Today was my Birthday

We don't make a big deal out of them around here. Usually when we can & want to treat ourselves, we do just that, rather than waiting for a special day.

I took the day off work, like I have done for the past 30+ years, never work (at my job) on this day. That is my present to myself.

I stayed home & weeded the garden beds, early. Harvested a couple of tomatoes & peppers. Then I saw some plants that I had started that needed to be repotted & got that done. By then, it was in the upper 90's & I decided to call it a day.

Husband came home & asked what was that thing in the garage. I thought I had left my potting stuff in the way & went out to look. Lo & behold here's what I saw!

I have been wanting one of these for forever - a two wheel wheelbarrow!

In the past, I have received nice gifts like a boy's axe, a Kitchen Aide mixer, etc. I love practical gifts!

Who needs flowers & jewelry?

Through Fresh Eyes - San Francisco

I'm back from California. My 16 year old niece & I had a great time. She is beautiful, sweet, caring & very spiritual. She has not been north the Mason Dixon Line or west of the Mississippi, so she was very excited about this trip.

She loved the city & everything about it. She was amazed at the landscapes, the sounds, the people & the architecture. Especially the architecture. I think she took a picture of every single Victorian that she saw. We did the usual tourist things & it felt good to just let go for 4 days.

We walked, talked, gawked & ate. Boy, did we eat ... Seafood, Chinese, French, Italian & sushi (she loves sushi). She's an adventurous eater & will try anything (well, maybe not the alligator toes we saw in Chinatown). Actually she loved everything. I think her favorites were the lamb stew at  Absinthe & escargot at North Beach. We both agreed that every single salad we had was just wonderful. Not a french fry was had the whole time.

I get teased in my family about my fresh/organic eating habits. As we were walking back to the hotel the 1st day, my niece pointed out an organic sign hanging over a restaurant. We ate breakfast there almost every day & it was wonderful! She tried my Eggs Benedict & ordered her own the next time we ate there. If you are ever in the Wharf area I highly recommend this place Beach Street Grill.



We went on a Hike in the Muir Woods. Our guide was great, he only takes small groups (up to 7) & goes very early in the morning well before any crowds. We hiked about 3 miles & it was absolutely gorgeous & very peaceful. http://www.muirwoodstour.com/

We shopped Union Square & wandered through Chinatown, saw the Sea Lions & strolled through the Ferry Plaza farmer's market (talk about Organic!). http://www.ferrybuildingmarketplace.com/farmers_market.php/farmers_market.php.

We also saw Les Miserables, had lunch in the Haight & took a Segway Tour of Golden Gate State Park  http://www.electrictourcompany.com/?gclid=CLiP4rn-srECFc2a7QodAw8Agw.

Overall, I think we had about 2 hours of down time. Otherwise, we were on the go the whole time.

I enjoyed myself & so did she, which was the whole point. Everything was new & exciting to her. It was great to see her eyes light up & to hear her exclaim "Oh WOW" at everything. Then, "I've GOT to get a picture of that!". Very refreshing.

Although, I AM glad to be home, those hills were hell on my shins.

San Francisco Bound!

We have actually gotten a couple of things checked off our list. One was the patio table & chairs finished 2 weekends ago. I wrote a (long) post but lost it & have been too disgruntled to rewrite at this time.

I have been very busy these past 2 months. One niece got married a couple of weeks ago & another one (her sister) turns 16 tomorrow. Plus, all the gardening & preserving stuff.

But on to the 'project' at hand.....

I used to travel a LOT w/my job. When the nieces were little, the older one that just got married, asked if  I would take her to NY when she turned 16. She was just 6 at the time & I of course, said sure thing!

Not another word was spoken about it until about 6 months before her 16th birthday (4 years ago). She asked if I remembered my promise & was it still on? Sure, was my reply & we agreed on a date. I told her I would take care of air & hotel & it was up to her to find things to do & restaurants to go to. She lived up to the promise & we had a wonderful time.

Well, since that was promised to the 1st niece, I felt I needed to do the same for the rest of them. Thank goodness there are only 3 of them!

