Anita Blanchard: The Garden

Fri, 10 Mar 2006 18:49:46 GMT

Spring Break

About damn time. It’s 2:00 on the Friday of our university’s Spring Break and I’m getting ready to Go Enjoy It!!! Yeah, babbbeeeee!!!

You’d think that we professors would get to enjoy a little break from school. But you’d think wrong! I have worked my booty off this week. And finally, at 2:00, although I have more work I can do, I’m going to take the afternoon off and do some chores.

It is an absolutely gorgeous day in the mid 70’s and we’re going to do some plantin’ and some paintin’ this weekend and I need to go get prepped for this. We will be updating the master bathroom and you can check here for our progress. Right now, you can only see the hideous colors from yesteryear. That is, unfortunately, not going to be changed, because we cannot afford it! But we’re going to try to make the rest of it work with a new coat of paint and some kicky accessories.

We’re also going to finish putting in our pink Lenten roses in the shade garden (that now I’m worried is not shady enough) and plant three (or more!) blueberry bushes!! The asparagus continues to grow, and I’m documenting this year’s landscaping and gardening, here. Why? Well, because I can. And it’s nice to see how everything changes. The strawberry plants have flowers on them, too, so we may get berries this year. Yippee!!! Can I just say, once again, God Bless Perennials. It is a buttload easier to plant once and then reap for years than to plant and plant and plant and plant and freakin’ plant again.

OK. Off to be free to be me before I go pick up the little guy and smooch him on the head.

Wed, 08 Mar 2006 21:01:50 GMT

Hope Springs Eternal

That’s what I think every time I look out at my garden. I forget how I let the thing go to hell in a weedy hand basket last summer and I vow that this time, this year, I’ll keep on top of everything and we’ll have much better harvest with many fewer weeds.

Of course, I’m getting older and that sort of rosy viewed look at the world is not as compelling as it once was. But still. I think things will be better.

For one thing, we’ve scaled down this year’s garden a great deal. I’m only planting lettuce, garden peas, chard, runner beans, leeks, radishes, beets, okra, eggplant, peppers and tomatoes. (Sadly, that’s a lot, lot less than I planted last year). I’m also planting some sunflowers and a cutting flower garden to take up space and make it pretty.

For another thing, the asparagus and strawberry beds from last year have already been put in so now we just have to weed them and enjoy them. And yes, there’s already a 3 foot asparaguy out there that needs to be trimmed back. I think that this year, I can harvest lightly and then next year, we might be able to eat a meal or two of them. After that, I think they are ready to be fully snacked upon.

This afternoon, I planted the first row of lettuce and the first row of garden peas. I’ll replant more in a week or so to help draw out their season. The problem is that I already know that I have to replant seeds every couple of weeks, but then I get lazy and we end up with a lot of unplanted seeds and one big crop of food, like salads every day for two weeks and then nothing.

Well, fine. Whatever. I think the actual important part is the planting and how it makes me feel hopeful. It makes me believe that everything is going to be fine this year and it’s all going to get easier. It’s a lie I tell myself, but in the spring, it’s such a beautiful one.

And for those of you outside the south or who are soon to be moving to the south, let me tell you how beautiful things are getting around here. The trees are blooming, the tulips are up, and within a few weeks the dogwoods and azaleas are going to shout out their love. There is nothing in this world better than the spring in the south. It’s really, really hard not to be hopeful when there’s so much of this natural joy around us.

And on a darker note, I’d like to say that if my unexplained fatigue at this exact instance is any indication of how sick I’ve been feeling and that I don’t know what it’s like to feel healthy, then I agree. You are right. I am sick and I don’t know what healthy is. I can’t imagine not feeling as exhausted as I normally do. When am I supposed to start feeling better? Anybody want to make a bet?

Tue, 20 Sep 2005 15:25:14 GMT

Hello World

How the hell am I going to do this? How am I going to work, be a decent mother and have some sort of life? I am beginning to question whether all three of those options are even remotely possible.

Well, that is not entirely true. If I can combine “life” with “mother” then it works. For instance, I’m now taking my jog stroller to Conor’s school and after I pick him up, we go on a run around the neighborhood. I’m not sure that counts as quality time, but it’s at least together time. And then when we come home and I water around the parched landscaping, I’m counting that as a Horticulture Lesson.

And Dave and I have now started shift parenting and work. One of us leaves early for work, the other takes the baby in “late” and comes home “late.” The early bird leaves work early to pick the baby up out of daycare early-ish.

