Changes in the greenhouse and some baking!

Before I jump right into the changes in the greenhouse, lets get this straight... my bedroom is currently my greenhouse.

Oh come on, who doesn't have a chandelier in their bedroom?

As a girl who doesn't own her own property (yet) but is so dead set on farming, I've got to work with what I've got. So let's take stock of that right now.

I've got: 

• two windows (south and east facing) with a nifty '80s style ledge under them
• A bag of potting soil, some seed packets and some self watering pots
• 2 feet of snow and -32C weather
• One APHA gelding (more on him soon, promise)
• Ambition

As soon as the weather warms up enough and the snow disappears (whichever comes first) I'll be out there with a shovel digging up the parent's yard and building myself one heck of a garden.

But today I spent my lazy sunday transplanting some of my plugs and baking!

The end result of taking apart a couple starter plugs.. here's hoping I didn't make the roots too unhappy!!

The spinach is doing really well already! Only 2 seeds didn't want to take off.

The dill is looking a little spindly but it was getting too tall for the starter container.

The catnip was the first to pop up and is still doing pretty decent (but nothing compared to the spinach)

I only took apart one basil plug, I'm going to give the other a little more time in the tray.

So now we're just waiting for that last basil plug and the thyme to get bigger... parsley is still a no show

 So now you've seen the greenhouse and where my plants are sitting at now... on to the baking!

I made two things this lazy Sunday: pie and cookies. The pie(s) were cherry and cherry raspberry, the cookies: peanut butter and peanut butter with peanut butter cups. A little redundancy never hurt anyone, right?

I'd really like to share the recipe for the peanut butter cookies that I made (adapted from chefsavvy.com) because I (and my parents) was really impressed with the way they turned out. They look like little dense nuggets of peanut butter but they're actually really light and soft. Win!

Peanut Butter Cup Peanut Butter Cookies

(makes approx. 50 cookies. go big or go home.)

 

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup room temperature margarine (or unsalted butter)
• 1 cup light brown sugar
• 1 cup peanut butter
• 3 whole egg
• 3 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1½ teaspoon baking soda
• 3 cup all purpose flour
• 1 cup mini Reese's peanut butter cups

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Add butter, peanut butter and brown sugar to a  bowl (or your stand mixer, I prefer a handheld electric egg beater for cookies, less cleanup!) and beat until well combined (about a minute).
3. Mix in eggs and vanilla (another thirty seconds-ish).
4. Combine baking soda and flour in a separate bowl.
5. With a spatula, hand mix the dry ingredients to the wet until just combined.
6. Fold in the peanut butter cups (at this point I divided the dough into two and reserved half the batch for peanut butter cup free cookies, but you could just mix it all in if you prefer).
7. Either use two spoons, wet hands or (my favourite) a 1½ tablespoon cookie scoop to form cookies.
8. Place cookies on a baking sheet with a silicon mat or parchment paper.
9. Bake for approximately 13 minutes.
10. Good luck letting these cool completely before eating them, they make the house smell divine.

 
And just for fun I'll finish off with a picture of the pies but I won't share the recipe (yet... pie crust recipe is for another day).

Time to bundle up, brave the -30C weather and water some horses!

yes, I was multitasking...

Back-to-Back updates... What??

Now don’t you get too excited about these back to back posts, I just didn’t want to include this gardening information in my sorry-I’ve-been-a-knob...again post because this gardening is important stuff and definitely deserves a post of its own!!

12 plugs on their first night, Wednesday January 28th.

So one week ago I was very bored at work and decided I needed to do something to take my mind off winter and start planning for a summer of gardening and farming and awesomeness... so I went and bought a bunch of seeds and some plugs.

Now I know what you're thinking... Shelly, it's too early for starting plants!!  And I agree, you're totally right! I won't be planing anything outside here (hardiness zone 2(a I think to be specific))
 until mid June... but I'm experimenting here!! I just want to see what I can start in my room and what I may be able to transplant into containers... who knows, by June I could have a few hearty plants ready for the new garden!!

I chose six greens to grow... I was going to stick with herbs but some spinach was just SCREAMING my name (or I was seed shopping after work and I was hungry... one of the two). So in that little container we have (starting on the left); Catnip, Parsley, Thyme, Dill, Basil and the aforementioned Spinach! As of yesterday (6 days in the soil), here's the progress:

Little bitty Catnip sprout!!

please tell me you can see that little Spinach too.

and that one? (little bitty Spinach sprout?)

 

And after LITERALLY 24 hours they've EXPLODED!!!

the Catnip was the star yesterday, now a little taller and with some friends in the other Catnip plug

both of these plugs feature the Spinach from yesterday... basically exploding overnight!!

and a newcomer to the party, some Basil!