The 2nd one has selected San Francisco as her city of choice to visit. We leave on Wednesday & will have until Sunday to enjoy ourselves in that wonderful city. While I haven't had as much time to plan as I would like, I still think we will find enough to do to fill our days. Unfortunately Alcatraz is sold out but that city offers a whole lot more.

So far, we are headed to the Muir Woods, Sausalito & going to see Les Miserables on Thursday. Other than that, we are wide open. I have visited many times but not as fresh eyes & a tourist, which we will be this weekend. If anyone has any suggestions I would greatly appreciate it.

I will post on the trip & our projects when I return.

Lazy 4th of July - Update

We have done just about the square root of nothing today.

Last Sunday our plan for today was to finish the paint job on the patio table & chairs. But, as the husband left for work yesterday he asked, out of the blue, what time we were going to the beach tomorrow.

I said "we really should finish that blasted table". As I made my way through the day, my thoughts started wandering to the beach ..... sand, wind, water, seagulls, relaxing, relaxing, relaxing. Oh my, relaxing started to sound really good.

So, we went to the beach today, early. Way earlier than most, by the looks of the lines waiting to get into the State Park as we were leaving. The State Park we go to has several parking & picnic areas to choose from. Our favorite, the very last one is no longer open so we stopped at the next to last one. We didn't need a picnic table as we expected to eat our lunch on the beach while watching the dolphin roll by. So, we took out our chairs, small cooler & small bag & started making our way down the walkway. We noticed an unusual amount of mosquitos while in the parking lot but knew they wouldn't be bad on the beach. As we were traversing the walkway the mosquitos seemed to be getting worse. About half way to the beach, we came upon the reason for the mosquitos. The walkway dips down between the dunes to sand level & then back up again before arriving ON the beach. That area was completely covered in standing water. Apparently, Debby left a lot of water that had yet to evaporate.

So, we headed back to one of the other parking areas, having only lost about 15 min. The lot was still fairly empty & we made our way to the waters edge. We walked away from the crowd at the end of the walkway & spent a lovely morning at the beach. We left around 12:30  & as mentioned before, the line to get in was really long. Glad we went early. This picture was obviously taken last year but it's the same beach. Lots more driftwood this year, wish I had taken my camera.

Stephen explained our beach day much more eloquently than I ever could. But that is exactly what we did, plus a nap to boot. Yes, that shower does feel so very good!

It's fried shrimp & fish, broccoli slaw & sliced tomatoes for dinner.

Happy Birthday America!

p.s. A  small rain shower to cool things off, plus I forgot to mention that husband also made hushpuppies, yum.

Hot,Tired, I'm a Loser & other Misc things

We worked outside all morning, & into the aftenoon until around 2:00p. We're working on painting a deck table & chairs (I don't like painting chairs). Will post about them later.

Around noon today the temps started rising & the humidity kept rising as well. We lasted as long as we could. With the humidity, the paint just wouldn't dry enough to be able to add another coat so we decided to stop. We'll finish up on the 4th.

Husband suggested a chicken quesadilla casserole for dinner. We cheated. Bought a grocery store roasted bird. Sauted onions, refried beans (sorry, canned), store bought queso cheese & quesadilla cheese & store bought flour tortillas. And, to top it all off - store bought enchilada sauce. Not homesteading at all but we are tired! I really want to make my own enchilada sauce & I will! (someday).

Garden is suffering but I do have eggplant & peppers that are actually doing pretty well. Have a few more small tomatoes to harvest. Didn't get to the onions  or carrots (all four plants of them) but I think there are a few that I'll get.

My loser item of the week is that I didn't check Craig's List for 3 days. Checking CL is one of the 1st things I usually do when I get to work (lol). It takes me about 3 minutes to see if any of the 15 or so items I am looking for are for sale anywhere near where I live.

With all the storms last week I was thrown off schedule. When I finally got around to checking on Wed., I found the holy grail of items that I look for.....

A 930 All American Pressure Canner (only used a few times) for sale for $150!!!!!! It had been posted the previous Sunday but was still listed so I immediately emailed the seller. He wrote me back that he was showing it to someone on Thur. - dammit!

