Garden

Been working in the garden.  Trying to beautify the backyard a little more.  I am a patient gardener, willing to wait on the plants to see if they will like where they are and what I am doing for them.  Not my husband, he is an impatient person who thinks he can get stuff to grow by hitting it with everything he's got in the way of fertilizers.  But he is good at retaining wall and pavers, and this is what he did for me:

Also a couple of these to sit on while we are playing horseshoes:

I planted flower seeds and seedlings on this side and on the other side I have the veggie/herb garden.

I've got everything squished into the area and it still does pretty good.  I would love to have a bigger area, but at least I have what I have.  Some new things I am trying are Dragon's tounge beans:

Aren't they pretty?  You can eat them now like this or you can wait till they are dried up and eat them like lima beans.  Also on the dragon line are Dragon's Egg Cukes.  They will be a yellow color and will look like a dragon's egg would look like!  Cool huh?  I am also growing some kale, collards, green beans(mostly for seed so I don't have to buy next year!), sugar snap peas, brussles sprouts(which are done now), mint, oregano, bee balm, lemon balm, basil, lettuce, spinach, swiss chard, cowpeas, loofa, and melons. Not too much of one thing, I definitely won't be canning anything or having any one thing as a side dish for supper, except for the brussles sprouts, but it is fun to grow stuff and it's a sanity maker for me.  Weeding is a lovely, mindless, unwinding thing for me to so and I can get lost in it! 

Loofa and melons(2 kinds of watermelon and a honeydew type)

These blackberries grow wild in my yard, so I have trained them(somewhat, after all they are wild!) up on the fence line and this year I gathered enough to make two cobblers with them!

Who doesn't like the smell of gardenias?  This bush has been through a lot!  Last year the freeze got it bad and lots of the freeze damage had to be trimmed off, but this year it is coming back good! 

What are you growing? What would you like to grow?

Hamburger Update- final one?

Ok, so I haven't posted in a while- busy- sorry. 

I did have time to take pics of the hamburger though, and without futher a do, here they are:

The first three were taken the week of April 14th.  Notice how much condensation is in the McDonalds burger?  I don't know why, it wasn't hot or even warm when I put it into the container.

McDonalds' close-up 

I am surprised.

Real Hamburger close-up 

It's moldy, but obviously not as bad as the McDonalds.

Now for photos taken the week of May 3rd.

Major difference in the Real Hamburger: 

Now for the McDonalds:

Do you notice the liquid?  And I wish you could smell them.  The McDonalds burger has a sour smell to it.  The Real burger has a moldy smell to it.  The molds look different too.  I am wondering if there are two different molds growing on these burgers?  I contacted the local Extension office to see if they do mold testing or knew anyone that did, and they directed me to the Biology Dept of UF.  I emailed them and they have not responded.  My question now, is how long do I wait for a response?  My family(read: husband) is tired of the experiment.  I have placed the burgers above the garage freezer which will only hasten the decomposition process.  I would really like to find out what types of mold are growing on these burgers!

My findings were not what I expected.  I fully expected the McDonalds burger to stay fresher longer. As you can see that was NOT the case!  I will say that looking at that hamburger has caused The Rocket to think twice before wanting to eat fast food now, however, I still have a long way to go...

The Rocket achieves double digits!

This past weekend we were a partying crew as it was The Rocket's 10th birthday.  We had a pool party with some of his classmates and some other friends.  They are all polar bears because the water is still freezing and yet they swam anyways!  Then they played Just Dance 2 on the wii for a while(got warmed up) then they got back into the pool! CRAZY KIDS!!!!  The Rocket had alot of fun and really enjoyed having his friends over. 

The cake-his design

Transformers...

The birthday crew with mustaches...

The Rocket- 10 years old!

Momma getting in on the mustache fun...

Hamburger update #2

McDonald's hamburger- showing signs of mold now.  Below is the inside of the burger. I am surprised that it is already showing signs of rotting.  I thought for sure it would be a couple more weeks.

This is the Homemade burger, lots of mold.  I could not pry it open to get a view of the inside without destroying the bun.  I'll give it a couple more weeks. 

The smell is not very pronounced on either of them, however on the Homemade burger there is a smell.  On the McDonald's burger it doesn't smell like it originally did, but it doesn't stink either. 

My husband cannot wait for this experiment to be over...

Until next time...

Hamburger update #1

This is the Homemade burger, showing signs of mold growth...

This is the Mcdonald's hamburger, still good...  The Rocket doesn't want to eat this particular one anymore!

It's been a week, and already my thoughts are being proved...  Stay tuned!

McDonalds' "Food"vs Real Food

I have a son that is a junk food junkie.  I mean, he would choose any fast food restaurant over a home cooked meal ANY DAY and EVERYDAY!  So I am going to do a little experiment, one I have seen the pictures from before(so I guess I am stealing the idea), but I want to experience it first hand in the hopes of curbing the monster within him.  Here goes:

First, the McDonald's hamburger.  Regular, nothin' special about it.  Ketchup, mustard, little chopped onions, pickle, what they call "meat", and a bun.

 Now the real hamburger, ketchup, mustard, little chopped onions, minus the pickle, 100% pure beef, and an organic bun.