But there’s not a lot of wiggle room in my day for other activities that mean something to me—like witty blogging. It’s not that I don’t think about you, Internet. It’s not like I don’t have something funny to say about life around here. I’m just too damn busy to do it.

Nonetheless, this is not a “Goodbye, sweet blogging world.” It’s a “Well, F*ck. I am DAMN busy.”

So here are some abbreviated insights that at one point in my blogging life would have warranted a full entry. And there is more cussing than usual because that’s the mood I’m in.

*Gardening is a bitch. I know, I know. It’s the journey, not the destination. Well, screw that. I want to Arrive Somewhere in my gardening and landscaping. I want to check something off my list. 1) Kill ivy. 2) Water plants. 3) Make sure scraggly shrubbery in front are not so scraggly. 3) Weed landscaping beds. 4) Decide when to replace scraggly shrubbery with neighborhood-typical English boxwood shrubbery. 6) Weed garden. 7) Harvest rotting vegetables from garden. 8) Move dying daylilies out of shade into full sun. 9) Smack husband for not agreeing that finding the right sunny spot for daylilies IS a life or death decision. Well, of all of those, I can check off #9. The rest are on my never ending To Do list outside.

*Getting Pregnant. Yes, the first T in TTC is a lot of fun. And there’s been more T in the last two months than there’s been in the last year. And yes, that does help with the stress level. But why does every month have to be different with my body??? It’s had years, YEARS, to figure this out. Why does it have to fuck with me with 3 positive OPKs this month (2 were, in retrospect, false positives), and a slow temperature rise after ovulation thus freaking me the heck out that I’m having an anovulatory cycle when I’m TTC and does that mean I am approaching perimenopause and how is that possible when I’m still breastfeeding????

*Enjoying Motherhood (Disgustingly cute alert): We’ve been going on family dates lately. Two weeks ago, we took Conor on a trolley ride in Charlotte. (fun) We also discovered that Reid’s Grocery in Uptown Charlotte is encased in a musical building. That means that if you touch the multicolored lit panels all the way around the building, they will make sounds. Essentially, you can play the building all the way around the block. That is fun. And for a baby, hell, that’s just one more new thing in this world that’s cool.

But that’s not the cute part. The cute part was last weekend when we went to dinner with another family and on the walk back from the restaurant, Conor and the other little boy kept reaching out of their strollers to grasp each other’s hand. I thought I was going to die. We moms struggled to keep the strollers aligned so we wouldn’t break their hand holding which is hard on a narrow sidewalk. But I could not stand the cuteness of two babies who met each other in utero liking each other so much they spontaneously wanted to hold hands. That is too much.

OK. Back to work. My blog break leaves me behind. But my mind was going to explode if I didn’t write down what is going on in my way too tightly wound up head.

Tue, 28 Jun 2005 13:53:31 GMT

Mommy, me, me, me, me!!!

There was a time when I was jealous that Dave could put Conor to sleep and I couldn’t. We called it “closing the deal.” I would nurse and rock and nurse and rock, but Conor wouldn’t quiet down enough to put him in the crib. I’d call Dave over the baby monitor and he’d come in, we’d tag off, and within 3 minutes the child would be down for the night.

No longer.

Now, I rock and nurse and rock and nurse which doesn’t take as long as it did once we realized that a walk around the block in the jog stroller helps calm the little one down. I can easily get him into the crib. For about 10 seconds. Then he cries, and I rock and nurse and rock and nurse, and he goes down. Protesting. I call in Dave and they rock and cry and rock and cry until the baby’s cries escalate into screaming. And then I’m back on duty as the one who rocks and nurses for just a few minutes and he is completely down.

I miss the good old days. The next time Dave becomes the favorite parent, I am so not going to be jealous. I’m going to dance around the house in a long flowing skirt making an offering to the parent gods for giving me a few nights off.

The Garden

I confess that I did not find the newspapers as weed killing mulch to be cute enough. I used up the rest of our "real" mulch yesterday covering up the paper and some renegade weeds. Next year, if we have a garden, and we’re going to have to do something in that space, I’m using real mulch in between plants and around the seeded areas. Since the office looks directly over the garden space, it has to be cute.

Wed, 01 Jun 2005 13:44:34 GMT

Welcome Home or I Love You, I Missed You, and Now I’m going to Pee on your Stuff

Duncan was a love bunny all day yesterday. He followed me around the house, pawed at my leg while I wrote and wanted to sit in my lap while I worked. Considering that usually Duncan spends the day asleep on the bed, I was impressed just by his following me from room to room.

