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Its just been a beautiful week and today was really a perfect day. I got up and out early and deadheaded the roses and cleaned up the flower beds in the front yard. I saw the weed that looks like clover but has yellow blossoms (yellow woodsorel) in the front bed so i was going to sprinkle the left over pickling lime instead i went to the internet and am going to wait until i turn the soil there. I’ve never tested the soil but just try to figure it out by how stuff is growing.
I went to the market which seems to just get more and more crowded. I noticed most people don’t buy much, just checking out the scene. The crowd was weirding me out and it was the same at Gerbes but I still bought a lot of stuff. Came back to the smell of bacon and Dad had breakfast ready by the time i got stuff put away. I didn’t get there in time to get local eggs so they’ll be the last wet yolks i eat until next week. corporate eggs are poison now, apparently (the price was good though).
After breakfast Dad and I took Fido to the dog park. He has really grown up and played nice with all the other dogs. Properly submissive but not intimidated by the big dogs. He initiated a play a lot didn’t jump on people to bad. There was a brown dog a bit bigger than him that kept trying to get over on him (ie hump him) but she got corralled by her owner relatively quickly. He ran and ran and ran. Lot of people knew Dad, kind of wish i was still relaxed enough to just chill out there for a while but got restless thinking of crap i could be doing. I think its a phase i’m going through.
Came home and farted around and then did some solid work on the first garden bed. I turned up about 12 square feet (where i had lettuce and arugula in the spring) and planted garlic. Shoveled in a bushel of compost. It was looking real good. I’ve turned that ground now 5 or 6 times and its more and more loamy and less and less a big clay pit. I tried the garlic close, my two survivors were not far from each other and did fine. Chard is next. While I was in the bed I weeded and cultivated the cucumbers (got some nice ones coming and lots more blossoms though when i let the grass get away from me i had heavy losses) and the kale i planted from seed is soldiering on.
Tomorrow Belen and Sarah are coming over from breakfast. I am going to make garden omelets (kale, yellow squash, basil, oregano, time, and tomato) with little smokies. Tonight it was cool enough to bake supper. I took the cast iron skillet greased from mornings bacon and added a 1/4 ham which i rubbed with organic mustard and pushed some cloves in. Covered that with Springfield Honey (undescribably different than Columbia honey) and threw in some purple potatoes, carrots, and celery. Covered with foil added some water and baked that for an hour and fifteen at 375. Yummm. I saved the drippings for my black eyed peas i’m making for the work potluck on Wednesday.
gardening neglect
I finally got out and got to put in some time into the yard. It has been so hot and I was sick I just stopped going outside. Friday was the party, and Saturday I helped Harry move and cooked. I cooked down a few pounds of Betty’s tomatoes that needed to be used and added a half dozen black plum tomatoes in the cast iron skillet where i’d browned a big onion, 2 hot banana peppers from the garden, and three cloves local garlic (tart & tangy this year). I cooked that down added 1/4 tsp cayenne and 3/4 cup peanut butter, and let that simmer for a bit. I served it with squash with butter and brown sugar over rice. yummy, but that and a nap and not a lot of garden puttering.
So today I hit the grass as soon as the morning dew dried up. I mowed the front and weed whacked the tall & stubborn fellows. I pulled off my laundry before I did the back and put out my second after i finished. i also found the rosemary and the title of the post. It is dried out and likely dead. I’ll either collect it and use it or if it springs back now that i’m watering it again. Its sad because i’ve had it for a couple of years and it was looking great and i just killed it by not being aware, hiding from the real world in the ac.
I also lost my 2nd fennel which i didn’t get in the ground and then noticed the one i did get in the ground is gone too. Disappeared. Beaten down by heavy rains and the soil turning into cement and massive high temperatures. everything’s struggling. Its widespread and common and the weather sucks it said in the trib gardening column. I’m starting to get more tomatoes. the yellow tear drop ones have done well as a volunteer. Theres a beef steak looking volunteer about ready and the other hybrids are starting to turn orange. As are the green zebras? struggling plants, low production. I need to cultivate.
Crab grass is tall and am weeding. When i get done weeding i’ll cultivate. when i’m done cultivating i’ll turn over the fall bed. theres some space in the 2 beds and I hope to add 4′ to bed 2. theres some squash so i won’t hit it all and then may get into bed 3. Gotta get Dad on the coldframe project.
