Stuff I like

A friend just pointed me to this blog, Chocolate and Zucchini. Perhaps the entire world already knows about it, but I just discovered it, and I love her voice and her taste for all things chocolatey and good.

I have also recently been active on http://www.blacklabrador.com/, to get advice and reassurance from all of the seasoned black lab owners out there. It helps to calm my nerves when Rosie's been particularly stubborn and rambunctious.

I've been drinking Aranciata every day for lunch. I am developing a habit.

I've been faithfully attending my pottery classes again this session, but I have to admit it's hard for me to work up the motivation. I don't like feeling pressured re: the wheels, since there are too many people in the class for everyone to have a wheel, and I'm running out of inspired ideas for other projects. Also, I don't feel right being away for 2.5 hours on a wednesday, leaving hubby alone with Rosie at her craziest time of day.

I've not had much time for anything else these days, but I did start my seeds. I started "Ring of Fire" cayenne peppers, "Frank's" red peppers, "Tigerella" tomatoes, and "Principe Borghese" paste tomatoes. So far nothing's shown it's face yet. There's no rush, it was minus 21 out this morning.

I've also finally primed the wall where our new window is, so I will soon be able to hang the curtains again. That ought to buy us some time until we finish the window mouldings. I think we're a bit stymied by the style of the window - neither of us seems to be able to figure out how to finish the trim.

And finally, I really like my Rosie. She's a fun kid. Still the cutest damn dog on the block.









So that's my life this week. What are you up to?

Pseudo-mommy

Phew! (pant pant pant).

Well finally our little pup came home, and I am very happy to be introducing Rosie to the reader(s) of this blog.

She's a spitfire. Approximately 9-10 lbs of pure joy and exhuberance, just bursting at the seams and ready to play. She's nuts cute eh? I don't mean to brag, but I daresay I have the cutest dog in the world. Tied quite closely with her big brother Tonka, my brother's pup, who is a jolly good-natured, easy-going bruiser.

So this thinly-veiled attempt at motherhood is so far putting me through my paces. I've been reflecting on what it is to become a parent of a dog vis-à-vis the parent of a human. There are many similarities, and many stark differences. Herewith, I outline the differences:

Human: when they need to pee at 3 a.m., they do it in their diapers in bed, often while sleeping.

Dog: when they need to pee at 3 a.m., I have to stand outside in -20 degrees and snow in my housecoat and slippers, and then attempt to fall back asleep.

Human: When they want to play, there's mess involved.

Dog: When they want to play, more often than not there's biting involved.

Human: Eventually they will pick up commands such as "can you take this shovel and put it back in the garden shed? And bring me those gloves on the shelf? Thanks."

Dog: I would be happy with "Go get your ball! Come to momma!"

Human: When they play with cats, they can be indelicate.

Dog: When she plays with the cats, it's a mess of teeth, claws, fur, hissing and barking.

Human: Wears clothes.

Dog: Wears every scrap of dirt that ever fell on our floors.

Human: The results of their elimination end up in a diaper genie or down the toilet.

Dog: The results of her elimination end up all over my deck. Really nice in the rain! My siding got spattered with dog poo!

Human: When you cook dinner, you can put them in a high chair.

Dog: When you cook dinner, you have to designate a dog-minder, and work in carefully orchestrated shifts in order to maintain her frenzied state, so that you have a chance of sleeping through the night.

Human: Knocks over or plays with/ruins houseplants.

Dog: Eats houseplants.

Hubby's co-workers yesterday assured him that what we're going through is much worse than having a baby. They remarked on the bags under his eyes, the frenzied, desperate look on his face. The clothes that didn't quite match and were pulled slightly apart at the cuffs. Teeth marks in his belt. Yep, for the most part, babies don't bite, and you don't have to go back to work the day after having them, leaving them to their own devices.

I'm only joking about the comparisons to human babies. But I have no experience with having a human baby so I'm taking what I can get and running with it. All I know is that babies snuggle without biting your lips.

Oh and I don't want to seem as though I'm complaining. Rosie is an awesome little dog. She's smart, feisty, loving, snuggly, super cute and very curious. She lets us know what she does and doesn't like, and she is learning lessons daily. I've even almost got her fetching... not bad after 5 days. She has pretty much taken to her crate, and goes in without protest (when she's asleep or halfway there). When she plays, half the time she grabs her toy and scrambles into my lap, as I sit on the floor, to play with it. It's really very adorable.

She's got us on a pretty short leash though. I have to work on the 'dominance' issue, because Rosie is a pretty dominant, self-confident dog. She bites a lot, which is apparently natural as she's teething with her first round of chompers. She bites everything in sight. She isn't yet tall enough to climb the stairs (this morning she slid down three of them on her chin: ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump - I felt so bad) but dammit she'll keep trying. She's fascinated by Loki - he makes her totally crazy. That actually stresses me out quite a bit because I didn't really expect it for some reason, I thought the cats would stay away from the dog and that Loki would beat her up if they mixed - I was actually worried about her safety. He does, but she still gets way too close for comfort and obviously hasn't learned the lesson just yet. I feel like he can train her not to bite better than I can and he needs to step up to the plate. Oh well. They only interact for short periods of the day. For the most part, Loki's still got the run of the house. Sasha is freaked out completely but has taken to eating her meals on our dining room table (at the end where we don't sit) and is now starting to come around. I feel good if I can get her purring a few times a day. Rosie's not that crazy-interested in her for some reason. Probably because they're not the same colour...

Things Rosie really likes include: Loki, my hair, her nylabone, her squeaky squirrel, the monkey cushion which she's adopted, towels in general, tassled rugs, hands, plants, eating snow, tummy rubs, cat food, boots (she stuffs her whole face into them, it's hysterical), hunting for ants (don't judge me, I have ants), trying to get up onto the couch, and the variegated legs of the kitchen chairs.

OK I miss her. Only 3 hours and 20 minutes until we're home. I have to hold out.

Two more big sleeps

Happy valentine's day.

Notice that I used lower-case letters up there. I am not a celebrator of valentine's day - oh I know lots of people say they're not into valentine's and then they still expect cards and flowers, but I am different. I am lucky to get a chocolate or something from hubby, and he usually gets nothing from me but a kiss. I just feel like it's a useless, pink, arbitrary holiday. I don't celebrate anything that doesn't get me a day off work (St. Patrick's day, I'm looking at you) with the obvious exception of Halloween.

The fact that it's February 14, however, means that the puppies are ready to go to their new homes. It means that there are 2 more big sleeps until our little squirmy bundle of love is introduced to our house, our two jealous cats, our area rugs and all of our chewable belongings. We built her a nice pen in the living room so she can spend her days peeing and pooping on newspapers, contained, while still feeling like a part of the family, able to observe the cats and the comings and goings outside the patio door. It's sunny, and right beside the woodstove, and right in the centre of activity in our house. I've put a little bed in it but that's already changed, I have a little day-time sleeping crate in there for her now. Her large night-time crate has arrived at the bus station as well, courtesy of my girlfriend in B.C., so I can decorate that at make it cozy before her arrival Saturday morning.

Here's the pen:

Also, I think we've settled on a name: Rosie. Not after the O'Donnell version, more like the Riveter one. It sounds awfully close to "Loki" but we'll have to emphasize the "Z" sound when calling her.

As you can imagine, it's all about dogs these days in my world. Dog this dog that. I am obsessive, as you've probably surmised from my other posts, and so for the months of February/March it is all about dogs. I have been googling dog stuff, reading up on dog training techniques, google-imaging pictures of 7-week old Black Lab puppies, just to get my fix pre-Rosie. I have told everyone I meet and have shown her picture to all of my co-workers. I have quizzed my girlfriend until she's thoroughly sick of me. I have asked for tips from a dog-trainer friend of ours. I have purchased toys, a bed, a leash, a collar, a brush, some tennis balls, food, treats, and today I will go invest in a wee Kong for the little lady, to give her something to work on during the day while we're away. I've scrounged up a training harness, a giant dog bowl with a big suction cup on the bottom, a jaunty stripey placement (seen in the photo), small dishes (left over from Peter, R.I.P.). I've made a large dog bowl in pottery class, and I've even spool-knitted a long looped and knotted rope to hang from the doorknob with bells on it, so I can train her to let us know when she has to pee. Eventually. I have been a complete pain in the ass. I am nothing if not eager, and am very very thorough.