Then, in the late afternoon, I saw him squatting over my shoe. Knowing his tendency to leave unwanted presents, I called the Collie Cops who nosed him off that spot. Later, however, we found Dave’s backpack where Duncan had decided to leave his welcome home gift.

When it was just Dave and Duncan, Duncan’s welcome home ritual was to love, love, love on Dave and then bite him hard on the hand. Now that it’s Dave, Anita, Conor, Patches, Scarlett and Simba, it’s love, love, love and pee. I guess I’d rather have him pee than try to bite the baby, but still. It’s weird. Duncan is a weird old cat.

Teeth Aplenty

Well, Fang is about to be Fang no longer. His front two teeth, in their right spots, have finally started to come out. They have been visible for well over a week and since last Friday we could actually see them through the blister of skin that was bubbling up over them. This morning, I finally felt the left one. Yes, our poor guy has been pushing out 4 teeth at once. That has got to hurt.

Isn't he cute chillin in his ride? He loves riding around like that!

English Peas

We had our first real meal of English Peas from the garden last night. Yummmmmm. Those were dang tasty. For lunch, I’m going to make a salad with some of our over enthusiastic lettuce. I’m also hoping on going running in the late morning. My runs have finally started to progress. Yesterday was the first good run I’ve had since the Charlotte (Half) Marathon in January 2004. That’s a long time ago. And it wasn’t even close to that distance. Nonetheless, it didn’t suck, and I’ll take that in a run right now.

Off to work.

Wed, 25 May 2005 13:36:58 GMT

Update around the House

The garden is really getting going. We’ve had quite a few dinners and lunches with the lettuce. We planted the “heatwave” lettuce variety from Cook’s Garden, which is basically just regular green leaf lettuce. It’s not as exciting as last year’s lettuce variety, but I’ll take it anyway. Monday night, we had our first Swiss chard sausage and bean stew. The absolute best thing about having chard in the garden is being able to put as much as I want in that stew. I need to pick our English garden peas today for our first meal of those. So far, the pole beans, beets, cannelloni beans, black-eyed peas, tomatoes, peppers and most of the eggplants are doing well. I’m not thrilled with either the arugula or the watercress. Both are a bit too game-y. The strawberry bed is growing and the asparagus looks healthy.

The paper as mulch is working well as long as there is no huge wind. Then we’ve got paper flying all over the yard. I have to add a bit more out there in places which have already disintegrated, but I like it. It’s kind of ugly though. That’s the only real problem with lining one’s garden like a birdcage.

We finally got our encore azaleas over the weekend. We’re nervous about planting them because they need good draining soil. We really want them to grow well because the kind we ordered grow up five feet up and out 4 feet, and they would do a good job at screening the shed in our neighbor’s yard. I had to tackle some ivy though in the trees around where we planted them to give them some more sun.

There’s always something to do in the yard and garden. That’s the amazing part. I can sit here and think of 10 things I could do this morning, but I want to work on my research. Next year, if there’s a new one on the way, the garden is going to be much, much less.

Food Strike

Our little monkey pig has started on a bit of a food strike. Whereas before, he’d eat anything we’d set in front of him, now we’re getting a tight lipped shaking of the head no for everything that isn’t Cheerios. My call is that we offer it to him and if he doesn’t eat, we stop. He’ll eat when he’s hungry. However, I don’t want to keep offering Cheerios to get him to eat instead of real food. We’re going to have to find something for them to give him at school other than the Cheerios. I may be sending rice cakes and other healthier finger food to him. We keep hearing that food refusal is a sign that he’s learning how to assert his independence and sense of self. It’s hard not to worry though that he’s not eating enough food.

Fri, 06 May 2005 13:47:41 GMT

Easement not so Easy

We have good news. We’ve had some major flooding in our backyard during the rains. It hasn’t been helped by a neighbor’s damn dam up against our shared fence, but it’s the city’s responsibility.

A city surveyor/official/water dude came by this morning at 8 am. They want to re-install a pipe down our and 5 of our neighbor’s backyards to stop the flooding. This is very good news.

However, they also want to take the drain of the pipe up our fence and to the road. OK. We don’t mind being the conduit to the road because it’s important for us not to have our backyard turn into a pond every time it rains.

