Awesome bargain...help me!

I just found this gem at one of our Goodwill stores today.  Let me tell you, the vultures were circling with this one!  I practically had a lady follow me throughout the store and a gentleman was complimenting how well-made it was.  I paid $14.99 for this baby.  It is a Drexel nightstand and in perfect condition.  I am always all over bloggy land looking at all the DIY furniture makeovers and am astonished and jealous of the outcomes.  This is the first piece that I've really found that I want to redo.  Here's the dilemma:  what should I do????  It already has a fabulous look to it, but how could I make it more fabulous???  I like the cottage look and shabby chic, but I also like high Victorian.  One style I am not particularly fond of is modern so traditional would best suit me.  If you have any suggestions or links, I would be utterly grateful!

Here's the furniture stamp inside the drawer.

  
I am also not hung up on it being strictly for the bedroom.  I think canning jars full of jam would look absolutely quaint.  I have no idea what to do with this piece, but I'm excited for the possibilities.  I'll keep you posted!!!

Tomatoes and such

It is definitely that time of year and I think I have finally got a jump on summer by getting my seeds in early under lights!!!  Yay!  The tomatoes are doing quite well!  I've got my light system set up in the basement.  Always remember to handle your seedlings...if they are robust seedlings like tomatoes, you can run your hand over the tops of them.  This activates them to grow more "hearty" as if wind was blowing on them.  It gets them nice and strong.  You could also use a fan.  I also have many flower seedlings started as well as some herbs.  I am still way beyond my frost date here, but I will be putting things out in the garden under much cover in about about a month and a half...it is the only way to get summer tomatoes in Colorado!  It can stay cold here until the first of June, seriously!

I also have strawberry jam processing as we speak in my canner.  There have been some great sales on strawberries so I can say I have my first canning session of the year under my belt!  I did a crazy amount of canning this past summer, but failed to document it all on this blog.  I've been incognito for awhile but I am getting followers without me blogging about anything so I figure I need to get inspired and get writing!  It's just a busy life and I try to keep my priorities straight!!!  Thanks to all of you who have discovered my little blog here...I will try to be better about showing up!  I appreciate you guys so much!

Are you starting any fun garden projects where you are?  How about any winter projects like cozy quilts??  As for me, I need to update the blog and of course, there are a million projects to work on.  I am trying to be more intentional about my gardening.  Last year, I harvested about 125 pounds worth of food...I can't even tell you how many eggs we've gotten so far.  It's been crazy!  I absolutely love the chickens and I'm hoping we'll continue to have a stellar year.  There's my quick update and I'm hoping you all are feeling the itch for spring!  Blessings to you!

Tray of tomatoes...what am I going to do with all of these, hahaha!

Harvest

Hi all!  Lots of good stuff is popping up in the garden.  I had a great harvest on Monday.  I really need to go out today since we had a torrential rainfall last night and clean some things up out in the garden.  I have cilantro falling down everywhere.  Here's what I harvested:

I picked a ton of lettuce and prepared salads for my husband to go to work.  The zucchini are gorgeous...look at that shine...you can't get that in the store unless there is wax and who knows what else on them.  Most exciting is that my beets are doing fabulous this year.  I picked three on Monday and I expect to pick many more the rest of this week.

The way I prepare them is wrap them up in aluminum foil with some olive oil and salt and roast them in the oven until they are soft.  I cut off all the leaves, but I leave about an inch of stem left...that prevents your beets from "bleeding" out everywhere and making a terrible mess.  Once they are baked, let them cool slightly and use a paper towel to rub the skin off.  Really, it's quite easy and the mess is kept at a minimum.  The family either eats them like that or I cube them up and put them in salads.  It's quite delicious and makes me so happy to know it came from garden to table!  

Another thing that is coming on like crazy around here are the raspberries.  Oh, what joy!  The kids pick them for me and rinse them off and put them in the freezer.  Note: anyone who picks gets the special privilege of eating them!!!  I then wait until they are all harvested (mine are the type that ripen all summer, not all at once) and I make raspberry mango jam--I call it the nectar of God because it is soooooo good!!!  

I do have to scare the birds and squirrels off, but I don't mind sharing a few.  Next year, I think I will be covering the whole patch with bird netting to keep the critters away.  We have double the harvest of last year.  I need to find some good raspberry recipes...feel free to share!!!  I hope all is growing well for you!  Blessings  to you and have a lovely week.

Wordless Wednesday

Favorite vegetable of the summer

This is by far my favorite new variety for the garden this summer!  It's been such a fun thing to grow and everyone gets such a kick out of it when I show it to them!

