Picture updates

I haven't downloaded any pictures from my camera since, well, since forever so I took care of that today and will put them up to show what I, and the lazy cats, have been doing round the house.

Obviously, Fatty Maow and Pooh have been sleeping... and getting fatter.

And I made cornbread, for the first time, in my cast iron skillet. A bit crumbly, but delicious.

It's cotton-pickin' time! I've already picked enough cotton to make a 4th cat and the plants are only 1/2 way done. Maybe I'll actually spin the cotton this year instead of letting it sit in a jar.

Oy vey...

2 weeks ago I traveled an hour south to look at a used car for sale. While my SO drove the car to make sure it was mechanically sound, I stayed behind with the owner, a 25+ something and her mother. I noticed that on their small hillside property they had a growth of corn - nothing in rows but more a few kernels were scattered and grew in a 10x10 area. The crop was obviously underwatered and when they mentioned that the kernels seemed puny, I explained how the corn should be planted for best pollination and that each tassle pollinated a separate kernel. The mother, obviously impressed, beamed as she asked me, "Wow! Are you from the midwest?"

"No ma'am, I'm just a gardener..."

Weekend happenings

Ah, it was a busy and productive weekend...

I unwrapped my new tarp and laid it next to the overstuffed compost bin. Lifting the bin off, I took everything that was still decomposing and moved it to the tarp. With the compost now free, I shoveled it into a plastic bin and in a couple of loads, had it transported to the garden. There were more than a few ticked off ants and spiders galore, but they'll relocate temporarily and settle down. Well, except for the giant brown garden spider we relocated from the wood pile to the rock by the front street. I didn't want to reach my hand in the firewood and get bit by a girl that big!

With my compost in the garden, I put the compost bin back and shoveled the new stuff back in. With 5 more loads, I transported the fallen rotting apples from under the tree to the compost bin and covered it with a layer of dried, mowed grass. From there I unlocked and opened the back gate, a feat in and off itself, and got ready to move the stuff that isn't good for my compost pile out to the street. Things that aren't good for my compost pile are sticks too big to compost and mowed grass with WAY too many weed seeds. It took me 2 tarp loads to get that out to the street.

It was about time for me to clean up when I noticed how cramped my mint and lemon balm were. Here I had all this room on the side of the house with nothing planted and my herbs were all crammed together! I dug two holes further down on the fence and uprooted my lemon balm to move it over. Next I went to the other side of the yard and dug out my greek oregano which was taking over the area that was supposed to be a cute little herb garden... til they all got outta control! The hole I dug for the oregano was dead on what I needed to plop my oregano in and it settled in the next day without so much as a lost leaf. Then there was trimming of the sage, the tomatoes and the lavender, trimming of the geraniums up front and shoving the cuttings in the empty spots out back to fill in. I removed the spent sunflower plants and cleaned up the old dry grass clippings full of seeds that Jr's been tossing in that corner - no more of that - I can't spend my free days cleaning up after his laziness.

Sunday I slept in a bit and once we got up and had breakfast, we headed to the nearby Pick N Pull to see if we could get a couple of interior pieces for my new car. The last owner had it all ghetto'd up so we removed all the junk and took out the broken heater vent to replace with another. We found all the pieces we were looking for except for the shift boot. And the clips we got to fit over the end pieces of the passenger handle turned out to be gray instead of taupe so we are off on one side. Everything else came together really well, even if it did take 3 trips in all.

The rest of my time I spent trying to make my own bbq sauce. I'm not a fan of corn syrup and especially not high fructose corn syrup, which is nearly the main ingredient in catsups, bbq sauces and most other condiments you'll find in your fridge. I found several recipes and took a little from each to construct my sauce. By the end of the day I have a sauce that I would rate as a 7 perhaps - but have yet to try it out on the meat so I'll wait a bit longer before I give it a final grade. From here we can add or remove and continue to tweak it until we get something that we really like. I'm definitely going to need liquid smoke to get that smoky flavor we love in a bbq sauce that we can dip in after cooking in. Here begins my bbq'ing adventures!

Welcome to Autumn!

My favorite season of the year ! Everything is starting to settle down from the heat of the summer. The brown grasses are finally laying over and will give way to green shoots that come up with the fall rain. Ah, rain...

October 4th 2008

The weatherman claimed that it would rain on Friday & Saturday. That usually means the north bay will get rain and we will get gray clouds, if anything at all. Friday after work I saw the fog rolling over the west hills but figured that would be the extent of our moisture. Imagine my utmost pleasant surprise when I woke up Saturday morning to find that the outside had experienced a fine drenching! The ground was sufficiently wet and only started to truly dry up late Sunday afternoon. Though we didn't get any more rain, the temperatures were cool on Saturday.

Let the raining season BEGIN!