Go on…guess.

1 cup would be the correct answer.

Seems paltry for a fruit this size, but this is one of those super-mega pumpkins, the kind that people grow for massive size instead of flavor, shape and/or seed production.  If we grow pumpkins again (and that’s a BIG old “if”), we’ll aim for a more backyard-friendly size and a more eating-friendly variety.

Can’t say it hasn’t been interesting though.  And the compost pile is going to be hella rich in iron, zinc and phosphorus.

Meanwhile, Husband is happy with his roasted seeds.

Be…I’b hoding by dose.

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

Start by boiling the seeds in salted water, this will both flavor them and ensure a nice crunch after they’re roasted.  Use 1 cup and 1 tbsp of kosher salt per 1/4 cup pumpkin seeds.  Bring it all to a boil then let simmer for 10 minutes.

Coat a sheet pan with a couple of tbsp of olive oil, and add seeds in a single layer.  Bake in a 400 degree oven for about 15 to 20 minutes, until brown and crispy.  Use a spatula and turn them every 5 minutes or so.  Let them cool before serving.

We sensibly split it into two legs Thursday and Friday, and had enough energy left over when we arrived to help Nana finish planting her garden with all the extra seeds we brought:

How I envy her that soil.  Just enough sand for really good drainage, but still packed with good organic material.  As you can see the land has been used for hay for some time, so everything should be quite happy there.

Speaking of hay…

He wouldn’t listen when we told him of the chigger/scratch adventures that would soon be his.  Some lessons have to be learned firsthand, I suppose.

This is the second biggest reason the kiddos want to get up to the farm…they get to drive:

Though after watching the Girlchild there actually jump out of the thing when it started going too fast for her, I think we might have to review the basic principles of driving.  She gets two thumbs up for her astonishing reflexes, though…she totally stuck the landing.

I had misgivings, but the party was a complete hit.  Turns out most kids have their own DS handhelds (through which they can actually talk to each other, play multi-player games, etc.), and they were more than thrilled to take turns playing Monkey Ball and Super Smash Brothers on the big screen:
 

Those are some happy kids there.  And that was before we sugared them out of their minds on this:
 

Yeah, that’s my first time using the decorating tips.  Made me twitchy, but I’m a perfectionist, so whatyagonna do.  The Girlchild loved it, so all was well.

The night before the Girlchild’s party, the Boychild had a Winter Formal at his school.  Yes, a Winter Frickin’ Formal in the 6th grade.  *eyeroll*  He looked handsome as ever though, even post-Photoshop:
 

Today we hared off to the other side of the county to participate in the year end soccer Judge’s Cup.  Girlchild’s team dominated our local soccer league, and had high hopes of advancing to the finals tomorrow.
 

Alas, it was not to be.  The two teams they faced were very fast, and (it appeared) benefited from somewhat more than a single practice session per week.  But it’s an all-volunteer league, including the coaches, so we can hardly complain.  We just want her to get a love for the game at this point.

It seems that part is a success.

When Husband and I met, we were both working in the Huntsville, Alabama area. 8 or so months later we were planning a wedding. I will tell you right now it was nothing resembling a church wedding, nor had anything to do with the usual church wedding things, so we wanted an outdoor venue, but something that guests in their finery could navigate sans muddy shoes and clothing tears. The Huntsville Botanical Garden was not such an obvious choice…even though it had been open for over a decade, we’d never previously visited.

It only took one visit to settle that, though. The aquatic garden was newly open, didn’t have very many mature plantings around it, but it was completely gorgeous, and we were married there on May 1, 1996.

As you can see we had a TERRIBLE wedding photographer. It’s like he shot everything with a frickin’ Holga! I still regret not sticking my foot up his…ahem. Onward!

The Garden was a regular visit for us after that, every month or so after the kids were born we’d schlep them over, from stroller rides to the times they were old enough to run around on their little legs, we took them there to soak in the pretty, and learn what we so much appreciated about nature and growing things.

When we journeyed back to the North Alabama area last month to vacation at my parents’ newly-purchased retirement place, a visit to the HSVBG was a given.

