Blessings Darlings!
I've had several weeks of being buried in zukes. This has been a good thing for me. But ... now not only have some low-level problems with squash bugs started (and I think THEY are rather under control), but wilt has hit. I removed the plant with that, but ... I'm worried it will take out the other two in that hill. And that it will move to the gray squash in the next hill over.
I'm debating starting more grey squash in a new hill to get me to full summer squash power, but they'd have to go in the area I planned to put my fall greens/radishes/turnips in.
With the beans being so bad this year (I'll be applying BT to those this evening, if the wind is calm then), and the tomatoes being so late (my fault), the zukes have been our main veggie. Without them ... mostly I'll just be getting herbs and spices from the garden. Which will leave me sad and lower on money, since I'd have to pay for veggies.
On top of that, something has eaten leaves from some of my cucumber plants. So even THOSE aren't about to bury me.
I'm beginning to think I need a larger garden, as well as the energy and time to work it more.
Oh well.
Frondly, Fern
Thursday, July 25, 2013
Thursday, July 18, 2013
What if it was your daughter?
Blessings Darlings!
What if Trayvon Martin was your daughter?
She's 16 and walking home from the store. Some older man in a car is following her, slowly, watching her intensely. He eventually gets out of his car and starts following her on foot. He gets close to her.
Being a good parent, you've made sure she's had been thru' women's self defense classes. There she was taught to face and confront men who seem to be a threat. She turns, faces him, calls him out for following her. He come closer. She feels more threatened. He invades her space. She pushes him away from her. He hits her for pushing him - she goes into the rest of her self-defense moves.
He shoots her.
He claims self defense. And that, due to her skimpy summer clothes, she was asking to be followed.
He get off.
She's 16 and walking home from the store. Some older man in a car is following her, slowly, watching her intensely. He eventually gets out of his car and starts following her on foot. He gets close to her.
Being a good parent, you've made sure she's had been thru' women's self defense classes. There she was taught to face and confront men who seem to be a threat. She turns, faces him, calls him out for following her. He come closer. She feels more threatened. He invades her space. She pushes him away from her. He hits her for pushing him - she goes into the rest of her self-defense moves.
He shoots her.
He claims self defense. And that, due to her skimpy summer clothes, she was asking to be followed.
He get off.
Frondly, Fern
Sunday, July 14, 2013
Fern Makes Pot Stickers
Blessings Darlings!
In our household, we like food. Which explains part of our weight problems, but that's not what I'm writing about today. We like food, and we want it to be tasty and have great texture ... and we need it to be inexpensive, because we're limiting our food budget to what we'd get if we were on the maximum amount of food stamps - that's roughly $410 a month for 3 adults here.
Which means I cook a lot of stuff from scratch. While I don't make hamburger buns or most pasta from scratch (the later because it's hard to get the right flour at all around here, let alone at a good price), I make make most of the rest of our breads. Yeah, most of you have been reading long enough to know all this.
Last night I took out the Sacred Book of Chinese Recipes, and I made Pot Stickers - the dumplings that have the crispy bottom. They are one of our Oh My Gods! recipes, amazingly good. And not expensive, especially compared with getting them in restaurants, where they are often not even as good as the ones I make.
I DID cheat a bit, as I chose to NOT make the wrappers from scratch. I've done it before, and I'll do it again, but that will be some day when I'm not working in the garden much of the day ... and yesterday I spent lots of time in the garden.
The entire batch of potstickers had an ingredient cost of about $10.50. It made 96 dumplings. That would have been 12 orders of potstickers in many restaurants. And it would have cost $96 just for the pot stickers - never mind the drinks we'd have ordered, and the tip.
Now, we did not eat all those last night, even tho' we did them as our main course ... hell, it was our only course. We DID eat half of them. I'm going to wrap and freeze the rest tonight and we'll have them some other time, when I don't want to cook.
Cheap never tasted so good.
Oh - and I did NOT use any zucchini in them.
Frondly, Fern
In our household, we like food. Which explains part of our weight problems, but that's not what I'm writing about today. We like food, and we want it to be tasty and have great texture ... and we need it to be inexpensive, because we're limiting our food budget to what we'd get if we were on the maximum amount of food stamps - that's roughly $410 a month for 3 adults here.
