Tag Archives: gardening

October 12, 2016 · 8:37 AM

Garden end days

(I’m sick over this election bullshit and low maddening hum of misogyny like a high voltage wire stretching over the continent here, so let’s stick with some light “lunching ladies” garden talk for now…)

The garden broke me this year – there wasn’t a single plant (except the hot peppers) that wasn’t hit with disease, multiple diseases, and pests – even the fresh dirt in the new raised beds now harbors various evils.

There was some balance – some of the new pests attracted some new predators – but not enough, and/or not in time and I’m going to have to be even more proactive next year with using more or other organic interventions.

The fall crops mostly failed from no rain and continued heat through September, but a few sprouts are gamely hanging on, and the poor embattled (nearly zombie) tomatoes are desperately trying to ripen their very last fruit.

We had a few more butternuts than last year, but not enough for the work we put into them to keep them alive, and my experiments with letting some volunteer plants grow failed miserably since they were a month or more behind and maturing at the height of pest season.

Google took new satellite images of our town and our garden can be seen from space! Near space, that is, and luckily it was captured after a fresh batch of straw in the aisles and before the plants got big, so there’s good contrast.

The new garlic is now in, and the old garlic is already half consumed – unfortunately we’re definitely not going to make it until next year’s crop.

And the canning is finally wrapped up – just tomatoes in various consistencies, jalapeno salsa, and a tiny batch of overly sweet hot pepper jelly. The rest of the bounty is tucked away in the new chest freezer. I experimented with blanching or not with a few things, so we’ll see what worked best, and anything too mushy to eat is heartily consumed by the canine, so it’s not a total loss.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BLTzmg7Acs1/

Now starts the month or two of raking and shredding leaves…

(And a heads up that I agreed to put “a subtle message” urging Americans to register to vote in my posts, so if you see it, it should be there, and please vote unless you like Trump or any of the other election-throwing candidates, then please stay home.)

4 Comments

Filed under gardening, home

Tagged as army worm, autumn, canning, food, garden, gardening, grow your own, organic gardening, pests, praying mantis

July 6, 2016 · 1:00 AM

Randomly at the start of another July…

I’ve got 19 posts started – all waiting for images, things to be found and photographed, projects to get underway or completed, or thoughts to round out or solidify.

Ongoing, but sometimes intermittent, wrist pain has substantially curtailed my knitting, and brain fog has kept me from working on a couple of sweaters that are both at the point of needing close attention to the pattern and/or modifications and deviations… But I’ll knock out a few rows on the thick socks, and regular socks, and wash cloths from time to time.

It’s looking less and less likely that I’ll participate in the Tour de Fleece this year – the last few were failures anyway and the room I keep my wheel is hot as balls. But I started a little bit of spinning a month ago – one or two of you might recognize the significance of the colors – but now I’m not sure I’ll finish more than a bobbin or two – it was a flash-in-the-pan idea for bringing in a little cash, but I’m not feeling it on various levels anymore, and again humidity and wool don’t mix.

The last month was pie/cake/italian ricotta tart season for both of us and that was a happy diversion.

(Sadly, these weren’t our own blueberries – we’ll need another couple of years for a pie’s worth.)

And with that came a new tablet with an okay enough camera for Instagram participation, so join me there – it may or may not relate to things here, and will likely have an excess of garden pics…

Of which will also be here – the garden is getting the lion’s share of my otherwise making something time for better or worse – some of it squishing bastard cucumber beetles, some of it trying to keep up with picking the bounty – most of it good times.

(Unfortunately the spring carrots didn’t take well, so our beets will have to be paired up with another farm’s carrots for some tasty fresh juice.)

I threw in some peas for shits and giggles expecting them to get scorched too soon, but now I wish I’d planted more…

N’s garlic crop has been good overall – he tried 5 or 6 different varieties with mixed results.

The basement utility room now smells lovely, or like a giant head of garlic (and we’ll consume all of it well before next year’s appears).

I love good old trustworthy basic (Provider) green beans. My worst gardens have always produced enough of them to land at least some extra in the freezer – but we won’t be pickling and canning anymore ever again – I absolutely abhor a mushy bean.

I also hate that picking them always gives me a rash and I’m at times too lazy to go back in the house for a long-sleeved shirt before doing so…

There are a few more friendly catbirds keeping me company in the garden this year – let’s hope that they’re taking care of some of the peskier bugs and not just warming up for a potential fruit harvest.