For those that don't know, this is the 30 qt. canner that usually sells for around $300+.

Of course, he emailed me early Fri. morning to let me know that the other person bought it. Duh, who wouldn't.

That's the 2nd time I've not gotten an item recently, due to lax checking. The other one was for 2 (yes 2) Excaliber dehydrators for $95!

In the future, you bet I'll be bring up CL before I even get my morning coffee.....

Peaches & Storms

On our way home from the Country House this weekend we stopped at one of the local peach stands. The freestone peaches were finally available! I love all peaches but the non-freestone sure are a lot of work.

 

There are 3 or 4 of these larger stands in the same general area. All are open roughly the same amount of time each year, usually from mid-May to mid-July. The stands are attached to the packing sheds & they sell all sorts of other things like local jellies, soaps, berries, watermelons & ICE CREAM. The one we stopped at Sunday sold SOFT SERVE fresh made peach ice cream! Boy was it good.

Once the peaches are gone they close up shop until next year. I’ve often wondered why they don’t keep it open for the rest of the summer at least as a produce stand. My guess is that they are mostly off the beaten path & are a destination for peaches but not so much traffic for the other stuff.

As you can see in the picture we bought 4 1/2 bushels. Two of them were for other peach lovers, one was for us to share with neighbors & co-workers & one was for us. We didn’t get home until it was too late to deal with them. But, with peaches this fresh, they were picked on Friday, you don’t have much time before they ripen too much to handle without making a complete mess.

So, on Monday with the weather declining, I decided to leave work around noon to go home to peel, core, slice & dehydrate my peaches. I blanched them, put in an ice bath, cut in half, pinched the peel away, cored & sliced & then put them in a citrus bath before placing on the trays.  I thought it took a long time prepare about 35 peaches.

I got about ½ of them done & the last tray put in the dehydrator around 4:00. Rain was steadily coming down. I let the dehydrator run overnight.

Cooled them & put in pint jars the next morning. A whopping 4 pints!

Since the weather was worse Tuesday, I decided to go leave early again in order to finish them up since they were ripening very fast by then. I decided to peel those by knife instead of blanching. I think it went much faster. I think that waiting on the water to boil then waiting on them to cool in the ice bath lengthened the time. At least I was home while the weather worsened. But I got another 4 pints! (Note: Put oxygen absorbers in the jars tonight & patiently awaiting them to seal themselves. If they don't I will get the food saver out & 'jar seal' them tomorrow.)

With both methods I had leftover pieces of peach that I saved. Wound up being about 4 ½ cups. I decided to make a peach crisp. The recipe I follow calls for 6-8 cups of peaches, not quite enough. I looked in the fridge & found 2 cups of blueberries that I had gotten late last week. I tossed those in flour and then added to the peach mixture. Here’s the finished product.

 

Easy as pie to make. 1 c. flour, some cinnamon & nutmeg, ½ c. sugar. 5 T. cold butter, 1 c. chopped pecans. Pulse dry ingredients in food processor to combine, add butter & process until crumbly, chill. Toss peaches (& blueberries) in ½ c. sugar & a squeeze of lemon juice. Butter 9x12 pan, put in peach mixture & then top with crumble mixture. Bake at 375 for 45 min. turn oven up to 400, bake an additional 5 min. Sure wish I had some ice cream, but it was good nonetheless.

Of course I saved the pits. Any idea if they will make baby peach trees? I guess I’ve got some research to do.

Overall, a nice relaxing 2 afternoons & I have peaches stored for future use.

Note: We got over 15” of rain here at the house. All drained well & now just seeing what the mosquitoes do in our wooded area.

Less is more & Why can't I see everyone's Blog updates?

This past March, our community (several counties) had farms host a Tour 'D Farm day where you select the region you would like to visit and go to the local farms where they showed you what they were up to, how they do it, etc.

We elected first, to go to Black Hog Farm to see their operation as well as to hear Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms speak. On our way to the next farm we stopped at a local produce stand and bought a whole bunch of stuff including brussel sprouts on the stalk ($1 a stalk - they were $3 if you bought them off the stalk).

