Little Bites

If The Mountain Will Not Come To Mohammed, Mohammed Will Go To The Mountain- "If one cannot get one's own way, one must adjust to the inevitable."

Since it's the last day of 2010, I thought I'd write a post about what I learned from this years attempts at gardening in the Piedmont of NC. 

But as I've been thinking about what to say in this post, it occurs to me that the biggest change this year has been in how I've come to re-consider my lifestyle choices. 

SM too!  Just the other day SM said to me "Come here and look at this." He had Craigslist pulled up on the computer.  "I've found some landscape timbers, do you think that would work for the raised beds?" and  "We don't need anymore shade trees.  Why don't we put in a fruit tree where the willow was."

Shocker!  You all might not realize this but the big push to do all this fruit and vegetable gardening has originated with me.  SM will help out if asked, but I really think he has looked on my efforts this past year as a parent would with a hyper-active child.  ("Thank God she has something to keep her distracted.")

SM has a slightly more optimistic world view than I have.  He feels that the economy can and will turn on a dime.  When will it?  Maybe not in the near future but it will...eventually. 

Me?  I don't think so much in terms of "if" things will get better,  (I know that the wheel of life will turn),  I just like to be prepared for the tough times as much as I can.  I'm not in "the sky is falling" camp, it's just that I've always been a defensive thinker and it suits my nature to consider the future and how my family is impacted by outside influences and take the appropriate steps to survive them as best I can.

But really...doesn't this all just come down to good common sense?  I mean I have the land.  I want healthy cheap food.  Grow a garden!!!  Grow some veggies!!!  Raise some chickens!!!

"No chickens..."  SM says, hand up in the "stop" position.  (Rats...I pushed too far too quick.) 

No sense in arguing.  He'll come around to see it my way. Eventually. Little bites.  

So, for the record,  It was hot as "H - E - double toothpicks" around here this year for our growing season.  A challenge to say the least.

The winners?  Sugar Peas, lettuces, yellow and zucchini squash, cucumbers.

**I plan on a double batch of sugars this year

**Salad bowl and red leaf were great.  Romaine is my favorite but it just didn't form up before the heat got it, so I'll pass on that this year.

**Plant less zucchini and more yellow (my favorite squash.) 

**Cucumbers?  Spot on.  I want to see about a good "bread and butter" pickle cucumber for this year though.

The losers?  Sweet peas, onions, pumpkins, peppers, carrots, green beans.

**I planted sweet peas in March right after I got the beds in.  I tried again in the fall.  Timing was my problem here.  Planted too late in both spring and fall and the heat/freeze zapped them before they could produce.  Lesson learned.  February planting for spring and August for fall.

**Onions.  I bought onion sets at Walmart.  What did I expect?

**Pumpkins?  Well, they grew but I picked a small variety.  I'll try for a larger variety this year.

**Peppers produced but were hit by "sun scald" so they never fully matured.  I'm going to invest in row covers to protect them this year.

**Carrots.  Timing issue again.  Start with the peas.

** Green beans were a big disappointment.  Something kept eating them as soon as they sprouted.  I sprayed but couldn't get a single batch to maturity. I must have gone through 5 seed packets.  No luck.   I LOVE green beans too.  So sad.

The biggest loser?  Tomato's.  I don't even LIKE tomato's but felt the loss of them. It was our biggest disappointment.  MUST MUST MUST plant tomato's in a raised bed.  June brought torrential rainfall and they never recovered from being in a swimming pool for 3 weeks straight.

New additions?  Winter squash, dry beans, sweet and regular potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, sweet corn, strawberries, red and black berries.

So as you can see, we have our work cut out for us this year.  We'll be expanding the garden for sure over the next few months. 

Exciting isn't it?  I'm waiting for my seed catalogs to come in.  Another blog called it "Seed Porn"...ain't it the truth? 

Smack..Right Between The Eyes

I wish I could write.  I mean really write.  (The Great American Author, that's me!) Ha!

