Category: Around the Kisner Homestead

Garden Update and Grandkids

We had a beautiful day yesterday and enjoyed a visit with Kathy, Ben and Anna! It was also time to plant a few more things in the garden. We’re pretty confident that we won’t see a killing frost in the next week or two (smile…you never know!)

The radishes are doing well. I’m always grateful they are in the waist-high planters so I can keep an eye on them.

Bert planted the tiny Rose Bush we were given as a gift into a very large pot on the patio (thanks Barbara and Bill). We’ll see how much it can grow outside this summer before we consider a more permanent location.

The Sugar Snap Peas look pretty tiny, but if you look carefully, they are already sending out little runners (on the upper left).

In the fenced area by the patio, we decided to add two yellow-pear tomato plants to the potatoes that came up from last year. We’ll see how many potatoes actually grow! (Tomato plant on the right, potato on the left by the fence.) Guess that will be our experiment this year.

The rest of the tomatoes were planted up in the garden on the hill. Bert planted six SuperSauce tomatoes (like hefty Roma tomatoes) and six “Bodacious” plants (that are supposed to get pretty big) just for fun!

We still have some tomato plants left that have been promised to friends so we’ll deliver them soon.

Finally, the lavender and echinacea are quietly getting bigger. Soon flowers will bookend our garden on the hill!

We enjoyed Kathy, Ben (almost 17) and Anna (almost 12) for the day! I was able to unload some books from my shelves to the kids…part of my secret plan to start downsizing…sending them home with a bag of stuff each time they come to visit!

Of course, I can’t seem to remember to take pictures, but as they left, I managed to snag a few selfies. The kids are growing up so fast!

I hope you had a good day also!

Designing a New Business Card

Any time I’ve had a business card, it had my office address, office phone number, Penn State email address, etc. Once I retired from Penn State, I had a dilemma…I was still consulting with schools and teachers, but my homebase was now my office at home. While I had figured out how to print a few cards at a time using Avery business products, I still needed contact information in some form. I struggled with how much “home” information I wanted to share.

My first cards were pretty simple:

When I first set up my website, Mary’s Musings (https://marykisner.com), I wanted to include that information on the card. Since the creative work I was writing about was not necessarily related to my credentials in education, I made a choice to keep it simple with just my name…leaving off the PhD…and adding all my personal contact information. I went ahead and ordered 500 business cards from a local printer (for $75!). In four years, I’ve hardly put a dent in the pile!

A few weeks ago, my email address was hacked. Corrupted! What a pain in the neck! I could not believe how many people and businesses I had to contact to change to a new email address! Even weeks later I’m still discovering how many places my old email was embedded. Then I discovered how complicated it was to change my email address. Most often I had to call and talk with an actual person to explain. Other places I just had to let it go and create a whole new account with my new email address. It was easier to change my password than to change my email address. Guess the hackers know how to do this easily!

I now have at least 400 business cards that must be pitched. Choosing a new business card is imperative as I’m getting ready to sell my gemstone bracelets at a Festival in July. How much information is necessary to provide contact information without advertising my physical address? Do I really need to share our landline phone number?

I also don’t have a “company name,” nor do I make, or write about, just one craft to make up an appropriate name. I’m not in the business to sell most of the stuff I make…I’m a diehard teacher and lifelong learner! My website, Mary’s Musings, is the perfect description of who I am. So, to design a new card, I simplified my information and kept the floral motif at the top (reflecting my website).

Then I remembered I could print the business cards (10 at a time) with Avery’s template. If things change, I’m not stuck with hundreds of cards!

Compare the old and the new cards:

If my old email address is in your address book, please update it to maryjkisner@gmail.com. Otherwise, I will never see an email from you! The hackers have rerouted all my email. I receive NO email from the comcast.net address. (Considering all the junk email I was receiving, I hope the hackers are buried in daily JUNK.)

Green Growing Things Around the Property

While we might not have amazing huge garden plants yet, it’s always encouraging to see how many shades of green I could find yesterday as I wandered around the yard. Mother Nature will not be denied!

The dogwood trees along the front of the property are looking lush and green…a slightly darker green than the grass.

The bushes with new growth are a lovely spring green.

And of course, at the end of the shop are our green rain barrels. They are already full, waiting to be pumped up to the holding tank by the garden.

The forsythia plants had a good showing of yellow flowers this spring. Now they’ll just be ordinary-looking bushes around the property.

The lavender and echinacea up in the garden have another version of “green” that looks really healthy after the mild winter.

The butternut tree up by the garden is one of the last ones in our yard to leaf out.

The geraniums near the hummingbird food brings a little color while we wait for flowers and vegetable plants.

Speaking of vegetable plants…it feels like it’s been a long spring already, but we are careful with our plants in May. The chance for a killing frost before Memorial Day is always in the back of our minds. So, we’ve risked starting the radishes and lettuce in the raised planters.

The tomato plants can have a few hours of sunshine but they go back under the grow lights at night.

And the most fun is watching a few potatoes that we missed in the fall, sprouting right along the edge of the bed where we hope to plant the small yellow pear tomatoes…in a few weeks. We’ll see if they can coexist!

