April Showers Bring .... Easter Eggs and Egg Muffins?



My kiwi vine is coming to life



IT'S SPRING AND WE HAVE RAIN!!!  It has actually been raining pretty good for the past month!  I am so excited.  There is snow in the mountains and the hills are green.  It is SO pretty around here.  April & May are my favorite months because everything is beautiful.  Here in the Bay Area, our hills are brown most of the year, but with some winter rains everything turns emerald green.  The clouds are big and puffy.  The sky is a beautiful blue.  Everything is clean and coming to life.  Now I really can’t wait to get my garden going!



Mixing the dirt and compost



Now for garden news!  Um....well....not much. :)  Actually, a couple of weeks ago, Bryan and I went to the local nurseries to talk to the experts there about our soil problems.  Here goes: Our compost is "hot" and our top soil is just dirt.  Nothin' good.  I am afraid that my poor little plants will shrivel up and die!  I have been avoiding the whole subject for some time.  Today, we face the facts.  The first person we talked to really didn't know what he was talking about and wanted us to buy $150 in planting soil.  NEXT!  The next nursery started to tell us the same thing.  Then the real expert came in.  I actually took a sample in of my dirt and my compost.  He told me to go out and mix and turn frequently.  It should be ready to plant in a couple of months!  YAY!  That is perfect timing.  It will be a somewhat late garden, but given our vacation plans this summer, that works out nicely.  I will use potting soil when we plant our seedlings.  Between now and then, we just turn it all over and keep it wet.  With the recent rain, that hasn’t been a problem.  Getting the dirt all mixed has been a chore.  It isn’t hard, it just takes time and muscles.  I finally got it all done.  (Bryan helped)  It is turned and hopefully cooling in the rain.



Baby sunflower that still has it's hat on



Now for inside!  I am starting some seedlings.  YAY!  So far I have started some pumpkin seeds for the kids, sunflower seeds for our hopefully soon to be chickens and basil for all of our summer dishes.  I am dreaming of bruschetta, tomato salad, any salad…there are so many things to do with basil!

Let’s see, what else has been happening on our little urban farm.  Well, last week we celebrated Passover with my sister and brother in law.  It is always a great time with family and really makes the Easter celebration special.  Because my kids don’t have any cousins their age, we decided this year to throw an Easter party at the park with friends during our break.  We settled on a glow in the dark egg hunt one night this week.  Wouldn’t you know, it rained cats and dogs all week!  <sigh>  We had to reschedule for this weekend – tomorrow. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                            
Part of the party is an egg fight.  This is actually a Mexican tradition that our friends taught us.  It is now something that my kids (ok, me too) LOVE to do each year!  You blow and dye eggs and then have a fight smashing the eggs on people’s head and getting egg shell everywhere.  There is suppose to be confetti in them too.  I have done this before with tissue paper confetti and then you tape up the end of the egg. 

Unfortunately, the tape isn’t biodegradable and it is just a lot more work.  I now skip that part and no one really misses it.  So, this week we headed down to our local-ish egg farm to pick up 7 flats of eggs.  That is 140 eggs!  We got them all blown this week and Samantha and I dyed them today.  

 Now the question – what do you do with 140 eggs!  In the past, we eat eggs until we can’t stand them any more then they get thrown away.  Open eggs don’t last a super long time.  This year though, I refuse to let them go to waist!  I am making egg muffins!  Like the ones and McDonalds only yummier and hopefully healthier.  (though with all the good stuff I added…I don’t know. J)  These are going into the freezer so that those mornings when we are running late, I can still have a breakfast!  Maybe now, Samantha will have something other than toast for breakfast before school.  YAY!  I got 24 made today.  I probably still have 50 or 75 to go.  I guess I know what I am doing tomorrow besides getting ready for our party! Lol  It’s ok, I just keep thinking about the peace that it will bring to our mornings.  That makes it all worth it.