Tater Tot Casserole/Hot Dish

So this recipe is closer to the antithesis of the recipes that I normally prepare, but it is a local delicacy.  Local delicacy yes, local food, probably not.  OK, the only local ingredients are the spinach (it is quite a bit of spinach at least) and probably the Tater Tots.  You've got to assume with all the potatoes grown around here that some bits and pieces of these tots are local.

Someone with Minnesota or North Dakota roots can pipe in and vouch for the passion that local folks display for their Tater Tot Casserole.

Though there are many variations of Tater Tot Casserole, they usually involve some ground beef, cream of mushroom soup, (obviously) Tater Tots, and a heavy dose of cheese.  Since Alycia does not consume the meat we replace it with some mixed veggies and about a pound of spinach, so it's sort of not that bad for you. Sort of.

You Should be Careful When It's Hot Outside

If you spend too long napping in the hot summer sun, your face might start to melt...

Guest Posting

Our very good friend and fellow awesome blogger Sara, and the other kind folks, from the From Blah to Ta-Daa blog have kindly allowed me to guest post again. 

Digging in the Dirt: Part 1

Strawberry Jam Insanity

Since my burgeoning strawberry fields are still in their first full year, they aren't quite up to the significant production I demand of them.  And since I was gone during a critical stretch where the berry box needed to be shielded from marauding birds (with some bird netting), my own personal strawberry production was decidedly sub par this year.  How oh how was I going to make strawberry jam this year?  Well, Alycia and I were going to have to be proactive (not one of my stronger characteristics) go and fetch some berries. 

Alycia's Mom had been trying to engineer a trip from Cavalier, ND up to Altona, CA (the CA here means Canada, not California) where they've been strawberry picking before, but I adamantly said "NO!!!"  I always buy American when I can, especially my berries and my bicycles.  As luck would have it that very day, an ad was posted in the City section of the Grand Forks Herald that said "U-Pick Strawberries" and had a phone number for a local farm just West of town where we could go pick berries.

And pick berries we did.  We picked three full flats of berries, with each of us filling a five quart bucket about three times, probably around 20 to 25 pounds of strawberries. 

The third flat of berries and my trusty cauldron.  I'm pretty sure that I was a warlock or shaman or stirrer of giant industrial soups in a previous life, I really like my giant pots/cauldrons/vats.  Strange....

To say that the strawberry picking was mosquito-intensive would be the understatement of the year.  We hung in there and picked despite the swarms of skeeters and now have some delicious strawberry jam-esque substance to show for it.  I say "jam-esque" because I got a little too loosey goosey with the jam recipe and it didn't set like it should have.  (hanging head in canning failure shame)

Note to self - Jam isn't like canned applesauce, pears, or pasta sauce.  You can't just mix up a big vat/cauldron of it, you need to follow the recipe.

Nephew at the Fire Station

My not-so-little-anymore nephew got to visit the Fire Station recently and hang out with the station Engineer (aka his Momma). 

Homemade Tomato Cages - Follow Up

Just a follow up to my previous post - Homemade Tomato Cages.  I'd be remiss if I didn't offer more information on whether this project was a success or failure.  The tomatoes are both heirlooms and are about four feet high so they still have some growing to do, but the cages are supporting the plants very well.

I'm not ready to call this an unbridled success right now since that's a sure way to anger the Gods, but I will say that so far these tomato cages are performing excellently.  We also have yet to harvest a tomato from these two plants, so it may dampen my enthusiasm if the T-maters are hard to get to or the cages somehow impede the gathering process. 

In another few weeks, we'll start harvesting fruit and see if the plants start excessively spilling out of the cages (in which case I have no problem pruning them).  I'm pretty excited about how these cages have done so far and am planning on building more for next year.  I'll probably need to build another 8 to 10 of them for all of our Roma/paste tomatoes and our cherry tomatoes as well. 

And as you can see I'm a big fan of surrounding the bottom of the tomato plants with marigolds.  These are the "Lemon Gem" marigold, a small, compact marigold with a lovely lemon scent to the foliage, so every time you brush them you get a wonderful lemony smell that permeates the air. 

Squirrel Patrol

Non Potis Ad Audio, Semper Vigilant

The Corner on First Street

I could go on a very long tirade on why I hate lawns.  We'll save it for another day, but suffice to say that I just don't get it.  Maybe it's because I don't have kids who need to safe place to play under my watchful parent eye, maybe it's because I don't see my lawn as a status symbol that I need to maintain to impress my neighbors, or maybe because I see nothing therapeutic or beneficial in the time, energy, and money it takes to maintain that lawn.  I really think people are just stuck in the status quo, this is how we've always done it, this is how I'll keep doing it.  Bleh. 

Due to all these lawnophobic tendencies I'm slowly engaging in getting rid of my lawn, either turning it into garden space, fruit tree orchard, or annual/perennial shrubs and flowers.  I have to do this slowly so as not to alarm the locals (any more than they're already alarmed by my very odd ways).  A few dozen square feet every couple of months (during the warm planting months that is) get reclaimed from boring green crew cut grass into something more interesting. 

So when Alycia wanted to plant some flowers in the corner of the yard I was enthusiastic to help.  OK, maybe not super enthusiastic since the project would involve me doing all the heavy lifting. shoveling, moving dirt, etc. while she got to plant pretty flowers.  It's an acceptable bargain, I know my role in life and that's to move heavy things and provide the manual labor. I actually stalled her for a bit by convincing her that we couldn't dig the ground around the power pole because the power pole might fall down.  I convinced her that the poles are actually not very well supported (why else do they always fall down in windy weather or tornadoes???) and we'd be flirting with disaster if we dug around it.  This only worked for a few minutes, but was a fun exercise in messing with Alycia. 

The area in question is right on the corner, outside the sidewalks, against the street and has the electric power pole right in the middle of it.  It's never a good looking space, and in order to even make it decent looking, you need to weed whack all the tall grass down, and even then I still think it looks unsightly.  Here's what it looks like on a good day. 

Here's a closer view..

We actually got the idea to fill the area with flowers (a couple of different kinds of marigolds) from a neighbor down the street who does the same thing.  I need to let him know that we copied his idea, hopefully it's not copyrighted or anything.

It looks so much better like this, and it's that much less lawn for me to mow every time.

It looks a lot better huh?  It'll look even better in a few weeks once the marigolds really get to blooming.  I really enjoy projects like this, taking one small space at a time and changing it, rather than being immobilized at the overwhelming task of the big picture.  I can't get rid of all my lawn at once, and the task of transforming large swaths of grass is a lot easier to envision if you carve it up into small chunks. 

Do you have any lawnophobic tendencies?  What would your ideal yard/landscape look like?  Would it have lots of lawn?