What's the Buzz?

Since it's almost the end of January I figured it was time to pop in and give some progress updates.

I was looking for something one day and came across the public library web site.  There I noticed an interesting, and free, class.  It met several of my lofty criteria:  I wasn't doing anything then, it's only a month long, and it's something I know nothing about but like might to try.  The class was Introduction to Beekeeping!

For the last month once a week I've been trekking down to the library and learning about queens, workers, and lazy boy drones.  Drones like to sit around the house all day and eat all the food, don't do a lick of work, and leave the toilet seat up.  But you want to know about the stinging.

Of course there's the low high probability of getting stung...if I don't take precautions.  Things like wearing the big white suit and getting the neighbors to gossip about what I am doing.  All in all it was a good class.  I will be getting a hive going but not for a few months.  This means there will be no honey this year but that's o.k.

I haven't seen any more classes on the library schedule that I want to take but that's o.k., too.  I've decided to learn German on my own.  That's for a post 18 months from now.  Yes, I have a post planned for 18 months from now.  And you thought you were organized.

Now you are also probably wondering about the garden.  Here's the latest pics.

 Winter Honeysuckle

 Lavender

 Atomic Red Carrots

 Kale

 Sorrel

 Mignonette Bronze lettuce

 Green Onions

 Cabbage...or Cauliflower...oops

 Leaf lettuce

 Radishes

 Spinach

 Collard Greens

 Found growing in the yard.  Must've dropped a few seeds.

 Swiss Chard

  Micro Greens in back and more lettuce in front.

Last but not least.  An easy way to personalize your tea.  This is hot Rooibos tea with honey and frozen cranberries.

 Auf Wiedersehen!

First Planting Day

In my journey to become a halfway decent gardener I decided to make a plan.  I sat down with all my wonderful seeds and cataloged them in which order to grow them.  This is serious grown up gardening.  I planned and plotted on the calendar and looked up last frost dates. 

So todayish was the day to start planting things for the 8-10 week mark.  I have added a little extra time for some things because my plants are always pokey.  I don't know why and a lot of the time I think I would be a natural at Bonzai gardening.  I'm great at growing things in miniature.  Except the year before when I had the stupendous season of tomatoes. 

Yes, gardening is hard.  I won't lie.  The ads you see on t.v. are all lying.  Don't be fooled.  It is not easy and if I had to survive on only my garden I would get to eat one meal per week. 

But this year will be different!  This year I will have glorious blog entries of mammoth vegetables.  They won't even fit into the picture frame they will be so huge!  All because I have a plan this year.

First up I started 3 seeds indoors.  Calendula, eggplant, and orange bell peppers.

I'm planting these in my compost mixture with the rabbit poo mixed in.  And no, it doesn't smell.  It looks like this...

Afterwards, I spent another hour planting, raking, and watering  these lettuce, mustard greens, and carrot seeds.

According to my master plan I don't have to plant anything else until the middle of February.  By then all these seeds should probably have reached their maximum growth and I'll be watering them with my tears of failure.

~The Pessimistic Gardener

Preparing For 2012

Yesterday I started thinking about the new year coming up.  It's easy to notice all the stores practically bulldozing holiday items out and replacing them with every exercise gadget or tool out there.  Lucky for me I don't even need to worry about those aisles.  Have I been to "boot camp?"  No.  But I do jog and I do enough physical labor around this homestead that it's complete loo loo in the head to think I will drive to a gym.

I was thinking all the usual things yesterday.  I'll have to change the banner.  I'll have to write a post.  What direction is this going anyway?   That was the big question I thought about all day today. 

In the mean time here's a pic of something I built on Monday.  It's a BBQ/fire pit.  I copied it from a picture I saw in Mother Earth News magazine.  I know it's not worthy of BHG but where it lacks beauty it prospers in functionality.

  Thank you for looking at that.  In case you're wondering about the bits in the rest of the pic, there's some other rocks I own on the left.  In the back is one of the garden beds with black shade cloth to keep out deer and naughty dogs, and then some bits and pieces of garden tools.