My husband cut the brussels off the stalk cooked them in butter & baked them with cheese (yes, we can make any vegetable as fattening as fried chicken). He then decided to go stick the stalk it in the ground in the driveway planter. It looked wilted after a few days but didn't actually die.

Today, as we were loading the truck for our regular weekend visit to the Country House I glanced over at the bed and this is what I saw:

It's the stalk that he just pushed into the bed 3 months ago and it has new brussels growing on it!

How is it that I so very carefully plant seed, pot, re-pot and then put something in the ground to have it grow beautifully and then have it die or get eaten by bugs? And all he has to do is just stick a stalk in the ground and it grows?

Oh well, I guess he has the green thumb in the family. Although, I have a pineapple plant that seems to have taken root from the same method. We'll see if it produces anything.

I guess doing less is actually better some times.

On another note .... Can anyone tell me why I see updates on some of my new friends blogs in my blog list but don't see others. For instance, I see that Stephen or kymber updated but don't see that  Sandy, Dani or 1st Man updated theirs. What am I doing wrong?

Estate Sales

I love Estate Sales. I mean real deal Estate Sales. Not the “I’ve got some junk in my back closet so I’ll pull it out & put it on my driveway & advertise as an estate sale” kind of estate sale. As a matter of fact it really aggravates me see an advertised Estate Sale, with all kinds of stuff listed & you map it out. You turn off the main road & follow all the Estate Sale signs just to get to the address & the sign now says Yard Sale & all they have is broken junk & dirty clothes in the front yard. Yeah, that’s happened to me a few times. Ticks me off. I’ve found that if they start on a Thursday & last through the weekend, they are usually a ‘real’ Estate sale where you go through the house. Not just the garage.

As far as the true Estate Sales, most of the time, the Estate is being sold off because of a death. Relatives select the items they would like to keep & then put the rest up for sale. To me, this brings on a note of sadness. Sometimes, I like to think that maybe the person whose items are being sold, bought a sail boat to live out the rest of their days in sunshine & warm breezes. Or, they bought a condo in a really cool retirement village so they could play shuffle board or yahtzee with likeminded individuals & have late afternoon cocktails w/close friends on the clubhouse patio, while waiting for dinner to be served.

I try not to be too judgmental by the neighborhoods these are held in. You get what you think you will in most cases. In better neighborhoods, the quality of items is usually better & most of the time the prices are priced higher, especially the furniture pieces. However, I have found some good stuff in, let’s say, a lesser quality neighborhood – things like aluminum canning supplies, mason jars, cast iron skillets, etc. It all depends on what you are looking for.

There are 3 ways to conduct a true Estate Sale & do it well. There’s a whole bunch of ways to get it done badly but I won’t comment on those.

1. Relatives/friends hold the sale, usually over a 2-3 day period. If it’s organized well, things are marked with the prices, or lists are put up near a box or closet noting the prices (i.e. magazines, .10, paperback books .25, hard cover .50, etc.). Someone is usually in a nearby room or moving around from room to room to answer questions.
2. Hire a professional company to come to the house & do all of the above. In my experience, these are a bit more organized. I think they make the extra effort to categorize items & the things that won’t sell, are not on display, the things that will sell are organized with like items, etc. Usually the tags are clearer & tags are typed versus written. You’ll most likely get taxed as well.
3. Hire a professional company to come to the house & remove all the content back to their warehouse for the sale.

I had the opportunity to experience all 3 styles the past few weeks. I thought the warehouse sale (my 1^st time going to one like that)  might have items marked at a higher price, because the particular one I visited is associated with high faluten(sp?) antique auctions. But, it wasn’t & I thought the prices were very reasonable.

Some other ones that I went to were family/friend run & were in nice neighborhoods. The items were cleaned up & organized. And, still others were not so well run & everything was dirty or dusty.