Nonetheless, they need a 10 foot easement to put in this pipe. They will need to take down our front fence to bring all the heavy machinery into our yard to do the work. More worrisome is that they will essentially destroy our frontyard landscaping, take out all our dogwoods beside the house that give us privacy in the summer, and, most likely, take out one of our backyard landscaping beds including the $300 kick ass osmanthus fortuni tree we just had planted and our 4 small but growing camellia trees. We also have $100 worth of encore azaleas arriving in two weeks for this bed.

I’m glad to have the flooding fixed. But I’m not happy at all to start over on all our landscaping work!!! Especially the beds are finally getting established and looking good!!

I don’t want to be a NIMBY chick. I am pro neighborhood enough to make some sacrifices for the good of the people. There are more than 6 of us on our block who are suffering from serious flooding in the rain, including a family 2 houses down that have their foundation flooded with every big storm. But, still, couldn’t they go down another neighbor’s fence who didn’t just install a boatload of landscaping?

I head to the doctor later this morning. We’ll see what he has to say. (not about the landscaping, so much, as the blood work)

And on Another Note

I totally have to be premenstrual, which according to my calculations, I am. I've already burst into tears twice this morning: once at the picture of an American soldier comforting a dying Iraqi child in this story and once during Cary Tennis's advice column over the idea that a mother who doesn't want to see the child she let go for adoption but still wants to protect her. And yesterday, crying in the halls of my office when my chair told me that he didn't think there was any negative comments to be made on my sabbatical proposal, they just didn't have enough money to fund everyone. I cry easily. But not usually so profusely over such modest reasons. I'm not used to the sort of "womanhood" that I experienced in my teens. (I should also mention that my face looks like a teens face, too. Lovely)

Mon, 02 May 2005 12:31:04 GMT

There were some people around here that I knew.

We went to the symphony on Saturday night. It’s our fourth symphony of the season. We are thinking, next year, of either getting cheaper tickets or perhaps buying season tickets to a local theater. We both really like the symphony, but our seats, and the babysitter, start to add up.

Yes, we left the little one with a sitter on Saturday. I’m not one of those folks who freaks out about the sitter. As I’ve said before, I trust the people we’ve left him with and we know that, even if he cries the whole time (which he never has), he would be ok.

That said, it was a little rough when he saw us leaving while on the sitter’s lap. He gave his big boo-boo face with the corners of his mouth pulled down in a big frown and his eye’s welling up. I felt bad, but I knew we needed to get out. As it happened, we were able to catch a glance of him again 30 seconds later as the car pulled past the front porch. Then, he was calmly rocking on the swing, happy as a clam, looking around and interested in all of the nature he could see.

That’s when Dave commented from Conor’s perspective “There were some people around here that I knew. I wonder where they are now.” I mean, it was nice to see that he was actually quite fine. But we were so gone in his perception, we felt a bit deflated.

“You Are A Gardening Idiot”

So on Friday, I stopped by to pick up some herbs for the garden. I spoke with one of the workers about how the dill had sprouted up around the garden; she was appalled that I was actually excited by that. My reasoning is that I weed anyway. I’ll pull up the plants I don’t want and save the $5 by transplanting the ones that I do.

She saved her true disgust, however, for when she found out that I had actually planted the mint in my garden and not left it in a pot. “Go Home. GO HOME NOW and PULL IT OUT OF THE GROUND. IT WILL TAKE OVER YOUR ENTIRE YARD IF YOU DON’T REMOVE IT. USE ROUND UP NOW,” she commanded me. First, I had pulled it up in the fall and I did go home and dig a humongous hole around the one plant I did see thus eliminating the potential for a mint-atosphre. But here are some thoughts.

First, can mint really be that bad? If so, why is all of the United States not covered in mint? Surely, I cannot be the only “idiot” in this world who has planted mint in the ground. The only way I can believe it is truly that invasive is if at some point, mint morphs into kudzu. Because driving around, I see a lot of kudzu. I don’t see a lot of mint.

Second, did this woman not know who she was talking to? I am the garden goddess of destruction for creeping plants. Let me remind you all of Anita versus the Ivy, parts I, II, and III. (well, I can’t find Part I, it must have occurred pre-bloggus). I’ll just refresh your memory: it took me 3 years, but I single handedly pulled out a 50 foot bed of evil creeping ivy myself. It is GONE and DEAD and I AM THE DESTROYER. Granted, it did throw some poison at me (while I was pregnant no less!), but I laughed at its puny green head and it’s gone and it’s not coming back.

So no stinkin’ mint is going to get the better of me. Bring it on, minty boy. Let’s see what you’ve got.

