And so my short one month break has turned into a three month break … I have been contemplating just shutting down this blog, but I thought I’d give it one more whirl and see if I can get back into it.
The past three months have been busy. This blog was originally a way for me to find some “me” time on a regular basis, but there hasn’t been much me time lately. It is somewhat amusing how quickly I forgot how relatively “easy” the first three months with a baby can be – I mean they spend a lot of time napping during those first few months. Or more importantly, we had a lot of visitors back then that helped out in watching the kids while I could take some time to do things for myself … But, now my little one is almost 9 months old … she just started crawling, puts absolutely everything in her mouth (including the dog’s tail) and wants to climb onto everything and anything. I barely have enough time to go to the bathroom these days, much less sit and write a blog or even thinking about my Etsy shop…
I had grand plans for this blog. I wanted to post all sorts of sewing tutorials, recipes, reviews, but these days my sewing table is lost under piles of toys and miscellaneous junk, dinners seem to be coming from the freezer more often than not and I am so sleep deprived I think the most complex review I could put together right now would be “It’s good. I like it.” So we will see where this goes, if this goes at all.
Hello again 
It is nice to be back to blogging after a month-long break. It has been a very busy month around here with vacations, birthdays, and visitors on top of all of our usual activities. I’ve been spending a lot of my “free” time (does any mom really have “free” time??) in our garden, which is growing beautifully. We finally started to reap the benefits of our hard work this past weekend with our very first zucchini & tomatoes of the season – woohoo! But the real excitement in our garden was the harvesting of garlic scapes.
Garlic Scapes
Garlic scapes are the stem that grows from hardneck garlic. They are these funky, curly stems with little bulbs on top. I learned that it is best to cut them off before they become too stiff so that the plant can redirect its energy to the garlic bulb instead of the scape. I think I may have waited too long to cut the scapes off, but I guess we will see when I go to harvest the garlic in a few weeks. This is my first attempt at growing garlic, so I had never seen or really heard of a garlic scape before, but after doing some research I discovered that there are a number of things you can do with them. I opted to make some Garlic Scape Pesto, a couple of jars of garlic-infused olive oil, and then chopped the rest of them up & put them in a jar w/ some olive oil to use in stir fries and things down the road. So, I thought I would share my Garlic Scape Pesto recipe, in case you run across some scapes in your own garden or at the farmer’s market this month
I used an adaptation of the recipe found on A Mighty Appetite.
- 1 cup garlic scapes, chopped
- 1/3 cup pine nuts
- 3/4 cup olive oil
- 1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
- 1/2 tsp salt
Process the scapes & pine nuts in a food processor until they form a paste (I had to stop & scrape the sides of the bowl a couple of times). With the processor running, pour in the olive oil. Process until well combined. Pour mixture into a separate bowl. Add Parmesan & salt & mix until well combined.
I put it in an air-tight container in the fridge & will be using it tonight to saute our zucchini & some chicken. It smells incredible & I can’t wait for dinner tonight. But since this was my first time making this particular recipe there are a few things I would change next time. I would probably reduce the olive oil to 1/2 c. instead of 3/4c because it came out a bit more oily than I tend to like things. I think I would also add a bit of basil because I like the taste of basil
The rest of our scapes went into some garlic-infused olive oil & chopped into a jar for future use. I look forward to experimenting with this little garden treasure down the road.
I was so gung-ho when I started blogging and I was great about posting regularly … but now life has caught up with me and I am feeling pretty good if I manage to get one post up a week. I miss it. I miss taking time out of every day to do something just for fun and I hope that I will be able to get back to that soon. But the next few weeks are going to be crazy busy for me so I am going to take a little blogging break. No First Friday in June 
but I will be back by mid-June.
Happy Memorial Day! See you back here in a few weeks.
The wonderful mama at Cook Clean Craft was sweet enough to think of me and send this to me. It’s my first award and it just about made my day! Cook Clean Craft is a great blog with loads of yummy recipes & very creative craft ideas, so check it out!
Here are the rules for the Sunshine Award:
* Nominate 12 other bloggers
* List the award in either a post or on your sidebar
* Link your nominees within your post
* Let the nominees know you have passed this on to them by commenting on their blog
Here are my Sunshine Award nominees, please check out their great blogs:
- Fun with Bella
- The Blessings of Modern Domestication
- Grammy Mouse Tails
- On the Search for Hidden Treasure
- Craftlicious
- In My Kitchen Garden
- Garden Mom
- Strictly Simple Style
- Live and Love…Out Loud
- A Lot of Loves
- Unknown Mami
- Ma, What’s for Dinner?
I’ve taken a bit of a blogging break for the last week or so because all of my spare time has pretty much been going into our garden. I thought I would share some photos of what I’ve been up to in the garden the past couple of weeks. It is pretty amazing that our raised beds have gone from this….
