Mango Salsa

We eat a lot of fresh salsa usually the salsa with tomatoes but this is just wonderful.  It's my daughter's recipe and I just love it. I haven't made it in quite a while and I have forgotten how good it is.    I made some for the fourth and I'll be making a lot more before the summer is over.  It so easy, just five ingredients.  This would be great on fish tacos.

2 mangoes
1/2 purple onion, finely chopped
1 hot jalapeno, fine chopped
1 tablespoon of cilantro, chopped
juice of one fresh lime

These ingredients are what I have in the bowl above.  This was just a little appetizer before dinner but you can increase these ingredients for the amount would you like to have.

Life on the Farm

Living in the country isn't for everyone but I have to say again , "I love it."  Almost every morning Susie meets me at the window to let me know she is ready to eat. 

Our neighbor finished bailing the pasture today and Oh how I love those bails.  I will enjoy that scene until he gathers them and takes them to his barn. 

We are slowly making progress on our space behind the barn.  We have up the post for the fence panels and will have them up by next week.  We have been working a lot cleaning out spaces, taking rotted wood off of old raised beds.  It's looking a lot better.

The egg plant is doing great.  My bounty this morning from the garden. 

My beautiful zinnias!  These flowers are so colorful and beautiful and easy to grow.  The zinnias I have this year are from seed pods I collected last year.  The seed pod will form by the end of summer, you can see it very easily.  Just cut if off and keep in a zip lock bag until spring.  The seeds will usually fall out of the pod but if they don't just pull them out.  The zinnias with some rosemary make beautiful bouquets for the home.

Last but not least are our neighbors goats.  They are cute and inquisitive.  Fun to watch when they start butting heads.

What a great day!  I'm very thankful!

Cute Little Things for the Flower Bed

I love this little heart shaped planter.  I have planted a succulent it in that doesn't get very large. This planter is something that is not very large that looks really cute tucked away in your flower bed and yet it is very eye catching.  One of my favorite things that I put out every spring is my toad house.  My cats love playing with the frogs and the frogs can escape into their own little safe haven.

Both of these items can be found at Wilshire Garden Market off of North May east on Wilshire about a block on the north side of the street.  They have lots and lots of great stuff!  Go by and shop and meet the lovely ladies who own this wonderful place.

We all are creative.  Today give a little space in your home or outside a new look.  Yesterday, I was tired of the way things looked in my kitchen and I switched a few things around on the counter tops and it gave it a new little look.  Move a lamp, picture, candle holder or a flower arrangement.  You will feel like things are new.

Let go of needing to know what you will create before you have begun.  Instead just jump in and allow the creative process to be one of self discovery, moment to moment revelation and pure freedom.  You will be pleased with what you create!

Have a wonderful summer day!

Some Gardening Ideas

I moved my potting bench to a different area to make it more accessible.  If you look close on the front there is the word Garden in rustic letters as well as an old butterfly that is pretty rustic looking.  This at one time was a wind chime and it fell apart with age so I had kept the pieces thinking I might use it on something (because in the country rustic will work) .  When I moved the potting bench I saw just the place for the old letters and butterfly. 

Next is an old black cast iron pot that my neighbor gave me after cleaning out her barn.  I haven't decided yet what I am going to plant in it.  The pot next to it is something I had in our barn and I transplanted some succulents into that pot.  Those are succulents by the bottom of the wood that I transplanted.  This particular succulent (I don't know the name) is very hardy.  It dies back a little in the winter and then comes back to life in the spring.  It will spread everywhere and you can just pull it up and stick it where ever and it takes off.  My aunt gave me my start of it and I'm sorry I don't know the name.

The next photo is of an old galvanized tub and an old pot.  I really like stacking pots like this.  Just a little different look.  Again, around the bottom of the tub is that succulent.

This pic has an old stool I bought at a garage sale.  There is so much you can do with these in your landscape.  I think they really look cute with pots of flowers on them.  I have some rocks in a dish that I have collected.  But birdhouses or watering cans or little birds or a mixture of all would look cute arrange on this stool.

Next is my old ladder.  That has been in this place for about 6 years.  I still don't have the look that I exactly want.  Still a work in progress.  But maybe it will give you some ideas.

Last is my old headboard that I picked up by the curb.  I have morning glories climbing it.  My first choice would be the feathery vine that has little red flowers on it but the name of it is escaping me at the moment.  I had morning glories coming up in a lot of different places so I transferred these to the headboard.  When it all gets in full bloom, I'll post again.