It was extraordinarily hot the day we visited, hotter than it gets down here in central Florida, so we did skip the vegetable and herb gardens (sorry!), but hopefully we’ve given you enough other interesting snapshots to pique your interest into a visit if you’re ever in the area. I must apologize for the lack of ID on some of the photos, as I said it was bloody hot, and in most cases, the plantings simply weren’t labeled.

Onward!

The old entrance to the main garden:

Dry streambed, miniature train area and gorgeous laceleaf maple specimen behind:

Rock garden with perimeter plantings:

The pergola over the outside cafe dining area behind the new entrance/Gazebo gift shop…the latter of which is a dangerous place indeed:

The new (to us) Bonsai Display Garden was a most welcome surprise:

The butterfly house:

Path around the back of the butterfly house:

Butterfly house and learning center entrance:

Children’s garden birdhouse:

Children’s garden rainbow:

Children’s garden path and fountain:

Gazebo behind the children’s garden:

Stream inside the butterfly house:

No actual butterfly pictures, sorry, brought the wrong lens for that.

Butterfly house fountain:

Knockout roses and columns:

The woodland path we cut through on the way to the daylily garden (which is why we missed the herbs/veggies). Blessed, BLESSED shade!

Japanese lantern and bridge:

Footbridge among the ferns:

Another lantern among the ferns and laceleaf maples:

Oak-leaf hydrangea, which is the state wildflower of Alabama.

I had never fully appreciated it until seeing it used as deciduous tree underplantings along the outside of woodland area:

The daylily garden is more impressive in spring, but it put on quite the show for us anyway:

The path to the end of the Dogwood trail, where resides the 100 year old dogwood tree.

Laceleaf maple with underplantings of dahlias and petunias.

A closeup on this lovely tree as we drew nearer:

And then, the 100 year old dogwood itself:

Of course we’re months late for the blooming season but it is still a magnificent tree. You can walk underneath the canopy, even give it a hug, as the Girlchild did.

This is the path up to the rest of the Dogwood trail. We skipped this area too, as we’d already lost about 5lbs each in water weight and it wasn’t dogwood-blooming season:

And finally, the aquatic garden:

In all our visits, this is the best it has ever looked. The plantings in the pond are a perfect sampling of various water plants, and the copper crane fountains are a beautiful accent:

Adjacent to the aquatic garden is an entrance to the woodland trail, and we gratefully took advantage of the shade:

Stone bench:

Path winding through the trees:

Back to the footbridge, maples, ferns and lanterns:

Did I mention the ferns?

Long shot of the huge willow by the bridge leading to the butterfly house:

The gates leading to the long entrance to the aquatic garden:

Crepe myrtle-lined path back to the main entrance:

They’ve done a really spectacular job with underplantings this year:

The other side of the dry streambed, back at the front of the garden:

And there you have it, a virtual visit to one of the best regional botanic gardens I’ve ever had the pleasure to visit…and be married in! The complete HSVBG picture set is viewable under our Flickr account here, it includes alternate views of some areas and plenty of individual plant closeups.

For the further curious, a video tour of the HSVBG is available here. Enjoy!

So, vacation was good. We stayed at my parents’ new 28 acre farm in north Alabama, despite its near-complete lack of furnishings (they won’t be living in it full time for a while yet)…the seven nights sleeping on an air mattress are what started this whole knee thing, btw, well, more specifically, the getting UP from the air mattress each morning. It was nice to have this as your backyard, coffee-having, waking-up view every morning though:

The kids had a blast on the obligatory country-backyard trampoline:

We fished at a neighbor’s catfish-stocked pond on Sunday, and were honestly too busy reeling in the fish to take any pictures. Cooking followed, of course, and visiting with more family.

Monday saw us (joined by Husband’s brother) visiting the Huntsville Botanical Garden, a favorite haunt of ours long before we were ever married there (12 years ago!). It was a pleasure to watch it grow over the years we lived in Huntsville, and an even bigger pleasure to see how it has grown in the 7 years since we left. If you’re ever in the area, it is more than worth a visit. Just maybe not in the 100 degree temperatures of mid-July… Spring, spring is nice. All the dogwoods will be in bloom, and the tulips…and you won’t lose five pounds just walking around.

