One of Those Weeks. . .

Excuse my gap in posts, it has been another wild week here at the clan.   Baseball has gotten started full swing for Sprat and we are still battling Lacrosse with Big T.  Big T had a game last night against a local middle school,  they tied last night after beating them weeks before.  This middle school team is really good so if we could not get another win against them, I guess a tie will do.  
A cold front came through the other day and I think I may have lost some of figs.  I do not think anything in the garden was damaged but my figs are most definitely going to suffer.  I am not sure what type of fig we have but some years I get two crops; and early crop and then one later in the year.  I think the cold may have damaged my early crop this year.  It ruined my early crop last year and I did not get a good late crop either.  Like most things my mom has been my influence with my garden, herbs, and fruit trees.  Mom has a huge fig tree, she can even pick them from her open window in the dining room.  I have always loved figs, when I was pregnant and my folks would come up to see us they always brought me fresh figs.  Mom also makes fig preserves, they are so good.  I have not tried my hand a preserves yet, I have never had enough at one time to make preserves.  I eat them right off the tree, they rarely make it into the house.  I have found some good recipes on Pinterest for figs and cheese and honey.  If I do have enough to do anything with I think I will try one of those recipes.  Mom always keeps me stocked on my fig preserves.
I really do enjoy eating what we grow, I wish I could get my kids a little more excited about it.  They each have certain things that they like out of the garden; Sprat likes the potatoes and Big T likes the lettuce and spinach.  The hubbs and I like it all!  I am going to try and freeze more of my jalapeno zucchini cornbread casseroles this year and I hope we will be able to freeze more peas too.  
Stay tuned I will probably share that zucchini recipe again and a few more that I have tucked away.  I might even share my hubbs pepper jelly recipe, yummmm.

Wonderful day with my Hubby. . .

My dear hubby is home from New Jersey.  He was away on business for a few days.  He took today off so we could spend the morning together while the kids were in school.  I love these days so much.  We had a nice breakfast and then did some running around.   We of course ended up at Lowe's  shopping for flowers that we really did not need.  We found some pretty petunias and another lily that was on clearance, to add to our front flower bed.   As you can see from my cover picture our front flower bed is quite full.  I decided I would like two hanging baskets with the trailing petunias.   So on my shepherd hooks in the front I have two hanging baskets with trailing petunias, purple and pink.   I also could not resist a bright green sweet potato vine.  I love those and I put it in a hanging basket that will hang over the driveway from the back flower bed. I love flowers.
While we were outside playing in the front flower bed we decided we should check on the garden.  I picked four radishes, some spinach, and broccoli.  I  could not resist the radishes, so I tried them.  They were a little spicy but so tender and yummy.  I will try everything else at dinner tonight.  I love playing in the garden and the flower beds.  I enjoy being outside and seeing the things that my husband and I have planted together.   Our fig bush is going to be really big this year because we did not cut it back like we normally do.  I love figs so much and I must thank my Mom for that.   She has a fig bush and we always had fresh figs and fig preserves.  I do not know how to make preserves and we have never had enough figs to make any before but, I think this year we may have a bumper crop.   I will have to post some pictures of our garden and my flower bed once everything gets established, especially the sweet potato vine.