And I’m slowly assessing and cleaning and repairing my old sewing machines – turns out one was a different model than I’d thought which doesn’t mean much except that I can’t use it for parts after all but the condition is good after all too, I’m attempting to turn another into a hand crank, and one or two others might leave the herd.

I’ve got a bit of a garment sewing fever building, so let’s see if anything comes of it…

3 Comments

Filed under gardening, home, knitting, spinning

Tagged as beans, beetles, beets, catbird, dessert, gardening, garlic, handknit socks, home cooking, knitting, organic garden, organic gardening, peas, pie, rash, socks, spinning, stinking rose

June 1, 2016 · 1:00 AM

Early harvests

I’m having a hard time to adjusting to being sans job this time around. The last time it happened, I had to hurry up and deal with the sale of our old house and all of the packing up, storing, and moving to the next state over, so too much was going on to really feel the break. But this time, I’ve been getting up and going into my home office every day since we’ve lived here and I can’t shake the feeling that I’m slacking off if I’m not sitting at my desk. Though if I sit at my desk and try to do something mildly constructive like write a bit about fiber or put up some ebay listings, I’ll easily forget my train of thought. Or the dog starts to act nutty…

Or I’ll wander off for a snack and see a paper bag in the kitchen and think maybe I have a forgotten tasty sandwich or chocolate croissant ready to surprise and delight me with deliciousness but then remember it was just some random bit of home improvement I picked up at the hardware store a few hours previously…

But I’m trying to find a new rhythm and hopefully in another week or so things will lean to normal. (Though I started writing this over a week ago, so maybe I’d better hope for another few weeks or so…)

The garden is finally fully planted and/or germinated. The only total failure so far was fennel, and I’m in a current aphid war in one tomato bed, but not the other, yet.

(The neighbors also just rebuilt their retaining wall near the property line – thanks neighbor, well done!)

May’s dirt is a time of impatience then sudden chaos – one day I’m thinning baby greens…

And enjoying their first meal-sized portion after N’s culinary intervention:

And then in a few days, we have a sudden, aggressive bounty of lusty, verdant young adults…

And we’ll be crowded with green, barely able to keep up, but reluctant to share, for weeks (fingers crossed).

Gardening and unruly dog handling have left my wrists sore, so I’ve done little to no knitting, spinning, and sewing. (Worrying about the dog chewing up or swallowing fiber tools has also curtailed my activities – I can’t leave anything lying about at the ready as I’m wont to do.) But I hit the thrift one last time in the early spring to gather up some yarn-harvestable sweaters before they disappeared for the season.

One was a lovely olive wool/cashmere? blend – I already misplaced the label as that is one of the things I often leave out while unraveling. But I think this might become a Paris Toujours instead of the brown cashmere I’d planned, though I’ve a hundred yards or so less of the olive. This yarn begs for something garter-stitch-squishy though (and I’m thinking of a poncho-like thing in the brown instead… maybe.)

And another was a printed cotton/rayon cardigan. I’d been wanting to play with a printed knit that would turn into variegated yarn, but I hadn’t finished the thought as to what I’d do with it. The kinks remained after washing – likely because of the rayon? but that doesn’t matter too much, since I’ll likely double or triple it with something else or itself. And I can’t accurately count the yardage to save my life…

The others are wool and wool or cotton blends – I went out of my comfort zone a bit in order to get some interesting yarns and have some wool-free options if I ever get around to selling things (either the harvested yarn or something made from it). And several of these were less than ideal since they were cardigans with cut and stitched buttonholes, so one panel is left on several that will need to be sewn into something, or if I’m desperate, I could still harvest a dozen or so yards between the holes.

(Of course I still have dozens of other sweaters waiting to be unraveled as well, but those are still packed up – much easier to just find new ones…)

A change other than the seasons…

I showed up here after I lost my job the first time around.

But that turned out to be only temporary, and I got it back first by half time, and then full – happily telecommuting all the while – and things started moving forward and building up steam and for the last few months I was preparing to uproot my (our) life all over again to return to the city we call home though neither of us was born there, and we’d literally just gotten around to unpacking here…

But then I didn’t get the job, “my” job that I’ve been wedded to for nearly 15 years.

Complaining about the reason why would make me an asshole, and I am not one.

(At least in this circumstance.)

So now I’ve got to start all over again, without tearing at my breast screaming injustice, and wallowing too much in what I’ve loved and lost – it was a divorce, not a death, so I can’t grieve and move on – I have to deal with teary phone calls, people choosing sides regardless of my desire for them not to, colleagues and constituents asking me about things the new “wife” doesn’t know (and won’t for some time), and trying to explain to future employers in guarded language and lies that technically aren’t, why I “left” my last job.

