Puppies and Potatoes

Sitting here with the scrappiest little puppy you ever saw, Miss Molly. No more than 7 weeks old, weighs practically nothing. She’s a rescue who has been through some stuff. Her coat is patchy and her skin flaky. But she is the cutest, sweetest thing.

She arrived Saturday and thanks to my friend J. we had a crate ready for her. The rescue provided a lot of food and other items. Rocco is entranced with her but she is too little for them to play together yet. F has done a great job of taking care of her including letting her out of the crate to pee in the middle of the night.

So it was an exciting weekend. It kicked off on Friday with a girls’ (and a few boys, lol) day at the beach for the 4th of July. It was a wonderful day! Weather was perfect and so was the company.

I started broccoli and Brussel sprouts last week and they germinated quickly. They are under lights now. Of the lettuce and arugula I planted directly, only the arugula has come up so far. The lettuce was pelleted so maybe that slows it down? Or the soil could be too warm.

On Sunday I harvested my first potatoes!

These were from one plant. It seemed to give in to some kind of disease. The other three are still alive and hopefully their secondary spuds will be bigger than these. (All of them have at least one big potato; I peeked.)

I added a tomato cage to the bean area so the vines would have something to attach to. I also took a lot of my trays and seedling cups outside and blasted them clean with the hose. There is a passage in The Good Life (by the Nearings) that reads:

Dwellers in a remote valley cannot send or phone to the corner grocery an hour before supper. They must plan and prepare during the previous season. If radishes are to be ready for the table on the first of June, they must be planted not later than the first week in May. If seeds are to yield the best results, the soil must be prepared before the planting day. Soil preparation, with us, necessitated compost. Compost piles, to be available in the Spring, had to be set up by mid-summer of the previous year. To enjoy fresh radishes on June 1, we began to get ready ten or twelve months in advance.

So I’m trying to take that to heart and think about next year’s seeds. I could get my whole setup ready now, and make it bigger/more efficient.

I spent a couple evenings reading The Good Life out back, usually with lemonade and my feet stuck in a pan of cold water. The evenings have been beautiful. It feels especially good to sit down and cool off right after weedwhacking, pruning, etc. Well deserved.

We ate frugally for the most part this past week:

Sunday: pasta at mom and dad’s

Monday: rotisserie chicken, corn on the cob, mac n cheese and potato salad (leftover from grad party)

Tuesday: a real “use it up” night of prepared pulled pork, chicken nuggets, carrots, spaghetti with jarred sauce, ditalini in chicken broth and frozen pizza

Wednesday: grilled cheese (cheddar on sourdough) for me, T and F. T later made chicken Parm also.

Thursday: stovetop garlic bread with cheese and fresh-picked parsley, basil and oregano, plus carrots and four (4) green beans from the garden, for me and N (Tom and F ordered from Stella)

Friday: pizza on the boardwalk in OC

Saturday: salad with Bibb and romaine lettuce from the farmers’ market plus P-R cheese, a few chicken nuggets, one egg, carrots and Caesar dressing (for me, others were mostly out)

I got F a free muffin with Wawa points one day, and a breakfast sandwich for myself another.

This week will be a little busy now that F has volleyball camp two nights a week, plus her puppy duties. Thursday we have college orientation. I completely forgot an orthodontist appointment today. Not good. And we have several more appointments coming up of various types, for all of us. I need to start shifting my health care to the school year so I can just have their appointments in the summer.

One more thing — saw my first reddening tomato today!