Problems, cilantro and egg shells

I took a little trip to do some cowboying and I completely forgot to take any pictures of my cute cowboy kids.  I so fail as a mother.  Never have the camera when I need it.  Every time I leave the computer for a few days, it seems to take me forever to get caught up and back into the swing of things.  I had to laugh as I was catching up at all the posts that seemed to fit me just right.

Nancy, at A Rural Journal posted this a day or two ago:

The problem is not that there are problems.  

The problem is expecting otherwise 
and thinking that having problems is a problem.  

~Theodore Rubin~

Funny how perfectly that fit me, as I was feeling sorry for myself and all my problems.  Funny also that everywhere I look on my blog reading list, people are posting about enjoying what is around us and not worrying about tomorrow.  It's like everyone knows what is going on in my life and they are writing their thoughts and advice for me.  Maybe we're all connected on a subconscious level.  Maybe I'm reading way too much into this.  Maybe I should get to the point.

My point is, work interferes with life.  And it seems to be especially irritating right now.

Were it not for work, my husband could actually enjoy a campout with the little man this weekend.  We could plan that trip to Washington and go see Les Miserables in Seattle in August.  The up side to work is the money, I guess.  I do like to have a roof over my head and without that money, rent wouldn't be paid and I wouldn't even have a car to live in because money pays for that too.  Of course, the car isn't running right now, which calls for even more money, which means even more work.  That also causes us to apply for even more jobs and then wait to see if we even get a call.  Yep, work totally interferes with my life.

To distract myself from all those depressing work/money thoughts, I headed out to the garden.  It's doing well, despite me and my monster and the crazy weather.  Yesterday, as I was on my way to the grocery store to spend money, it started to rain.  No problem there, we're used to rain this year.  Then, it started to hail and I realized that my poor plants were out there getting their heads banged around, so around I turned and headed back home to cover them up.  Of course, by the time I actually pulled into the driveway, the storm had passed but I covered them anyway just to be on the safe side.  I think most everything is okay.  There are a few sad looking squash plants, but all in all, it's good.
 

I added some trellises for the tomatoes.  These babies are made from pvc pipe from our sad hoop house of last year.  I strung a few little ropes to secure them and I'll be adding more as I go.  This is just for starters.

While out, I harvested most of the cilantro.  It all seems to be wanting to go to seed, and I don't want it to, so I clipped it off.  I'm trying a new way to preserve my cilantro this year.  In the past I have dried it, which makes it taste a lot like parsley.  Once, I forgot that it was still in the oven and burned it pretty badly.  Burning cilantro really stinks.  I have also chopped it and put it into ice cube trays, topping with water.  The cilantro floated to the top and made a huge mess.  I wasn't too happy with those.  This year, I'm borrowing a page from Thy Hand Hath Provided's book.  I'm making a kind of sauce with garlic, lemon juice, salt and olive oil.  Then I poured it into the ice cube trays and froze it.  I haven't tried it yet, but it already looks better than anything I've tried before.

I also transplanted a little tomato plant.  This picture doesn't really show it, but it was the same size as the one in the back of the picture when I planted them both.  It just isn't getting enough sunshine, so I moved it out here.  You can also see the marigold that my son gave me for Mother's Day.  It has been pulled out of the dirt twice and picked more than once by the monster.  In fact, right after I took this picture, she attacked the blossom and half of it's petals are on the ground now. 

Here's some of the patio plants, with another mystery plant in front.  It seemed to know what it was doing when I weeded, so I left it alone and now it's huge!  Then there's onions and carrots and turnips way down there.

To finish up my little outdoor excursion, I noticed some blue, hatched and dropped egg shells.  I'm always amazed at that color.  Why do robins lay blue eggs?  They aren't blue.  They're pretty plain, really.  Is this how they express themselves?

Well, off to check the wanted ads... :)