But there is also a bit of relief – things have been maddeningly up in the air since last November, and many more things were delayed (like the garden) since we thought we were going to have to hurry up and sell the house. But now much of that has turned into anxiety as I scramble to get things back in order for life here while cutting the strings with finality from our old home city and fully completing our move here with all of the administrative annoyances – closing and opening bank accounts, no longer paying taxes in places I no longer live but still worked, changing health plans again (nooooo!!!!), and closing vastly underfunded retirement plans, etc., etc., etc.

It’s almost as if we have moved again, only without the back pain.

(But our backs are screaming in pain due to rushed garden improvements – some new raised beds, blueberry bushes! a gooseberry bush! rhubarb!, and some decorative landscaping.)

And though I’d been searching for stable work and attempted and failed to go back to school while I was underemployed a few years ago, I thought that things would eventually turn around and I’d have the option of going back at some point in the next few years, but that point came much sooner than expected and with very unexpected results. Now, the job search and/or figuring out the next thing has a greater sense of urgency (though thanks to N we’re not going to starve or loose the house in the meantime) and I have even less desire to pound the pavement and jump back into the morass of shitty politics of my specialty in my field, yet I’m too many years away from other areas in the field so I’m no longer competitive in other specialties I’ve had in the past…

(And it was a happy fluke that I was able to telecommute for nearly four years too – that usually isn’t an option at all in my work – I’ve grown to really enjoy working from home and the thought of a several hours a day commute makes me nearly physically ill.)

The taste in my mouth right now is awfully bitter – the widest stretches of the world of art only ever serve the rich and their whims and needless needs, and it is a class in which I will never be comfortable, welcomed, or wish to bow to – so I don’t see much point in continuing a career in temples of poor dead people’s stuff.

I’d like to work in something far more fundamental or necessarily – life and death, food and shelter…

But I don’t particularly enjoy children on a regular basis, I haven’t the stomach for other’s bodily fluids, and waiting tables and construction require stamina and strength that I don’t have much of these days.

So I have no fucking clue which color of parachute I’d prefer now…

(But I know I’m still coming at this from a place of relative privilege, so all in all, as usual, things could be so much worse.)

*And I’ve no idea how or why this robin ended up tits up in our garden, or this squirrel began melting into the yard (though the troublesome feral cats are likely to blame for him) but N gave them both proper burials underneath a bird-favorite bush that has become the boneyard for small wild things.

12 Comments

Filed under gardening, home, unemployment

Tagged as changes, dead animals, fuck the rich, gardening, life changes, loosing job, moving, robin, Spring, squirrel, unemployment, what color is my parachute

September 2, 2015 · 6:00 AM

What time is it anyway…?

Things have been a bit hinky lately – perhaps it’s an annual thing, or perhaps it’s because the season is just beginning to change, or perhaps it’s all just an illusion…

My entirely ugly, but much relied upon atomic clock began reading 6:91…

It took me more than a minute to realize that that wasn’t possible, a few days to remember that it wasn’t possible several more times, and then another week to clean out the gunk from a corroded battery… It still hasn’t readjusted to reality – maybe I’m the one who needs to readjust?

Our garden yielded only one mutant vegetable – which is proof positive of the organic veg we consumed from the bitchy CSA from the last two years was in fact contaminated from the megabiopharma mere yards away.

The half basement wall went from yellow to orange then back to yellow again… I couldn’t get over the orange and teal looking too much like a southern NFL team with a sea creature mascot. N doesn’t understand why I even know the colors of teams when I despise the whole franchise, and I can’t understand it either – further proof of its evilness for invading my ignoring brain. (And let’s just ignore the fact that it’s now close to the yellow and green of a northern team with a mascot that does something with meat or boxes…)

But whatever, I am really done with painting for quite some time. And as much as my vocal cords are shorn from screaming “one coat of paint is never enough,” this time it had to be – in fact, it’s more like 3/4 of a coat with another 1/4 over the the thinnest spots – going out to buy even more paint wasn’t an option. But I primed the orange very very well, so it is good enough for a basement. And this time we were mildly ill from the fumes for a few days from the floor – I’ve been so smitten with the no-VOC paint we’ve been getting for the walls, that I forgot the low-VOC stink – nothing like the brain melting paint of just a few decades ago, but it has an odor when the other stuff really doesn’t… But now we can officially unpack every last thing…

But getting organized isn’t always the answer. Most of my fabric stash is now neatly boxed and well-labeled and shoved into a long knee wall closet – and I can’t find a damn thing, or it’s a pain in the ass to move things away to get to the thing I need… But one of my siblings sent some neat inflatable led lights that have come in very handy in the space, though they’re meant for the great outdoors.

