green thumbs!

 I pulled our first tomatoes, basil, and cilantro this week. 

I am so excited that I married someone with a green thumb!

Getting an early start…

 We decided to plant our garden a little earlier this year and I am so excited to watch everything grow!

Also, a moment for my fig tree:

We planted tomatoes, peppers, basil and cilantro. We can’t wait!

Grandpa Pierce would be so proud

 Kit’s grandparents loved dahlias and grew them in their garden. Our dahlias are planted around the birdhouse that Grandpa Pierce built us:

It’s so fun to have clippings to bring in the house…

in a jam…

My family gave me a fig tree a few years ago. Every year it gives us SO much fruit! This week I decided to try to make fig jam an and it turned out so good!

3 lbs figs (ends cut off and then quartered)

1/3 cup orange or lemon juice

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

1 tablespoon vanilla 

1. Combine figs and sugar off the heat. Let sit for 30 minutes.

2. Combine all ingredients over medium heat. Once it starts to boil, lower heat and stir. 

3.Allow it to cook and stir from 45-1 hour. Once thickened, either use an immersion blender or pour ingredients into blender and blend until smooth to what consistency you choose. 

4. Place in jar and refrigerate for up to 3 weeks. 

Full Bloom🌸

My hydrangeas are in full bloom and I’ve been having so much fun having cuttings for the house.

Rest with some fluff…

      I did yard work the other day and afterward I sat with my bunny and coffee admiring our work:

I dropped a photo of my bunny in ChatGPT and it just may be my favorite ever:

It makes me want to write a kids book…❤️

Fall is coming…

 Our tomatoes came late this year, so where I normally would be using them for caprese salads and sandwiches, I have instead been roasting them and making tomato soup to go with grilled cheese:

Fall feels like it’s on its way!

And just like that...

 How it started before we left for Shaver:

How it's going, when we got back:

And just like that our hydrangeas are blooming! 

Feeling dehydrated in all the best ways!

 Our fig tree has been EXPLODING with fruit.  We can't seem to keep up with it.  We eat them plain, and we put them with goat cheese and prosciutto, and I have frozen them with the anticipation to make some type of jam. We just discovered something new to do with them: dehydrate them!

You can use them on salads or oatmeal or on toast with ricotta and honey.  They are pretty tasty and I'm really excited to have another option so that they don't go to waste...❤︎

Happy May!

 Kit and I planted our summer garden, including tomatoes, basil, cilantro, and habanero peppers.  I love planning it with my gardening buddy:

I spy Kit...

How it started:

How it's going:

I can't wait for it to take off!

{purple} thumbs

 Look what I found while I was gardening!

Favorite thing to do with cauliflower:

Steam it for 5 minutes, then roast it in a cast iron with wing sauce.  Then when it s ready, dip it in a combo of 2 T of mayo, and sriracha and lemon juice to taste with a pinch of salt.  

Grandpa would be so pleased...

 In the Rae house, we have a love of Stag horn ferns that came from our Grandpa Pierce.  Kit has clippings of ferns that have come from his grandparents home and recently experimented with some new ways to plant them.  

He made chicken wire spheres and filled them with moss:

 Then we took a wooden box that Grandpa had made and used it as an upright planter:

I know that Grandpa Pierce would be so pleased!

It will always make us think of him...

 In our garden, we have the birdhouse that our Grandpa Pierce built for us.  He had given it to us when we moved into our Fullerton house on 2004.  When we moved to Tustin, it was the first thing that we moved...

Don Ray Pierce

Dahlias were a favorite of his...

And we think of him each time they bloom...