Trick or Treat You're so Sweet

Still making more Halloween cards. 

Love to make cards for this "spooky" holiday. 

I used Tim Holtz worn wallpaper for the top half of the card. 

Die cuts were used for the main image. 

and since I added a banner on the front that reads trick or treat

I added you're sweet greeting on the inside. 

Love how this one turned out! 

We had lots of rain yesterday and temps in the low 50's.

It was a perfect time to make spaghetti sauce using the last of the garden 

tomatoes. 

I used a total of 5 pounds of tomatoes. Added tsp basil, 1/4 tsp oregano, 

minced garlic clove, 1/4 cup olive oil, tsp parsley, pinch red pepper flakes, salt, and pepper. 

Froze half of the batch for later. Used the other half of the sauce with cheese tortellini, and 

ground Italian sausage. It was so good! 

So I'm going to say my first attempt at making spaghetti sauce was a hit. 

Stamping trails

Karen 

Tales from the Garden

Wanted to post some pics of the garden veggies. 

Cucumbers are producing a lot! 

as is the zucchini. There are a few cucumbers mixed

in with them. I see zucchini bread in our future this fall. 

I plan to use the food processor to grate it. I'll bag it and into the freezer to be

used for fall, and winter baking. 

First harvest of beans. Purple, and green. Funny thing when

you cook the purple ones they turn green. Go figure. 

Still waiting on the tomatoes. We have a ton of green ones. 

With the garden not getting planted till the 2nd week of June I'm thinking

maybe by the end of summer we will see some red ones. Really excited

as we planted some roma tomatoes that I'll use to make and freeze spaghetti sauce. 

Garage sale is almost here. Hoping to sell a lot so I will have less to box up

and take to goodwill. 

Stamping trails

Karen 

Herbs are Growing

My basil is doing great! We got a late start with 

the garden this year as it wouldn't stop raining, and hubby

couldn't even till the ground till June. He

normally gets it all tilled in April. 

We will have a late growing season. We

do have green tomatoes on the vines, but I'm thinking they

won't get ripe till the end of August. 

The herbs I have in containers on the deck. 

The dill is growing well also. 

Have two containers of kale. 

Didn't take a photo of the pot, but here is a photo

of some I picked. Using it mostly for green monster 

smoothies. 

Happy birthday to my dear friend Connie. 

Hope you have a wonderful day!!!!

Stamping trails

Karen 

How Does Your Garden Grow Farmer Joel?

Hubby went out the other day and did some harvesting. 

I was surprised to see ripe grapes! 

The corn is just about gone, and it was so good. I normally don't 

like corn, and even I enjoyed it. 

The tomatoes are trickling in. I'm sure by the end of next week

I'll have them up to my ears, and will need to start freezing them.

For now I'm enjoying eating them right out of the garden. So good!!!

Happy Birthday to my friend Marianne who celebrated yesterday, and

to Connie who is celebrating her birthday today. 

Stamping trails

Karen

Tails from the Garden, and Owl ATC

We are starting to get veggies from the garden.

Hubby picked a basket of green beans yesterday. 

Beans after they were washed and snapped. So guess what's for dinner tonight?

We also got a truck load of cucumbers. These were the first picking. 

Skip went back and brought in 10 more. So we are already sharing with

the neighbors. 

I did stamp a little bit yesterday afternoon. I stamped the owl

image while at Betty's. Colored it in using prisma colors. 

The background was made using Tim Holtz Distress Oxide ink. 

Stamping trails

Karen

Strange Tails from the Garden

Had to share some of the strange things we found at 

the wrap up of the garden. 

We have been getting some more tomatoes, but

there are only a few of them left so hubby will be taking

down the rest of the garden.

The green pepper in this photo is in fact a green

pepper, and not a hot pepper. For some reason instead

of it growing its normal shape it grew like this. Okay the

next photo is of the eggplant. Oh my goodness is it weird! 

Are you ready? 

Ta da! I give you the eggplant that

looks like it has Bob Hope's nose. 

Could be something else, but I'm running a clean blog here people! 

I told you it was strange! 

I'm happy the garden is finished up for the season. It 

was great while it lasted, and I have a ton of green beans, 

and tomatoes put up to last the winter. 

Stamping trails

Karen

Yellow Watermelon?

So have you ever had a yellow watermelon? 