Which means I cook a lot of stuff from scratch. While I don't make hamburger buns or most pasta from scratch (the later because it's hard to get the right flour at all around here, let alone at a good price), I make make most of the rest of our breads. Yeah, most of you have been reading long enough to know all this.
Last night I took out the Sacred Book of Chinese Recipes, and I made Pot Stickers - the dumplings that have the crispy bottom. They are one of our Oh My Gods! recipes, amazingly good. And not expensive, especially compared with getting them in restaurants, where they are often not even as good as the ones I make.
I DID cheat a bit, as I chose to NOT make the wrappers from scratch. I've done it before, and I'll do it again, but that will be some day when I'm not working in the garden much of the day ... and yesterday I spent lots of time in the garden.
The entire batch of potstickers had an ingredient cost of about $10.50. It made 96 dumplings. That would have been 12 orders of potstickers in many restaurants. And it would have cost $96 just for the pot stickers - never mind the drinks we'd have ordered, and the tip.
Now, we did not eat all those last night, even tho' we did them as our main course ... hell, it was our only course. We DID eat half of them. I'm going to wrap and freeze the rest tonight and we'll have them some other time, when I don't want to cook.
Cheap never tasted so good.
Oh - and I did NOT use any zucchini in them.
Frondly, Fern
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
It's Zucchini Time!
Blessings Darlings!
So ... Zucchini.
I gave 3 to Suz today (and then we went out and picked blueberries, so I have 9 pounds of those to process). And I had half a cooked zuc left, and one whole fresh one in the fridge, and then harvested one more. So my lunch was pasta with the cooked zuc added.
The Chubby Hubby likes to have something hot with his lunches. Often that means leftovers, but as much as possible I steer him to soup. So I made zucchini soup. Well, a vegetable soup that featured a lot of zuc. Three cups water, 4 boullion cubes, one cubed carrot, most a zuc (cubed), and a large handful of dry egg noodles. He was happy. He ate some zuc, so I was happy. There is soup left for tomorrow, so we can be happy again tomorrow.
I may try Suz's recipe of battering sliced zuc, drizzling it with olive oil, and baking it next, because clearly I have to keep coming up with recipes.
Frondly, Fern
So ... Zucchini.
I gave 3 to Suz today (and then we went out and picked blueberries, so I have 9 pounds of those to process). And I had half a cooked zuc left, and one whole fresh one in the fridge, and then harvested one more. So my lunch was pasta with the cooked zuc added.
The Chubby Hubby likes to have something hot with his lunches. Often that means leftovers, but as much as possible I steer him to soup. So I made zucchini soup. Well, a vegetable soup that featured a lot of zuc. Three cups water, 4 boullion cubes, one cubed carrot, most a zuc (cubed), and a large handful of dry egg noodles. He was happy. He ate some zuc, so I was happy. There is soup left for tomorrow, so we can be happy again tomorrow.
I may try Suz's recipe of battering sliced zuc, drizzling it with olive oil, and baking it next, because clearly I have to keep coming up with recipes.
Frondly, Fern
Monday, June 17, 2013
With Apologies to Kelis
My clover brings all the bees to the yard
And they're like, it's not poisoned like yours
Damn right it's not poisoned like yours.
I'd teach you, and not even charge.
Blessings Darlings!
I'm finally seeing a goodly number of bees in the clover. Still mostly bumble bees, but the number of honey bees is up.
This will all change on Friday, of course, when the guy mows the lawn. And he often scalps the lawn, on top of mowing all the wildflowers.
But we persevere.
What *I* ask him to do doesn't much matter, since I don't pay him, the land lord does.
Frondly, Fern
And they're like, it's not poisoned like yours
Damn right it's not poisoned like yours.
I'd teach you, and not even charge.
Blessings Darlings!
I'm finally seeing a goodly number of bees in the clover. Still mostly bumble bees, but the number of honey bees is up.
This will all change on Friday, of course, when the guy mows the lawn. And he often scalps the lawn, on top of mowing all the wildflowers.