I have even been priming the cats by telling them that we're getting them a puppy. I don't know if it's sunken in yet, but they are naturally very curious about the pen.

Also, in other news, I did join the gym and have now gone three times. I tried to go four times, but the first time my pass-key didn't work, so that was discouragement number one. The first time I actually went was a bit of a washout. I didn't have great clothes - I threw together some old stretchy pants and a yucky t-shirt that didn't really match, since I believed that the gym would be empty after work hours. I was wrong. I also didn't have proper shoes, so was wearing flat-bottom skateboard sneakers that I dug out of the bottom of the closet and cleared of dust-bunnies and spider carcasses. I felt embarrassed. My shoes felt like clown-shoes. My Mp3 player wasn't charged up. It felt like it wasn't meant to be. When I approached the machine, I couldn't figure out how to turn it on and, like a dunce, figured it was out of order and went to try another one. When I realized they were all like that, and I'd hit all the buttons with no effect, I got frustrated and left. When I got back to the change room I thought "don't be such a baby" and went back to the gym, got on the machine, and PRESTO! it came on automatically. Duh. So I spent awhile fiddling with the buttons (what kind of workout? Heart monitoring? Cardio? Weight Loss? For how long? At what level?) and finally got to work out for about half an hour. It felt great.

Then I went and got some cheapo gym-type sneakers, standard-issue, and charged up my Mp3 player, and wore my black yoga pants, and a decent top that matched. I've been twice since and have developed my own little routine, and I feel great afterwards, so I've told my husband to make sure I stick with it, because I know myself and will quit as soon as I have the first good excuse. I will never be a gym bunny, but with the right music it is quite enjoyable. I figure if I go two or three times a week for 40 minutes, I'll be way better off than I am now in many different ways.

Along the same lines, I went to the fertility doctor again last week. I had been avoiding him. I had been unsatisfied with the treatment and sort of feeling like they were trying to make a buck out of me. But I have changed my tune. I went in there believing that I would stomp in, put my foot down and insist on progressing with IUI treatments. But he discouraged me for all good reasons, not the least of which is financial. So I guess I trust him again. I'm going back on the meds (monitored this time, as he seems to think I'm a "triplet risk" which would be a nightmare), and getting more tests, and staying the course. It's a bit frustrating but what the heck.

At least I have the fur children.

A Whole New World

Wow, so this past weekend I had my socks knocked off by the world's cutest puppies.

Before I knew it, hubby had one in his arms and as he was passing it to me, he said "go see mummy!" by mistake. Oops indeed. As of this writing, we now have a puppy waiting for us with a tiny red collar on and a special haircut to mark her. Our little bundle of joy. Typically, I picked the shy one, the runt of the litter (one of 11!), the one who wasn't as eager to jump into the pile of writhing sleeping biting climbing smothering other black puppies.

She's a girl, and she's adorable. I am a proud new mother.

So now we are tasked with the enviable job of finding a name for this little sweetie pie. So far, the top contenders for names are: Pixie (her mom's name is Trixie, and she's the smallest of the litter), Cricket (because she's small and black), and Lola. Her mum is a beautiful, happy and humungous one-year-old Golden Retriever and her dad (R.I.P.) was a Black Lab, a championship hunting dog who made this his one beautiful final act. I don't think she'll end up being as tiny - I have a habit of super-sizing my pets.

Her biggest brother is going to my brother, which is nice, because they'll grow up together and have the chance to play together a lot with someone else their own size (kind of) since we live 3 minutes apart. That's his butt in the foreground. He's a real bruiser.

I have visions of having the dog in our red canoe, having the dog on the boat, having the dog camping on islands, having the dog on road trips, having the dog while ice fishing, having the dog on long walks in the woods, teaching the dog to swim, gently. Having the dog hang out while I garden. Having the dog be raised by my two giant cats, who will totally dominate her in the first few months, and maybe later as well, at least until she realizes how big she is. The cats are easily twice her size right now. Hubby has visions of them riding around on her back, and has made them promise not to use their claws on her.

I want to buy her healthy chew toys, healthy dog food, healthy treats, and healthy bedding. My girlfriend's sending us her crate, for bedtime, and we now have to figure out where her potty-training zone is going to be while we're away at work. She'll need a room, with a baby gate, covered in a tarp and newspapers on top of that. Problem is, we don't really have rooms like that, like other people do - laundry rooms or utility rooms or spare bathrooms. All of our extra rooms are in the basement, and it's too cold and lonely down there for a baby pup.

I'm registering her with the municipality, getting her license, getting her checked by the vet and getting her microchipped. We're going to do this all right.

I am so ready to be a parent it's completely ridiculous. Just when I thought there was not much hope for me, this is filling the niche quite nicely. We have been waiting for the "right time;" for a rescue dog, or for maternity leave when I'll be home all day. But the following factors made our minds up for us:

- we met a vet at a party who had two dogs, and she keeps them inside all day, and they're fine.

- these puppies were made known to us the day after the party - it's karma.

- I may never go on maternity leave - why wait for that?

- even if I did go on maternity leave, who wants to potty train a puppy while dealing with a new baby?

- we're never going to be unemployed otherwise -may as well bite the bullet and get it over with now, as difficult as it may be.

So here's our babe, our sweet little girl. I will keep you updated on her progress, of course, and post more pictures when I bring her home.

Oh, also I joined the gym at work.

Help me! I'm stranded!

Alright I'm just being dramatic.

Today we are experiencing inclement weather conditions. I actually got a memo in my inbox here at work at about 2 p.m. that said "due to inclement weather conditions all _____ employees are permitted to leave at 3 p.m." I have never received that particular memo before, so it got me all excited, except that I'm a commuter so I really am powerless to leave work early and that's why I'm sitting here stranded at work, in a blizzard, quietly writing my blog like a big dork. I'm now trying to decide which junk food I should indulge in, just because of the fun snow-day-like setting (chocolate or chips? The eternal question.)

I think everyone all over the internets has gone home for the day because I don't think I've received an email that wasn't from my husband in at least 2 hours.

So here's the news, for those who care:

• Have not joined the gym yet; will do so Monday (I promise)
• Have not yet gotten a puppy, but am still enthusiastic and karma's brought one my way, so I believe it's in my near future. Like, two weeks.
• I have a cold.

I am very excited about the idea of being a dog-mother. The puppies which have become available are a Golden Retriever/Black lab mix, and there are 11 of them. My brother and his girlfriend are considering it as well, so we two siblings could have two siblings, which is fun. They'll be ready to go (12 weeks?) on Feb. 14 or so, so we'd have a couple of weeks to get used to the idea, to get everything out of chewing range, to cover up my wires, and to buy a dog bed. I have never had a dog, but I can picture it - walks, having a companion by my side, having a warm body lying across my feet while I watch t.v. at night, having a large defender for the cats. Apparently these puppies' father is a champion hunting dog, so that could be interesting.

I feel like I'd need a short maternity leave, however. Maybe a week, just to get used to having the kid around. We're gone from the house for long stretches, so I hope it'll be ok, but it will have the cats as companions and I'm sure they'll raise him/her to be an obediant little soldier. My Loki takes no crap. Sasha on the other hand might just permanently move under the bed, but I'm not worried - she needs to toughen up. She's becoming a sissy in her old age.

I will keep you all updated.

Getting through it

Today is January 28. Two of my friends have their birthdays on this day, and it's a Monday. My baby brother's driving around somewhere in Detroit, and I am thinking about joining a gym and getting a puppy, in that order.

We had another hilariously fun winter weekend. On Friday night we went skiing, as we seem to do every week these days, and on Saturday we went to a 'winter party' where some friends shovelled out a rink on their pond and my hubby went ice fishing. There was a bonfire and red wine was enjoyed. There was food, and nice bunch of new people to hang out with. There were also 4 lovely dogs, bounding around in the snow getting to know each other, which sent us over the edge in our dog/no dog debate. Yesterday hubby went ice fishing again, and I stayed home to clean the house, which was much less heinous than you'd think on a nice sunny winter day.