I get home tonight, my legs are aching...(freaking legs!!*$@) 

I make SM and myself a "big salad" for dinner.  "I'm planting LOTS of lettuce this year, so get ready, salads everyday!"

While I eat, I read.  SM knows I need to decompress, take a few minutes to switch from Tami the worker-bee to Tami the at home gal.  The best way I've found to do this is to read a book for a 1/2 hour or so.

I've been re-reading Through A Glass Darkly and came across this paragraph, a conversation between Barbara and her Grandmother:

"I have two things to say---"
"Only two?"
"Never mind.  I want to say them before I forget.  The first is about forgiveness.  It is never done well in little bits and dabs.  Do it all at once and never look back, or do not do it at all.   Those are your Grandfathers words, and not mine.  And the second is about change.  Change is an easy thing to decide and a difficult thing to do.  It is the day-to-day struggle of it that defeats people.  Do not despair if old ways look good to you.  Despair only if you fall into them too often."

Smack...right between the eyes.  From a book of fiction written 25 years ago.

Over Time

Beginnings and endings.  Where would we be if we couldn't define a period?

A "chapter" in a book. A "season" in a year.  The first "rise", the "proof", the finished bread.  Childhood, adulthood...the senior years.

I re-read my profile the other day:

Welcome to my blog! I hope you enjoy reading about our efforts to create a fruit and vegetable garden in our backyard in suburban NC. Our hope is that we will, over time, become competent gardeners and that our efforts will help to sustain us as we move into our retirement years. Knowing that our future income will be MUCH less than it is now, we've decided to learn to grow and preserve as much of our own food as we can.

Companies routinely refer to their "Mission Statement" which basically outlines their goals, their ethics, their vision.  My profile page is kinda like that.

My "mission" hasn't really changed. Everything I wrote still applies.  But as I re-read it, I realize that I haven't done all that much this year.  There is not a word in that "statement" that can be changed. Hmmmm...

So I'm still in the idea stage...hunting and seeking and educating myself to discover the best way to achieve our goals. 

(I guess that's why I visit so many of your sites.  How do you do it?  Why did you do it?  What pitfalls have you discovered.  "Teach me o wise one.") 

I consider us in the "childhood" phase of my garden.  And looking back I can see that while we have moved forward with the idea,  we didn't take a very big step.  And I can't be a student forever.

So my big "To Do" list for 2011 is actually pretty simple.  Be more aggressive.  Time is short...and the learning curve will take a lifetime.

*We plan on expanding the vegetable garden in 2011.  I want to put in raised beds and till up a patch of ground and supplement it and utilize it the old fashioned way we did as kids in Ohio.  I want to "test" different growing techniques.

*We planted 2 fruit trees, and 2 blueberry bushes this year.  I want to add two more apples (for sauce this time) and I want to experiment with Asian Pears and raspberry/blackberry bushes.

*Having a freezer for food storage is nice but I really need to get back into canning.  I learned as a teenager, but that's been over 30 years ago.  I froze SO much fruit this year.  All of it can be canned.  Cucumbers coming out of my ears this year.  Did I pickle any?  Nope.

SM and I were talking about an article I read on Yahoo this morning: Baby Boomers Near 65 With Retirements In Jeopardy

It's really more of the same, but the thing I really took away from the article is that some people trust that the future will take care of itself. 

I can't really look at it that way.  My freedom and independance depend on the skills that I choose to develop now.  Not later.

So stick around...it should be an interesting year.

Asian Fusion

In this edition of Some of My Favorite Books we'll head to China and Japan.

I've always been fascinated by other cultures and stories that are told from a womens point of view are my favorities...(Have you noticed that central theme yet?)

I found Green Dragon, White Tiger by Annette Motley at a second hand book store (1986).  It's a paperback and on the inside title page it reads: Uncorrected advance proof - For recipient internal use only.  (How cool is that?)

