Trailing the blonde

Last weekend we went to Sun River, OR with the in-laws. We all chipped in and rented a vacation rental. Little to no snow this year but it was nice and still so beautiful!

It was a nice big place 5.5 bedrooms, I say .5 because one room was a room with a bunk bed, futon and queen bed then you went though a door and there was another bedroom but you had to go through one to get to the other. And 4 bathrooms. There were 10 adults, a 2.5 year old, an 8 week old and dogs, it was chaos but good chaos.

We didnt do anything super crazy or active. I think the goal of the weekend was just to spend time together. Brandon and I got there last on Friday night because everyone else took Friday off and drive up on Thursday night. So Friday was basically just the drive, dinner and settling in. Saturday morning we got up and took the dog for a long walk and found a park to play in

Midmorning we went for maybe a 2 mile bike ride, it might have been 1.5

Then the siblings all went to lunch while grandma and grandpa watched the kids and dogs. Then we wandered around a little shopping district. Dinner at the rental that night. Then Sunday morning was just some relaxing then getting all packed up and cleaning the house a bit then the looong drive home. It was a fun weekend but i also feel exhausted this week. But how cute is this?

Since coming home I’ve made some bread, started a sourdough starter and transplanted some of my seeds. I’ll plant more this weekend

We are definitely in the quiet season of the year. I think of winter as quiet and cozy. Not much has been going on the last few weeks. Settling into a new schedule at work which gives me weekends off with my husband which is wonderful.

This last week though I have seen and felt spring coming. The Pacific northwest has had a pretty mild winter anyways but now we already have buds on trees and green leaves sprouting and even some flowers starting to pop! It is starting to feel a little like spring.

My husband spent most of yesterday working on one of the beds we will use to plant and working on the lumber we will use for it. I got some seeds started

I got 1 broccoli, 1 cabbage, 1 cauliflower, 4 bok choy, 4 basil, 2 snap peas, 5 beets, 4 okra, 4 parsnip, 16 carrot, and 9 onions started yesterday. Hopefully I will get a few more done tonight because I still have some things I want to get started for this first week.

And so the planting race has begun….though really this is just the warm up. Right now it is kind of a rush (but not really) to get seeds started then once they are all started it will be hardening them off then transplanting them to the ground…..if my raised beds are done, if not it will be into bigger pots until the beds are done hahaha. I think we are going to have a great crop this year. Now I just need to get used to cooking what is available not whatever I feel like. I have 2 cookbooks that are based on seasonal produce and all the farming memoirs I have read have a few recipes and most of them sound amazing soooo hopefully we will be eating like kings this year and still lose weight and get into shape since it will be a lot of veggies hahahahaha

After probably almost 2 years I finally pulled the bread maker my mom gave me from the garage and into the house…..and proceeded to make 3 loaves of bread. Potato bread, banana bread and rosemary cheese bread. The potato bread was a mix from Bob’s Red Mill and turned out amazing

Then I made banana bread but it wasnt the most dessert like kind you are thinking, it only had 1.5 tbsp sugar and 1.5 tbsp honey and it had yeast and everything. It is like normal bread with a slightly sweet banana cinnamon finish. Very subtle sweetness and tastes amazing with butter. The rosemary cheese bread is also more of a subtle herb and cheese flavor instead of a smack you in the face flavor. I used recipes from an old bread machine book. I’m excited to slowly work my way through it.

I am starting to think about this years garden and i am going to try square foot gardening. Making my plans and layouts it looks like I will be able to plant about 3x as much (if not more) in almost the same amount of space. soo this will be amazing or do terribly hahahahaha. We will see. The premise with square foot gardening is that the plant has enough room to grow but they are also close enough that light doesnt filter down to the ground so weeds grow a lot less because they dont get any sunlight…..

Rain is forecast all week so no garden work for me cause its going to be a swampy mess. Once we get a few clear days I am going to start turning soil and working on the beds…..but that probably wont be for several weeks.

Hi! Obviously it has been a hot minute since I posted. More like almost a hot year. I needed to take a step back because I honestly had no idea what this blog was becoming. I started it as a journal of my hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, I didnt finish the trail, in fact I barely started which turned out ok but I learned what I needed to learn (dont get me wrong I still love to hike and backpack). Then it became about gardening on our small plot of land and becoming a nurse. I am still all about growing as much of our food as we can and I’m super excited to see where this year takes us. I also still want to be a nurse but I am looking at different programs and figuring out my time line. I didnt get into last years program and this year the school I was aiming for changed all their prerequisites throwing a snag in my plans so i am re-evaluating. I didnt blog for awhile because I wasnt sure where I wanted this to go. I got it in my head that I needed followers and to be one of those people who makes money from their blog and social media platforms but honestly that is not why I started this and it isnt really what I want. I just want someplace where I can maybe have a little community and to basically have a journal of my life. So that is what this is going to be. No guarantee on how often I will post or content. It will just be my life from now on and whatever that entails.

The last few months of my life have been all about school and work and while my life is still about that the switch to summer has stayed to take hold. The days are warming up, there are longer breaks in the rain and my mind is consumed with vegetable starts, direct sow seeds and the food that will come from it.

This is our second summer in the house and I am getting my act together. I made myself a Google docs spreadsheet to keep track of what I am planting and what is is producing so each year I can do more and more, add new things and reduce what we had too much of or increase what we had too little of.

Here is what we have planted so far:

A red, green and orange bell pepper plant on one end and 2 hot pepper plants on the other end of the garden, my husband wasnt happy about the mixing of peppers last year so this year we are separating them. In case you didn’t know peppers cross pollinate so if you have mild and hot peppers close to each other you could end up with spicy bell peppers and mild jalapenos, last year everything ended up pretty mild so this year they are at opposite ends of the bed.

We planted 2 different kinds of cantaloupes, last year I did pumpkins.

2 zucchini plants to last years 3. 2 cucumber plants to last years 3.

5 tomato plants, 4 romaine, 6 iceburg and 3 red lettuces.

All the herbs that should have survived the winter did and are flourishing. We had to replant basil and cilantro. Our fig bush has doubled in size but isnt producing yet. The pear tree is doing great.

I still have onion starts to plant. Carrot and spinach seeds to plant. I just ordered radish and turnip seeds and need to pick up a kale plant.

We didn’t get chickens this year. I let school get away from me and was overwhelmed but I am focusing back in on life.
Getting back to my roots……hahahaha sorry the pun was there for the taking.

I want to get through school as fast as possible but I also need to take a step back and live life. Tomorrow isn’t guaranteed and I want to enjoy today.

I didn’t make this falls nursing program and I am starting to think that is a blessing. I need to get my life out of school squared away. That is my goal for the next 9 months (until the next round of applications) still focus on school and get done what I need to get done but also enjoying my life, my marriage, my family and my friends.

I am am going to thoroughly enjoy this summer, stay tuned.

I am already really enjoying this class. I may only be dipping my toes in the world if healthcare so far but I am loving it!!! We worked on transfers and vital signs and and the beginning of patient care and I cant wait for more!!! Stay tuned!!