Winter is funny. I always feel like I hate it so much when it's happening, but I can't imagine not having one. I think it would screw up my biorhythms completely. I am a person who needs four perfect seasons: spring for new flowers and exploration, the smell of wet dirt, seeds sprouting in the basement and the sound of running water in the gully by our house. Summer for snorkelling in clear northern lakes and making friends with the bass, cold beers and late afternoon barbecues on docks, bare feet and fresh veggies from the garden. Fall for putting everything to sleep and working like the ant in Aesop's fable, cooking up comfort food for the wood stackers, getting itchy knitter's fingers and pulling out the warm clothes like old friends from the steamer trunk. And now we have winter, which means firewood, shovelling fun paths around the yard, deer tracks all over our property, that clear clear light that you get at no other time of year, skiing, and looking forward to nothing more in the world than a cup of hot chocolate and a rented movie. I don't even think I'm a person who really needs to go south during the winter, though certainly a week of beachcoming, diving for shells and coral, and a poolside bar does sound easy enough to take.

We're getting through this winter. It makes us feel tough and secure to see the end in sight, to start noticing that the days are getting longer and we're still ok. We're not depressed yet. When depression starts to creep in, it's easy enough for us to dress up, load the skis into the car, and outrun it on the slopes. Also, skiing is on t.v., as is hockey, which are the only two sports I can stomach watching (the former more than the latter).

Another sign of spring: I bought my vegetable seeds the other day. I found this terrific local seed company - Greta's Organic Gardens - which offers a good selection of organic heirloom seeds. I ordered them online, and POOF! they were at my house in 24 hours. It was a miracle. I've never seen such fast service. Check them out at www.seeds-organic.com. I am still looking for kale seed, and I still need to buy potato sets and onions, but I've got the bulk now and most importantly, I have the things that need to be started soon (tomatos, peppers). So soon the grow-op will be put back together, I will clean out the kitchen in the basement, and get going on those early birds. I am going for rows in the garden for the first time this year, and I'm trying to use companion planting to squeeze in as many things as I can in my short-ish season. I need to find another spot for squash and melons, though, because they take up more than their fare share of space. I also have a long, short, plastic greenhouse that hubby brought home for me one day by surprise, which I'll use for the peppers, tomatos, basil, etc. to get them out into the dirt a bit earlier.

But for now I'm happy to be without the gentle pressures of gardening, renovations, and week-end getaways. I'm happy enough with the cleaning and the skiing and the winter parties and the hot chocolate.

Food Report

Wow you don't hear from me for months and then I'm here twice in one day. Feast or famine I tell you.

Speaking of feasts, I thought I would update on all of the culinary adventures I've had since October. It's been a productive little time and I've learned a lot, so onwards. But I really have to stop this habit of mine of tackling huge food production projects every time I have a holiday, because it's really not relaxing in the least.

1. Apple Cider
We were like a couple of little kids with our cider making this fall. When we finally were able to take it out of the bucket and put it in the carboy, it became a singular obsession. We checked the bubbling several times a day and were obsessing over its clarity. We didn't need to obsess, in the end, because it became abundantly obvious when it was ready to bottle. Bottling was fun, but we didn't get as much cider as I'd expected - about 10 x 750 ml bottles. I was expecting 12 litres. Anyway, the cider is delicious - nice and smoothly fizzy (like champagne!) and strong as hell - but it has a slight metallic taste, likely from the early pressing in the metal cider press, and it is super powerful so it means an instant drunk, with a nasty headache afterwards. I dubbed it "De Dronken Maker" - the drunk-maker. Eric calls his "I'm the D-Cider" as in Dubya's "I'm the decider! I decide!" Hardy har. Anyway, homemade cider is a fun party trick.

2. Cheddar Cheese
I finally worked up the courage to do a farmhouse cheddar just before Christmas. It was a hell of a lot of work, mostly trying to figure out how to press it with the correct weight. It was also very expensive, as it requires two gallons of milk, which is about 9-10 dollars' worth where I live. Once it was pressed, it was beautiful, but I think I may have wrecked it by cutting the wheel in half BEFORE waxing it. It oozed all over the place, and this during the time where I had the stomach flu, and I now have absolutely no appetite to ever eat cheddar cheese ever again. I'm kidding I love cheese. Once it was waxed (now THAT was fun) it was beautiful - so red and glossy. I gave it as gifts, but it's only edible after Jan. 20 so we'll see what the report is.

3. Venison
My little (well, younger) brother shot a deer this fall, and gave us some venison to try. I appreciate it. I appreciate the local-ness of it, the ethics of it (I've come a long way since I was 16), and the health benefits, for sure. We ate steaks first, though, which may have been a mistake as venison is something of an acquired taste if you're not really much of a red-meat-eater to start with. My stomach reacted violently, though it could have been the stomach bug on its return voyage. Also there was a bit of fur stuck to our steaks. Hell, only two or three hairs, but it was enough for the effect. Later on, I made venison ravioli out of the ground meat he gave us, and that was totally delicious. We also had it on Christmas eve at our first-ever fondue party (make that FUN-due party!) and New Year's eve in chili. My verdict: I love it in stuff. Plain steaks, maybe not so much. But in chili, pasta, stews, etc. - bring it on.

4. Duck
I was petrified to cook up a duck for the first time, since all I'd ever heard about it was that it was super fatty, had less meat on it, blah blah quack quack. Hubby had bought three free-range-type ducks from his colleague/farmer, for a pretty penny (many pretty pennies), and I was under contractual obligation to cook them up. He harrassed me for weeks with his guilt campaign. I finally invited my brother and sister-in-law for dinner and did duck à l'orange, Julia-Child-style. It was fussy and finicky, and yes very fatty, but all in all not that difficult or unpleasant and it ended up being delicious. I apologize to the ducks of the world, because my brother decided that night to become a duck hunter as well as an everything-else hunter.

5. Goat's cheese
I bought goat'$ milk ($$) with the intent of making delicious crumbly goat's cheese at home. It was easy enough to make, initially, though took a long time and was messy to press (2 days of dripping in the sink). It was delicious the one time I ate it, but it went bad really quickly. We admittedly didn't eat it soon enough so next time, I'll only make it if there's a reason and a chance to eat it all at once. And I learned something! There's nothing in the world that smells worse than rotten home-made goat's cheese!

6. Real French Artisanal Bread
This wasn't as much work as I expected. Lots of waiting around. I made a starter first (again, not as dramatic as I'd expected) and let that sit for 16 hours or so. Then I made three baguettes, following the recipe in the second-last Martha Stewart magazine. Easy! Great! Delicious! Only don't forget the salt like I did!

I will try most of these things again soon. I will eat all of my goat's cheese, I will remember the salt, I will marinade my venison steaks, I will NOT cut the cheese (ha ha), and I will drink the remainder of my cider in moderation.

Virtue

So it's a new year and I haven't been on this site since October of last year. That's nearly three months, if I have my math right (you never know).

I am trying my best to start my year off right. Last year didn't end so well - I had a few typical Gennyland mishaps towards the end there. I got the stomach flu in early December, was shitfaced sillybuggers at work for a few weeks, then once I started my three-week vacation, I got a cold and another stomach bug all over again. I was worn out - mentally, physically, emotionally, the whole lot. I also had a silly accident.

We've had a lot of trouble with ice dams on our roof. The insulation is ridiculous in our house - the house was designed for California - so every year it's a new battle with the ice dams. For those of you in more southern climes, an ice dam is.... well it's just bad. Google it. Anyway, I had a curtain of icicles (all of a sudden I don't have the first clue how to spell that) hanging down and went outside to wage war on the ice. I had the intention of hammering off the ice dams, but first I started knocking off the icicles with my snow shovel. While looking up and moving along sideways, I hit the one spot where we have a 4" wide gap from a missing board that we'd meant to fix, and my leg went through. To the thigh. My legs, for those of you who don't know me in person, are not 4" wide. More like 5, 51/2. I was stuck - I couldn't pull it back out. I thought I might have to chew myself out, coyote-style. There was nobody around to hear me holler for help, as it was the middle of a weekday and everyone was at work. I was stuck there for a half hour, until I knocked the hammer from off of the barbecue and used it to chip the deck away enough to slide my leg out. Now it looks like someone tried to eat the deck, but we temporarily replaced the board so at least it's safe. r.