But one stood out amongst the rest. It was in a very nice neighborhood, albeit an older well respected one. It’s one with really solid, well built homes & well maintained ones at that. You could tell this particular person that lived there had class & good taste. Beautiful furniture, lots of crystal, good cookware, etc. Even the items in the closets reflected a real sense of style. Good quality clothes & coats, a couple with fur collars, Chinese bathrobes, beautiful hats & gloves all tastefully displayed & were indicative of a by-gone era. Even the albums were indicative of another time – Frank Sinatra, Glenn Miller, lots of Jazz, etc. They had lots of really cool bartending items. I can just picture them sitting around the veranda under the oak trees with the stereo playing a cool Jazz number & ice clinking in the glasses.

Here’s a couple pictures of my haul. Not pictured are some Lodge cast iron pieces for a good price. That particular sale was for a couple in their 50’s that had bought a motor home to spend the next few years & were selling the majority of their household. Also missing are the 3 dozen mason jars I got for $2.00! Dirty but cleaned up nicely in the dishwasher.....

So, I’m going to continue frequenting these sales if they are not too far of a drive, with hopes of finding that slightly used Excalibur Dehydrator, a set of stainless steel cookware or a brand new Berkeley Water Filter, or whatever else interests me.

Mosquito Control

We live in the South. Living in the South means you learn to live with bugs. Doesn’t mean you like them but you live with them.

Bad bugs like roaches, ants & palmetto bugs get killed any way I can find to kill them. They are of no use to me & I need them gone.

There are also those annoying bugs that bring nothing to my quality of life. I’m talking about gnats. Annoying little buggers. You can be outside, beautiful breeze & never see one gnat … until you pour the contents of the low country boil on the table & yell for everyone to ‘COME & GET IT’. That’s when those aggravating things come by the millions. You have to bring out the fans, & have a cousin stand on each corner of the table fanning like crazy. You have to make sure you cover EVERYTHING once everyone has their plates full. And, as each person comes back to get refills, everyone has to take up position for the fanning ritual until all the food is gone or put up. If you don’t, you can’t tell what’s pepper and what isn’t ;~).

One of the other annoying insects we deal with is the mosquito. We have them at both houses. We work outside quite a bit at both houses & I have found what I believe to be decent solutions. I am not allergic, I just hate to get bitten by them.

I really don’t like to use sprays. I will if I have to but they burn, make my skin hot, etc. The organic ones that don’t do that, don’t work for me. So, last year, the husband bought me this Off fan thingy to hook on my belt or pants pocket. It has an insert and when the fan is turned on it gets blown out & about. I know that the stuff inside the insert isn’t good for me but frankly I wear it when I am moving around and it’s not like I am in a closed up room with a fog sprayer. Regardless, for those 30 – 40 minutes a day in the late afternoon when I am checking on the garden or planting or whatever, I rarely get bitten. And, when I do it’s usually only 1 or 2 around my ankles. Husband says it’s probably psychological but all I know is that I am bite free!

 

At the Country House we noticed these bat looking birds flying around and being really active in the early morning & late afternoons. After discussions & research we found out they are Purple Martins. I had heard many people talking about these wonderful mosquito eating birds & was happy they liked hanging around.

We knew they needed housing so we bought a cheap plastic house at the local Tractor Supply Store & installed it near the house. We were too late the first year, the Purple Martins never moved in. Some Robins did, & they were pretty to look at & ate spiders but didn’t eat mosquitos. We read that if another type of bird moved in the Purple Martins wouldn’t. Well, there was always next year. But, the next year the Robins moved in again. We noticed the Purple Martins hanging around & it looked like they had moved in to one or two of the rooms.

Even though this was a cheap model it has held up reasonably well.

Imagine our surprise this year when we got there for one of our weekend visits & the old bird house had what looked like about twenty pairs of Purple Martins flitting about! And, no Robins, they moved to the rafters in the well house. We thought the Martins looked a bit crowded so husband decided to give them a house upgrade. He ordered this:

I should have taken pictures of him putting it together. It came in a small 8x14x4 box & had a thousand pieces! And, it has 24 rooms! It took him around 45 minutes to put the 1^st floor together but he got faster after that, about 15 – 20 minutes per floor.