Mon, 25 Apr 2005 02:15:10 GMT

Two More Weeks of Hell

And then I can properly tell you about my half-clever idea of using newspaper in the garden to control weeds. You put it down where you don’t want weeds and as the summer progresses, it disintegrates and becomes part of the soil. You do, however, need to do this when you’re not having a wind storm. Otherwise, you’re somewhat cute backyard becomes all white trashy with flying newspaper trapped against the fence and various shrubbery. (BTW, I don’t think I used enough mulch on top, but still in 20-30 mph winds, paper’s gonna blow)

I could also properly tell you about our first batch of lettuce from the garden and the watercress soup we made from our first real batch of watercress. I’d also ask if anyone knows if watercress can be harvested only “once” (i.e., the whole plant) or if you can just pull off a few leaves here and there as needed.

I’d also tell you about all the dill sprouting up in the lower right corner of the garden where last year’s lone dill plant grew and died. It may have been a loner, but it was a slut. There are little dill plants all over my garden. Who knew??? I love dill and lord knows, we didn’t have enough last year, so I’m letting it grow. I thought dill was an annual, and, ironically, all of my supposed perennial herbs are dead, dead, dead. I also have a mint sprout out there. Are those perennials, too??

Patches is still having the midnight runs, and after Friday night’s fiasco in which Dave prepared the house so that we could use the doggie door (i.e., put wily Simba in the den, which she repaid Dave by pooping on his chair; don’t blame her as there was no litter box for her), so where was I? Oh, he put Simba in the office so she couldn’t escape through the doggie door but then didn’t OPEN the doggie door so that *I* had to get up at 1:45 and let the whimpering little dog out. Yes, as I was actually sleeping through the night until that point, we were not amused when he had prepared for NO ONE to have to get up and then didn’t follow through by actually opening the door. (I was a bit cranky when I figured that all out)

Last night was not much better except Dave had given me permission to poke him to get up and take care of the dog. It’s not much better seeing that I am still waking up first, but I certainly enjoyed the good poke I gave to get him out of bed. I confess that I can tell we both lie in bed waiting to see if the other one will get up and take care of whatever nighttime parenting chore we need to do. Or that could just be me. Nonetheless, I have earned a week’s worth of poking and I’m going to use it.

Patches actually scared us yesterday by not eating his dinner. And he did not eat his breakfast this morning. We called Dave’s sister the vet to see if we could wait to go our regular vet on Monday or if this was something more serious. She said it was very, very good that he wasn’t throwing up. She also thought that as collies are quite sensitive, he could be experiencing collie colitis—a stressful tummy. Irritable Bowwow Syndrome, if you please. She suggested cooking some lean hamburger (draining well of fat) with equal amounts rice until he feels better. I cooked it up and Patches stared at me slack jawed wondering what he ever did to be such a good dog for that meal. Needless to say, he ate it up and seems OK. Dave will still be on poop patrol tonight.

I’m running late, per usual. I want to get to bed early. And I still have some chores to check off my list before I’m done. Bleah.

Sat, 09 Apr 2005 22:59:10 GMT

The Oreo Debacle

So, yesterday, I told our favorite daycare provider that I found a Cheerio under Conor's chin when he was hanging upside down off my lap. Except, I think I said Oreo. I don't really know which I said, I just recalled later on Friday night her wide eyed reaction to what I thought was surprising but not astounding. I said, Yes, we've started on finger food for Conor. And he liked them.

Now, if I really did say Oreo, imagine her surprise that the first mother in the daycare who brings in her own homemade, organic babyfood is serving her child adult sized cookies as snack food. I'm going to have to clear that up on Monday.

Asparaguy

We have asparagus (asparagusses? Asparaguy?) sprouting up all over the place in the new asparagus bed. They are HUGE! Well, they are skinny! But a couple of them are over 2 feet tall now!!! We don't do anything to them except let them grow this year. I'll take a picture of them when they start ferning. It should be pretty.

Baby Crawl, Baby Booty

Conor is not crawling yet. He's scooting: scooting backwards when he's on his belly and scooting on his booty when he's sitting. He can form a bridge on all fours and when he's like that he's rocking back and forth like he's about to take off. But he remains a scooter. We're increasing our babyproofing rates because he's starting to move out of the 2x2 square on the dining rug into the kitchen and the hall. Yikes!

We've also got our first case of diaper rash ever...and it looks bad!!! He's got sores and even something that looks like mosquito bites down there. We called the doctor (because we're first time parents) and we're going to let him Be Free for a while tonight. Be Free?? What??? Yes, we're going to indulge in some Naked Baby Booty for a while tonight and let it air out! Can't wait!! It's too cute to hide anyway!!!