Back to the big question about the new year and what direction to go in.  I had deep deep thoughts on that subject.  Without going into detail, I think we all have people in our lives that we try to please and it never really happens.  No matter what we do it will never be enough.  So I've decided that I won't endlessly try to please someone when they really have no intention of ever resolving things.  Take what you want out of that.

The next big thing for the new year is not only for me, but an appeal to all of you.  2012 is going to be a big year.  I'm talking really big.  One for the history books.  There's so many things happening right now and it's going to become even crazier in 2012 as many things sort of converge at the same time.  There's also that pesky end of the world prediction.  I don't put any faith into it but it's still there. 

My goal is to be a prolific journal writer for 2012 (and hopefully blogger).  I believe the year 2012 is going to be studied immensely in the future (that whole end of the world thing) and there'll be much interest in what us "ordinary" people were doing and what we thought about those things. 

This could be a chance to set the record straight and prove we weren't all getting ready for the Mayan countdown, though I know some of you are.  It can also be a challenge to add something great to your life and one day others will read about it, too. 

I hope to see you all in 2012 and look forward to creating, crafting, gardening, and building many, many new things.

~Julie

Do The Bad Guys Like Your Hair?

About 2 months ago we all decided that it was now Fall, even though our local temps were still...well, melting the skin off our bodies.  I decided I would do some Fall decorating.  On my head.

I was curious.  I'd never been a redhead.  I was fascinated with the look of vintage curls.  (Did blondes really have more fun?)  Would it go with my skin tone?  Would it make me look older or younger?  Why don't I like my natural color?

The last question is easy to answer.  As a child I had blonde hair.  Sun bleached, wonderful blonde hair.  Then it started to change to brown.  Not chestnut or some other exotic word for brown.  Just brown.  Boring brown.  Blah brown.  I hated it.  Since then I've changed that color hundreds numerous times.  But I had never been a redhead.

The color choice was easy.  I didn't want bright red for this first adventure.  I wanted something red but safe.  So I chose burgundy.  It's red but also brown.

Now I must explain this pic.  I'm not standing there ridiculously posing by pointing at nothing.  I took this for my Facebook profile pic to interact with my cover photo on Facebook Timeline.  Which is something you'll never see because none of you will go set up your Timeline.  A little irritating... But I digress.

Since the color change Rowan has made a point of saying to me almost every day, "You still have red hair."  She doesn't like it.  She's the only one who doesn't like it.  We frequently have conversations about it.  Like this morning before school.

"You still have red hair."

 "Yes, Rowan.  I like it."

"Did you ask everyone?"

"Yes."  Not really.

 "Even the bad guys?"

"I don't know any bad guys.  But if I did I wouldn't ask if they liked my hair."  Maybe I would.

"Satan's a bad guy.  You could ask him."

"I definitely won't be asking if Satan likes my hair.  What color do you think it should be?"

"Blonde."

"I might do that in the Spring."

"Well, until then you could just make it brown."  She said brown.  She has no idea how hard I've tried to get away from brown.  Devil child.

"Oh look.  Your bus is here."

The Trip Back To Normal

I was reminded the other day that my blog was suffering from cobwebs.  This is true.  The blog has become a place of squalor and dank dark corners.  It was the pretty new dress that now sits in the back of the closet untouched.

Another friend pointed out the positive, "Hey, at least you know you have readers that pay attention."

Until this afternoon I hadn't had a trigger event.  A trigger event (I made that up) is when something happens and I feel compelled to write a post. 

Basically this summer was the worst summer in recorded history for us.  There's others that will dispute this and say it was actually the best summer they'd ever had.  Experiences are relative.

At this house we spent the first 4 weeks battling a stomach virus which would not go away.  It would pretend to go away and then sneak back in during the night.  Kind of like that one relative that always out stays their welcome.  After that we had a couple weeks reprieve and then Jace came down with pneumonia.  It was bad enough that the doctor wanted him to go check into the local hospital.  Being a man chicken he refused.  He was then forced to endure MY nursing.  He hates that.  It means he will get well by my sheer force of will power.  That and I make him take his medicine on time, not at any-ole-time like he would do.

