I love people, I love lakes

No offense to Mitt Romney, but this song is very catchy and hilarious. Actually, almost everything by Schmoyoho is on my fun list. So, I was editing the photos from a BBQ we had the other day, and it made me thinking how I love people... haha but seriously, I do, and why is making good friends suddenly so much harder when I'm 25 than it ever was?! You know, building friendships is a lot like dating: it takes lots of time, effort and emotional determination. And it just seems like after college it gets harder to divide 24 hours in nice chunks for work, family, grown-up responsibilities, good old friends, and getting to know new people. How do you find time to spend with your friends if you're not in college anymore?

Because of all of the reasons I mentioned above, I'm learning to truly appreciate every time I get to hang out with my friends without worrying about being somewhere else doing something else that I have on my to-do list. Ben and I usually try to meet with our Sandpoint friends for lunch from time to time, go hiking or to the beach, organize a BBQ evening.. In summer it's 500 times easier! Our latest gathering was super fun, a huge thank you goes to Ben's parents for providing us with their backyard and grill!

The next few months promise a lot of heart-warming activities, including a camping trip in Montana with one of our best friends (I can't wait and I hope we all make it there!), and a wedding in Utah with many-many amazing friends coming from all over the country. Even looking forward to it makes me feel very comfy and happy inside. 

My first garden update of 2013!

One of my favorite things about summer is having a garden. After moving to Idaho last July, I started a mini garden at Ben's parent's house and it was incredibly successful: all through October we were harvesting snap peas, carrots, beets, dill and other salad ingredients. I was so anxious the whole winter to finally start a garden again, I even grew arugula at home on a windowsill earlier this spring. Finally, it's warm and I can show you what I've grown so far! 

This year I'm sharing the garden with Ben's dad.  He built many new raised beds and it looks better than ever! So, right now we have all kinds of onions/lettuce/spinach/kale/arugula greens, lots of peas, even more onions, some potatoes, and there are also strawberries, tomatoes, peppers and basil. I'm looking forward to sage, thyme and cucumbers showing up! 

I'm so excited, I wish we lived closer and I could just go before work early every morning and later in the evening to check on how everything is getting bigger and riper all the time! Summers are the best.

garden update: september 5th

 sweet peas

 beets

 carrots

 new radishes 

 onion flower and a bee

Finally! Sweet pea time! Just look at these lovelies - I'm going to harvest a few peas today. Since it gets really cold here at night my garden doesn't grow fast anymore. I think usually plants grow faster during warm nights after being watered in the evening. Here it's a different story: when the sun is up it's really hot and dry, then in the evening I water my little garden but air cools down rapidly and even in the morning before about 9am it's still pretty cold. I hope my carrots and beets get enough warmth to grow before the end of September. Although dill looks better and better. It's so thick and tasty! I didn't take any pictures of it this time because it looks just as always - like a forest :-) If you're interested you can find lots of dill photos in my previous garden posts. We topped salmon with this tasty herb the other night and grilled it. Mmmm yumm! My advice for any gardener - plant some dill, you'd love it!

garden update: august 23rd

Our little garden grows so fast! I finally installed the sticks for the peas and now they are growing up! There are already a few tiny green peas formed on some plants! I can't wait to pick the first of them! Our beets and carrots are doing really well - they look great and I can see some tiny root crops at the bottom of the plants! Dill is the king of the garden so far. We eat it every day and it seems to grow magically overnight! It's like a forest! 

Almost every day this week our lunch consists of boiled farmer's market young potatoes with olive oil, salt and dill! It's super easy and amazingly awesome. We just buy local little potatoes, both red and white, boil them for 15 minutes till they are soft. Serve them on our plates, break them in halves with a fork (and be careful! they are really hot!), top them with cut dill; on a side of a plate we pour some olive oil, sprinkle salt and.. just dip a potato in this salty oil and eat it! Believe me it's so yummy and summery! Right now I'm boiling potatoes from the last nights' farmer's market :-)

PS: have you entered our giveaway yet? Win a painting HERE!

garden update: august 15th

It's growing! I can't wait for all the peas to bloom and for the little beets and carrots to get thicker and stronger! Finally our dill is big enough and we started using it in the kitchen this week! We made dill+cucumber+greek yogurt salad twice and mashed potatoes with cream and dill. yummm! Seriously, what could be better than eating something fresh right from your own garden? 

This week tasks: thin carrots again, find and install sticks to hold peas, eat more dill :-)

Do you have a garden? What are you growing? Please share with us or leave links to your blogs/posts - we'd love to see your garden!

PS: you see that yellow dog on the first picture? Now there's a fence that keeps Sam away from digging in my garden any more. I can't believe he almost destroyed it twice!

PPS: not garden related news but... Omg! We're about to hit 100 followers mark! Be ready for a giveaway!

garden update: august 9th

I love our little garden.
I love going out in the morning and watering my green friends.
I love seeing them growing and just looking so healthy and good.
I even wish summer never ended.

garden update: july 31st

I feel bad that I had to thin the beets - they are like garden babies to me - but they need enough space to grow and I can't let them get crowded. We didn't just throw them away, they made a really good salad. Tomorrow I'll have to do the same with the little carrots. 

There are the first tomatoes in the parent's garden. They are orange and sweet! 

There are no photos of the peas this time (surprise!) because something unpredictable happened yesterday. Our dog Sam decided that the pea bed would make a perfect hiding spot for his new big bone... It's a disaster right now, I'm not sure which of the peas will survive, so I'll update you on them later :-) 

garden update: july 19th

Because we moved, we didn't get to harvest the garden in Russia, but now we have a new garden! Ben's parents started theirs around the same time, so now almost every day we have fresh food on the table. We also started our own new garden (we planted more peas, dill and beets!) We'll have to wait a few weeks before we can get anything from ours, but the peas are already sprouting! So this mostly a parents' Sandpoint garden update, but while we're here we spend time every day helping to take care of it.

This is stir fry made from garden veggies and scallops :-)

And here's the view out our window!