For the past year and a half I have been making great efforts to get into shape and lose a bit of weight. I have slimmed a bit while gaining a couple of pounds. During this same time my thyroid decided that it was done and now I have to combat the slow metabolism that comes with hypothyroidism. Sigh. I ran for a little over a year, if you could call it running, on some days jogging would have been an over-optimistic term. I never enjoyed running, it did what I needed it to do, but that is it. I turned to swimming at the beginning of the summer, something I greatly enjoy. I swam all summer until we took our vacation a couple weeks ago, during the time we were gone the local pool closed for its yearly maintenance, a total of three weeks. I figured while we were away in the mountains I'd hike daily and then when I returned I would run for the last couple of weeks until the pool was open again.
All Wrong.
The beginning of the trip featured quite a bit of rain, it was relaxing, but it wasn't calorie burning. My fellow vacationers helped to maintain a pretty high level of junk food in the cabin, so even if I had been hiking every day there was no way to burn off all the s'mores and chips. One four mile hike on a mountainside, a few short walks and pedal boat races on the lake were all my activity. (It was a wonderful trip, we all enjoyed the trip and would probably do it all again. It wasn't great for my waistline though.)
I returned home, the residual junk food stowed in the house, taunting me. I was ready to run to burn it all. Then the evening after we returned, I was walking to say goodnight to my daughter, and tripped over a suitcase waiting to be unpacked. The "OW!" I let out must have indicated that this wasn't just the ordinary trip, because both my husband and my daughter immediately asked if I was okay with a touch of alarm in their voices. I saw stars for a moment. It wasn't too bad, so I said goodnight to my daughter, read for a bit and headed to bed myself. During the night my little toe throbbed and throbbed. My husband suggested that it might be broken and I knew he was right. A few hours later it turned a splotched purple and continued to throb, so the next day I limped into a store and bought some first aid tape and buddy taped it. I know going to the doctor would get me a co-pay, an x-ray and a little clean tape, but that is all. You can't splint or cast a toe. It isn't a horrible injury, just achy and annoying.
So much for running, I aggravate it doing chores around the house, never mind a three mile jog. Now, I wait for the pool to be open again, there is still one more week to go. I have excess energy that needs to be used up, but moving around too much on my feet makes my toe ache. I just need a little patience, will power, a healed toe, a new thyroid and to walk into the pantry to chuck all the sweet and salty-crunchy foods still lurking there. (I need a cartoon of predatory looking bags of salt and vinegar chips and Indian Boondi Masala plotting an attack with a package of sadistic Oreo's and to insert here.)
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
DIY -- Doing a Great Deal for a "Great Deal"
Where has the summer gone??
I've had blog ideas accumulating, but I just haven't had the moment to write. I have a few minutes, let's see what I can get on the screen.
I haven't talked about the garden lately, but it is doing quite well. Tomorrow, I will put my pumpkins out to cure in the sun, I haven't counted them, but there seem to be quite a few. The tomatoes have been making up for last year's poor showing. This year's favorite is green zebra, nice and tangy. As they say a picture is worth a thousand words, that is a nickel under the tomato(es). These are two tomatoes that merged to form one massive tomato, (fraternal conjoined twins??) it was 5.5 inches across:
It was yummy, we ate it within 20 minutes of it being picked, most of the 20 minutes was spent trying to get a good shot of it.
The goat lease is moving forward, here is the goat who will be providing out milk. I should have taken a bird's eye view of her, she is is probably carrying triplets and from that view it really shows.
One of the reasons that I haven't had time to write is that after getting a "great deal" on a dining table and chairs, I had a great deal of work to do. The chairs needed new foam and upholstery, the whole set needed a good scrub and a coat of paint. The couple I bought it from referred to the set as "Nana's table". Well, it appears that Nana was a two pack a day smoker, the chairs had a thick coating of tar and nicotine. Some of it came off and some of it didn't. The mustardy colored set appeared to have originally have been off white, with off white seat covers.
After spending an hour or so washing the pieces, I spent about 10 hours
pulling all of the staples out of the seats (not kidding, there were
thousands of them).
Then I had to order foam on the internet for the cushions, find fabric, find the right color paint and...a month after I started I have now finished, this is how I spent my summer. This is why I haven't had time to write.
Next the window treatments, eventually.
For the vicarious poultry keepers:
I've had blog ideas accumulating, but I just haven't had the moment to write. I have a few minutes, let's see what I can get on the screen.
