Garden is growing!

I took a stroll through the garden today to see what is growing. Want to see?

The smell of the orange blossoms on the Satsuma tree is amazing!
Wish I could upload that for you!

Baby lemons...future lemonade!!

The peppers are coming along nicely.

As are the Celebrity tomatoes (or are those Stupic?)

And the cherry tomatoes...

The zucchini are almost ready to pick if I want 'baby zucchini!'

So all in all, a good walk through the garden..

Tomatillo Salsa

I got some great tomatillos at the farmer's market last week and since I delight in salsa verde I wanted to try canning some. Here is the recipe I used.

Tomatillo Green Salsa (for canning) (What I actually did 3/29/09)
Yield: 8 pints

7 cups chopped tomatillos
1/2 cup chopped long green chiles
4 cups chopped onions
1 cup white vinegar
6 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 Tbsp salt

Combine all ingredients in a large saucepan and stir frequently over high heat until mixture begins to boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Ladle hot salsa into pint jars, leaving 1/2-inch headspace. Adjust lids and process in a boiling water canner 15 minutes.

Chopping the tomatillos was a little time consuming,

so I used the Cuisinart for the onions, garlic and cilantro.

Cooked everything together for 20 minutes.
Poured into clean jelly jars.
Final step: water bath. Wrapped in old Tshirst (to prevent breakage) and boiled for 15 minutes.

And that was it! We haven't tried it yet. Hope it's not too vinegar-y!

Coming out of hiding...

Michael's levels are really coming down. He has a Geiger counter and on the first day his levels were somewhere around 100. After a shower that evening it dropped to the 40's. He is now down near the single digits. Tomorrow he is supposed to get checked out to see if he can come out of hiding.

He did come out yesterday and sat in a chair to enjoy the sunshine. Annie and I kept our distance but it was nice to have some face time. He IS feeling a little sick and naseous. His brother John told him to take some Prilosec. Hopefully that will take care of it!

The quarantine quarters

We finished the to do list and the room is fixed up and the prisoner....er....patient...is in there. I thought you might like to see the transformation to our room. Sorry for those of you who didn't know what it looked like before. I'll try to post a picture after we restore it to it's usual look.

We stripped the bed of the decorative pillows and down comforter and replaced them with easily washable blankets.

We removed the dog crate that is usually in this corner and put in a trash can for all those disposables he'll be using.

He stocked a disposable cooler with waters so he wouldn't have to ask for a drink everytime he needed one.

Here you can see the hamper lined with a trash bag as well as the DVD player, movies on loan from friends and the flat screen TV on loan from my parents! A folding table is set up (in the background) as a desk.

We removed the dog bed which is usually in this spot and put up a folding table to be used as a desk. This is a closeup of the desk. He is all set with disposable gloves, laptop wrapped in plastic wrap. The remotes and geiger counter are also wrapped. He has reading material and a supply of candies in the plastic bag in case his throat gets sore.

And finally the bathroom. He is supposed to bathe often since the iodine is secreted through the pores. He has a good supply of towels. Here you can see his supply of medicines on the left. He wrapped the tube of toothpaste, the soap dispenser and the sink handle!

Don't feel too bad for him. My son said he would LOVE to have all the TV and computer time they want, with food coming whenever he asked for it. But you can pray for him because he is missing contact with people! He is looking forward to getting this behind him so he can get back to normal with his energy levels.

Radioactive!

We are getting ready for Michael to receive his radioactive iodine. The list of things to do to get ready keeps growing! He had his surgery three weeks ago. They removed his thyroid due to papillary carcinoma.

He has been off of his medication for a week and his energy is declining. Yesterday we got the call from the endocrinologist that his TSH levels are at 54. That's excellent! We can go ahead and schedule the radioactive iodine uptake. He will have to be in isolation for at least 3 days. We will probably err on the safe side and make it a little longer. So in preparation for that, I need to:

• pack up my clothes and toiletries (he must have exclusive use of the bathroom)
• remove the dog bed and crate from the room
• stock his bathroom with extras (towels, tp, etc)
• set up a table and chair to serve as a desk
• put in a trash can for all the disposables he will be using
• set up a clothes basket with a trash bag for his radioactive clothing
• remove our good down comforter and replace with easily washed blanket
• stock up on things to do: magazines/books to read, movies to watch, etc.
• stock up on snacks/drinks

My parents have very generously donated the use of a flat screen TV (we only own one television) for the bedroom. It is HD so we are receiving channels we don't normally receive.
All this, plus homeschool, shuttle kids around and do my Sonlight stuff. Whew!

Herb Garden

I have a separate herb garden that is closer to my back door so I can pop out and snip the required herb. All I had left after the winter was my ever-increasing thyme patch and some parsley that had self-seeded.

I bought basil, oregano, marjoram, peppermint, spearmint, sage, and lamb's ear (accidentally, I thought it was sage!) I also planted parsley and basil seed that I had collected but nothing's come up yet. Here you can see all the new plants I added. You can see the largish parsley bush in the background and the big thyme patch in the foreground.

The harvest!

The jars have cooled and now I have the "problem" of finding places to store them! I jokingly call the coat closet my cellar. This is right about the time I pack away our winter clothes so I have some room in the coat closet for two boxes. I will try to squeeze the other box in my pantry. Oh the pasta sauce, chili, salsa we'll enjoy!!

Last year I had my husband and dad put in a shelf above my white board in the kitchen so I could have space to display/store my pretty jars. When the jars were gone this year I replaced it with pasta. Now they are sharing space!