I went inside and checked it out - the leg was black and blue and shaped like the deck. I wailed, standing there in my underpants, and spent the rest of the afternoon lying on the futon watching "Elf" with a bag of frozen peas on my leg. When hubby got home, he wondered why there were peas all over the house, because apparently I'd been too shocked to realize that the bag was open. I was beyond caring. When my mom called, it was a pivotal scene in the movie (hell! When Santa's sleigh takes off because everyone sings! Damn that gets me every time!) and I was a bit....teary.... and I said (voice catching, unable to hide the crying): "I h-h-had a acci-d-dent!" My mother, in her infinite patience, said "well I'm not going to come over if you're just sitting there blubbering over some stupid movie" or something equally sympathetic. Hmph.

So injuries and illness aside, 2007 is now down the toilet and I get to start over anew. Only I don't feel super refreshed, so I'm working on that currently. I have all good intentions for the beginning of the year, and thought I might make a list so as to impress you with all of the virtuous things I've done so far in 2008:

- Cut off my hair. OK that's not so much virtuous as refreshing, but I feel like a better person.
- Had a massage (nice in the moment, but no real lasting effects).
- Started a pottery class
- Started a new semi-diet
- Started menu planning for the entire week on the weekends. So far so good.
- Been to the dentist, had a filling taken care of.
- Made all new doctors' appointments, for my fertility and my foot (bunions are a bitch).
- Skiied. Twice.
- Been ice fishing - don't laugh it's good exercise.
- Seriously considered joining the gym at work.
- Bought tickets to the theatah, and even made plans to go with (gasp!) friends! Other humans! Who aren't even related to me!
- Had a dinner party. Made duck for the first time.
- Have begun to stop working abruptly at 5 p.m.
- Booked a vacation for myself and hubby to visit friends in B.C.
- Upping my vegetable intake.

I may even consider taking up flossing. I don't know - it's still under consideration. Other things I need to work on (but am not yet committing to) include: talking to friends on the phone, going to see movies at a theatre, not procrastinating at work, and being nice to my husband. When summertime comes I will have a whole new list of things to work on.

I also set to work on a plan for the future/further renovations of our house. See? I am all about planning. My plans usually go immediately off the rails, but you've gotta start somewhere.

So, here's to 2008. May it truly be a Happy new year, because if it isn't, I'm going to want my money back.

Jammer Fan

I'm like a teenage girl. I was in Toronto last week for some events, and while I was at a prize event at - ahem - the Gladstone Hotel, I turned around and who was standing right beside me, playing with his umbrella? One of the Food Jammers guys. But dagnabbit it was during the speeches so I couldn't introduce myself, and he disappeared soon after. Rats. That's my brush with fame for the year.

Falltime.

I can't come up with a title. My brain is zapped.

My work schedule is completely bananas right now so I don't even know why I'm doing this - if I'm near a computer I ought to be working but whatever. I have events coming up - big events - November 12,14, 15, 19, 20, 21, 26, 27 and December 5-7, 11, 12, and 13. I just finished events Sept 30 - Oct 4, Oct. 16, 17, 19, and 23. Can you believe that schedule? It's totally nuts but I'm not allowed to complain.

Things are super busy at home too. Fall is a nice time, but man is it a lot of work. Seriously it's the time of year when we should just hire a live-in helper to do manual labour around the house. We got a big load of firewood the other day that needs to be sorted, split, and stacked in the shed. We bought a car (a Vibe. I love it.), and need to sell the old one. I have a box full of bulbs that need to go into the ground this weekend. And on top of everything, we've been experimenting in the kitchen AND having wildlife issues - yet again.

My kitchen experimentation has taken on a whole new level. I have now, thanks in large part to the Kingsolver family's excellent book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle , and the totally fun New England Cheesemaking Supply , been experimenting with making my own cheese. Turns out it's not that tough. But that's not where the story begins.

We had a really great apple harvest this year. So great, that one day when a copy of ReadyMade magazine came in the mail and included a recipe for homemade apple cider, we had the brainwave "why don't we make cider!?" It wasn't really a question though. We filled the downstairs fridge with apples, we had pillowcases full of apples in the doorways, bowls of apples on the counter, rows of apples lined up on our deck railings and picnic table, and half-eaten apples scattered all over our lawn.

My little brother (not so little actually, but younger), who is very much mechanically inclined and gifted, decided to make me an apple cider press for my birthday, which is September 4. He made this heavy-duty press out of carbon steel and a bottle jack, and the design was pretty great. It had a box with a spout, and my mom made us some hemp press bags to go along with it. But I had to core and grind the apples first, which was hugely messy and took a long time and gave me fingers so sore I couldn't use my fingertips for a few days. When we got the ground apples into the press box, we found we couldn't squeeze them hard enough for all the juice to come out, that the juice actually ended up going over the top and soaking back in.

After many permutations, a few jacks, and a lot of swearing, we finally resorted to the following method: throw the apple chunks into the juicer. When the juicer has had enough, put the apple juice into the press bag and squeeze it through into the bucket. Then scrape out the leftover apple from the juicer, put it into a press bag, and press the shit out of it by hand. This method was both very effective and gave my husband nice biceps.

We got 12 litres of juice and stopped there, because that is the size of the carboy we bought, plus our hands were stained dark brown. And also because I had to cook a 19lb turkey for four people later that day. We'd gone to the winemaking supply place and gotten all kinds of little bottles of chemically powders and things, followed the winemaker's recipe (the readymade one proved too small-scale and unreliable), and now, two weeks later, we have a 12 litre carboy of beautiful cider bubbling away in our back room, which we check every 5 minutes and treat like a pet.

But what to do with the press? I had, in the meantime, been reading about the Kingsolvers' adventures in homemade food, and decided to check out the cheesemaking supply place after reading that they make their own mozzarella and it only takes 30 minutes. What a fun site. If I'd had fun with the cider chemicals, cheesemaking is a whole new kind of science, and we eat a lot of mozzarella - we are big into homemade pizzas. I ordered the kit and was like a kid at Christmas when it came in the mail. I watched the video twice. I will watch it again.

My first mozza was extremely tasty, but a bit soft. Hubby used it on a pizza while I was away for work for a week, and enjoyed it quite a bit. The next mozza was larger (a full recipe) and still a bit soft for my liking, needs more salt, and I didn't like the taste as much which I think is due to using a different brand of milk. The experiments continue, and now I'm about to start thinking about Farmhouse Cheddar, which I have to get on before Christmas. I get to make a whole new order from the cheesemaking supply, which is great since our dollar is currently so high. So the press will now transition from being a cider press to being a cheese press, and I have bought the accoutrements to make that happen in the near future.

We've also had squirrel troubles, which seem to have solved themselves. Er. Let's just say that nobody wants a black squirrel IN the house. It's bad enough to have squirrels in the attic and near your wires, but to come home and find your living room ransacked is another thing. Seriously - the little creep crushed my beloved banana plant! It's over four feet tall! Thankfully it's bouncing back, but I can't say the same for the antique teacups and old salvaged bottle collection, a few of which met their maker. He smashed plant pots, and left chewed up apple all over the place. He shat in my thanksgiving roasting pan, chewed the lip off of my flour pail, chewed the mesh of my flour seive, and tried to chew through the frame of the basement window.

My husband bought one of those Have-A-Heart critter traps, which trap the creature alive so you can release it back into the wild somewhere far away. We had intentions of doing this, and hubby was even concerned that perhaps he wouldn't have a chance to build an adequate nest and food stash before winter. We baited the trap with apples and peanut butter and went off to work. I then made the mistake of calling my mom and asking them to go and check the trap later in the day. At about 3 p.m. I received the following phone call:

"Hi there." (it's my mom, we need no introductions)
"Hi?"
"Dad caught a squirrel."
"Oh yeah?"
"a BLACK squirrel!"
"a BLACK SQUIRREL??? No shit!" (we are rural - black squirrels are kind of urban.)
"Yeah."
"What did he do?"
"He got rid of him."
"like how."
"Um, he shot him."
"He what?"
"He shot him. He took the cage outside and shot him."
"Point blank?"
"Yep."
"Holy shit. Where's the body?"
"He disposed of it."
"How?"
"I don't know. He disposed of it."

My parents are fantastic. My dad is kind of a redneck and my mom's pretty urbane, and together they are like a rollicking vaudeville routine. I love them so much. But that squirrel ran into the wrong family member. I'm so glad we spent the money on a HAVE-A-HEART trap. Just don't tell PETA. Also don't tell my neighbors or my garbage man because as it turns out 'disposing' of it, according to my dad, means driving it down the road and sticking it in someone else's garbage can. Disgusting, I know. Don't judge me.

