COVID-19 Virus Shutdown, Day 65

Today,  I worked out how to make popsicles. 

Partly because I cant get the flavor I want from the store lately and partly because I wanted to learn how to do it. 

My first lesson was to use ripe fruit. I could smell the nectarines sitting in the bowl behind me so I thought I'd give it a try. I think i ended up with too much lemon juice, but it worked out pretty good, in spite of that. 

Here is the popsicle: 

Yeah, it's a bunny. I think I got these around Easter one year. :)

Here is the recipe: 

Popsicles

6 oz ripe fruit

3.8 oz lemon juice (about 1/2 lemon)

2 Tbsp sugar

Instructions

Slice the peaches in half, remove the pits, and give them a rough chop. Add the peaches to a food processor or blender, along with the sugar and lemon juice. Puree until smooth.

Fill the popsicle molds to the top, and then insert sticks. Freeze until solid.

To remove the popsicles, fill a sink with hot water and immerse the mold up to, but not over, the top lip for several seconds, then remove the popsicles.

To store, wrap securely in plastic and put back in the freezer.

I think I might try straight mango, maybe some watermelon, kiwi, berries but making sure I dont include seeds or peels. What do you think I should try?

For dinner, I needed room in the freezer for the popsicles so I took out the steak, so we had Steak and Potatoes (and an enormous salad) for dinner. 

Not pictured here is the corn bread which wasn't quite done by the time I served dinner. (Recipe said 25 mins, it was more like an hour). 

I planted the onions today, all the scallions and the big onion. The shallots and leeks are gone, but the scallions were taking over the table. (Turns out I over watered the leeks and shallots and it killed them. Lesson learned). 

I also took the plants outside for an hour to begin hardening them off. If you're not a gardener or don't know how this works, what I read is that you take them out for an hour today, 2 hours tomorrow, until you ramp up to 6 hours. This is the typical amount of sun they would get, and the breeze helps them move around a bit so they get stronger. Hopefully it works in the rain, since its going to rain for the next 3 or 4 days!

Since we are getting closer to putting plants in the backyard, my theory was to get just as much soil as I got last time and it should fill up the boxes. 

 The boys and I went to Home Depot and they have a pickup area much like Kroger or Target does. It took a bit to get them on the phone but once we did they came right out. 

We got home and waded in to the flooded back yard to dump the soil. Only one of the boxes was nearly full with the 6 bags. 

So I gotta get probably about 10 more to get there. Really not happy about being so off in my calculations! I told hubby, I really dont know what I'm doing. So we all have soakers and we need more soil when it's not soup back there. 

Luckily I will be able to shop at the store for actual plants next weekend as long as i have a mask, which I do, and a place to plant them. Not sure I will yet, but hoping?

Mother Nature needs to cooperate here. Since we are already flooded and are expecting 3-4 days of rain, it's probably going to be at least sunday next week before its dry enough to plant back there. Maybe not til the following week. Nothing I can do about that. I just have to keep checking. 

Whoever was doing the rain dance can stop now.

Meantime, stay safe, sane, and healthy!

Vicky