Name Change

So, due to some, well..... unfortunate similarities to my other blog name... I was getting a lot of random spam that was not so great to have sift through and delete. I decided it was just easier to change the blog title. So ta-da! A Girl and Her Golden was born, cause we all know how much I love my dogs!!

Salsa Verde

I've been on a salsa making kick lately. I just don't think there is many things as yummy as fresh salsas. Once you make your own (either with ingredients from your own garden own the farmers market/local stands) you just can't eat store bought stuff again. Once we get back from vacation I am going to make and can a batch of both garden salsa and salsa verde. I made some AWESOME verde salsa the other day for a bbq. It didn't last long. I took a few shots along the way.

Roasting the onions, tomatillos, jalapeno and garlic is the only way to go!

Toss all the goodness into a food processor. Add the remaining ingredients to taste and blend away. It really can't be easier.

Finished! My only recommendation is try not to eat it all in one day. ENJOY!!

Muddy Paws

The neighbors have an over watering problem. They run their sprinklers about 3 times a week for about 45 minutes to an hour each time. Needless to say, its causing a small swimming hole on our side of the fence. Add this to the amount of rain we have received this year, its quite the mess. The dogs think its a fun time to splash around in the mud and muck, I don't.

Remington was busted today playing is the above puddle. Punk!

Tower of Terra Cotta Pot Awesomeness

I finally got around to putting together my terra cotta pot tower. The weather even cooperated and I got something planted! Hooray!! I started by finding a place that was somewhat protected from the wind. We have had some insane weather this spring with lots and lots of wind so even though it is pretty sturdy, I wanted a little extra protection just in case.

I sunk an 8 foot piece of rebar into the ground about 2 feet and placed the base pot for support.

I then added the first pot and filled it with potting soil. The second pot is for extra support and a base to start stacking the other teetering pots.
After the base was complete, I just started stacking the other pots up. It took me a few tries to get them in the right order.

I decided to plant the pots with succulents. A few of the pots have trailing plants that will eventually spill out over the sides. One of the pots have a few hens and chicks (for my husband). I still need to add a few plants in a few of the pots so they are little more full, but for now its a pretty good start. The succulents require far less water and will do well in the blazing Idaho summer.
It was a fun experience and I spent a fraction of the price making it myself then buying it from the nursery!

Spring has Sprung.... sorta

I can't even begin to describe how badly I want spring to hurry up and get here. The inlaws were in town this weekend and we took them to the garden show (so awesome!). Seeing all the plants, flowers and patio accessories made me want to get out in my garden and plant things!! Only if the weather would warm up and stop freezing at night I might be able to. I got quite a few neat ideas for my own garden as well as a sweet solid concrete turtle paver from a stone guy out of Spokane Washington. Look how cute he is!! Now I just have to find a place to put him.

After the garden show, I took the inlaws to a local garden nursery to peruse the plants and flowers. While it was just a few weeks too early for a lot of stuff to be in, there was this really cute terra cotta planter.

My mom and I are making a trip to the Home Depot on Thursday to get the stuff to make these ourselves. We could make 3 of these for the price of one at the nursery. I'll make sure to take some photos during that adventure. On Sunday John and I made a trip to the Home Depot and Zamzows and came home with some spanish moss stepables for my garden path a compost tumbler!! I am so excited to start a batch of compost. My garden is going to love me!! I did some reading online about composting and its impact on the environment. Apparently about 1/3 of household and yard waste can be saved from the garbage dumps by composting. Wahoo!!

Think spring!!

Huffing Paint

My fantastically handy husband helped me build some plyometric boxes to torture (I mean train) my track athletes with this season. I spent some time outside today spray painting them in the blue and yellow school colors. I mean they had to be painted, so why not give them some school spirit. I read the instructions carefully on the back of the can of spray paint and it says spray outside in a well ventialted area. So I did. I was outside in the front yard with a plastic tarp covering my grass spraying a 15 inch box midnight blue. I had two 15 inch boxes and one 24 inch box to paint, probably took me about 30 minutes. Now after painting these boxes outside I still managed to get a headache from the fumes. So I ask you, how in the world can someone huff paint? I mean I was outside and I still got a headache, I can only imagine how I would feel if I sprayed it into a bag and huffed it. Why would anyone want to do that?? I'm thinking heroin might be a better way to get high than huffing. However, I would recommend not doing either. On a side note, track starts in 4 days and its snowing..... This is the large box. The other small one is also solid blue. I was going to try to do something fancy like painting both blue and yellow sides or adding a "M" but this weather just doesn't want to cooperate.