There you have it.  We were worn down by plagues and disappointment.  We didn't get to enjoy any summer vacation plans or swimming lessons. ( Believe me, if your kid has a tummy virus, you won't enroll them in swimming lessons.)  By the last week of summer we were begging to be released from all this torment.  We prayed daily that somehow school would start earlier and we would feel like things had changed. 

Finally the day arrived.  The first day of school!  Rowan showed her excitement by getting up at midnight and putting her clothes on to make sure she wasn't late.  We are now into week two of school.  She loves it.  I love it, too.  We are enjoying our time away from each other since we spent the summer in quarantine.  This year has brought something new.  It's all day school.  It feels a little odd.  I felt myself wondering, "what am I supposed to do with all this time?" 

I have found an answer to that question.  Get other women with that same dazed look to do things together.  It's brilliant.  I have found one woman who enjoys going to see movies and her husband doesn't go to movies.  I have another friend who likes to try different places to eat.  Another friend likes to go to farms and yarn shops.  Another friend is giddy with delight that she can do something with someone her own age.  Really, you should see her face when we talk about meeting.  Big grin, sparkly eyes, and giggling.  The list goes on but suffice to say I have become very busy and actually need a planner to keep track of all the activities.

Today, though, really let me know that we are out of summer and back into a regular routine.  We are in fall.  Rowan came home today and I looked at her.  I asked, "Didn't you wear that dress to school yesterday?"  She replied, "Yes, but I like it so much I wanted to wear it again."  Uh huh.  (Her Father let her wear it)

Things are back to normal.

Avocado Ice Cream

In case you've become weary of the old standby flavors of ice cream, I thought I would share a recipe I found for Avocado Ice Cream.  You can get this recipe and other ice cream recipes from the June-July issue of MaryJanes Farm.

MaryJane's Avocado Ice Cream
Prep Time: 15 minutes       Makes: 3 cups

1 large avocado, peeled and diced
1 cup half-and-half
2/3 cup powdered sugar
1/2 tsp lemon zest
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice

1.  Combine avocado, half-and-half, sugar, lemon zest, and lemon juice in a blender.  Puree until completely smooth.
2.  Pour mixture into a 2-quart baking dish.
3.  Cover and freeze until firm, about 4 hours.  (Can be transferred to an air-tight container and kept in a freezer for up to one month.)
4.  Before serving, let stand at room temperature for 15 minutes.  Use an ice-cream or watermelon scoop to serve.  Top with fresh fruit or mango salsa.

This tastes mostly like lemon sherbet.   And if you're wondering about pairing it with watermelon like the picture, DO IT.  It tastes amazing! 

Old Folks Didn't Have the "Green Thing"

In the line at the store, the cashier told the older woman that she should bring her own grocery bag because plastic bags weren't good for the environment.

The woman apologized to him and explained, "We didn't have the green thing back in my day."

The clerk responded, "That's our problem today. The former generation did not care enough to save our environment."

He was right, that generation didn't have the green thing in its day.

Back then, they returned their milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store.

The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over.

So they really were recycled.

But they didn't have the green thing back in that customer's day.

In her day, they walked up stairs, because they didn't have an escalator in every store and office building.

They walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time they had to go two blocks.

But she was right. They didn't have the green thing in her day.

Back then, they washed the baby's diapers because they didn't have the throw-away kind.

They dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts - wind and solar power really did dry the clothes.

Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.

But that old lady is right, they didn't have the green thing back in her day.

Back then, they had one TV, or radio, in the house - not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a

handkerchief, not a screen the size of the state of Montana .

In the kitchen, they blended and stirred by hand because they didn't have electric machines to do everything for you.

When they packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, they used a wadded up old newspaper to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.

Back then, they didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. They used a push mower that ran on human power. They exercised by working so they didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.

But she's right, they didn't have the green thing back then.

They drank from a fountain when they were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time they had a drink of water.

They refilled their writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and they replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.

But they didn't have the green thing back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or rode the school bus instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. They had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances.

And they didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint.

But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful the old folks were just because they didn't have the green thing back then?

~Author Unknown~