From Publishers Weekly


Fearful of uttering such treason, a seventh century astrologer predicts that the second daughter of General Wu will one day ascend the Dragon Throne to rule China. Hot-tempered and intelligent, Black Jade's spirit and luminous beauty attract the eye of Shin-Min, the reigning Son of Heaven, and she joins his court as a concubine. At his death, Pheasant, the weak-willed son who succeeds, takes his father's favorite concubine as his own, until her growing influence persuades him to make her empress, despite the objections of many in the court. Ambitious, sensual and on occasion wantonly cruel, Black Jade expertly plays on Pheasant's uncertainty, gathering the reins of government in her own capable hands. His death and the brief, unlucky reigns of four sons are branching paths that lead to a single destiny. A bejeweled struggle for power, this first novel is modeled on the life of the historical Empress Wu. The lively air that energizes the early chapters is gradually lost, but Motley does draw a sumptuous portrait of passion and pomp in an exotic milieu.

*(Unfortunately, there is no "Google Books Preview" for this novel.)*

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden is just flat out "absorbing".  Told in first person, you can really get swept away Sayuri's life story.  The movie (if you saw it) sucked (IMHO)...so don't let that stop you from picking up the book.
 

From Library Journal

"I wasn't born and raised to be a Kyoto geisha....I'm a fisherman's daughter from a little town called Yoroido on the Sea of Japan." How nine-year-old Chiyo, sold with her sister into slavery by their father after their mother's death, becomes Sayuri, the beautiful geisha accomplished in the art of entertaining men, is the focus of this fascinating first novel. Narrating her life story from her elegant suite in the Waldorf Astoria, Sayuri tells of her traumatic arrival at the Nitta okiya (a geisha house), where she endures harsh treatment from Granny and Mother, the greedy owners, and from Hatsumomo, the sadistically cruel head geisha. But Sayuri's chance meeting with the Chairman, who shows her kindness, makes her determined to become a geisha. Under the tutelage of the renowned Mameha, she becomes a leading geisha of the 1930s and 1940s.

To preview the book (click on) Google Books

Somebody STOP Me...

SM and I went out for a 2 hour stroll around the hood, snapping pictures and talking with neighbors. 

We all agree that this has GOT to be the prettiest snow we've ever seen. 

That said...Here's some more pictures.

A Snow White World

Blue Light Special

This is what we woke up to this morning....(Can't wait for full daylight).

On The Morning Before Christmas My True Love Said To Me...

"Need some help?" (SM )  "Yes" (Me)
 

"Go clean the bathrooms."

"Vacuum the floor."

"How's the pepperoni bread?"

"Hang up my scrubs."

"Go pick up your medicine."

"While you're out, get some butter."

"Please play with the dogs."

"A big pile of dishes."

"Nice clean floor."

"What time is Mass?"

"Crap, 3 loads of laundry."

"2 dozen cookies."

"I love you Honey."

"I love you too, Squeetie Man."

(And now you know what "SM" means...) (grin)
*Wishing you and yours....Merry Christmas...Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men.*

The "Push" Is On...

Wow...am I tired.  Not sleepy tired. (It's 4am so you know I'd be sleeping if I could.)

I'm bone tired.  The tired that comes from pushing a bit harder than what you're used to.  

Today (Thursday) is my last day at work until next Wednesday.  That's MY Christmas present...some time off!  Whoo Hooo!

More than half the staff at work have "bugged out" this week.  Kinda like a ghost town in our building.  

But a few of us die-hards stick around to enjoy the much desired and "ego building" pleasure of the "in demand" staff member.  PUSH is the only word for it.

I went in yesterday at 8:30am (usual time).  Our practice is not that far away from a popular mall here in town.  I always forget about holiday shoppers and pretty much everyone on our afternoon schedule (doctors included) couldn't get to us.  So the schedule dragged back.

I got on the road at 6:30 and WOW...even at 6:30 it took me an hour to get home. 

I expect the same routine today.  (sigh)  But it's the same story every year so please don't think I'm gripping about it.  Just an observation.