Taiwan wins the World Cup
Its been a pretty good day. I got up early and got a little house cleaning in and made a couple of dishes for my world cup brunch. I made a fruit salad with half a cantaloupe, 3 peaches, an apple, and some raspberries. What made it special was the Gorgonzola cheese and walnuts. I also made a cucumber salad with of course cucumbers, yellow bell pepper, sweet onion, with a dressing made of sour cream, balsamic and white vinegar and some light brown sugar. Its not the best cucumber salad but it was good. Apple cider vinegar works better but i am out. I also chopped up some purple tomatoes and shredded some cheese ahead of time.
I had invited some Taiwanese psychology grad students in town for a month in an exchange program. One of them was sitting in on my batterers intervention group and we had hit it off a bit. Once I got them in and settled I browned some tenderized round steak sliced them up and then made fajitas in honor of Spain.
Lunch was a big hit (it was even photo worthy) and the game was a good one, in spite of what the commentators had to say. There were tornadoes south of us and they interrupted the coverage a bit but we didn’t miss anything important. Eric came by as did Sarah who brought the pickles we had made. They all sealed nicely and are looking very pretty. We did close to 20 lbs. dill and bread and butter. I can’t wait until they’re ready for eating, perhaps a month or so.
After the game the exchange students and myself went out for coffee and talked a little shop. In Taiwan batterers frequently divorce the victim because of family pressure and the shame which they place on the victim. A lot of dudes in the rural South buy mail order brides and then they just buy a new one if things don’t work out. Mostly though we all had similar experiences. Patriarchy is patriarchy.
It was a lot of fun having them over and showing them around town. We made vague plans for a cook out. Dad enjoyed having them over and invited them back. We talked about hiking. My first thought was Pinnacles but we had a lack of appropriate foot wear so I think we will probably go out to Devil’s Icebox and the Pierpont Store.
risotto & taco chicken
What a roller coaster day. All my clients came and a counselor was out sick so it made for a jamming day. My meeting canceled so i was able to go to dad’s doctor appointment and we were all pleased to see he gained 3 pounds. The gluten free thing seems to be working. In the waiting room we watched some kind of closed circuit cooking show on healthy eating and decided to make the chicken dish. Its bastardized enough for me to claim as my own so i’ll share the recipe when i get to dinner.
One thing about being busy it makes the day go fast. I worked late wrapping things up and plotting some strategy to help a few folks quit smoking. I am adjusting to my new role but its a bit grueling and i don’t think it will ever let up.
I did come home to a fresh pot of french press. Starshmucks house i would guess. And Harry had scored some half & half. delicious. He also got some spinach and some fancy brown mushrooms that needed to be eaten so i decided to make risotto.
All of the broth had poison wheat so i used an organic Better than Bullion (2 teaspoons)and I added a little fresh tomato and zucchini and set it to warming in a quart of water. I cooked an onion and a half in olive oil added 3 cloves of garlic and cooked the mushrooms. I added the cleaned and de-stemmed spinach put a lid on it and let it wilt. I pulled out the solids and set aside. I added 1 1/2 cups or so of white rice with just a bit of the fancy itallian stuff your supposed to use. When the liquid would cook off the rice i would add more warm broth and gradually added another quart of water to the broth although 1 1/2 quarts is enough liquid. When the rice was almost done I stirred back in the mushrooms and spinach and there it is.
For the chicken i cubed up 3 breasts with a poblamo and a red bell pepper. I added a teaspoon or so of ground cumin and a teaspoon of tumeric (it called for chile powder but was out). Cooked that til the chicken was done and added frozen corn, a cup of taco sauce, a cup of feta and half a cup of sharp cheddar and heated that til it was warm. topped it off with corn tortillas fried in a little olive oil in the cast iron skillet. Forgot to put out the sour cream.
After dinner I was pretty cashed but Dad and I got a game of horse shoes in before dark. Busy but nice. Looking forward to the weekend, making pickles for my first time. Of course you’ll hear all about it.
My vacation is off to a great start. I have such a love of travel, I’ve never had one come up where I didn’t try and go somewhere. But I only found out last Wednesday this was coming. My outfit expended pretty much the year’s allotment for substance abuse treatment so I get to take the rest of the fiscal year off. No work until July 1. Its funny, I busted it out Thursday and Friday to get caught up and everything running on its own and I wouldn’t be heading back to work for another two hours but just knowing I am on vacation made the weekend so much more fun. On Saturday I busted out the lawn. I got the front done before we went to the market and the back I took it easy on as I was getting it in the heat of the day. It was in the best shape to start with then it has been all year and it came out pretty. I still had a little energy f0r some other odds and ends and when the rain came I was glad I was done.