Mon, 28 Mar 2005 11:59:49 GMT

I Can’t Hear You

My hearing is really bad right now. I am developing a great deal more empathy for my Dad who has been having hearing problems for a while now. It really does feel like I have my head in a bucket of water. People’s voices are muffled and although I can make out a few consonants, I am guessing most of the time as to what people are saying.

But the weird part is talking. I’m talking much softer now, so softly that people can’t hear me. (That in and of itself is noteworthy as I am one of the loudest people you’ll ever meet). It’s even hard to think while I’m talking to others because I can’t hear myself. I can’t hear myself think!! Well, I do still hear those voices in my head, but I feel slower in understanding what is going on when I am talking interactions with others.

I have no idea how long it will take until this heals. I’m beginning to start all my interactions with an “I can’t hear you” just so my blank looks and inappropriate responses might have some patience. Or what the hell. I can mess with people’s minds by just responding to whatever I think I hear. Much more fun for me and I can make them work out what I’m trying to say. Considering the fact that I’m the queen of malapropism, they are probably used to it. Dave claims that I have subtitles that my closest friends are able to read. Just imagine: Loud and the wrong word! Must be fun being in my classes, right!?

Gardening

We got the asparagus and the strawberry beds in. I figure that not all of the plants we put in will make it. But some plants will and in a few years, we’re going to have a fresh asparagus in the spring and strawberries all summer. And that will not suck.

That said, I am damn tired of all this hard work in the yard. And that next year, we’re only going to put in the final landscaping shrubs and the garden. I need a year or two off from hard labor to enjoy what we’ve done. Damn, I’m really, really tired of working all weekend.

Boob Update

And finally, to the boobs. I’ve had three days of feeding on demand for the little guy. I think supply is still low because he’s woken up really early for the last two nights. Last night I think he woke up to the huge thunderstorm we had, but I didn’t hear it. He has put in an order for more milk, so I’m thinking that today I should produce more boob juice.

I’m honestly more worried about not being able to pump again. I’ll figure that problem out if I have to.

Off to feel incompetent at work again. Or resilient! That’s right to feel resilient at work!

PS: What the hell is wrong with Salon’s radio blogs??? They keep resetting the updated and ranking pages, and it looks like no one has been to my blog since Thursday morning. WTF?!

Mon, 14 Mar 2005 12:50:03 GMT

Soaker Hose

I have become a big fan of the soaker hose. Unfortunately, unless you’ve been doing a good deal of gardening lately, this part of today’s blog is likely to be boring. So feel free to skip down to the next section.

I love installing our landscaping. I hate watering it afterwards. New plants need lots of water. And the south can be fickle in how much rain it’s willing to provide to keep one’s shrubbery alive. The second problematic fact is that to adequately water plants, you need to let them get a lot of water. Superficial watering (just getting the top wet) does little. You need to let the bottom of the roots get water so that they grow and get deeper and thus get more access to more nutrients and water.

Dave and I have had several, ahem, discussions on our watering strategies. Some of which have ended up with me re-watering the landscaping and professing ignorance to his previous watering. I can tell you right now that it is boring as hell to make sure you’ve got enough water on a plant. And to really make sure our front and back landscaping can make it through the summer heat takes about 1 ½ hours of watering. And finally, I have to confess that I don’t find the zen in watering. It’s just time that I’d rather be doing something else and I start to skip plants and then feel guilty and go back and blah, blah, blah.

So, the soaker hose. You turn it on; it emits a bit o’ water and slowly soaks the ground around the plants. I’ve used it in the garden for the last two years and today, I put it in part of the front landscaping and on our new ligustrum trees/shrubbery in the back. Now, instead of standing there for an hour, I can turn the soaker hose on for 30 minutes or so and leave. Everything is watered and I am free to find the zen of yard work elsewhere.

I am Very. Very. Excited.

Patches Trusts Me

Welcome back to the more interesting part of the blog. While landscaping yesterday, we had both the baby and the dog out in the backyard watching us. The baby loves it. He watches us and plays with his toys and tries to eat the grass. The dog loves being out there watching and guarding the baby.

When we were finished and I had just installed the soaker hose (!), I heard Patches yipping and sounding afraid. I saw him turning in circles trying to pull something off his back side. I saw that the wire trellis that I’d put up way, Way, WAY too early for the garden peas was hanging off his backside. He must have run through the garden and gotten caught in it. But he was scared, he was yipping, and it looked like was hurting him.