Monday evening we caught up with our oldest friends at a local Thai place, then had the pleasure of visiting their house, dogs and wonderful backyard garden (pics forthcoming, of course). On the drive over to their abode, we showed the children the houses we lived in when each were born. Their interest was tepid at best, but it was nice to see where we’d been.

Tuesday was spent chasing fish around the Tennessee river. It’s called “FISHING” people, not “CATCHING.”

Wednesday saw a visit to the US Space and Rocket Center, also in Huntspatch, and also a regular haunt for us when we lived there. The new Davidson Center with the full size Saturn V rocket is a very nice addition to an already excellent museum. Afterwards, we journeyed out to Redstone Arsenal for a visit to Husband’s brother’s workplace, and the old Saturn test stands. More on all that when I get the pictures up.

Wednesday evening saw dinner again with friends at the iconic Big Ed’s Pizza. My father picked up a Big Ed’s pie every Friday after work during the years Big Ed actually owned it, and I am pleased to report it is every bit as good today in the care of his son Steve. Caitlin, please keep an eye on it for us and don’t let it close!

Thursday was a day of lollygagging, as the parents were having a tractor delivered and had to hang around to take instruction on the driving of same, so we took the kids around the Sand Mountain area and let them blow the rest of their souvenir money. A nice lazy day.

Friday we drove down to Lower Alabama for an all-too brief visit with Grandma, then moseyed on to Pensacola, where we deposited the children with Nana and took a hotel room for the night. Glorious, GLORIOUS bed!! It was too late for the knees, of course, but so very much better than an air mattress anyway.

Saturday we made the ten hour trek home and officially swore we were driving exactly no further than 30 miles from our house for the next six months.

We took a metric buttload of pictures at both the Garden and Space Center, which will trickle up here as I get them edited. It was a truly a simple and satisfying vacation, filled with family, friends and revisiting some fine old memories.

It is amazing how many people still turn out, in person, on a sweltering Florida day, in a tiny little town like Titusville, to watch this 31 year old miracle of engineering. There is no sense of ennui from those watching, no indication that any one of the thousands of people clapping and cheering it on were the least bit jaded by time, toil, or mishap. It is still one of the most exciting things we’ve ever seen, an actual spaceship, going into space.

Previous favorites from Reflexive are Swarm, Star Defender and Ricochet. The latter two are updates on classic arcade scrollers/breakout games, but Swarm is really something special. In it, you drive a little spaceship through debris- and hostile-alien-infested landscapes to pick up glowy blue thingers called EZT. The controls are almost totally mouse-driven (just use the spacebar for acceleration), so no troublesome key combinations to learn. There are killing bugs-only levels, there are pick up weapons-only levels…it has 100 levels in all and is wonderful way to kill an afternoon.

New Reflexive titles I’ve recently tried are:

• WWII Pacific Heroes – It only has 20 levels but flying your own Corsair in pursuit of Japanese Zeros and ships is great fun. You also get to man destroyer- and tank-mounted anti-aircraft guns to take out assaulting planes/boats. I’m currently stuck on level 17 with a godawfully-slow-moving bunker gun and little fast boats heading towards the beach. (That’s a screenshot of level 1 up top there.)
• Chicken Invaders – This game is a side-scrolling space invaders sort of thing, but it’s chickens and exploding eggs you have to watch out for. Lots of fun and cracks up (aheh) the kids every time.
• Saints and Sinners Bowling – Haven’t had time to mess with this one much but it’s a more complex version of the two-slidy bar (speed/angle) bowling game, with personas, opponents, etc.
• Air Strike 2 – This is a helicopter shooter that’s interesting for the first few levels, but then as more and more crap is happening on the screen it just gets tedious in it’s overwhelmitude. Simpler is better, sometimes.

The greatest thing about these Reflexive games (well, other than kickass music and gorgeous graphics) is they’re all right there in the $20 license fee range.

…

27 degrees night before last, 39 degrees last night. I WANT cold weather, I NEED cold weather (just for the frickin’ variety, you know?) but, dang my fingers are cold.