So it's a madhouse, as usual. I don't honestly know how kids will ever fit into this mix.

Is This Considered An Advertisement?

This is the best thing on television: Behold, FOOD JAMMERS.

It almost makes me wish I lived in Toronto. I would hang around the 'warehouse' wherever it is and wait for the delicious treats. Maybe they need a girl in the cast. It's right up my alley.

In fact, we're chewing on ideas for how to make cider at home, and last night I was thrilled to turn on the tv and see an episode called "I'm So Ex-Cidered". Their elaborate rig was much more than what I'll be doing at home (which basically involves old countertop and C-clamps) but still, it was inspiring, and hubby took notes.

I heart the Food Jammers. They're my new best friends and they don't even know it.

That show follows "Ace of Cakes" which is pretty cool as well, but somehow makes me never want to eat cake again.

The Pollination Association

The other day a work colleague of mine told me all about her new adventures in bee-keeping. She knew I'd be interested; anything vaguely animal-or-nature-related is right up my alley, and especially when they intersect with food production and Do-It-Yourselfism. I just made that up. Did I just make that up?

Anyway, it got me to thinking. I don't think I'm quite prepared, time-wise or financially, to devote myself to bee-keeping, though I do believe it's in my future somewhere. I started to think about the ecology of my yard, and about who's doing all the work in it. I have a lot of bumblebees. Since my entire perennial garden is overtaken by oregano each year, and it blooms at about this time, the garden is currently one giant buzzing engine of pollination and productivity. Incidentally, I'll bet that oregano honey is marvellous. In the spring, when the apple trees are in bloom, the buzzing comes from overhead and I used to find it disconcerting but not anymore. Those bees are too busy to notice me.

Though I don't really think I need to encourage the bees any further, since they actually seem to have colonized my yard without any effort, I came across designs on the internet for bee houses. It came about through my research into where exactly bumblebees nest, what the nests look like and whether or not they produce honey. I didn't get any great answers to the first questions -- though the nests do tend to look gross, like bubbling wax or lava, on the inside -- I did learn that bumblebees don't produce much honey, only enough to feed their young.

At any rate, I looked up the designs for bee houses, so I can observe their lifecycle sometime in the future. I'm not inclined to buy bumblebees, since I have so many already, but they say that if you put the houses out in the spring, they'll find them themselves, since they spend a good chunk of time searching for an appropriate nest at the beginning of the season. I doodled this design in PaintBrush:
I read that bumblebees seem to prefer mauve and yellow, so I will paint the area around the entry pipe in a mauve and yellow flower-pattern. This also gets a hinged lid/roof, which will overhang a bit. The pink stuff is fibreglass insulation. And how civilized are they? The first room is a 'vestibule', which they use as a washroom so they don't have to poo in the nest. I know humans dirtier than that.

So over the winter I'm going to make a few of these and stick them all around the property. I'll see what happens - I'm almost happy with whatever decides to use them, unless they're earwigs.

On the more complex side, Lee Valley tools has a pattern for making bat houses. Bats are such terrific little creatures: they pollinate certain plants, but mostly they're an awesome form of mosquito control. If we sit out on the deck at night we can feel/see/hear them flapping by overhead, protecting us from our buggy scourge. Bat houses aren't simple to make - they are governed by some strict rules - and they have to be placed in tricky spots away from busy areas. I'm thinking mine would have to be up in a tree somewhere. Bats are shy. But I think it would be neat to provide homes for them and encourage them to stick around. Maybe if the winter's really long and dull I'll get to that.

My colleague has promised me a field trip to her friend's hives. She's got two, apparently, and produces a LOT of honey out of them. It seems that one could become overwhelmed by the quantity of honey produced, especially if you're not inclined to eat it often. But honey is a great, natural, organic and ecologically-sound sugar substitute - I even read that it can be used to sweeten cider - so it might be worth it to anyone interested in the 100 mile diet-type food sourcing ethos, as I am. How great would it be to get all your sugar from the back yard? Pair that with maple syrup, which my brother's friends make, for a bit of variety and all your sweetening needs can be covered within 10 miles.

I look forward to seeing what's involved in the hives, and whether or not it would be do-able to have just one in my back yard. We're trying to create a small orchard area in the back, as I planted a cherry tree this past spring which looks nice and healthy, and next year I think it'll be a plum tree, to replace the sickly one in the front yard. Stick a bee hive under those and away we go. She told me that it needs attention every two weeks, and that sounds like a maintenance plan that even I could stick with, especially since it's only for half the year.

Back to cider: I think we're going to try to tackle cider this year. We have two varieties of apple growing in the yard, and more scattered around the neighborhood (the area used to be an orchard, many many years ago). The ones in the yard are pretty cultivated, not crab-appley or wormy at all. I have MacIntoshes but also another kind, which are huge and juicy but oh-so-tart. I figure a mix of these two will suffice, with maybe some sour wild ones thrown in, but my big question is whether or not I can extract the juice using an electric juicer. I don't really feel like building a press, especially since I don't have all that much time this fall. The apples are almost ready to pick so it's going to become an issue soon, and I need an answer. Then I need to go to the wine making place and get a carboy, and an airlock, and then I need to source some old Grolsch bottles that I can clean up and use for bottling. I think there's a closet in the basement with "Cider-Factory" written all over it. We're going to make hard cider (duh) and carbonate it so it'll be nice and fizzy and ready to drink by Thanksgiving or Christmas. I can't think of what else to do with my apples, I really have too many each year, and I never have the energy to make more than one or two pies. I think I still have apple juice in the freezer from last year. God it's such a mess.

So stay tuned for food-production tales. In the meantime, here's a story I wrote a few years ago for YouGrowGirl on my home-canning adventures.

Evaluation (with photos!)

I decided that today would be the day that I finally got around to using the nifty little USB drive thingie that I got for free from the Quebec City Tourism people to put my photos onto this here blog. I've been saving up.

And now some of these photos are making me sad. I went into the garden last night and realized that I might have some more problems again this year - on close inspection, I do believe that once again, the earwigs have gotten into my peppers. Also, they are selling sweet corn everywhere along the highways of this province and others, and yet my corn has tufts but nothing else. No hint of a cob anywhere. I have one pumpkin, and that's all I think I'm going to get from my 5 vines. I have one cayenne pepper, because the beans overtook the little wee homegrown plants, and the beans are dunzo. The romaine lettuce went bitter so I've let it go to seed, and the cilantro's finally completely done and gone to seed as well. I ripped out all the potatoes I could find, which weren't many because I didn't plant them correctly this year. The garlic's done, and I don't have a bumper crop of tomatoes - of the ones I've got, none of them have started to ripen yet.

Anyway, it's not all doom and gloom, behold the photographs:

I am so proud of this garlic it's sick. And I can't wait to plant three times as much in fall, for next year. What a satisfying thing to grow! And here I thought I wasn't able - this year turned everything around, perhaps because I bought good quality seed garlic from Vesey's.

This is one side of the garden about a month ago. The big dirty bare patch is where the garlic and cilantro used to live, but have since been ripped out. I'm taking suggestions as to what to plant there for fall: spinach? Definitely more garlic, for next year.

My darling peppers, pre-earwig. How on earth can I (naturally) repel these disgusting little terrors? Do you want to know the grossest thing? I eat the peppers anyway. I wash them all out first and cut off the bad bits, but I don't waste a thing dammit.

I think this was actually last year. Yeah, looks too tidy to have been this year. Anyway, this was obviously early June, because of the peonies, but it's my front hill garden in its full messy glory.

I took this one the other morning. I had ONE mutant giant blue morning glory. That's no miracle of perspective - the other ones in the photo are normal size.

Aside from all the rotten garden news, I do have a few successes to report. My turnips are adorable and yummy, though I do have to pull them all out soon. My kale is doing well, despite the slugs on the lower leaves, which I just remove anyway. I did get a hell of a lot of cilantro and garlic and basil, and there's still a good lot of basil that I grew from seed. My one pumpkin is lovely, and I will still get some good tomatoes. I've been eating cherry tomatoes, 2 a day, every day for a few weeks now, so I guess I can count that a success too. I may still get corn, some decent peppers, and one eggplant. I may also get a couple of cucumbers, despite the cucumber beetles I keep finding.