A garden fence ornament ended up as a pile of pieces on the ground for no discernible reason.

Its hanging wire was intact – if this were the country or the city, I’d think someone shot it down, but instead, maybe a squirrel got strong and angry?

My favorite sock yarn tested my love for it…

There’s this bloated and horrid plastic filament intertwined through a good portion of it so far – it’s not the occasional rustic bit of guard hair, or people hair… probably a larger clump of the bit of nylon added for strength like a pasta clump? If so, this nylon feels like all kinds of petrochemical nastiness… which is what nylon really is, right? I’m conflicted – I like sock yarn with a bit of it in for strength, and I’ve not yet had to darn any of my socks made of superwash and a bit ‘o nylon. But I’m all preachy against plastics escaping into the environment, and I can’t stand synthetics against my skin. In theory I prefer to wear socks without the nylon too – in certain temperatures I swear I can feel the sickly unbreathability of 10% – 25% nylon in my socks. Mohair is called “nature’s nylon” but I’ve yet to see a superwash mohair blend, or one I’d like to wear perhaps, and socks made with just wool seem to precious, and I don’t knit or wear precious socks. But perhaps thicker yarn knit up at the tiniest possible gauge could be fine…?

One of my credit cards was hacked a few months ago, and now another, and finally my debit card in the same week has been as well – from internal breaches – nothing to do with my online purchases (or entire lack thereof of late). I think I caught and updated all of my automatic payments (and again) but the uneasiness hasn’t subsided that a late bill might be headed my way. Perhaps I’ll just start burying my nickles under the bushes – bushes that still need to be cut back…

And my work work future is up for grabs again – a cyclical chaos I’d been adapting to for the last three years, and as of a few months ago, I though I had a less chaotic three years ahead, but silly me, life isn’t so kind… So I’m spinning my wheels again, but not making yarn or going any distance.

Catch-up, but no ketchup…

Going on vacation is great, but the aftermath is a bit of a struggle…

I’ve been doubling up on work-work to make up some hours and the house-work doubled, tripled on its own.

We’ve canned even more tomatoes – certainly enough to get us through to the season next year – I think. Some of the heirlooms didn’t produce much, but I’ve been especially fond of the green stripey ones this year for eating fresh. The green beans exploded and have been eaten in all cooking methods liked by us as well as frozen and pickled – I put in another crop in early July, and I don’t want to say I regret that, because it’s one of the few veggies not being attacked by something or another out there, and the neighbors will be happy for more bounty, but I wish I’d put in a dried variety instead…

And the basement is coming along – the floor is now half teal. And I am an idiot and decided that the orange didn’t work after all, and have to hurry up and re-paint it with the original yellow, or a boring white, or more grey… (The pic above shows the floor color fairly accurately, but the walls are more grey-green rather than the yellowy putty they seem to be on my screen). So as long as I get on that soon, we’ll be able to finally install N’s library by the end of the month and unpack most of the rest of the boxes.

I’d like to overdye a large old cotton rag rug (old meaning faded and from the 1990s, not vintage) and a large old cotton sofa cover but not sure how to do that… I’ve only got a small front-loader washing machine, a well that is going a little precious this time of year, and I’m sure the laundromats don’t want me to do that there, but I don’t want to spend much to revive these things – probably be cheaper to get some cheap sisal/jute rugs in the end, unless there’s some sort of paint-on, no rinse or little rinse fabric dye out there…?

Plotting my dinner…

We’re a little late with the garden this year, but that’s because we have a brand new big one!

It went from this pathetic thing:

To this glorious piece of productive real estate:

(Too big for my lens)

Still lots more digging and other random fence finishing tasks to do, and only a few herbs planted at the moment, but hopefully we won’t have to contend as much with the local feral cats and this lovely lady and her buddies:

And just playing and planning with seeds makes me hungry…

And when I get hungry, I can get just a teeny bit bitchy…

The whole Whole30 craze is making me really sad, and social media has made fad diets so exceptionally annoying. Back in the ’90s you could just walk away from the Atkins conversations and stink of your co-worker’s daily half chicken from Boston Fartet, but now you can’t putter about the internet without seeing images of plates and shopping baskets and bizarre exclamations of “gee, ghee in my coffee is really awesome!” And many of those shopping basket pics are full of things that aren’t really that healthy or good for the environment – factory farm meats and heavily packaged veg aren’t really food in my book. I get that people struggle to loose weight, have frustrating undiscovered food sensitivities or massive allergies, and have a hard time adopting a healthier lifestyle when they weren’t raised with one. But I don’t get the fad part. I don’t get that the message of eat whatever moderately as long as it is organic or nearly organic as possible, and as local/fresh as possible, and cut out processed shit isn’t good enough? Or experiment with an elimination diet to see what truly does mess you up rather than flatly demonizing certain foods (foods, by the way that populations of entire continents eat daily, so it’s downright offensive to deem something poisonous just because you are privileged enough to not have to eat it or it isn’t a part of your culture).