I expect Friday, here at home, will have a slightly different "push", but I plan on taking some time to just sit back a relax...maybe squeeze in a nap?  Yeah right...(grin)

In Case You Missed 60 Minutes Last Night..

SM and I have been discussing when the other shoe is gonna drop. 

In case you missed 60 Minutes last night, here's the transcript.

State Budgets: The Day of Reckoning

(You can run but you can't hide.)

In It For The Long Haul

Continuing on with Some of My Favorite Books...

I offer up Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series.

Seriously folks...What planet have you been living on if you're not into "Claire and Jamie"?

There's got to be NO better past time than curling up and heading back into time with our favorite couple.  (Makes watching soaps a joke.)

I went to a book signing  (1997) with the fabulous Ms G.  See what she wrote?

(I don't write for wussies!)  And if you don't get that, well...watch out cause you might just get a fish smacked against your head (inside joke...see Drums Of Autumn)

For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about please click on the Wiki Link for Outlander to get a better idea about this wonderful series.

Photo-op Gone Wrong...So Wrong

SM and I just don't take pictures of each other.  I asked him to take some shots of me...maybe update my profile page.  Somehow it just went wrong...

(Or maybe it went right. )  How can puppy kisses be wrong?

Books For When You Just HAVE To Get Away

Continuing on with Some Of My Favorite Books.

Sometimes you just have to get away, even if it's just a "mental vacation".

Lets go to Italy, shall we?

Like most of the world, I've read and enjoyed Under The Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes.  The movie was good but the book is way better.

Her sequel Bella Tuscany is a continuation of her adventure building her Italian life.  Nuff said about that.

The book that I really enjoyed was A Thousand Days In Tuscany: A Bittersweet Adventure by Marlena De Blasi. 

This book really touched me.  De Blasi is almost poetic when she writes about food and her interpersonal relationships...She actually had me "tear-ing up" during some of her conversations with Barlozzo, her "muse" and "guide" (sort of a "father" figure in the novel).

(Review from The Globe Corner Bookstore.)

American chef Marlena de Blasi and her Venetian husband, Fernando, married rather late in life. In search of the rhythms of country living, the couple moves to a barely renovated former stable in Tuscany with no phone, no central heating, and something resembling a playhouse kitchen. They dwell among two hundred villagers, ancient olive groves, and hot Etruscan springs. In this patch of earth where Tuscany, Umbria, and Lazio collide, there is much to feed de Blasi's two passions--food and love. We accompany the couple as they harvest grapes, gather chestnuts, forage for wild mushrooms, and climb trees in the cold of December to pick olives, one by one. Their routines are not that different from those of villagers centuries earlier.

They are befriended by the mesmeric Barlozzo, a self-styled village chieftain. His fascinating stories lead de Blasi more deeply inside the soul of Tuscany. Together they visit sacred festivals and taste just-pressed olive oil, drizzled over roasted country bread, and squash blossoms, battered and deep-fried and sprayed with sea-salted water. In a cauldron set over a wood fire, they braise beans in red wine, and a stew of wild boar simmers overnight in the ashes of their hearth. Barlozzo shares his knowledge of Italian farming traditions, ancient health potions, and artisanal food makers, but he has secrets he doesn't share, and one of them concerns the beautiful Floriana, whose illness teaches Marlena that happiness is truly a choice.


Like the pleasurable tastes and textures of a fine meal, A Thousand Days in Tuscany is as satisfying as it is enticing. The author's own recipes are included.

Thanks again to (click on) Google Books if you'd like to read a preview.

Just A Note On The "Side"

I'm not sure about anyone else, but I do most of my blog reading from my sidebar. 

Today I went through and "updated" it.  Some blogs I just lost interest in. 

Other blogs that I've added to my sidebar have often come from your sidebar.

So "Thanks" for keeping the community alive and offering up some wonderful "side" dishes to your "main course".  (grin)

Have We Joined The Rest of The Club Yet?

We've had freezing rain and sleet this week, even an icy patch on the roads, but today...

Snow.

Great big fluffies.

For about 15 minutes.

Does this count?