At this rate, I won't be self-sufficient for a very long time.

So here's what I have to do differently next year:

- Fertilize with more compost. I didn't turn anything into my dirt this year and it shows.

- Try rows, instead of this over-abundant free-flowing design which only seems to encourage bugs and slugs. Since the stick ornament may be on its last legs this year (it falls apart if I so much as breathe on it), I can gut the garden in fall and re-design it.

- Mulch with straw.

- Grow more than one ground cherry, eggplant, cherry tomato, and thai basil plant.

- Plant my potatoes properly, and use real seed potatoes.

- Use floating row covers or something right off the bat to protect against cucumber beetles.

- Pay more attention to why my pumpkins are falling off at 1 inch big, and remedy it.

- Harvest beans more regularly. Move back to the purple bush beans.

- Contain the mint.

- Contain the cilantro.

- Grow more spinach.

- Don't let the lettuce get bitter. Why did I do that? I like salads.

- Let the strawberries flourish and spread.

- Put more bug-repelling ornamentals in the garden.

- Pay attention to what's going to shade what when it all grows up.

- Don't try to grow so many weird and exotic things that I don't know what to do with.

- Plant in mounds/raised rows.

- Use landscape fabric to keep the weeds out.

- Put flagstones in the entrance.

Every year is a learning experience. One of these years I'm going to get it right.

The Lumber Yard and Wilderness Tails

Well, didn't I have to go and perform more minor surgery on my arm this weekend.

The splinter I got a week ago was still greenish and festering in my arm, and I figured it had gone on just a bit too long. Finally, I cleaned it all out, sterilized a pin, and pulled out the cause of the problem. And didn't I have a 2 x 4 in my arm. OK maybe that's an exaggeration, but it was definitely kindling-worthy chunk of wood. Now that it's gone, I'm healing nicely.

On Saturday we had one of those idyllic summer days at the beach with friends. We got there on the late side of the proposed meeting time, and were the first ones there. A half hour later, up paddles another friend, one that we in error hadn't thought to invite, with his two kids. Then the others started to trickle in, and the entire day was spent as follows: heat up on the sand, then cool down in the water (repeat as needed). We ate, we drank, we floated, we tanned, and at the end of it all, as the sun went down, we all retired back to our place and ordered delicious local gourmet-type pizza and watched for meteors (we saw a spectacular one). By 11:30 everyone was gone home and the house was cleaner than it had been that morning. A perfect day.

Yesterday was hot. We did small around-the-house things. Then last night we had mouse adventures: I heard one chewing at the wall in the kitchen, behind an electrical outlet. We have mice in that spot constantly, and only in that spot, and they all seem to have the same goal in mind: chew through the drywall and get onto the counter. Did they all read the same memo? How many mice are in the house anyway? I don't have a problem with it because I've got to re-tile the kitchen anyway, and then the problem will be solved, but it's a bit irritating and gross if they eventually make it out onto the counter. I called hubby, because he is the mouse whisperer, and enjoys catching them by the tail and putting them outside alive. One night last summer he caught two after I went to bed, and dashed upstairs for show and tell. I had no idea what he was doing, so when he showed up in the bedroom with a wriggling paper bag and said "WANNA SEE WHAT I'VE GOT????" I wasn't really prepared for the two-mouse midnight experience.

This particular one, however, must have snuck some grounds out of the coffee maker, because not only was he chewing so voraciously that I heard it in the living room, but he made a speedy break for it, running under the fridge, the microwave cart, the counters, and eluded hubby. All of a sudden the cat had a mouse in the living room. We got it away from her, but it took off to the back of the house. Behind the computer it went. Then into the bathroom. Then up into the bathroom vanity. Then into the inner bathroom. Then out and into the t.v. room. I got wise and stood in the door of the t.v. room shaking a blanket so it wouldn't get out, and hubby chased it around and around the room, like, six times. It was seriously adorable, like a little wind-up toy, and hubby broke a sweat. It had the upper hand for sure. Finally it got onto the window frame, where it was trapped, and hubby picked it up by the tail, all wriggly and cute, and put it outside near the shed.

But this morning when we got up, there was a dead mouse on the living room floor. The same one? Were there two? I think there was a kitchen mouse and a living room mouse, and the kitchen mouse bit the biscuit. Neither of the cats claimed responsibility, but they both looked pretty self-satisfied this morning.

In other news, on Friday night I finally went to investigate the tree from which we heard intense screaming nearly a week before. I had been looking for the cat late at night, and apparently set this creature off, scaring it pretty bad. I located the sound just across the street from us and up a tree. When hubby went crashing through the forest with his flashlight to investigate and see if any of our cats were in trouble (Sasha was still out) it got hysterical and screamed and screamed. When we all went back onto our deck, it continued to whimper for about an hour (Sasha had, in the meantime, wandered innocently onto the deck and been put inside). Shining the flashlight upwards produced no glowing eyes, and it had pretty strong vocal cords, so when my cousin went "it almost sounds like a scared baby bear, calling for its mother", I hollered at my dear husband to exit the woods, stat. It did indeed sound like a scared baby animal crying, with good solid vocal cords, from up a tree. While on the deck we listened for momma's rescue, and we did hear crunching gravel on the road between us and the tree. Anyway, Friday evening in the daylight I went to check it out, and sure enough, among the stand of hardwood from whence the crying came, there was one tree with little climbing claw marks all up it, about one week old. Sharp claw marks. With an apple tree at its base. When we looked in the nature book we learned that bears are born in January/February, but perhaps this one was still small enough to be up a tree of about 8-9 inches in diametre. Anyway, it was sobering. So now I have new worries: momma bears in my yard, and eastern cougars in the 'hood. Do big cats eat little cats? I'm sure a bear would freak a little cat out. Add that to my list of menacing wildlife in my immediate vicinity (wolves, coyotes, fishers, bears, cougars, oh my).

Sometimes living in the country puts you face to face with just a bit too much life. At least it's never dull.

Batting a Thousand

I had the weirdest, most injurious week last week. I was off, on my last bit of vacation of the summer, and the weather was absolutely gorgeous. One would think that all of that would add up to a great little holiday.

However, at the beginning of the week I was dealing with the effects of a strange medical thing. Somehow, I super-reacted to my low dose of Clomid, and developed many giant follicles/cysts on my ovaries, which led to visible bloating, pain and discomfort. Also I was thirsty and spin-heady. None of my clothes fit properly and I was grouchy, and also worried that any sexy time would lead to, like, quintuplets (ack!) so I was keeping my distance from hubby.

Monday and Tuesday, I was starting to ramp up the weirdness with a few crazy mis-haps. We were dog-sitting for my boss, whose 17-year-old terrier mutt came to live with us for the week. She was very sweet, a great houseguest. However, I guess we didn't hear her urgent little barks early Tuesday morning, because we woke up to little liquid and solid treats on our tile floor. No problem. With a sigh and some bleachy cleaner I rectified that as soon as I woke up. I believe she was apologetic, and I held no bad feelings.

But then as the week progressed I started doing really spazzy things. I went to make an espresso and didn't replace the espresso grounds, so ran it through with old grounds. Yuck.

I watered the garden with the sprinkler, left it on too long, and ran out of water for the rest of the day(we're on a well).

I stepped, barefoot, into one of the dog's little gifts in the long grass of our lawn. With my brother as witness. Har har.

My dad yanked a section of old chimney out of our concrete wall, and I was sitting on the ground and it fell squarely onto my leg. I now have a lovely large green bruise on my calf.

Then my mom came over and I made coffee, and forgot to pour the water into the coffee maker. The machine was not happy about that.

On Friday I was expecting my cousin's long-weekend visit, and was cleaning the bathroom. For some reason, I flushed a sock down the toilet. The toilet was not happy about that. I guess the sock probably isn't either, wherever it is.

I got a barn-board splinter inside my house, which is still greenish and festering in my arm, even after the minor surgery I performed to remove the largest piece.

On Saturday morning, as we were working on the siding, and right after I'd astutely proclaimed that stepping on a certain part of the deck was unsafe because of the way the boards had been replaced after a repair, I proceeded to step on that very spot and fall through the deck. Luckily I also fell backwards, so most of my body actually fell down a couple of stairs, and only my legs went through the deck. I thought for sure something was broken, but alas, only bruised and slightly scratched.