So I’ll be here sipping my delicious butterless coffee and licking my plate after an occasional small almond pastry while I watch the plants grow (and dig-weary fingers and arms heal enough to start knitting again…)

2 Comments

Filed under gardening, home

Tagged as deer, fences, fencing, gardening, gardens, grow your own, no more lawn, organic gardening, seeds, yard

September 17, 2014 · 6:01 AM

Of basil, beans, and blankets

My garden (I can hardly call it my garden – it was a patch of dirt the previous owners planted tomatoes in, and I just threw some seeds in there in the spring) bore much more than I expected, especially after I entirely ignored it (let’s hope it just doesn’t have low self esteem and thrives on neglect).

And two of my favorite comfort foods did exceptionally well.

We had enough basil for multiple pesto dishes.

And some entirely lovely borlotti beans – but just a few plants’ worth since I threw just a few seeds in not expecting anything.

(Yes, they are surrounded by lots and lots of weeds.)

Basil pesto reminds me of home – I grew up with the stuff over homemade spaghetti while the closest thing my classmates had to pasta was elbows and powdered cheese from a box. I’m pretty sure one of my teen boyfriends (a boyfriend I had as a teen, and who himself was a teen) only hung around as long as he did for the food. When I moved into my first few apartments, pesto was one of the first dishes I’d make so the place would immediately smell good. And then I could sound even more pretentious and say the smell of fresh basil and garlic and boiling pasta immediately takes me back to my halcyon days as a college student in Firenze.

I didn’t think you could acquire new comfort foods as an adult, but borlotti beans came in to my life several years ago and nestled into that role. I spent nearly all of my twenties as a vegetarian, so all beans wore out their welcome, but when N came around and started whipping up beans and greens with the speckled beauties, I became a fan. And they also remind me of our semi-annual trips to Abruzzo. Next year I hope to plant a gigantic bed of them so I can dry pounds and enjoy them through the winter.

And I finally finished knitting a [large-ish] baby blanket for a new member of the family. His mother started it and I offered to finish it – boldly thinking I’d have it done in time for his birth in July, but at least it’s still technically summer.

Though I was uncharacteristically monogamous with the project, and while knitting it made a mental list of all the other things I wanted to start (or finish) when I was done, I’m feeling a little itchy to knit a new blanket for us – one to snuggle under while eating some beans.

Isn’t that just cozy?

(Actually, I hate eating around textiles and prefer dining properly at the table…)

But wait, haven’t I already been knitting a blanket for over a decade….?

I finally got it back out to finish – it’s nearly done, but the cotton is still doing some ass-kicking to my wrists, so I’m dreaming about a new one in wool…

3 Comments

Filed under gardening, home, knitting

Tagged as baby blankets, basil, blankets, borlotti beans, comfort foods, cranberry beans, gardening, green, knitting, pesto, UFOs, WIPs

May 21, 2014 · 2:49 PM

Poisonfuckingivy

I love that I have a nice big yard in which to putter and prune.

I love discovering all of the things previously planted, blown in by the wind, or sown via bird ass.

I love walking barefoot outside (except when I think of ringworm).

But I utterly despise, loathe, fear, hate, wildly shake my fist at Poison Ivy.

It is everywhere.

Believe me, I looked when we first inspected the house – not a hairy perverse vine in sight – but it was winter. Now it isn’t, and I’ve found it’s as populous as Dandelions – delicate little tendrils that snap when pulled and sink back to maniacally multiply.

I am exceedingly dermatologically allergic to that leaves of three bastard.

Despite the thorough and methodical precautions I took for my first attempt to remove it, it still got me…

And there is so so so much more…

And I just might have to loose a lovely Azalea that it’s gotten way too cozy with and started naming their evil offspring…

Death to Poison Ivy!!!

4 Comments

Filed under home

Tagged as allergic, allergy, anger, evil plants, gardening, itchy, lilac, poison ivy, poison plants, rash, vines, yards