This is an eight ball zucchini!!!  The plants are quite prolific--you can pick them at golf ball size up to a softball size---this one is probably in between.  They are beautiful and delicious. Between these and my regular zucchini, I have about 14 cups of zucchini frozen and shredded in the freezer, plus the plenty we have eaten already.  We just can't get enough zucchini around here!!!  Can you imagine stuffing one of these for dinner???  I'm going to do it!!!  I'll let you know how it turns out!

What new varieties are you growing???  Have a great weekend...I'm still behind in posts because I have so much to blog about, but we've got an exciting weekend planned so I'll have to tell you all about it next time!  Have a beautiful weekend...blessings!!!

Recycled Jean Quilt is Finished!!!

So much has been going on the last two weeks that I don't even know where to start!  I will keep this post to this quilt.  I had worked on getting it quilted and I really had to hurry because I have a daughter who was entering an apron in the county fair (that is going to be a whole other post!).  I hate having to recalibrate the machine because it took me forever to switch everything over to sew on the denim.  But lo and behold, it is finished!!!!  This is our summer picnic quilt.

There are six of us in the family and every one of us has jeans in this quilt.  The sweltering heat made it really uncomfortable to sew this behemoth!!!  It weighs about seven pounds and I was sweating while I was quilting it on my machine. At one point, I had to go outside with my machine and set up in the shade because it was over 85 degrees...in my house!!!!  I like how it turned out...because I used some stretchy jeans, some of the corners do not match perfectly...OH WELL!!!  This is one of those workhorse kind of quilts so I'm not too worried about the imperfections...that's the whole point of this quilt.  It's all been recycled and getting new life.  

The quilt laid out in the driveway.

Detail of the center...again from jeans we had! (sorry, bad picture)

I hope you are all having a productive summer.  I can finally check one project off my list!  How about you???  Blessings to you, and may you keep cool in this heat!!!

Garden happenings

Cilantro
I don't know about your garden, but one of my self-seeding plants in the garden is my cilantro.  I can seriously consider it a weed because it grows everywhere!!!!  Every year, I let it flower because it is so inviting to all the beneficial insects and then it goes to seed (which I try to control) and then it's growing season is over while everything else starts ramping up...like tomatoes.  I always make salsa and can it and you have no idea how infuriated I am with myself because I have to buy cilantro...from the store...and it's not very cheap...and I had pounds of it weeks before!!!!  Well, no more, my friends...I picked half a pound of it today and I could still get a lot more...I'll keep picking as this week progresses.  I'm freezing it so that I have plenty when it's time for salsa making or if I want to make Chipotle-style burritos!!!  I saw a blog where they clean the cilantro, take off stems, barely put olive oil on it so that everything gets an extremely light coat of it, then I bagged it up and stuck it in the freezer.  I am so thrilled!  Here's what half a pound of cilantro looks like:

The salad spinner I have the cilantro in is not a small one--it's a pretty large hefty one that can really hold some greens!  (I got it at the thrift store for around $5...this brand usually runs around $30...it's already earned it's keep around here!)

Other homestead updates

The garden is just swinging along.  I have my own personal army of ladybugs...it's been so exciting to see that because it helps me feel that the garden is in balance. The lacewings are out, too, so the beneficials are really working hard this summer season.

 I will probably have some yellow squash and zucchini by the end of the week.  We've had some beautiful salads lately and we are just chomping at the bit for the zucchini!!! The peas are prolific and tomatoes are forming left and right.  All in all, it's been a good growing season so far.  

The chickens have been so fun to watch and feed.  I give them tons of garden scraps and I never knew chickens could "honk" like geese.  It's the funniest thing.  Here is something I found on clearance at our local grocery store.  I wanted to do a rooster stencil on our chicken coop, but the bargains never cease to amaze me.  This is the before...

It's a rooster chalkboard.  I paid $3.59 for it because it no longer came with it's stand.  No problem.  I didn't want it as a chalkboard anyway!  Here's where it is now!

This is actually the door of our chicken coop.  We painted the rooster white like the trim, and I hardly had to put any effort into it!!!

Here's the actual full coop pretty much finished.  I have one more thing I have to do with it if I get some time, but it is fully functional and complete!  My husband did such a nice job!!!  The flowers on the front give it a nice touch, too.

The yellow flowers, calibrochoa, I picked up from the store, and just peeking up in the back is one of two agastache (will be purple) that I started from seed indoors.  They should be a striking combination!!!  

I hope all is growing well in your part of the world.  To all my fellow Americans, happy Fourth of July!!!  Be safe and God bless!!!