But we persevere.
What *I* ask him to do doesn't much matter, since I don't pay him, the land lord does.
Frondly, Fern
Monday, June 10, 2013
I want a Witches Garden
Blessings Darlings!
If I EVER get my veggie/herb garden to the point I'm happy with it ... and it's no where NEAR that point now ... I want to put in a Witches' Garden.
This wouldn't be a happy healing/culinary herb garden. This would be a nice traditional baneful garden. It would feature poisons and other oddities - deadly hemlock, deadly nightshade, maybe poison ivy (tho usually that's easy enough to find growing around here!), pokeweed, mugwort, wormwood, foxglove, lily of the valley, yews, may apples .... I might even grow abortifacients like pennyroyal in that garden.
Yes, some of them can be used medically. But they can also harm folks.
Just ... because.
Frondly, Fern
If I EVER get my veggie/herb garden to the point I'm happy with it ... and it's no where NEAR that point now ... I want to put in a Witches' Garden.
This wouldn't be a happy healing/culinary herb garden. This would be a nice traditional baneful garden. It would feature poisons and other oddities - deadly hemlock, deadly nightshade, maybe poison ivy (tho usually that's easy enough to find growing around here!), pokeweed, mugwort, wormwood, foxglove, lily of the valley, yews, may apples .... I might even grow abortifacients like pennyroyal in that garden.
Yes, some of them can be used medically. But they can also harm folks.
Just ... because.
Frondly, Fern
Monday, June 3, 2013
Hard Won Gifts
Blessings Darlings!
As I noted a few days ago, we have a bit of a heat wave here. Today will be another hot humid day, and we MAY have air pollution warnings - DC has warnings, but I don't know about the Blue Ridge. But I digress ...
As a result of the heat wave, I was out working in the garden very early today, while the temperature was in the lower 70's. Oh my goodness, it was sweet outside then. The birds were chirping, no tractors were running yet (either mowing lawns of my neighbors or cutting hay), the breeze was NOT from the cattle barns, etc.
I, of course, was sweating exactly the way a pig doesn't. This is because to be more intimate with my immediate land base I work my garden by hand. I worked the bean bed again today, with the days work being taking a spade (and not a shovel) and turning what would be topsoil (if I was still in Illinois). Here in my little corner of Appalachia it is NOT topsoil - it is clay. Heavy red clay. I need to do another round with that now broken bed, and work compost into it so it is ready for the seeds.
Heavy Red Clay. I looked at those first spadefuls, and a soft voice said, "You know those runes you want to make? They can be made of clay." I went back to the garage and got a bucket. And a lid. By the time I had the bed turned I had 4 gallons of great red clay, 13 pieces of quartz .... and a blister.
Because the real gifts of the Gods are their quiet voices. Not in them doing the work for us.
Frondly, Fern
As I noted a few days ago, we have a bit of a heat wave here. Today will be another hot humid day, and we MAY have air pollution warnings - DC has warnings, but I don't know about the Blue Ridge. But I digress ...
As a result of the heat wave, I was out working in the garden very early today, while the temperature was in the lower 70's. Oh my goodness, it was sweet outside then. The birds were chirping, no tractors were running yet (either mowing lawns of my neighbors or cutting hay), the breeze was NOT from the cattle barns, etc.
I, of course, was sweating exactly the way a pig doesn't. This is because to be more intimate with my immediate land base I work my garden by hand. I worked the bean bed again today, with the days work being taking a spade (and not a shovel) and turning what would be topsoil (if I was still in Illinois). Here in my little corner of Appalachia it is NOT topsoil - it is clay. Heavy red clay. I need to do another round with that now broken bed, and work compost into it so it is ready for the seeds.
Heavy Red Clay. I looked at those first spadefuls, and a soft voice said, "You know those runes you want to make? They can be made of clay." I went back to the garage and got a bucket. And a lid. By the time I had the bed turned I had 4 gallons of great red clay, 13 pieces of quartz .... and a blister.
Because the real gifts of the Gods are their quiet voices. Not in them doing the work for us.
Frondly, Fern
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