Yesterday I started my day with Church. My housemate Harry goes to the Nazarene Church and they have a Summer Sunday School class on science and the bible. It was OK. Very smart biologist dude teaches it but his premise is that science makes some a priori assumptions about the world and so does the bible and christians should go with bible assumptions. not very appealing. the service was heartfelt and sincere but didn’t speak to me and the music, altar call, and closing prayer i found all very nostalgic and when i reached out for the Spirit, of course it was there. Nonetheless if I had to sum it up in one word, as usual when i go to Church, I would choose irrelevant.
I got back on the yard stuff and finished off the tree trimming chores in the back and cleared some headroom and dead stuff and hauled all the sticks to the mulch pile. I also weeded the shade bed which was getting out of hand and some other miscellaneous projects. I tried to buy a tent but Dicks only had department store tents. I did get a rain jacket that fits at a nice price.
We are planning on going to Johnson’s Shut Ins, but put the trip off until tomorrow. Looks like the weather might be a bit better and it gives us more time to get ready. I still need to get to the store. Dad’s new gluten free diet has really made camp food more challenging. We have to forgo our usual processed this and canned that. I got some natural cold cuts (ham & turkey) but bread is problematic (he doesn’t like the $6 loaf i got him, crust is too hard). I think we are going to boil eggs, bring along fresh fruits, perhaps some oatmeal for breakfast. In general it has pushed us in a lot healthier direction regarding food. Checking labels and excluding anything with wheat fillers is an interesting exercise. Spending more but eating better stuff. If nothing else its stopped Dad from putting Hamburger Helper on the dinner table.
So today I might pick up and spread mulch. I might do some shopping. I found a $200 bed I might get, I still need that tent (mine finally crapped out after sustaining sever damage when it got blown a 1/4 mile in death valley, 2 Christmases ago), food for the trip, and perhaps paint for the living room. I might get some mulch and mulch out the little path I made, clean out the grass behind the back of the fence, cultivate stuff, and start in on putting in a small bed next to the horse radish for okra (its probably too wet to work the garden beds and time’s a wastin’).
beautiful spring days
Thank god for beautiful spring days. sarah came over for coffee before we went to the market with harry. there was more of a crowd even early and everyone was loving the beautiful days. got eggs of course, the big bag of spinach, brats, goat cheese, everything else i still had from last week. sarah got flowers for amy’s bridal shower and i donated a tulip and a prettier than theirs daffodil. Sarah was impressed with how much stuff i had going when we did the grand tour.
I couldn’t turn up my proof of personal property tax so i went down town to see if i could get a copy and couldn’t. While i was downtown i grabbed some Kaldi’s beans. Got a relationship Brazilian light roast (excellent} and a sumatran. I tried the relationship Montserrat and it was good. Kaldis really knows how to roast a bean.
I also had gotten bacon at the market but it was frozen so i offered to get everyone breakfast at Midway Truckstop. Had the french toast, fair. Dad had the hamburger steak and eggs that i usually get but wasn’t hungry enough.
After breakfast we went out to the Overton Bottoms and checked on the trees we had planted (oaks, pecans, and other hard nut trees, with the idea over the next 3 or 4oo years the trees would mature and the nuts would wash downstream to propagate along the river banks. The Bottoms are a cool area that got protected after the big flood of ’93, thank you slick willy, and are going from pasture/farm land to wooded wetland. We checked on our trees, the switch grass wasn’t out yet so we couldn’t check in on that and then looked fruitlessly for morels. the dogs enjoyed meandering around the forest. Myrtle soaked in the Big Muddy but Oni wasn’t having any of that.
Since we were shroomless we filled our bags with garlic mustard. Its a pernicious problem there and I had volunteered on a pull last year. There was less of it but the seeds take two years so it was to be expected to be back in force, and it was.
Came home and dad watched the tigers beat the indians, harry finished digging up the spring bed and planted lettuces, mesculin mix, and arugula. I mowed the front yard. Yea. The push reel works with my impaired arm. i felt like i could have mowed the back but decided to be cautious and wait until tomorrow.
