Wednesday, October 12, 2016

Fall is here.




The Holiday Season is Upon Us.

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Garden update


Gardening update:

Well, it's October.  Soon the houseplants will have to come in for the winter.  I kicked most of them out to the deck in the spring, and sent the rest out to join them a month or two ago.  They seem to like it outside - it rains more frequently than I remember to go to the basement and water things, apparently. 

 The shamrocks are thriving, and two need new pots.

 The snake plant still looks iffy, but the spider plant is blooming and spawning for the first time in 6 years.
 The new angel wing begonia, inherited from an aunt, is blooming.  Also very tall and gangly, and I need to take some cuttings so it can be shorter and not so top-heavy.


Last month, I finally managed to take care of the Amaryllis Situation.   I sorted through them all (about 15) and tossed all the obviously withered-beyond-hope bulbs.  Everything else got moved from coconut fiber in crappy plastic pots into nice new potting soil in clay pots.  That should make them much more stable when they bloom.  However, the fresh (real) dirt has woken them all up and they're sprouting up.  Leaves only, so far. :(  So I'm guessing no blooms this year. But much happier plants, and no corpses taking up space.



This is the back fence hosta bed, after about 5 months.  We lost a lot of plants in this one, not sure why.  Not slugs, not deer, maybe cutworms.  And some of the lost ones may re-emerge in the spring.  Out of 35 plants, there are around 22 left.

The hosta bed under the deck did much better, I think they all survived, and a few even bloomed.  The bleeding hearts, on the other hand, I'm not hopeful for.  I had two, once, that were very happy and healthy.  Then their shade tree blew down, and I had to relocate them in July, which didn't work.  I planted 4 more this year (in addition to the ones I killed last year) - they bloomed, but then died back.  Not sure if that's normal and they'll come back next spring, or if there was too much clay and they gave up.  Same goes for the ghost fern and coral bells I planted next to them. 

Monday, October 10, 2016

Fun with old food

So, I may have a bit of a collection going, of old small cookbooks from the 40s, 50s and 60s.  Think brochure-sized.  With a subset of Jello recipes.  Because back then, people would put anything in Jello, and I do mean anything.  Meat, shrimp, spam, canned tuna.  Mayonnaise.    Sour cream.  Canned tomatoes. 

So, a collection of favorite online links:

Save Time and Money with a Refrigerator from the Awful Library Books website

The Gallery of Regrettable Food  with pictures (From the genius behind Interior Desecrations and other fun collections.  I especially like the Vacations section.)

Retro Recipes, featuring lots of oldies

Mid Century Menu with more vintage

The MSU Library's "Feeding America" historical collection

Kitsch Bitch on Facebook always has fun pictures.


And someday I'll find a better, more readable, version of this ad from Campbell's Soup.  


Soup Shakes.  Because drinking cold Cream of Chicken soup sounds delicious.

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