb extends only to my vegetable garden. My flowers don't do half bad each year - pots I should just not do as I forget to water them. But indoor plants? I don't do them at all. They make messes (yes, I do have a big hairy dog, but she gives love back) and I never water. Though the bamboo in the guest room has survived nearly four years.

"I can't believe you left that shirt on him for pictures!"

AB said.

Peter peter pumpkin eater

Leif is getting old enough that I understand 90% of what he says. Then there is the other 10% of the time.

Leif: "I can't wait to jump on Christmas in my pumpkin!"

NM: "Huh?"

Leif: "I can't wait to jump on Christmas in my pumpkin!" (Looking at me like I am a complete idiot.)

Speaking of pumpkins... Leslie asked about my giant pumpkin. I kept thinking I would post about it, but it was growing at such a serious rate that everytime I took a picture and got it uploaded, it was even bigger. Leading me to believe I needed to take another picture. And so on. Evidently they routinely grow 10 lbs a day and some have been known to grow 40 lbs a day.

So here is the current picture:

The large one is 82" circumference (in standard pumpkin measuring speak... there is a whole new community I am being introduced to) from stem to blossom end parallel to the ground. It is 48" ground to ground on one direction and 51" ground to ground the other direction. When you plug these numbers into the standard OTT weight calculation we find that my behemoth is 132 lbs (+/- 6 lbs). Circumference calculations put it at 165 lbs (+/- 16 lbs). (My poor PChem students lived and breathed error analysis for two semesters.)

My goal is to keep the vines alive until mid-September. At that point it can be cut from the vine and stored in cool, dry storage until carving date for Halloween. (Anyone know a really great carver??)

AB asked me tonight who exactly was going to move my giant pumpkin. I told him I thought my husband was strong enough... not at 10 lbs a day additional he tells me.