This Week (A Tiny Human, Summer Kale, and Catching Them All)

Okay, so it’s been a couple weeks again. It’s hard to keep up! I can probably blame it on this little guy...

This is Jackson, my new nephew! My brother Eric, his wife Sarah, and their baby visited us from Nashville all last week, leaving me awestruck at the itty-bitty human they brought into the world. He is so beautiful and tiny! I was so glad I got to meet him.

This picture is so beautiful I can hardly take it...

Things have been quiet in the garden. Over the past couple weeks, the midsummer heat and humidity has been really getting to me. I can’t complain about this summer— there have even been nights where it’s cool enough to leave the windows open— but I have little motivation to get outside in the garden when it’s 86ºF by 8:00. Fortunately, our summer storms have been keeping my plants well-watered, so my job is pretty easy.

Kale salad and veggie burgers, using this recipe. It was SO GOOD.

My kale continues to produce like a champ: for a “winter” crop, they’ve sure survived the summer heat gracefully! Every few days I clip a few leaves, strip the stems, and either tuck the leaves away for smoothies or chiffonade them and toss them with homemade vinaigrette and chopped apple for a salad that keeps well over several days.

Another garden champion are my banana peppers— I’ve already harvested them twice and they continue to grow more! Picking the fruit is especially satisfying because I raised them from seeds. 

A couple weeks ago I bought some fresh-picked Swiss chard at the farmer’s market. The roots were still intact, so after cutting off the stems, I planted them in my garden to see what would happen. They’ve grown a new set of leaves! I’m hoping to continue harvesting them all season.

In case anyone’s wondering, my carrots never germinated. I’m not sure whether to give up or not. But my cucumbers, my poor, sad, stressed, yellowing cucumbers, did manage to produce two fruits so far, with more to come. And my tomatoes, although slow to bear, are promising some tasty produce in the near future.

A big excitement of this week was hosting our very first couchsurfer! After years of couchsurfing myself, I was really excited to be able to help another low-budget traveler. Efe, from Istanbul, is on a three-month cross-country tour of the US, and I was thrilled that he made St. Louis one of his stops. 

Oh, and finally... Pokemon Go, you guys. It’s incredible. It’s insane. On our nightly walks to downtown St. Charles, Zach and I have seen literally hundreds of people walking down the street and through the park: millennials, mostly, but also families and middle-aged people and teens and everything in between. It’s so strange to be out on a walk at 11 at night and find the park stuffed to the gills with friendly people chatting with each other, running around, laughing, socializing, and trying to catch ‘em all. When walking through the hordes of Pokemon hunters, I can’t help but grin. I think it’s awesome.

Well, that’s what’s been going on in my world lately. Hope you all are having a good week!

~Lisa