“Patches! Patches!! PATCHES!!! SIT! SIT!!!!! SIT!!!!” I called to him.

I will never forget the expression on his face when I said that. He was afraid. He wanted help. His ears were down and his brow was furrowed. But he stopped turning and he looked at me. He looked at me and he thought. He considered what I said.

He didn’t believe that sitting was the right thing to do. “SIT!” I said again. And he sat. He looked at me and thought, “I don’t believe sitting is the right thing to do, but I’m afraid and you said I should sit, so I will sit.” He gently, very gently, sat down on the trellis hanging off his backside.

I reached him and started scratching his chest to help relax him. “Good boy, good boy” I said. “DAAAAAAAAAVE” I shouted.

If you don’t know me, then you don’t know how loud I really am. I thought Dave was in the house. “DAAAAAAAAVE!” I shouted with my deepest, loudest alpha bitch growl. Neighbors came out of their houses. Dave came out of the garage.

I had been trying to pull Patches’ leg out of the wire trellis off his leg, but every time I touched his leg he whimpered. “Get some wire cutters!” Dave ran back to the garage. I continued to pet Patches and tell him what a good dog he was. He was starting to completely relax in my arms. In fact, he put his snout on my arm; then he put it between my boobs and stayed there with his nose in my cleavage while Dave got the wire cutters. Apparently, my boobs are the source of comfort for both baby and beast.

The wire cutters didn’t work. A neighbor shouted out that he had some better ones. They went to retrieve them and my Mama adrenaline kicked in. I began to bend the trellis and tear it apart. By the time Dave got back we only had two more junctions to break. We freed Patches who was too afraid to stand (!) by that point and we had to try to get to walk around. He had a limp but he was ok! He even went to thank our neighbor (I am not kidding) for helping us.

There are two weird things that I come away with from this. First, Patches was subsequently embarrassed around me and right after the event averted his eyes from me. Why??? He was so relaxed in my arms while we were waiting for Dave. I could have held him all night like that and he would have been OK. Why was he averting from me when everything was OK? Second, Patches trusted me. He and Dave are so much closer than he and I are. But when he was afraid, I was able to reach him and get him to believe that I knew how to make it better. That made me feel good.

I’ve always had that trust with the cats. I’ve talked my cat Savannah (at 23 lbs, not a “kitty”) back off a beam suspended 12 feet in the air just by the tone of my voice. But I’ve never, before yesterday, seen that same sort of trust from Patches.

OK. I must get to work. Tomorrow, I’ll blog about the new cat pee policy. It’s working so far. No pee on my shower curtain for a whole week!!! Sadly, that’s progress!

Sun, 13 Mar 2005 16:39:14 GMT

Oh Yeah, Babeeee!

We’ve got sleep! We’ve got two 12 hour nights of uninterrupted sleep in a row!!! Well, not exactly “us,” the monkey had them. Nevertheless: WOOOHOOO!!!!!!

We are dancing the Snoopy dance of joy in our house, let me tell you. Saturday morning, I woke up at 5:30 am and was shocked. I woke up Dave “The baby slept all night!” He already knew this as he had woken at 4 am, check to make sure the baby was still alive, and couldn’t fall back to sleep. We slept for another hour and the baby slept for another 1 and a half. That is: Conor slept on his own, with no squeaks or squiggles, from 7:15 pm until 7:15 am. I didn’t even give him a before my bedtime boob. (You can accurately guess that the little guy was quite hungry when he did finally awake.)

So what happened? What was different? Well, we think it’s been a two week process. And we are going to cheer the No Cry Sleep Solution for the progress. First, we’re sure he’s eating enough during the day. Second, we’ve broken him of the suck to sleep association, first by stopping his nonnutritive nursing in the middle of the night and employing a great deal of back rubs and booty pats to help him back to sleep. Third, he’s finally bonded with his lovey. Dave found him sucking on the monkey’s paw on Friday night when he went to check on him (My boobs have been replaced by a monkey’s paw!). The really cool thing about the self-soothing is that we’ve noticed that when we stand behind him and watch him sleep, he’ll wake up, look around, and either grab the monkey or suck on his thumb and go back to sleep.

Fourth, I’ve started sitting in the room with him at night between when he finishes nursing but before he goes to sleep. Conor is playing in his crib at this point; he doesn’t need or want the back pats, but he wants to know we’re there. So I sit and read while he plays for 15 minutes and then he assumes the booty in the air sleep position and goes to sleep. (The next steps are that I’ll sit near the door and then I’ll just leave).

