Mom's Day Out

Today I have the whole day to my self. My boys went off to an overnight scout camp. They left at 7:30 am this morning. After they left I went back to bed and listened to my iPod for about an hour and then decided to take Dakota the wonder dog for a 30 minute walk. I was supposed to go to a Zumba class but my friend cancelled so I got lazy.After that the fun stuff began! First, I went to get a pedicure.

Asters

Kale, lettuce and cabbage

Then I did all my homework that was due on Monday.Yeah me! Then Dakota and I went to Round Rock Gardens and bought 4 veggie plants and 4 mums and asters for my fall garden. That's wonder dog's ball in the shot there.

Then I went to get my hair done:

As usual playtime with Dakota-he wanted me to include a shot of him behind his tree. He is patiently waiting for a ball.

Wonder dog in action

Can I get an O.C.D?

And finally, a sit down to write my blog, drink a glass of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and of course, play with wonder dog. Oh and read my garden book to plan for my planting of the veggies tomorrow.

Photo Book

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Spelt Muffins

Lunch

My mobile post

Gardening and Power Tools

Cedar Planks

With both my boys at Scout Camp this weekend, I had a day of work planned in my garden. I am still trying to finish one of my vegetable beds and also decided to build a pyramid bed with some lumber I had sitting around.
I had six 3 ft boards and six 9 foot boards, and I needed to cut them to specific lengths for this bed. Since hubby is gone I knew I had to use the power tools myself and he wouldn't be too keen on that. So, I didn't tell anyone until I finished, including Mother. She worries so. She always remembers when I worked in a deli and cut both my fingers within a week of each other. It wasn't pretty. Neither was the roast beef I was cutting. But I digress...
 So I whipped out the circular saw for the first cuts and realized after getting down to an 11 in cut, I needed a more precise blade-table saw city here I come! It was cool-it has a red laser beam and is VERY precise.
 I am so proud of myself! Anyway, here is the finished product:

Stacked and ready for dirt and plants

Five boxes to make the pyramid

Flowers and Herbs

And after my day of hard manual labor, I sat down and enjoyed a much deserved Belgian beer YUM!

Belgian Beer-my weakness

ALCAT Results

I recently had my DS go to a a Naturopath to try a different approach to helping with his focus in school. We are having to do several diagnostic tests, one of which is the ALCAT (Antigen Leukocyte Cellular Antibody Test). They take 4 vials of blood and test it on 200 foods plus environmental agents, medications and herbs. Well the results are in and he was reactive to several items that were surprising. Wheat, Oranges, Tomatoes,Cottonseed,Broccoli, Green Beans, Lima Beans, Bay Leaves, Cloves, Coriander,Pork, Pears , Mustard, Turmeric, Romaine Lettuce, Eggplant, Grapefruit, Plum and Pistachio. Whew! I know, your thinking "What can he eat?" The good news is he wasn't gluten intolerant so he can still eat Barley, Rye , Spelt and Oats.
Have you ever seen how many things have wheat in them?
Have you priced wheat free breads lately? $5.00 + a loaf!!
 Soooo, I had to haul the old bread machine out of the garage and don my Betty Crocker hat and get down to baking some bread for this boy!! I will be posting some recipes and results to my experiments with my new wheat free cooking. So stay tuned. Till next we meet-happy baking!

Crazy Dog

Ok-so most of the time whenever I open the door, my dog Dakota practically knocks us over trying to get out the door. Lately, however, he has decided not to go out when I want him to. I actually have to physically push him out, now he plants his front legs and I have to push him like a wheelbarrow. This just doesn't like Border Collie behavior...crazy dog!

School Lunches

This is how we should be feeding our children here. Maybe the French aren't all that bad-don't tell my DH :-) If DS ate like this at school, I wouldn't have to pack so many lunches. I usually give DS a choice and now he is choosing to bring his lunches more often. I secretly smile inside. It's not my great cooking skills, it's the gray broccoli at school that scares him.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6902333n

Feeling Blessed

Many times we forget how blessed we truly are. We have our health, working limbs, homes, food, friends and family. Today I was reminded of this by my dog Dakota.
Dakota wouldn't stop barking so I went downstairs to yell at him and to see what caused the commotion. I saw across the street a man from the rehab center had fallen out of his wheelchair. I don't know how long he sat there or how many people had driven by not offering to help, but I ran outside to see if he needed help.
I asked him if he needed help and realized he had hit a big PVC plumbing pipe and the wheelchair was stuck in a rut-I was able to get it to move and roll it closer to him -he must have been thrown out of it! He is a large man and unable to pull himself up and neither could I alone. I was going to run and find a neighbor when a lady pulled over to help us. Then 3 construction workers came over and between the 4 of us we were able to get him back into his chair.
Anyway, I feel blessed to have been able to work from home to see him and blessed with my crazy Border Collie who barks at inanimate objects most of the time. I am also blessed that I have my health and working limbs to have been able to cross the road and help this man....I didn't even get his name. Maybe I'll see him again when Dakota and I have our walks.
Oh and Dakota got extra loving and a treat for his heroics!!

To Pupate or Not?

Lil Guy on Mint

Gizmos

Inside guy

Well out of my 8 cats (caterpillars) that I raised from egglings, I have 6 that I managed to keep track of. I brought 5 inside and thought I lost the last little guy but lo and behold, he was soooo ready to grow up, he moved from my parsley to my mint plant! I found a link online that had these homemade gadgets called "gizmos" and I have placed 2 in those, I have 2 inside my habitat, one in a paperbag and one outside. Let the games begin!

Caterpillar Craziness

Chunk and Squirts new house ( Chunk is named in honor of the Goonies) :-)

Osmeterium out-"peeew"

I never realized how fast caterpillars grew! I had 8 babies living on one parsley plant so I had to relocate 2 of them to the other parsley plant. I bought a reptile carrier today and am going to attempt to see two of these babies all the way from eggs to butterfly. DH thinks I am weird but I have never seen this beautiful mutation happen. I bought organic parsley form the store and stuck it into the dirt so it looks like it's growing.

The Babies

I took these yesterday and there were three caterpillars happily munching away on the Parsley-good thing because we never seem to eat it. Today there were 6 of them on the plant! I am not sure what they will do when they are all as big as my fingers-they won't have enough plant left-I may be buying Parsley in the produce department to keep up with the digestive happiness of my newest pets.

The eggs

I have been following a Black Swallowtail Butterfly caterpillar for a while and one day she disappeared. I have never seen a chrysalis so I have been trying to locate one around the yard. Anyway, while I was eating lunch I saw the butterfly through the window, it was dancing around my Parsley plant. They love Parsley! It's one of their host plants. After it flew away, I went out for an inspections and lo and behold-we had eggs!!! They are the tiniest things-some were pearly white a couple were yellow. They are supposed to hatch in 3-5 days so I went out yesterday and we have baby caterpillars! They are sooo tiny-they look like brown cigars right now. I will keep updating as they grow. Enjoy the photos.