My first garden porn

This is my first time ever starting a garden from seeds. Growing up, we always had a garden going in the backyard, and I did my share of weeding, watering, and harvesting (especially harvesting). But this is my first time ever planting seeds in the soil and holding my breath until they pop up. Just as I was getting ready to replant my kale and carrot seeds this weekend, I spotted some green! I have seedlings! I think.

Itty bitty kale!

And a carrot! Or maybe grass. Who knows. But did you see the kale?

And as Dewey and I were moving bricks to build some walls for my compost heap, we disturbed a gecko nest. (For scale, this is one of the holes in the brick.) The gecko ran off, but here are four tiny gecko eggs, three of them already hatched.

Quick, Easy Dinner

Broccoli soup with garlic bread. This took maybe 15 minutes of hands on time and a bit of waiting for things to boil. A quick, healthy weeknight dinner.*

Dewey likes to watch "Gordon Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares." He's been wanting to try a recipe for broccoli soup from one of the episodes. The recipe: boil broccoli in salted water, puree with a bit of the boiling water, and serve with a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkling of pepper.

*Dewey insists on adding "easy-peasy lemon-squeezy". There is no lemon in this recipe.