I hope Mother Nature is waking up in your area too! Enjoy every day!

Camels in Egypt in 1956

Thanks for the reminder from Facebook that three years ago I posted about our travel to Eqypt in 1956. I had written the story for my grandchildren. It brought back a lot memories of traveling with my family and the year we spent in the Philippines (I was 9!). I’m sure Cairo looks much different today, but 68 years ago it was still a novelty for us in America!

Please enjoy the story today!

https://marykisner.com/camel-ride-in-eqypt-in-1956/

(Finally got the link to work!!!)

Mary

Garden Update April 30, 2024

It’s finally time to start getting the garden ready for this year! We’ve had so much rain that it really kept us from playing in the dirt! The grass has benefitted from all the water and is a lush bright green.

Garden beds have just been too soggy until today. We still may have a frost at night so sensitive plants need to wait a few more weeks indoors.

The three kinds of tomatoes Bert started from seed are doing well in the shop under grow lights. First, we have our standard SuperSauce tomatoes:

Then Bert thought he’s try something called “Bodacious” Tomatoes from Burpee…supposed to be a huge, solid tomato:

Finally, I requested a Yellow Pear tomato…hopefully will be good in salads. I’m hoping I can share a few plants with my daughter or the neighbors…we certainly don’t need that many little tomatoes!

Frankly, right now they all look like generic tomato plants!

Today, I got out the seeds I’ll put in my planters right by the patio:

These planters will hold two kinds of radishes and the Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce:

Along the outside edge of the patio, I’ll plant Little Gem lettuce…it’s supposed to make little heads so I tried to put just 1-2 seeds in each hole and spaced so I don’t have to thin them out. It doesn’t look very exciting right now, but these planters keep everything up and away from roving bunnies looking for a snack!

Then, in the fenced beds just off the patio, I’m trying Sugar Snap peas so they can use the fence to climb up. I haven’t done peas for quite a while, so we’ll see if it’s worth the effort!

Bert has the upper garden tilled and ready to go but it will be the middle of May before those seeds and plants go in the ground. Next is probably setting up the rain barrels.

So, there is the beginning of our 2024 garden. Hopefully, everything will be more colorful in the next month! Enjoy!

From Experimental Bread to Croutons

My Oatmeal Bread is my go-to favorite recipe…to make, to eat and to share! I have never had a bad batch of this bread (that I can remember!). You can read about my recipe in this previous post (https://marykisner.com/marys-oatmeal-bread/).

In the last several months I’ve been unhappy with texture of the bread. At least it still tasted OK but the bread was a little dry and crumbly when sliced. Each time I tried a batch I changed something, hoping to hit on the magic ingredient or process. I started making batches of only two loaves. We ate one and froze the other. I now have 5 loaves of bread in the freezer that are just experiment rejects!

I started with the knife. Maybe the serrated knife we used was not as sharp and seemed to shred the bread instead of cutting it. We switched knives…made no difference.

Time to investigate the ingredients. This recipe is simple…flour, rolled oats, yeast, olive oil, honey, sugar and salt. So, one at a time, I substituted ingredients.

Then I used the original recipe, but changed the flour from King Arthur All-purpose flour to Pillsbury All-purpose flour. The new flour felt “thicker” or more compact. This made a heavy loaf and tasted fine, but it still made crumbs as it was sliced. The next batch I added Vital Wheat Gluten to the mix…this changed the taste a little but didn’t fix the crumbling texture.

Next, I went to the local Health Food Store and picked up a small bag of organic rolled oats. They appeared to be smaller and softer than the ones I was using. I also picked up a 5 lb. bag of Organic All-Purpose flour. Finally, I brought out a fresh package of Dry Yeast from the freezer.

Finally, the new ingredients seemed to make the difference! At this point I’m going to say the new rolled oats incorporated better into the dough when mixing.

Now that I have a freezer full of 5 loaves leftover from my baking experiments, all labeled OATMEAL BREAD, for the last loaf that turned out right I made a different label:

Nice rise!

Great texture!

Now, what to do with 5 loaves of bread in the freezer that need to be recycled into something else? How about croutons!!

Making Croutons

I did a search for “How to Make Homemade Croutons” and found a simple recipe. This link has lots of information about making croutons:

https://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/a33462622/homemade-croutons-recipe/.

I simplified the recipe for my use:

I pulled my loaves of Experimental bread out of the freezer and let them thaw enough to cut them into cubes. Because it’s homemade bread, I kept the cubes a little larger and let them finish thawing after cutting. I was crumbling enough!

I put 1/4 cup of oil in a larger bowl and dumped in the cubes. I tossed the cubes in the bowl to coat them with oil and sprinkled herbs on the pile and tossed them again.

I spread the cubes out on two baking pans and baked them for 15 minutes at 350 degrees. I let them sit on the tray until they were coo. They turned a golden brown, crunchy on the outside, but soft enough inside so they would work on a salad. Some commercial croutons are so hard they can’t be stabbed with a fork! As I make more, I think I’ll store them in zip bags in the freezer.