I wasn't aware they even had them till me and 

hubby stopped by Heritage Farm last week. 

Located right here in Brunswick Heritage Farm

has many farmers come to sell there crops. 

We went there to find a seeded watermelon as 

hubby has it in his head that the seedless melons are

not as sweet as the ones that do have seeds. I

don't taste the difference. 

It must be to early for locals to have ripe melons, but

we did find a girl selling yellow ones. 

Here is an inside view of the melon. Didn't even taste like

watermelon to me. It wasn't bad just different. Don't think I'll be 

getting another one. 

Stamping trails

Karen

Garden Tails

So our garden is giving us some nice veggies. 

This is only one basket of cucumbers. There have 

been more. Hubby took some to the neighbors, and his

co-workers. 

One of the many baskets of green, and purple beans. Skip has

to harvest more today, so I'll be busy prepping them for the freezer. 

Something new to the garden....grapes! 

We planted them two years ago. This will be the first crop 

we can collect. Tried one the other day, and they are sour! 

Should sweeten up in a few weeks when they are ready to harvest. 

There are only 2 apples on the tree, but again it is 

only 2 years old, so it isn't going to produce much yet. 

And of course the tomatoes are starting to come in a few

at a time. I have about 10 sitting on the counter by the window so 

 

they can ripen a bit more. 

I went to Pat Catan's and Michael's yesterday. 

Was in the mood to just walk around and see what was new.

Of course the Fall, Halloween is all out, and

 

they are working on getting the Christmas stuff out. 

 

They have moved stuff around so much at Catan's that I have

 

to walk all the way through the store just so I know where

  

everything is. If you haven't been there it is a very large store. 

 

I'll be back tomorrow with photos of some of the stuff I bought. 

 

Stamping trails

Karen 

The Lilies are in Bloom

The whole front flower bed is full of lilies right now. 

 

This is the only red one. The rest are yellow. 

I'm moving from left to right across the bed.

The rhododendrons are long since bloomed, so 

I'm happy that the lilies are the star of the show. 

Here are the largest ones called cannis. They were so heavy with the flowers, 

that hubby helped me tie them up to the fence. They would have

been on the ground. 

Look how big the flowers are! 

I told Joel that the stems and leaves on this plant remind

me of the Addams Family. Morticia pet plant was named Cleopatra, and she

use to feed it raw hamburger.

Okay I'm dating myself again. 

I had to step back to the middle of the yard so I could

take a shot of the full plant. 

The only thing I don't like is hubby planted them in front of the hostas, so

you can't see them blooming. 

You can see the jute I used to tie up the lilies. 

John came home from work yesterday saying he wasn't feeling well. 

Summer colds are the pits! Of course he felt the need to share with

his mother. So we are drinking lots of fluid and eating chicken noodle soup. 

Stamping trails

Karen

Knee High by the 4th of July

Well look at that....the corn is knee high by the 4th of July. 

And here we see the proud farmer. 

More corn.

We got baby tomatoes growning! 

pepper plants. 

As the sun was going down I took this picture of a humming bird resting

in the hickory tree. 

Moon showing behind the hickory tree. 

I thought this cloud looked cool showing through the trees. 

Be back tomorrow with some crafty stuff. 

Stamping trails

Karen

Tales from the Garden

Thought I would share some photos of the backyard and garden. 

These are pots on our deck. I have daisies and geraniums growing in them. 

 

You can see the humming bird feeder next to it. 

 

 

Spinach growing in a large pot. 

parsley, and basil.

cilantro. 

zinnias. We grow these every summer, as the gold finches like

 

to come up to the deck when the flowers go to seed, and eat them. 

 

They are fun to watch. 

 

 

row of tomatoes. Hubby put down straw to help keep the weeds at bay. 

 

 

we also put down some weed fabric. 

snow peas. 

green beans, and some little bug has been eating the leaves. 

cucumber 

more beans. 

We also have potatoes, peppers, and eggplant growing. 

No squash this year. It took over half the garden last year, so

we decided not to grow it this year. Oh and we have corn growing. Its

not going to be knee high by the fourth of July, but its close to it. 

Been raining the past two days. I feel bad for the Brunswick city fair, as they

opened on Thursday and it has rained both days. We are planning to go later

this evening as they will have the fireworks show tonight. 

Stamping trails

Karen