And then the coup de grâce - on Sunday we went boating on 31-mile Lake, north of our place, and as I went to spread gooey sunscreen on my arms I absent-mindedly pulled off my wedding rings. Stupid move. I tossed my engagement ring right overboard, off of a moving boat, into 100 feet of water. Gone. What a totally sick feeling. It wasn't enormously valuable in terms of money but had tremendous sentimental value to me, and I miss it a lot. I feel naked. I loved that ring, it was so me. Hopefully I can have a friend re-create it, thereby instilling the new one with its own meaning. (sniff)

Then we left my husband's glasses on my parents' boat, which stays up at the lake. Which is an hour away from our house.

Monday was a chilled-out day. Nothing went very wrong, except that my mom and I had to take 3 hours and a significant amount of gasoline to drive up and get the glasses (hubby could hardly see through his old ones), and almost didn't make it back in time for my boss to pick up her dog.

I tell you, I was almost happy to come back to work. Knock on wood, nothing has been overly weird since. My husband said "yeah I wasn't going to say anything but I wasn't so crazy about you driving last week." He was right to be worried; I was truly a danger unto myself.

We're getting ready for another weekend. Tomorrow is a beach day with a bunch of friends, and I am leaving my wedding ring at home and bringing band-aids.

Fall Down Go Boom

Today I had to visit the physiotherapist's office, to take care of my 90-year-old hip. She's a very nice young woman named Stephanie and it's kind of fun to go there in a sciencey way, but it's about a 15 minute walk from work, and today it was pouring rain. Like pouring.

As I am a genius, I decided this morning that instead of getting my nice leather sandals all wet, I would wear my rubber flip-flops and bring the sandals along. Well there was commotion before we left the house; the cat insisted on going out and then just sat under the picnic table, and we had to get her back in because 12 hours under a picnic table is no fun for anyone. I had to remember my brother's birthday present, and put it in a bag because of the rain. I had to find a raincoat. Hubby went out the wrong door to bring out the compost so I had to bring both coffees and lock up. So long story long, I forgot my nice sandals completely and I've been stuck in my yucky, stinky, flattened, paint-spattered flip-flops all day and I'm bitter about it.

Flip-flops are terrible in the rain. Your feet slide all around in them, side to side, and it's difficult to walk with any dignity. All they do is offer a layer of protection from the dirty pavement. They're especially no fun in the lobby of my building on a rainy day, as the floors are a polished marble, and soaking wet. That near-disaster should have been my first warning.

Anyway, again long story very long, I was walking to the physiotherapist's office at lunch, hating every minute of it, bracing my umbrella against the wind and pelting rain, when I slipped IN MY SHOES and fell down right in the middle of the street. As I was crossing. A rather handsome stranger rushed up and said "are you alright?" and I was like "oh yeah, fine, thanks" feeling like a complete idiot. I got up, brushed the bits of crud off of my soaking wet jeans, and pretended to carry on as though I was just fine, even though my bare toes had been crunched against the pavement and I believed that I could have been bleeding from one or both of my knees. Thanks to my red toenail polish I thought perhaps I was bleeding, but turns out I just put the polish on in the bumpy car this morning and it was all over my toes. Ha ha everything's fine folks!

It was an interesting fall. Falling is interesting, period. It's like it happened in slow motion. If you could read my interior monologue, it would have sounded something like this:

"oh dear, I'm falling.

Shit, what now?

Oh man, I'm STILL falling!

I can't believe it!

Oops, ok, tried to break my fall. That didn't work.

OK I am apparently still falling.

Oh, ok, watch the umbrella. Don't let go. Don't break it.

Oh no my bag's getting wet!

Wow ok I'm on the pavement. Guess it's time to get up again."

Does my mind work faster than most? Slower? It seemed like I was falling for about 10 minutes. OK not really. I got to physio and took off my pants and my left knee was skinned, but not bleeding. I proceeded to get a bit of acupuncture, but since it was my first time I moved, and my leg muscles went all weird and it felt like I had the jimmy legs. When I walked out of there, I felt like I was dragging it behind me kind of. I was afraid I'd fall down again.

I got back to the office, soaking wet and freezing, and then proceeded to slap peanut-sauce-covered noodles all over my face. (sigh). TGIF. Shit did I ever wash my face?

It's a Jungle out There

Wow has it ever been a rainy summer.

Last night I went out back to try to stain a few more boards, and as I went to the wood pile for some fresh ones, I noticed that everywhere I looked, in every frame, there were at least four or five slugs.

The slugs aren't so so bad just yet - they're about an inch or an inch and a half long, and while I have found a few in the veggie garden, so far the damage is minimal. But man are they gross. Have you ever tried to get slug slime off of your hands? It's nearly impossible! And seeing three or four of them feasting on a dead dandelion is one of the grossest things ever. I don't know why, they look like little turds or something, all slimy and brown and gluttonous. Blech.

And the grass is super long again, much to hubby's chagrin. For awhile it rained every day, and because we use a manual reel mower , it's really a mess to mow when it's wet. Now it's so long that it sees the mower coming and lies down. Poor hubby's had to hack at it with a scythe to get it tame enough to mow.

The flower garden is, on average, about 5 feet tall. I have cosmos this year that are approaching six feet before blooming. I don't know what that is - an abundance of nitrogen? - but it's kind of scary and where the cosmos were meant to be part of a nice planted pot, they're now more of a hedge. The apples will be huge this year, and we've collected nearly 5 lbs of black raspberries and a pound of red currants. All from the perennial garden.

The veggie garden's also doing well - the turnips are huge, and the pumpkins are blooming like crazy though there's not much fruiting going on. I have the dreaded cucumber beetle again. Next year I must buy proper seed potatoes, because the store-bought ones that I planted aren't blooming. There are tiny potatoes in the dirt, and I've unearthed one pretty big one (about 4" long), but the plants haven't bloomed and I was under the impression that harvest should only start once the plant has bloomed and started dying back. If I'm wrong, please let me know because I'm tempted to just eat all the little delicious marble-sized potatoes right away.

My grandmother gave me kale, for making boerenkool, and it has taken off. I was worried about deer, so I covered it in dog hair from a visiting Toulouse, but most of it has washed away. I've had no deer activity so far, thank god, and my kale harvest will be bountiful come September. My corn is about 2 feet tall, and I've been eating cherry tomatoes the last couple of days. The regular sized tomatoes haven't come yet. The beans are ready to pick, and I'm going to harvest them tonight for our cottage weekend (we're going away for a couple of days to Skootamatta lake, with a big gang of friends). The cilantro has all started to bloom, which is fine with me - I'll let it re-seed itself again this year, because it's really fun to have and really easy to pull out if it's a nuisance. My red peppers are coming along, but my cayennes are shrimpy this year. My romaine went bitter, I think. So far, my cucumbers are doing better than they were last summer, when the cucumber beetles got them from the get-go. I've been brutal about killing those little bastards, so maybe my efforts are finally paying off. And finally, the canna lilies are starting to unfurl their beautiful zebra-striped leaves, and I can't wait to see them towering over my garden.

Once I get a chance to get in there and clean things up, I will take some photos for sure.

And once the lawn is finally mowed, perhaps the yard will also be more presentable.

I finally learned the correct way to prune raspberry bushes. I think I had been confused about what it was that I'm growing for a number of years, but finally I figured it all out, and hopefully next year's batch won't be so painful to harvest but will still be equally bountiful. My arms are so scratched up I look like Courtney Love in 1994.

What I Did With My Summer Vacation, by Gennyland

I was trying to come up with some clever caption for this photo, but was unable. I've been struck dumb by the sight of blue stain on rough-cut pine.

But it will aaaaalll be worth it in the end.

The weekend was spent listening to more good tunes at the Bluesfest (Metric, Edie Brickell, Kanye West), and staining. And putting up boards with the super-fun nail gun. I am thrilled with how it is starting to shape up, but dang, I am tired of staining. I have a kink in my neck and I dream of wet paint.

.... and my husband is dreaming of blackberries. Here's a terrible shot of one evening's harvest - two tubs full. And we got another giant tub full the next night, and the night before. It's tyranny! I swear to you, it is stressful. All of the good ones are hidden, and the bugs eat you alive. These tubs represent a whole lotta hard work.