They will be kept in identical containers on my kitchen counter for however long it takes to show some major degradation.  I labeled them and dated them.  This started on the 22rd of March.

I have been thinking of doing this for a while and the bread I needed finally went on sale at a time when I was contemplating the experiment.  When my neighbor brought the McDonald's hamburger over(bought on his way home from work. Thank you, Mark!), my junk food monster came running in and exclaimed " Is that for ME???"  Dear Lord, he is disappointed I am wasting this burger on an experiment!  The next morning, he said "Can I have it now?"  After learning it had sat out all night on the counter and would continue to do so until it rotted, he didn't want it anymore. 

My kids have watched most of Food Inc. and Sweetie Pie is not a fan of fast food anymore.  The Junk Food Junkie(otherwise known as The Rocket) on the other hand is only mildly deterred.  Zman is indifferent, and S just rolls his eyes.  My work is cut out for me...

I will be posting pics(I will try for weekly) on the progress of the experiment.  My hypothesis is that the regular hamburger, made of real food, will degrade(rot) faster than the McDonald's hamburger, because of the lack of preservatives in the ingredients.  My hope is that my Junk Food Junkie and his father will learn something about the "food" they love so much, and it will be burned on their minds, so as to never forget it. 

Is that too severe?   Naaaaa

Stop the clocks!!!

This has been my plee as of lately: Stop the clocks, PLEASE!!!!!  Usually, things tend to slow down a bit after the holidays and kids go back to school.  Not this year!  It seems we have been going non-stop for the last two months and I am tired.  Camping trip, visits to Naples, homework(good Lord the homework!), and just everyday life has been hectic! I am ready for spring break, and the brightness of summer vacation is coming into view...

The Rocket practicing his flying skills in a jacket he wore when he was 3!

And now for our camping trip photos: 

Gathering place of our campsite, filled with good food from the breakfast the campground put on.  $5 for all you can eat, the women were all smiling- no cooking or cleanup! : )

Now, what to do for the rest of the day?

How about the pool?  While the men went grocery shopping(how we lucked out with that one I'll never know...) we girls took the kids swimming:

The pool was shaped like the state of Florida, and they had kareoke on Saturday afternoon.  We did not participate(I know you are dissapointed), however the kids enjoyed the show while trying to warm up in the sun after swimming in the frigid waters for about 5 minutes.

The kids spent most of the day going back and forth from the playground to the campsite by any number of different ways they found.  The playground was fantastic!  It was old fashioned with a METAL slide, and the kind of merry-go-round that really gets going good!  Here's how good the merry-go-round was, one of the kids actually threw up after getting off of it! Now that's a GREAT merry-go-round! 

Later that night they had a race party as it was the weekend of the big race and the campground was PACKED!  It was a grill out, with 75cent hotdogs and $1.50 hamburgers(with or without cheese) and all the fixin's, including chili and cheese for the hotdogs! This campground does things like this on special weekends, a nice touch and it cuts down on the cooking and cleanup(always a dreaded thing) while camping.  All those groceries the men got, we came home with alot of them...

At the race party, they had contests for all ages.  Sweetie Pie ran up when they announced the hula-hoop contest!  She didn't win, but for all who participated there was free ice-cream or a candy bar from the general store.  Everyone was having a great time, there was dancing and music and tiki-torches and lots of smiling faces! 

Campsite by dark, ambiance provided by about 5 super long strings of white christmas lights strung up by Brian( Thank you Brian!!). 

Yes, that is a refrigerator you see there.  All I have to say is- It's good to go camping with the Bagley's! : )

It was a bit chilly at night, and with the heaters warming the insides of the camper and tents, we had to have something to warm the gathering spot with...  Good thing Brian brought the gas grill...

Sunday Morning.  Sorry boys, no breakfast buffet today. It's poptarts and bananas and boxed cinnamon rolls(YUM! Thanks Denise!)for you today. 

But for the girls, we will be having champagne cocktails!

We decided to visit the beach Sunday.  It was really nice after it warmed up and the sun felt wonderful!  The kids all played in the sand for hours(no-one got sunburned!) and only went in the water to wash off as it is still very cold!  What am I saying?  It's the Atlantic, it's always cold!

The trip was great.  Everyone had a really good time, all the kids got along really well and were able to be rather independent in their wanderings.  They stayed together in a group and included Sweetie Pie most of the time.  I felt bad for her being the only girl, but she worked it just fine.

The name of the campground we stayed at is Sugar Mill Ruins, in New Smyrna.  You can visit their website here.

Back at home...

Here's some of the neighborhood wildlife:

Hehehe, just kidding Mark!  Although he is wild about the Packers!

Spring time planting has started, and I need to get moving on incorporating the compost into the beds.  The Spring Master Gardener plant sale is tomorrow, and I need to have the areas ready as I never come home empty-handed from it!  I have already started my tomatos and several veggies.  I also got a bunch of flower seeds from the catalog as well, and am looking forward to the bouquets that Sweetie Pie and The Rocket will be bringing me!  Last fall, I sprinkled out packets of wild flowers(mainly coreopsis, the Florida state wildflower), I can't wait to see if they cover the areas.  Photos of the garden will be coming...

What are you planting this year?