Instead i painted the black stripes on the rain barrels. They are closer to being done, on two of them we are going to run the pipe straight into them. One bush will have to be trimmed. On the southwest corner we need to do a flex pipe so we don’t have to move the garden gate. Dad thinks its going to be frost free. He started cutting on the red bud stump but it was thicker than the saw and it still stands. He wants to pull it over with a chain and his truck. We swung the axe at it some. Its fun i couldn’t cut my french toast with a fork but i can swing an axe. weird.
In between those last things i cooked some supper. I cooked up a good size batch of the mustard greens with some local bacon. I fried the bacon in small pieces, threw in red onion, and then the garlic mustard in the water that clung to it when i washed it. I added malt vinegar. When i tried it it was pretty bitter so i squeezed in the juice of a key lime and added some braggs, it turned out good but i wouldn’t want a steady diet of it. Harry is going to try some with ham bone and great northern beans. I also made a pack of the brats pulled in a third of a Mickeys with the rest of the red onion and some amy’s mac & cheese with garlic powder and basil.
We’re finishing up the evening with a little 2o12. Neutrinos shaking up the earths quest. doesn’t bold well with my perennials. I do like me some apocalyptic fiction though.
A Happy Easter
Its rainy, here on an easter evening. My belly is full and the day was spent with family and friends in celebration of the renewal of spring as a herald of resurrection. I slept good, hard at times. Woke up sore, took 2 tramadol and went back to sleep until 10. Finally finished my coffee, the paper and a second cup and i was starting to feel restless. I’ve been lazing around too much and not feeling like doing my most needed chores, organizing my paperwork and cleaning my filthy floors so i decided to see how my impaired arm could do picking up brush. I loaded it all up except the parts that needed the chainsaw doing most of the heavy lifting with my left arm. Even with half the muscles not working on my right arm its still mostly more useful than my left. I then raked up the twigs so i could be ready to mow if it was dry enough, and if my arm worked good enough. On the flower front the daffodils are still booming, some tulips are up and another bulb that is small and has flowers like little clusters of grapes. I fertilized all the bulbs in the front. I normally go organic but a client gave me a box of chemical fertilizer so its use it or landfill it. When Harry and I took the brush we went for a hike at Capen Park along the creek there. It was pretty in the woods and we got away from everyone and the bluffs were pretty. It felt very spiritual being in the woods. I have been very tuned into being grateful for all the gifts i’ve been given and my pinched nerve has really brought that home. You could look through the trees because they haven’t leafed up yet but it was a vibrant green because of all the buds on the trees. There were a lot of wildflowers, common violets, and several different little white ones. When we got home I put the ham in. I got the butt end of a local ham 4-5 lbs. I rubbed it with mustard, peach preserves, and stuck on cloves and whole pepper corns. I added some vernors ginger ale and popped it in at 350 for a couple of hours. While it was baking I dug out the little white sages out of the time. I put 12 of them up in containers in cotton waste compost. and will give them as gifts if they root up nice. After cleaning up a bit it was back to cooking and i made my second risotto pretty much improvising. I cooked up olive oil, local spinach and some white mushrooms for a minute or two. setting that aside i set some beef broth to warm on low and fried up a mess of green onions in more olive oil. I added 1 1/2 cups risotto rice and fried that 2 minutes and added maybe a cup of mickeys malt liquor and cooked that down and started spooning in the broth 1/2 cup until it was done. At the end mixed in a mess of fresh chives and crumbled in some local feta goat cheese. I controlled the fire so the rice was soft when the broth was gone, dad carved the ham, Harry made a nice salad with some local arugula (very mild) and Grams biscuits, and I thickened the drippings into a glaze. Very yummy meal. Eric joined us and he brought a Pear Tart Suzie made. After the meal we had a rousing game of Settlers of Kataan and Eric sneaked out a victory. It was fun.
deer ate my broccoli
It has been great to get out and work in the yard. After endless rain, being sick, and working late it has been awhile since i got out and got my hands dirty. I started the day at the market getting yellow carrots, some of the last field tomatoes, and some odds and ends. Ran into Sarah and shopped with her there and at gerbees. Made plans to collect wreath stuff in the national forest tomorrow.
After the market i surveyed the demesne and found all of the broccoli neatly cropped off. It was looking like it was gonna make a crop too, sadness. That made a total loss for the fall seedling project. $3.75 for a snack for deer, although at that point i was suspecting Thumper and not Bambi.