I haven't talked about the garden lately, but it is doing quite well. Tomorrow, I will put my pumpkins out to cure in the sun, I haven't counted them, but there seem to be quite a few. The tomatoes have been making up for last year's poor showing. This year's favorite is green zebra, nice and tangy. As they say a picture is worth a thousand words, that is a nickel under the tomato(es). These are two tomatoes that merged to form one massive tomato, (fraternal conjoined twins??) it was 5.5 inches across:
The goat lease is moving forward, here is the goat who will be providing out milk. I should have taken a bird's eye view of her, she is is probably carrying triplets and from that view it really shows.
One of the reasons that I haven't had time to write is that after getting a "great deal" on a dining table and chairs, I had a great deal of work to do. The chairs needed new foam and upholstery, the whole set needed a good scrub and a coat of paint. The couple I bought it from referred to the set as "Nana's table". Well, it appears that Nana was a two pack a day smoker, the chairs had a thick coating of tar and nicotine. Some of it came off and some of it didn't. The mustardy colored set appeared to have originally have been off white, with off white seat covers.
 |
| After washing |
 |
| The deconstruction, the beginning |
 |
| Hadn't seen a chair put together like this before. |
 |
| STAPLES!!! |
 |
| Making progress with a little company. |
 |
| Nasty Chair Cover |
 |
| Cup-O-Staples |
Then I had to order foam on the internet for the cushions, find fabric, find the right color paint and...a month after I started I have now finished, this is how I spent my summer. This is why I haven't had time to write.
Next the window treatments, eventually.
For the vicarious poultry keepers:
 |
| 11 weeks old |
Sunday, July 28, 2013
Rent-A-Goat?
We've taken a step back from buying a goat. As I said in the final line of my last post, I was feeling like this
goat was taking over my life, and I wasn't liking that feeling. We were talking to a goat farmer who mentioned that we should register any goat we bought in my daughter's name, because she would be showing it in 4H. Later my daughter took me aside and asked quietly if having her name on the goat meant that she had to take care of it. It gave me pause. She clearly does not understand the meaning of showing animals through 4H and everything that entails, because, yes, she would need to care for the goat.
I realized that my daughter wants to be the goat's "auntie", not "mommy". She wants to play with it, brush it, shave it and trim nails (if she feels inclined that day) and then leave it with someone else to clean the barn, nurse it when it is sick, and to do the drudge work of feeding and watering it every day. If we boarded it most of that would be taken care of, but the farmer did note that most people end up taking the goat home, because they get tired of driving back and forth all of the time. I knew that I would end up the primary caretaker, even if my daughter did do much of the physical care, it was going to be up to me to provide the necessary nagging to insure that it actually happened. Goats can live 14 years, my daughter will probably be home for seven more and then be sent off to college. In order for goats to give milk they have to have babies pretty regularly, I could see the future, the passionate pleas to keep the cute little babies, and me left with a full herd to care for.
I spoke with the farmer and let her know that I needed more time to think about it and that I didn't think that we were ready to make the jump. She suggested that we lease a goat instead, we can legally drink milk from a goat we are leasing. I haven't seen any paperwork yet, but it sounds interesting.
As I said before, all this for pudding!
I realized that my daughter wants to be the goat's "auntie", not "mommy". She wants to play with it, brush it, shave it and trim nails (if she feels inclined that day) and then leave it with someone else to clean the barn, nurse it when it is sick, and to do the drudge work of feeding and watering it every day. If we boarded it most of that would be taken care of, but the farmer did note that most people end up taking the goat home, because they get tired of driving back and forth all of the time. I knew that I would end up the primary caretaker, even if my daughter did do much of the physical care, it was going to be up to me to provide the necessary nagging to insure that it actually happened. Goats can live 14 years, my daughter will probably be home for seven more and then be sent off to college. In order for goats to give milk they have to have babies pretty regularly, I could see the future, the passionate pleas to keep the cute little babies, and me left with a full herd to care for.
I spoke with the farmer and let her know that I needed more time to think about it and that I didn't think that we were ready to make the jump. She suggested that we lease a goat instead, we can legally drink milk from a goat we are leasing. I haven't seen any paperwork yet, but it sounds interesting.
As I said before, all this for pudding!
Thursday, July 18, 2013
All this, for Pudding
Before I dive into my topic today, I just thought I would note that we were very happy to discover that the baby bunnies are alive despite all of their early trials. My daughter and her friend spotted them hopping out of the zebra grass onto the lawn yesterday evening.