A weed garden
To this in just a month or so…
We have 4 raised beds that we built last year. Our soil is not great – hard clay mostly, so we filled them originally with 2 parts top soil, 2 parts composted manure and 1 part leaf mold. Our garden is organic – no pesticides, no chemical fertilizers. I start most of my plants from seed myself (which you can see in some of my previous posts from a couple of months ago), although I did get a few seedlings from a friend’s organic farm this year because I love some of the cucumber and tomato varieties they grow. I want to try my hand at seed saving this year, so I figured if I got seedlings from them I could try to save the seeds to start my own plants of those varieties next year.
What I am growing this summer:
- Tomatoes (Sun Gold, Sun Sugar, Juliet Romas, Celebrity, Green Zebras, Tomaccio)
- Peppers (White Habanero, Serrano, Jalapeno, Felicity Heatless Jalapeno, Sweet Carmen, Wonder Bell)
- Summer Squash (Raven Zucchini, Yellow Squash)
- Cannelini beans
- Potatoes
- Cucumbers (Suyo Long, White Wonder)
- Eggplant
- Garlic
- Herbs (Thyme, Cilantro, Sage, Basil, Oregano, Lemongrass, Mint, Chocolate Mint, Rosemary)
- Lettuce (Jericho, Pirat)
First tomatoes
A tiny Yellow Squash
Cannelini Beans just emerged today!
Peppers
I have the whole garden on a drip line system – my garden would not exist without it because I am horrible at remembering to water plants. I got my system from DripWorks. I highly recommend them – super friendly & helpful staff. I sent them a drawing of my garden set up & someone worked with me over the phone to set up a drip line system that would work for us & helped me order all the parts we needed. They system works beautifully.
We also have our garden enclosed with a deer fence from Gardener’s Supply because we get lots of curious deer around here. I think I might have to change my opinion on hunting if a deer were to come through and destroy my garden after all the hours of work I put into it … It truly is nearly invisible and very effective (so far). We put mylar strips on it to keep birds & people from running into it. We also have a friendly gnome that keeps an eye on things for us…
So all in all our summer garden is off to a good start and we are eagerly awaiting our first harvest, which should hopefully come in about a month or so
Shahana from Craftlicious!! Congratulations!
I hope you enjoy the Snuggly Baby doll
Please contact me within 48 hours (by Monday evening) to claim your prize.
Thank you to everyone that participated in First Friday.
Happy Mother’s Day!!
Welcome to the very first First Friday Etsy Artwalk!
(Woohoo! Yay! )
First Friday is a chance to get to know some of the artisans and crafters in the Etsy community. I love to attend craft fairs and First Friday events, so I thought it would be fun to do a First Friday blog hop. To learn more about how First Fridays works, check out my First Fridays page.
In honor of First Friday, I am also hosting my very first giveaway today! Today I will be giving away one of the waldorf-inspired Snuggly Baby dolls from my Etsy shop.
There are several ways to enter this giveaway:
- Participate in First Friday by writing a post & adding your link to the Linky below (5 entries)
- Visit my Etsy shop (Snuggly Monkey Co) and leave a comment here with some feedback (2 entries)
- Leave a general comment (1 entry)
- Tweet about First Fridays (1 entry – leave a comment letting me know you did this, please)
- Follow me with GFC (1 entry – existing followers will automatically receive an extra entry if you leave a comment today)
The giveaway ends at 11:59pm Friday, May 7th. The winner will be announced here on Saturday, May 8th (and also notified via e-mail). Please note: This giveaway is only open to US participants (Sorry! But I can’t ship this doll internationally)
A little bit about Snuggly Monkey Co…
I started Snuggly Monkey Co on Etsy just this past March, but Snuggly Monkey has actually been in existence for a bit over three years now. I began my craft business soon after my first daughter was born. At first I mostly made & sold ring slings, but as my daughter got older I started making more toys for her to play with and found that I really, really enjoyed that creative process. So, I changed focus and Snuggly Monkey became more about making creative playthings. I started setting up a booth at some local craft fairs with my sister (my co-snuggly monkeyer at the time), but eventually our lives just got too busy to keep that going, so I decided to try setting up shop on Etsy. It is actually from my shop that this blog got its name
I love to sew, but I also really enjoy felting, basic embroidery and doll-making among other things. I was introduced to the world of Waldorf-style crafts when my husband and I signed up for a Morning Garden (parent/child class) program with our oldest at our local Waldorf school. It was a wonderful experience, and I instantly fell in love with the nature inspired toys. I made my first snuggly baby doll for my daughter over two years ago, and I love that she still carries her “baby” around and sleeps with it at night.
With two little ones to care for I do not get to my sewing and craft projects nearly as much as I would like to anymore, but I hope to continue adding new items to my Etsy shop in the coming months. Please feel free to stop by and let me know what you think. Feedback is always appreciated.
The original Snuggly Monkey…
As if First Friday and my first Giveaway were not enough … I am also participating in Friday Follow today! Find more great blogs to follow at Friday Follow hosted by One 2 Try, Hearts Make Families and Midday Escapades!
Thanks for stopping by today and don’t forget to enter to win a Snuggly Baby Doll!