Besides the new herbs, here's a photo (yep from instagram, I don't know where the original is right now, apologies) of my house plants from about 10 months ago:

Pineapple, Spider Plant, Poinsettia and Avocado!

And here they are now!

in the same order... but bigger pots and MUCH fuller! (and yes, my Poinsettia turned red all on its own!)

And the final piece of gardening news, I'm attempting to start three more Avocados! (My last one took 2 months to start showing any sign of improvement... so I'll try to keep you posted!)

(and yes, they were delicious!)

So that's about all on the gardening front for now... Keeping in mind that it is the end of January and (as mentioned) planting time doesn't really start here until mid June... so I'll try to keep the Gardening tag filled with my house planting and gardening prep!

Thanks for stopping by!

Aw hell...

Apparently I still can't get the blogging thing down... lets try this again...

Hi there! I'm Smooshe. Still here... Promise!

I'm Shelly (you can call me Smooshe though) I'm 25 and I sell automotive parts by day (to pay off a crippling student debt) and dream about being a farmer by night. Everything posted previous on this blog is true with a few additions.

Addition Number Uno.... I bought myself a horse. Last May to be exact.

Meet Max (Maximus... well actually, he's Sonny Deebar Delight, registered APHA)

I bought that beauty there just a week after his 13th birthday. He's a great man and I'm learning a heap from him!

A beautiful place to be.

I also took up farming. By that I mean I am working for my neighbour on a small farm. I started by doing chores and helping out with odd carpentry projects (building a corral, fence, barn floor...) and spent a good month mowing 120 acres with a 5 foot sickle bar mower!! (It was a very late harvest, but the field hadn't been worked for over 20 years.... it was fun though!!)

Honestly that pretty much brings you up to date.

It's a new year... I won't resolve to update more often but I'm going to try my darnedest!

(here, have another picture of me and my man since I'm so in love with him!)

It's been a while...

I hardly know where to begin. Obviously apologies are in order, and I am SO sorry to the 1.5 people (persons?) out there who actually read this. Things sort of fell apart for me this past year, my life seemed to crumble under my feet. When things finally started looking better... Away it went again.

But none of this should matter. This blog should be a place where I can get away from it all. Let it out, vent, move on, relax and create.

So here we are again. Trying hard to be me. It's been a hectic year, but I'll try to condense it to a few pictures and you'll be right up to speed and we can be on our merry way!

Our horse group officially opened the new outdoor arena in the spring!

Even though the summer was windy and a little chilly, I spent much of my time on the water.

I took some riding lessons at the new arena in the fall (it was a blast!!)!!

Sold my baby that I'd only had for a year! (in favour of something a little bigger!)

I discovered love again.

Started a new project...

With a little help from my sister!

(ok, it actually looks pretty different now... this picture was almost 6 months ago!! but you get the idea!)

I had to say good-bye to my puppy <3

She was a good girl.

Tried out the 4x4 in the new car! (works great until you hit the ditch)!

Carried on with the fitness thing. (That's Minutes, Miles and Calories at the top)

I was fortunate to take a ski trip during my first season.

Right into the mountains.

Naturally, I discovered that I am afraid of heights.

Learned a lot on this trip, can't wait to go back!

Found real happiness on the slope :)

And now we're caught up! Here I am, a year on, 25 pounds lighter, halfway done paying off my student debt... and ready for some adventure, starting now!

 ~*~

Friday Fitness Update!

Oh my gosh... where do I start?!

When I last left you I was sitting at about 153 pounds and I was in love with my ellpitical.

Well I haven't been on the elliptical in about 4 weeks!  But don't worry, I haven't given up on the fitness!

Aren't they purty?

I've started rollerblading!! And I have to tell you... I'm in love.

I haven't skated in almost 8 years, the last time being when I went to a cadet camp where on weekends you could go mountain biking (which I did then too... which I want to take up again too!) or borrow roller blades or go to the canteen or... well, I stopped there because I was able to fill my weekends of the 6 weeks I was there with biking and skating :)

My first ride I just went around in circles for about an hour in  drive way... but that got boring so I struck out on the highway (which is right at the end of my driveway). When I'm feeling "lazy" I o 5km out (and 5 back for a total for 10), and when I'm feeling more adventurous I just give 'er! My furthest so far has been 16.6km out (so a total of 33.2km!!) and because that was on a weekend after a nice healthy brunch, I wasn't even tired after!! (though I was pretty darn sore for 3 days after!!)



I've been documenting my skates with photos of me giving the thumbs up at some landmarks around the area. Of course I haven't taken too many pictures of the places too close by, but that's just so I can save them for when it's pretty and green out!

I bought the skates on April 27th and just changed my first brake today, May 17th!

I can't wait to see how long it takes to go through this brake! (don't worry! I have 3 more before I need to buy more!)