Onto my topic:
I would really love to have a glass of milk, but at the moment I cannot. A glass of milk will probably cost me in the neighborhood of $200-350, to start, and I will have to wait a year for it. I haven't had cow's milk since 1995 when I discovered that the reason I was always sick was that I was flooding my system with a food that I loved, but sending my immune system into the stratosphere. My sister's allergist suggested that she give up milk to see if it helped her and within a few days she was on the phone with me saying, "You have to give up milk, just for a few days, to see what happens!" I did. Within three days I realized that I was making myself sick with cow's milk, my energy returned, my skin cleared, my head stopped hurting, the fog lifted...it was a revelation.
I'm allergic to cow's milk and anything with the slightest trace of cow's milk. It took a while in the early dark days of the internet to find all the secret names of cow's milk that appear on food labels and all the sneaky places that it turns up--canned tuna for example, who would think to check canned tuna for cow's milk products??? Frozen whole chicken breasts? Whole turkeys (injected with broth and whey for moistness)?? Pepperoni? French fries? Salt and Vinegar chips?? It was goodbye to most of the processed foods in my diet.
To get real milk, I have to have goat's milk, which isn't easy. The goat's milk and goat's milk powder available in grocery stores tastes like the smell of a male goat when the females are in season, "musk" is too nice of a word for it, "rank" and "stench" are getting closer.
I know from experience that goat's milk directly from the farm can be glorious, in Florida it was pretty easy to find. I just had to tell the farmer that it was for pets and/or livestock and they could sell it to me, in the state where I live now that won't work. There are no dairies that have processing facilities in the area, so to have a glass of milk I am going to have to buy a goat. Since we don't have the facilities or experience of raising goats and since we can't afford to buy two (or more) and equip a mini farm, I am buying one and it will board with a farmer not too far away. She'll provide the care it will need and lots of buddies to hang around with.
I'll get the milk. I'll be able to make pudding that sets, a white sauce once in a while, my decaf will taste better and it goes really well with Oreos (thank you Nabisco for taking the milk out of Oreos a couple of years back, I had missed them) and big slices of cake (the couple of times a year that I have them). I will make my own yogurt and cheese and not have to drive nearly thirty miles to the closest health food store.
I like the idea that it is not a highly processed food like soy milk and almond milk, that the calcium in it is not just calcium supplements ground up and blended into it. It has significant protein, unlike rice milk and almond milk.
Best of all it tastes like milk, cow's milk drinkers might disagree, but it tastes like milk to me, a person who hasn't had milk (on purpose) in 18 years.
My daughter, who has spent many of her weekends over the years on goat farms is ecstatic, she loves goats. In Florida, it took about two hours every weekend to buy our milk. She loves the fact that we will go visit our goat regularly, she has been helping the farmer already trimming hooves and shaving them. We haven't even picked out our baby yet, we need to look at some that have been born already on another farm and decide if we want one of those or one that will be born in September from one of the sweet and very pregnant goats we have met so far. My daughter is all ready to show it in 4H, we just found a group nearby...this goat may take over our lives. All this for pudding.
Onto my topic:
I would really love to have a glass of milk, but at the moment I cannot. A glass of milk will probably cost me in the neighborhood of $200-350, to start, and I will have to wait a year for it. I haven't had cow's milk since 1995 when I discovered that the reason I was always sick was that I was flooding my system with a food that I loved, but sending my immune system into the stratosphere. My sister's allergist suggested that she give up milk to see if it helped her and within a few days she was on the phone with me saying, "You have to give up milk, just for a few days, to see what happens!" I did. Within three days I realized that I was making myself sick with cow's milk, my energy returned, my skin cleared, my head stopped hurting, the fog lifted...it was a revelation.
I'm allergic to cow's milk and anything with the slightest trace of cow's milk. It took a while in the early dark days of the internet to find all the secret names of cow's milk that appear on food labels and all the sneaky places that it turns up--canned tuna for example, who would think to check canned tuna for cow's milk products??? Frozen whole chicken breasts? Whole turkeys (injected with broth and whey for moistness)?? Pepperoni? French fries? Salt and Vinegar chips?? It was goodbye to most of the processed foods in my diet.
To get real milk, I have to have goat's milk, which isn't easy. The goat's milk and goat's milk powder available in grocery stores tastes like the smell of a male goat when the females are in season, "musk" is too nice of a word for it, "rank" and "stench" are getting closer.