We covered up the ficus and the roebelenii palm for the freeze but left everything else to fend for themselves…and are rewarded today with blackened allamanda, mexican petunia, dracena, weigela, firebush and lantana. *sigh* I suspect most of them will recover fine, the new growth pushing off the dead stuff, and if not, that’s fine, too…those allamandas were getting uppity anyway.

…

Neatorama has a nifty comparison of Iowa Caucus vs. New Hampshire Primary vs. Reality. The entire caucus premise is so very antiquated that it offends simply by remaining in existence.

Though I would like to take this opportunity to point at Hillary and laugh, laugh, laugh.

It sounds odd, does it not, to associate the word “miserable” with a theme park excursion? The Boychild has some issue with standing in lines, even if the end result will be something amazingly fun, and grumps and stomps and basically makes his presence intolerable to everyone in attendance. Add in the extra bonus “picking on his sister until she, too, is grumpier than a toothless cat on Mouse-Eating Day” and you have a really execrable way to spend Christmas Adam. So, we’re swearing off theme parks for a while. And the next time we go, we’re going to make the kids pay for it so they can see what it’s like to waste $200.

I need a nap.

Last weekend we stopped into the local high end gun shop to see what they had lying about. The Henry rifles are gorgeous but almost uniformly HEAVY, and I’m not looking for a .22, we already have a plinker. Plus, I can just see all that pretty gold color rubbing off over time.

The Italian company Uberti is making Winchester replicas these days, and while they are gorgeous to behold, they’re sodding EXPENSIVE, and also just kind of…well, irritating. Frickin’ WINCHESTER should be making Winchester replicas, not some continental upstarts. Silly, I know.

I learned to shoot on lever action rifles, so the sentimental factor was extremely high, and these slick, pretty guns just didn’t have what I wanted.

Anyway, the Suncoast Gun Show was kind enough to hold their regional show right here in town on my birthday last Saturday, so the Husband and I deposited the children with Nana and set out. I was just there joy-looking, but the Husband had an AGENDA.

And there it was, about mid-way through the endless aisles of overpriced H&Ks… Its stock glowed a healthy natural wood color among all the over-used cherry grains and tactical black plastics. It had the marks of a well-used rifle, slight scuffing above the lever and around the cartridge port, and inside a bit of crud that will need a gunsmith’s attention. But it was GORGEOUS. And precisely what I wanted, even without the octagonal barrel.

So meet my 1979 Marlin Glenfield 30A lever-action 30/30 rifle. Once she comes back from her spa day with the gunsmith, we’ll take her to the range and give her a proper name.

In other news, despite a perpetual uniform of t-shirts/jeans, minimal makeup, and hair typically screwed back into a ponytail, I am an actual girl, and have not-so-hidden tastes for expensive handbags and gorgeous scents. I even had an actual favorite perfume once, a beautifully warm floral/vetivert combo made by The Body Shop called “Woman.” Picked it up in the Charlotte airport while on layover and happily used it until it was gone. And dudes, is that stuff ever GONE. Not even a trace of it remains on ebay, but that’s what happens when you get attached to something from a retailer instead of an actual perfume house…

Anyway.

The Boychild and I spent an hour this weekend annoying the little queen at the Dillard’s perfume counter, who knew not one damned thing about top or bottom NOTES (aheh), by insisting a sample card for almost everything there. And, let me tell you, not one drip of that mass-produced crap was wearable. Despairing, I remembered that Fred said something a while back about The Perfumed Court, wherein one could purchase leetle samples of expensive perfumes before dropping large amounts of scratch on a full size bottle.

So, off to The Perfumed Court for some note research and sample ordering. Today’s mail brought me the Beginning Naughty Girl sampler pack. Mona Di Orio’s Nuit Noire sucks on ice up top, acrid and just unwelcoming, and the drydown is only a little less snarly. Guerlain’s Jicky is not bad, but pales in comparison to the third sample… Bella Bellissima’s Perfect Night is glorious. It has a grapefruity top note that rapidly settles down into amber, cypress and vetivert. It’s luxurious and earthy (without resorting to the dankness of patchouli, thank the gods), and sets one dreaming of dancing skyclad around bonfires in the deep woods. It’s currently only available in the UK, but gods bless the internets, you can get it here.

Further reports to come as the samples roll in…