Today is the Fourth of July!  As you head out to spend a wonderful day with family and friends, enjoy great food and end the evening with a display of great fireworks or maybe just fireworks on the driveway :)  may we all pray for a better world for our children and grandchildren and humanity.

Mimosa Trees, A New Rose, and Chem Trails

I'm into trees this year.  The first picture is of a Mimosa Tree that came up as a volunteer.  I really love Mimosa trees.  They perfume the air this time of the year.  If you have never lived by a Mimosa tree you would be surprised by how wonderful they smell when they bloom.  The leaves are unusual and the blooms are feathery and beautiful and the smell is wonderful.  We have three little volunteers that I have found and I'm in the process of finding a place to transplant them.  If you have a place on your property to plant a tree, consider a Mimosa.

The last picture is of a new rose I found last year about this time.  I went to Marcum's to buy a rose bush for a gift and the had all of their rose bushes marked almost 75% off.  I found this climber called Valentine and it is beautiful.  I planted it in the corner or my vegetable garden to climb the fence as you can see, but my tomato plants have almost over taken it.  It will be ok but I won't plant tomatoes there anymore.  The blooms are tight and small and so delicate looking.  They are so beautiful a lot different from normal rose.  My husband loves the way this rose looks too.  He has commented on it several times.  My pictures aren't the greatest but check out this rose, I think you will really like it.  It's different.  Also, check out nurseries this time of the year because they are starting to mark down their flowering shrubs and flowers and you can get some good deals. 

Now for chem trails.  The other pictures that you see are of a partial pear tree, we have tried to cut away the dead part, a beautiful Mimosa tree in our back yard that over a period of about three years has come to this, and then a beautiful Maple in the front of our home that is dying.  Then my pictures of my tomato plants.  I wish they were better but the leaves are a lot smaller than normal and they are curling up.

On Monday, I was working outside in this beautiful weather and I had taken a break behind the barn.  We have a sitting area back there and the view is beautiful.  It is a panoramic view.  You can look from far left to far right and see nothing but beautiful sky.  The sky that day was beautiful, deep blue with beautiful white puffy clouds. I could have sat there for hours.  That evening, Gary and I decided to go to the sitting area and star watch after dinner.  We walked outside and I looked up and there were chem trails everywhere, right over our heads.  The sky was not clear everything looked hazy.  I try not to get upset because at this time there is nothing I can do.  The next morning the sky is still hazy until about noon.  I walk around and look at my garden and my flowers and the very tops of the vegetation is all curled.  Some of it even looks burnt on the very edge.

There is a chance of rain the latter part of the week.  The percentage for the chance of rain has already decreased from its initial forecast.  Watch when there is a chance for rain and the chem trails.  If you don't know about chem trails google it or go to Thrive on the Internet and they have a lot of good articles on this.  They have pictures that will show you how the sky looks on a clear day and how it looks after they have spread.  You will start to see the change after you become aware of it.

Have a beautiful day!

Reporting In

Only lost a pound.  As you can tell, I have been eating sweets.  That is really my down fall.  I bought some good fruit over the weekend so I'm hoping to do better this week.  :(

I would like to make an addendum to my editorial.  I said that if I had it to do over again that my children would not play sports.  That statement was my controlling spirit trying to come out.  I would like to say that a little differently.  If my children showed an interest in sports on their own I would gladly let them play but I would not initiate it and that it what we did.

Book of Light

My husband has a spiritual notebook that he calls Book of light. He has put this together over the years and it is full of quotes, definitions and notes that he has accumulated.  I sat down yesterday and was reading it with his permission and it was inspiring and thought provoking. I would like to share some of it with you.

"In religion and politics, peoples beliefs and convictions are almost in every case gotten second hand, without examination.  From authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue, but have taken them at second hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing."
Mark Twain


"To KNOW and not to do, is not to KNOW."  Leo Pascalia


"They must find it difficult.....those who have taken authority as the truth, rather than the truth as the authority."      G. Massey, Egyptologist


"I like your Christ.  I do not like your Christians.  Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."  Gandhi


"To forgive is not to forget.  The merit lies in loving in spite of the vivid knowledge that the one that must be loved is not a friend."   Gandhi

I thought this definition was interesting.  Mysticism has always had a negative connotation to me so this was eye opening for me.
Mysticism - A direct union of the soul with GOD through contemplation and love.