I know from experience that goat's milk directly from the farm can be glorious, in Florida it was pretty easy to find. I just had to tell the farmer that it was for pets and/or livestock and they could sell it to me, in the state where I live now that won't work. There are no dairies that have processing facilities in the area, so to have a glass of milk I am going to have to buy a goat. Since we don't have the facilities or experience of raising goats and since we can't afford to buy two (or more) and equip a mini farm, I am buying one and it will board with a farmer not too far away. She'll provide the care it will need and lots of buddies to hang around with.
I'll get the milk. I'll be able to make pudding that sets, a white sauce once in a while, my decaf will taste better and it goes really well with Oreos (thank you Nabisco for taking the milk out of Oreos a couple of years back, I had missed them) and big slices of cake (the couple of times a year that I have them). I will make my own yogurt and cheese and not have to drive nearly thirty miles to the closest health food store.
I like the idea that it is not a highly processed food like soy milk and almond milk, that the calcium in it is not just calcium supplements ground up and blended into it. It has significant protein, unlike rice milk and almond milk.
Best of all it tastes like milk, cow's milk drinkers might disagree, but it tastes like milk to me, a person who hasn't had milk (on purpose) in 18 years.
My daughter, who has spent many of her weekends over the years on goat farms is ecstatic, she loves goats. In Florida, it took about two hours every weekend to buy our milk. She loves the fact that we will go visit our goat regularly, she has been helping the farmer already trimming hooves and shaving them. We haven't even picked out our baby yet, we need to look at some that have been born already on another farm and decide if we want one of those or one that will be born in September from one of the sweet and very pregnant goats we have met so far. My daughter is all ready to show it in 4H, we just found a group nearby...this goat may take over our lives. All this for pudding.
Sunday, July 14, 2013
Conflicted Gardener Follow Up
Nature is a cruel thing. My husband thinks that found Mama Bunny in a patch of weeds in the back yard, she didn't seem to have any injury, but she was stiff and there were flies hovering around her. I didn't get a chance to go out that evening before the sun set. When I went out the next morning, there was no sign that she had ever been there. Some creature of the night probably dragged her into the woods nearby.
We haven't seen her in several days, so I am guessing that it really was her not some other rabbit out there.
We haven't seen her in several days, so I am guessing that it really was her not some other rabbit out there.
Monday, July 8, 2013
Baby Bunnies--The Conflicted Gardener
Finding a nest of baby bunnies turns everyone to mush, but upon reflection the gardener in me says, "Oh, no!!"
My sister and her husband came to visit for several days. After seeing the sights and kicking back they, usually busy people, suddenly needed to do something productive. My brother-in-law keyed in on the over-grown mass of zebra grass that I had done battle with in May only to extract a tiny piece of it. So, after dinner one evening he headed out back with a shovel and proceeded to dig out half of the mass for me. It was only after we had removed one of the two giant clumps and used a pruning saw to chop it into three smaller sections did he head over to remove the second. It was then he noticed the fluffs of fur, the little ears, the baby bunnies, who nested between the ginormous clumps. Before he had started the project he asked about the variety of snakes that lived around us, but it never occurred to him to inquire about bunnies.
For the last couple of weeks we had noticed that around dinner time a good sized wild rabbit was hanging about near our back door. Not usually a problem except for the good sized pointer who comes down the stairs every evening for her walk and bolts across the yard in frenzied pursuit of this bunny with an unprepared human hanging on to the other end of the leash being jerked down the three steps and across the lawn, struggling to get a foothold to pull the scent crazed dog back.
We had thought that maybe a neighbor had been feeding the rabbit, because it didn't seem to run whenever we came out the door, it just sat and watched us. I started calling the rabbit Pierre, it was such a regular. Well, now we know, I had it all wrong, this was no Pierre, Paige maybe, but not Pierre. She was just guarding her nest and providing a diversion for the dog.
Standing over the little cuties we all started trying to figure out how to cover them up without hurting them and to encourage their mom to return. We covered them with some of the straw mulch from an empty bed in the garden (where I had planted cantaloupe seeds only to find that something, probably a rabbit, had chomped the tops off of the two week old seedlings) to simulate the removed grass.
The chickens, sensing freshly turned soil, started scratching away, quickly removing some of our new mulch layer. I set my daughter to pruning a lilac bush that had not had any care for probably a decade or two, and she laid the leafy branches gently over the nest. Meanwhile I replanted the zebra grass on the steep hillside on the northwest side of the house to help reduce erosion.