My most pressing project was to get rid of the leaf pile by the compost bin before it killed the grass. It was going on like three weeks since they got piled up there after the bins got filled up. First i needed a place to put them so i pulled out the tomatoes out of the strawberry beds. I found three nice tomatoes with only some soft spots and Harry put them in the three bean salad for a side with our local farm trout.
The strawberries really came out good and i weeded the now expanded beds. Dad and i debated strawberry policy and I am ready to cede up as much square footage as they want. i’ll just move the path around them out to the lilacs at least. I did reposition those that got pulled out in the cleaning of the beds.
I then just raked the pile down the hill and covered them up in a 4″ pile. In the spring i’ll rake them off and compost them when i’ll need brown stuff. I debated knocking off for the day but had some energy left so i transplanted the daffodils growing in the southeast corner that i use as grill supply storage. I spread the clump out over a space about four times as big using up the last of my homemade compost. I’m a ways away from the next batch. Hopefully march.
I then raked the leaves on the top of the hill in the front yard onto the spring bulb beds. While checking out the tulip/crocus bed on the eastern side i saw two holes. I first thought it was squirrels harvesting out more tulips (they ate half of them last fall when i planted them) as i had seen sign they were pulling out tulips in the back yard. The holes weren’t ragged though and i saw an obvious hoof print. I think it was one going over the fence from the depth which made me think that’s who got the brocolli.
Gonna have to get Oni out earlier in the morning. She was chasing a squirrel while i was raking, a bulky one missing most of his tail. There was a littler one out front with me hanging out in the bushes. I told the furry tailed rat to stay out of my bulbs and made sure i got the leaves on.
Trouts on. i’ll let you know how the maters were.
chicken paprikash
Tonight i finally got around to making chicken paprikash. I make the baked version and i do most of my baking in the winter. Its a really great dish, relatively healthy, inexpensive, and really really yummy. I learned from Johnny Watson (see Johnny poems) about 7 years ago and its a funnier story than my dinner party tonight but i don’t think i want to get into that. i will just say that it involved a big argument, the police being called and having to drive the chicken paprikash to Cincinnati to finish cooking and we didn’t get to eat until like 3:00 am, but it was really quite excellent. Today was the first day i made it without calling Johnny and getting the recipe. I started by cutting 2 really large onions into very thin slices and then adding 4 bell peppers (2 green, a red and an orange) also sliced thin and 5 cloves of garlic. Next i rinsed off a package of chicken pieces (thighs, legs, & wings) extremely cognizant that they were made of corn in a fairly wacky and cruel manner (damn you ‘Omnivore’s Dilemma’). I put in the chicken pieces and then covered with water (i think chicken stock would be a bit better). I also covered the chicken in what Johnny calls a shit-ton of paprika (about 3 tablespoons believe it or not) all of this covering going on in a casserole dish. I also salted the chicken pieces and added some black pepper (not really necessary). I baked this for 3 hours at 400 degrees until the peppers are almost gelatinous and the chicken is near falling off the bones. I pulled out the chicken and put in a serving dish. I stirred in almost a cup of sour cream into the pepper-onion drippings broth. I could have thickened the sauce with some corn starch but didn’t. All of this was served over egg noodles.
I made a side dish of fresh carrots and frozen peas with grated fresh ginger (i keep my ginger in the freezer to keep it fresh and have taken to serving it with most of my frozen veggies cuz i see it in there when i get the veggies out) and dried purple basil (from my garden last year, almost out of it. I have been eating basil on near everything so the dried basil will be gone before i have fresh again).
I made a salad with fresh spinach, red pepper, red onion, cucumber (pealed because it was all waxy coming from Wal-Mart), yellow squash(cut thin), shredded carrot, and pine nuts (raisins for the guest with no teeth). Most of us topped it with a store bought balsamic dressing. Oh, and best of all on top i put my leaf lettuce and spinach thinnings from the cold frame.
All in all it was a lovely dinner. I got a six pack of Sam Adams Cherry Wheat because it was on sale and Eric and Suzy made walnut brownies from scratch. Coincidentally Dad had bought walnut ice cream and they were marvelous together.
Dinner conversation ran to 2012 and the end of the world, our rising and lunar signs, and of course i told some hitchhiking stories and rambled my neo-platonic metaphysice i have been obsessed with forat least the last 6 years. don’t get me started on that.
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