And to cap it off, since I don't want to be all doom-and-gloom, here's a shot of my lilies. Back story: I got these as a bonus for ordering such-and-such amount of bulbs one year (I believe it was the wedding year) and they were supposed to be white. They were white for the first year, I don't remember last year, but this year they look like this:

Which suits me just fine.

Tangled up in Blue

I've been back at work for two weeks, and the new-siding project has suffered considerably.

So far, I've only managed to stain a handful of boards. We've encountered setbacks: the delivery kept getting pushed back, it rained and rained, we had to stain only the boards that fit under the large screen tent we have set up in the yard, and we've been out at Bluesfest every single night.

Just to let you know, in case you were wondering, I'm not a blues fan. So before I get tarred with that 4/4 brush, while I can certainly appreciate the classics and the true Delta Blues, I'm not in any way a fan of contemporary blues music. In fact it repels me. However, this year our local bluesfest has benefitted from outside-the-box programming, and we have so far seen: Bob Dylan, Manu Chao, Michael Franti and Spearhead, The White Stripes (the best blues I've personally ever heard live), City and Colour, Femi Kuti, George Clinton and the P-Funk All-Stars, the Steve Miller band, Cat Power, tonight we'll see Tokyo Police Club, Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians, and Metric, and tomorrow night is DJ Champion and Kanye West. So you can see that our evenings have been filled and our feet sore from dancing.

When I'm not out bluesfesting, I'm staining boards blue. So I have a theme colour this week.

The house is going to look fabulous when it's done - I can hardly wait. Already my dad nailed up a few boards and it just looks so tidy and solid that I could cry. We will be warm this winter, dammit, what with all that styrofoam.

Nothing much else is new. I'm tired all the time from work and bluesfest and from constant cloudy rainy weather, the house is a mess, and the cat has started staying out all night again recently. Just when I thought he was cured of his evil spirits. The two of them have been rangy lately, probably because their routine is disrupted by our staying out late. The grass is too long; it seems to be the first thing that goes, but in all fairness, it's only because every day it's been too wet to mow. It seriously rains every single day. I haven't watered the garden or any of my pots in ages.

Thank god bluesfest is over soon so I can get some rest and get that siding up.

I'm back

Awright the fun's over.

I had to come back to work yesterday, kicking and screaming. It's cold here, and very quiet, and it makes me sleepy, and my eyes hurt 'cause the only thing to look at is the computer. I hear the muffled sounds of traffic all day, alternating with construction noises. People want things of me.

At home, it was usually the right temperature (I learned to regulate it pretty well, with fans and windows) or at least I could change clothes to adjust, it was a different kind of quiet, less muffled and more full of birds chirping and bees buzzing, and I had so many things to look at that my eyes weren't big enough. I regained my natural rhythms: I slept whenever I was tired, worked when I had energy, ate when I was hungry, woke up when I was good and ready and did whatever activity struck my fancy at the time. The weather wasn't fantastic, but that's ok, because when it rained I did indoor things that needed doing. We made good progress on several of our ongoing projects; indeed some of them grew as we worked. Here's an update on how I did with my vacation to-do list (as I write, hysterical sirens pass outside my office window. So peaceful):

1. We did indeed tear off the siding from the back wall of our house. We were limited for awhile by the length of our borrowed ladders, but thanks to the kindness of a fireman neighbor, we now have the use of a really really long solid one that got the job done. We tore off the siding, put up styrofoam, strapping, and ordered the new siding, which is going to cost more than I thought but require less work. I also bought the stains in very appealing colours, as intended. The siding was slow to arrive so we're stalled, but it should come today, then we can start staining.

2. We went to the spa. I made off like a bandit - there was nobody available to do my pre-arranged pedicure so they gave me a gift certificate for one, at a $75 value, without my even asking. Then I had a one-hour massage, which I can claim through my health plan at work. The masseuse also told me that both of my hips need work, and not to delay a trip to the physiotherapist. So that I must do today. Afterwards we went for lunch and a bit of shopping and we had a lovely day.

3. I stuck a few perennials in the older terraced beds, and they seem to be working out. We'll see. I still need mulch.

4. I removed the dirt from the laneway. I thought I would need a garbage can to hold it all, and made my dad bring over an old one of his, but turns out it was more like a garbage can PLUS 9 loads in the wheelbarrow to a remote part of my yard to get the job done. Took me an hour or more and I was filthy.

5. I haven't sold the chimney yet, but re-did the ad and re-posted it yesterday.

6. I don't know yet if our attempts at conception were successful, but I did everything I was supposed to, including two blood tests and some yucky drugs that gave me hot flashes.

7. We ixnayed the ampingcay. The weather was crummy and our friends were all busy. We stayed home and bummed around instead.

8. I visited my friend and her baby, who is crabby, and toured their new house and it's fabulous. The baby's cute though, even though she's a crabby crabster.

9. I took some wonderful photos, but then realized that there was no film in the camera. I proceeded to take more pictures but none of them equal the bottle bugs doing it or the toad pooping that I had on my first phantom role.

10. I finished up pottery class and had a wonderful dinner evening, and all of my projects came out of the kiln beautifully save for one little disappointing rough spot that I may still have re-glazed.

11. Went shopping with mom, and it was one of those bad shopping days where you can't find anything. We left pretty much empty-handed, except for a lovely skirt that i strong-armed mom into buying. She loves it now like I knew she would.

12. I perfected the vietnamese salad rolls, and brought them to the pottery potluck, where they were a hit.

13. I finished up my sweater, and it's ok. It fits weirdly at the bottom, it kind of goes wide at the hem. But I did start the new one, to my chagrin, and it is a challenge. Heavy too.

14. I read two books by Barbara Kingsolver, who is one of my favourites: The Bean Trees and Pigs in Heaven. Both excellent reads.

15. I don't know if my friend got her license. I was supposed to call her Friday and forgot to and now I feel like a deadbeat and am embarrassed to call. I am like that.

16. I ignored the boomerang garden completely.

17. I got a glowy tan. Not a dark tan, though my arms are pretty dark, but my face has a pleasant glow which is enough for me.

18. I made that CD the first day I had at home alone.

19. The wiring in my house is not appropriate for that light fixture and it's a halogen, as it turns out, and I hate how every single light fixture in my house takes different bulbs. So I'm going to return it. But as I went to put it in the car yesterday to return it, I dropped it and broke the (unprotected, thank you Ikea) glass shade. Now what?

20. We went fishing twice, and cleaned up. Each time we brought home two bass, which was way less than what we caught, for dinner. Mmm fresh fish fry for dinner is delicious with homemade french fries and garden-grown salad.

21. I didn't buy mulch but I should still. See #3.

22. I didn't get flagstone either. Seems I was more ambitious on the first part of my list.

23. I didn't dare move the furniture. Looking around, it didn't make a lot of sense, and hubby hates it when I move stuff around.

24. I did all the laundry (twice? Felt like it.) and caught up on all of my ironing, and even had to buy new hangers to accommodate my bursting closets. Now I can set to messing everything up and getting overwhelmed all over again.

25. I stained the stairs, but had the wind taken out of my sails when my overall plan changed halfway through. So now the stair surfaces has one coat of stain, but I need to sand the risers and stain them too, and paint the sides of the stairs the same colour as the walls. I think. Not sure. Plus the stain takes a lot longer to dry than I thought, and there are only so many days where I can afford not to go up to the second floor all day long.

I was busy on my holiday. Very busy. I also seemed to have lost 3 pounds or so - likely through manual labour, went to Lindsay to my cousin's bridal shower, had a friend from high school visit whom I haven't seen in 15 years, since graduation, who now lives in Minnesota (we reconnected through facebook), worked on the veggie garden quite a bit, cleaned house, organized my knitting stuff, played with my new digital camera, got to know my cats a bit better and chilled out in general. It felt so good. We also got new mailboxes, for which I campaigned my M.P. and the people at Canada Post for several years to get, so I feel vindicated and so happy. I am a minor activist. I need to send a nice thank-you card to the fellow at Canada Post with whom I was in regular communication.

Sigh. Now I am back to work and there was just an explosion outside of my window, preceded by three really loud whistles, thanks to the construction site next door. It's so relaxing.