Paige was seen in the yard this morning, not near the nest, but she is still around. We haven't dared peek in on the little ones in case the worst has happened. The zebra grass looks like it will take on the hill, I just need to water it a bit today. Now there is a known technique for getting the mass of grass removed and divided, my husband and I will remove the second clump in a few weeks when the babies are grown and out.
After doing all this I laugh at myself, I'll probably spend the next couple of years trying to find creative ways to keep those little ones, and their babies, out of my garden. Dividing up the grass will create more bunny nesting spaces too!
My sister and her husband came to visit for several days. After seeing the sights and kicking back they, usually busy people, suddenly needed to do something productive. My brother-in-law keyed in on the over-grown mass of zebra grass that I had done battle with in May only to extract a tiny piece of it. So, after dinner one evening he headed out back with a shovel and proceeded to dig out half of the mass for me. It was only after we had removed one of the two giant clumps and used a pruning saw to chop it into three smaller sections did he head over to remove the second. It was then he noticed the fluffs of fur, the little ears, the baby bunnies, who nested between the ginormous clumps. Before he had started the project he asked about the variety of snakes that lived around us, but it never occurred to him to inquire about bunnies.
For the last couple of weeks we had noticed that around dinner time a good sized wild rabbit was hanging about near our back door. Not usually a problem except for the good sized pointer who comes down the stairs every evening for her walk and bolts across the yard in frenzied pursuit of this bunny with an unprepared human hanging on to the other end of the leash being jerked down the three steps and across the lawn, struggling to get a foothold to pull the scent crazed dog back.
We had thought that maybe a neighbor had been feeding the rabbit, because it didn't seem to run whenever we came out the door, it just sat and watched us. I started calling the rabbit Pierre, it was such a regular. Well, now we know, I had it all wrong, this was no Pierre, Paige maybe, but not Pierre. She was just guarding her nest and providing a diversion for the dog.
Standing over the little cuties we all started trying to figure out how to cover them up without hurting them and to encourage their mom to return. We covered them with some of the straw mulch from an empty bed in the garden (where I had planted cantaloupe seeds only to find that something, probably a rabbit, had chomped the tops off of the two week old seedlings) to simulate the removed grass.
The chickens, sensing freshly turned soil, started scratching away, quickly removing some of our new mulch layer. I set my daughter to pruning a lilac bush that had not had any care for probably a decade or two, and she laid the leafy branches gently over the nest. Meanwhile I replanted the zebra grass on the steep hillside on the northwest side of the house to help reduce erosion.
Paige was seen in the yard this morning, not near the nest, but she is still around. We haven't dared peek in on the little ones in case the worst has happened. The zebra grass looks like it will take on the hill, I just need to water it a bit today. Now there is a known technique for getting the mass of grass removed and divided, my husband and I will remove the second clump in a few weeks when the babies are grown and out.
After doing all this I laugh at myself, I'll probably spend the next couple of years trying to find creative ways to keep those little ones, and their babies, out of my garden. Dividing up the grass will create more bunny nesting spaces too!
Friday, July 5, 2013
Seeing Red...Berries
| Lots-o-Berries |
| nasty little prickles |
| Thai Take out tray of Berries |
I made raspberry syrup this afternoon and I will probably make raspberry pancakes one day this weekend (Sunday??). Our house guests think it is really cool to go out into the yard pick a few berries, throw them in the blender with a few other things to have smoothies in the morning.
On top of raspberries, the Alpine strawberries just started producing yesterday...teeny, intensely flavored. A quarter of a fingernail sized berry made us all groan with delight. Note to myself, I must plant more of these next year.
 |
| Alpine Strawberries- Mignonette |
| Apache Blackberry |
Then there is the squash and melon patch, the land of the over achievers.
 |
| Raised bed garden in front yard |
We are still eating the zucchini bread and zucchini pickles, there are two big zukes on the counter and two more just about eating size in the garden. The way those things grow they should be about the right size by sunset. The cooking pumpkins are doing fabulously, two are almost ripe and there are dozens more headed that way. If you have a good recipe that has pumpkin in it please send it along, I am going to need it. After I'm done with this post I will be looking up how to cook squash blossoms, there are plenty of male blossoms out there, no sense in letting them go to waste!
The veggie garden in the back is coming along. The first eggplant will be ready this week, the peppers are producing, the tomatoes have been waiting for some sunshine and we finally seem to have some, maybe they will ripen in the next few days.
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| Tomatoes-Jetsonic |
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| Sweet Cooking Pumpkin |
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| Yellow Pear Tomatoes |
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