I feel so much better about my Oatmeal Bread! I counted it to be the bread I could take as a gift…now I can!! Enjoy!

Roasting Vegetables

Every time I roast vegetables, they come out differently. After this last batch, where I thought I understood how to get them tender in the middle and crunchy on the outside, I decided it was time to do some research!

The first article I found online was, “Everything You Need to Know About Roasting Vegetables.” Of course, after I read the article and took notes, I was unable to find it again! Phooey! However if you type that title into your search engine, you will find many more articles to search through!

This article was a good review of things I already knew, like how to cut the vegetables, what temperature to roast the vegetables (400 to 425 degrees) and how to not crowd the baking sheet. That third suggestion seemed to be the crux of my problem! When I chopped up vegetables the other night, I did separate the potatoes from the vegetables. They came out great!

I found a great YouTube video from a woman in Australia (I think) with details about what kind of potatoes work best, the benefits of parboiling, and what kind of oil (or butter, lard, duck fat) gave them the best flavor. It was a very informative video! (See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pigPB9xE4j4)

But then I chopped a whole bowl of assorted vegetables…kind of like I do when I’m making vegetable soup! I ended up with a bowlful of “assorted vegetables” that were too thick on the baking sheet.

The vegetables could not be separated from each other (too crowded) and so some steamed while others burned at the tips!

I can see I need to work a little harder to roast fewer kinds of vegetables at once. My mindset that I can combine vegetables on one tray needs to change! I finally found a chart that could help me remember. I think I’ll post this someplace handy:

________

How Long to Roast Vegetables at 425 degrees/F

Root vegetables: 30-45 min. (beets, white and sweet potatoes, carrots)

Winter squash: 20 min. (cubed) 45 min. (halved) (butternut squash, acorn squash, spaghetti squash)

Cruciferous vegetables: 15 to 25 min. (broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts)

Summer squash: 10 to 20 min. (Green & yellow zucchini)

Thin vegetables: 10 to 20 min. (asparagus, green beans, snap peas)

Soft vegetables: 15 to 25 min. (Cherry tomatoes, eggplant, bell peppers)

(From: https://www.thekitchen.com/roasted-vegetable-cheat-sheet-2655019)

_______

Obviously, my major issue is that I try to do more than one kind of vegetable in the same pan. Of course they don’t all turn out great!

I’ll try to roast vegetables in groups with the timing suggested above. MAYBE my next batch will be more successful! Enjoy!

Making Apricot Bread

On our trip last weekend to southern Pennsylvania, we enjoyed a delicious addition to our breakfast spread…Apricot Bread! I knew about banana bread, blueberry bread and raisin bread but had never had apricot bread! It was a delicious, colorful bread!

I was told the recipe came from a cookbook written by James Beard…Beard on Bread. I just so happened to have that book on my shelf!

I typed out the recipe because the small paperback would not lie flat and I couldn’t weight it down without covering the recipe! (It’s on page 175, if you also have the book.) I’ll include a photo of the recipe below.

When I start a recipe like this…with several ingredients needing additional preparation, I try to prep them before I start…in this case chopping the nuts and soaking the apricots.

I did not take pictures of mixing the bread up. By the time I thought of it…it was mixed! It was really pretty simple and made the whole house smell good!

It made a pretty loaf. Perfect for breakfast or dessert! Give it a try! Enjoy.

Forsythia Looking Good

For many years, our property was surrounded by 27 Blue Spruce trees. When we first moved here in 1970, we had a huge garden. We had some tiny spruce tree seedlings that we planted in the garden. When they were big enough…took several years…we transplanted them around the property line. They gave us some wonderful privacy for 50 years.

2019

By 2019, we noticed several of the trees were unsteady in high winds and had to be removed. We didn’t want to be responsible for a large tree landing on our neighbor’s roof! Eventually, we determined it just wasn’t safe to have any of them. Plus, they weren’t looking too health. Looking at the trees was more like looking through lace; it was just too risky to leave them up.

2019

The process of taking them down by professionals was the only way to go. It was a pretty sad day.

2019

It did leave us with a huge pile of logs that Bert worked on for several weeks…a little at a time! The picture below was just a small portion of the pile of logs.

2019

This was just the beginning of the final wood pile!

2019

In 2022, we decided it was time to replace the trees with…something! Anything huge would not have time to grow big enough to enjoy. As much as Bert dislikes plants that seem to grow where ever they want, he agreed forsythia plants would define the property line and be pretty in the spring in a year or two. We invested in 65 plants and Bert, with a willing friend, managed in a few long hot days to get them all in the ground. Whew!

The first year they just looked like a bunch of sticks in the ground. In 2023, the plants tried their best, so we had a few yellow flowers.

2023

2023

2023

This year, 2024, we can really see the potential for pretty spring flowers.

2024

2024

2024

So, even though we still miss our Blue Spruce trees, we’ll now have pretty forsythia to look at each spring…and we won’t have to worry every time the wind blows! I don’t think the forsythia will ever get so big it will block our view of the mountains. Happy Spring!