Anyway, we took it with us on our next visit. We figured we were too late in getting it in because the Martins obviously had already nested in the older one. We decided to go ahead & put it up anyway. We put it down near the water & the dock & the garden. We put the extension pole in the ground & secured it with Sacrete(sp?). Once dry, we put the house up. It has hole covers & we covered all but the top layer just in case the Martins didn’t move in, we wouldn’t have other types of birds living there.

It was late in the day & once up & extended husband started walking back towards the house. I snapped this picture & started walking back as well.

As I took about 5 steps I looked up & saw the Martins frantically flying overhead. I turned around & there were about 6 or 8 checking the new house out! Less than 4 minutes had passed since it was up! We went back to the house & watched them until dark. From what we could see from the back porch, they didn’t actually enter any of the rooms but they would fly up and away very quickly. We figured they were trying to find out if any other birds lived there.

By the next morning, they had started moving in! Husband removed the next layer of hole covers so they could spread out even more.

They are migratory but we’ve read that they come back to the same place year after year. We hope they are there to stay.

The (Future) Country Garden

Well, it doesn’t look like a garden yet but I have a vision and big plans!

Recently, we had some friends that got married on our property. They had the ceremony in the ‘back yard’, between the house & the water. The reception was held on the deck mentioned in the last post. Regardless, the wedding was pretty, very rustic & the seating they used was straw bales.

Well, seeing all those bales sitting in my back yard gave me an idea that I had been tossing around for a while. Since I will be a bit older when I retire (3 years 13 days & counting) & don’t want to have to plow/till huge areas for vegetables (I also didn’t want to wait until I actually retire to start preparing the garden area). I decided that I would put in permanent beds using the ‘lasagna layering’ method combined with a little “Back to Eden” method, along w/a couple of huglekulture(sp?) beds.

The wedding party had left us 20 bales so we got started a few weekends ago. We hadn’t completely made up our minds about what to frame the beds with, but we decided to go ahead & lay out the general location & ‘start’ some beds since the bales were starting to break down.

Materials:

Leaves - We have access to landscapers here in the city & they have been bringing us bagged leaves.

Cardboard - Husband has been saving cardboard from his business.
Newspapers - My co-workers have been bringing me newspapers.
Manure - One of my cousins has horses.
Strawbales – Leftover from the wedding.

The general area of the garden is ‘down’ by the water but it’s on one of the slight slopes & nothing to protect the layers from blowing away. So, we decided to go at this a bit backward.

I originally wanted to put newspaper down, then cardboard, then a mixture of leaves, straw & horse manure but with the last three items being dry & light, they would have mostly likely blown away in the first strong winds. So we mixed the order up.

We tilled up the ground in an approximate size area of the final 10 x 3.5 bed. Then put down a couple shovels of horse manure, then leaves, then a few layers of wet newspaper, then large pieces of cardboard & finally the straw and slices of wood (used to hold down tablecloths during the reception) on top to hold everything down. Sorry for the bad pics, they were taken at the wrong time of day.

Over the course of two weekends, we got 10 beds laid down. We had plans of getting 10 more done over Memorial Weekend but it was windy as all get out & shoveling dry manure & trying to wrestle large sheets of cardboard & wet newspaper didn’t sound like all that much fun, so we abandoned that idea.  

Plus, we were out of bales & had bought a roll of straw to use instead. While we were standing down by the ‘garden’ contemplating what to do, we realized that the roll of hay wasn’t wound tightly & that it would break completely apart, instead of in ‘chunks’ & not allow us to use as a weight.

So, we had to change our plans (big surprise!). We have decided to use concrete blocks to frame the beds & will go ahead & purchase some. That way we’ll be able to till, then go back to the original plans of newspaper 1st, cardboard next, etc. Wet it all real well & hopefully the block sides will keep everything intact.

Going to have 20+ beds of concrete block, a few out of leftover City House brick & at least 2 longer ones w/the huglekulture and maybe a few potato bins along the way.

Will try to figure out how to get a drawing put on here so I'll remember what my original plan was.