But here’s the final step. Here’s the “trick” that we think finally put him over the sleep through the night edge: an extra blanket. What??? Those of you from the old school of parenting may be thinking ‘You dolts! Your child has been too cold at night and you haven’t given him enough cover?!” Those of you from the new school may be thinking, “An extra blanket?! You child abusers!!! You’re going to kill your child!!!” The scoop is that in many new parenting guides, letting your child sleep with one blanket, much less two, is dangerous before 12 months old.

Well, we’re already flirting with that devil since the little guy has started sleeping on his belly. So we put another blanket on Friday night and we think that finally he was as toasty as when he sleeps with us to make it through on his own.

We’ll see if we get the same results again tonight. Another characteristic of both Friday and Saturday night was that we didn’t have that wake up every hour fussing that we’d had before. If we get the sound sleep between when he goes to bed and when we do, I think we’ll be set.

In other news

Landscaping

We finally bought the ligustrum for the back of the yard. They are gorgeous. Even better they were only $11 at Home Depot. We’ve been calling around to nurseries to find out their prices and the only one we found with even close to comparable prices was $15/plant. That’s goofy. I have no idea why I’ve been so reluctant to use Home Depot’s nursery, but we are now. We also found replacements for the pygmy crimson barberry that died in our front landscape and a new camellia sasquana to block our view of our neighbor’s back porch.

We’re also considering planting a self-pollinating peach tree in the corner lot and a hedge of blueberry bushes between the garden and the “entertaining” part of the lawn, sort of an edible border so that when we have lawn parties, people aren’t staring at our weedy garden. Plus, we’ll have the bonus of fresh peaches and blueberries for snacks, cobblers and ice cream in the summer!

OK. The little one is up from his nap. Time to go work outdoors on this gorgeous day.

Tue, 22 Feb 2005 12:37:01 GMT

Garden 2005

Spring has already sprung down south. In fact, we didn’t even have much of a winter. Not that I’m complaining, but I already feel behind.

This weekend, we fertilized the shrubs and put a systemic worm killer (i.e., the plants absorb it and only worms eating the leaves die) on the ground around the trees and plants that the canker worms consider prize picnic plants. This is the last time we’ll use that particular pesticide. We found some biologically derived as opposed to chemically derived stuff that should work better and not potentially kill us or the animals. I’ll let you know how it goes.

I’ve also ordered our seeds and plants from Cook’s Garden and Burpee. We’ve ix-nayed the zukes and cukes this year because they take up so much dang space. I almost didn’t buy any garden peas this year either, because last year they were a lot of work and not a lot of reward. However, I think I figured out what I did wrong and we’re going to work on it. We’ve also only ordered 4 tomato plants instead of 6 so that hopefully, come August, tomatoes won’t be hurling themselves at us as we walk by the garden.

The new things we’ve added: Cannelloni beans (or some variant), REAL red beets (not those white/red circular ones), asparagus to make an asparagus bed, strawberries, black-eyed peas and watercress. The successful plants from last year include the mesclun, okra, pole beans, eggplants, and chard. The kinda worked but not so well include the garden peas (see above!) and the pepper plants. Yes, the pepper plants are kind of expensive, but I want some peppers of color. And for the price of 6 actual peppers in the grocery store right now, we bought 6 pepper plants. So I think it’s worth it.

The really big news, though, is the cultivator/mini-tiller we bought on Saturday. It’s small enough for me to use but powerful enough to till our garden. Better still, it was a Consumer Reports best buy and we were able to get an additional $10 off of it because CR said it should cost less than what they had in the store. It will pay for itself in 3 years based on how much we’ve been renting tillers for! It’s definitely a splurge, but when I think about the quality of food we can grow and the amount, it seems worth it.

Of course, that means I’m back to Farmer Anita starting in a few weeks. Whatever. Soon enough we’ll have our routines set up and it won’t be so much work. Honestly, it’s easier now than it was our first year when we would have starved based on what we produced in the garden.

Cutie Booty

When Conor rolls over on his tummy when he’s sleeping, he’s taken to sleeping with his booty in the air, crouching on his knees in the crib. It’s very much like child’s pose in yoga, ironically. Nonetheless, it is so cute that I can’t stop going in to stare at him. And yes, I probably will take a picture of it at some time. I take pictures of him just sitting there. Why not pictures of him sleeping when he looks that cute?

Mon, 24 Jan 2005 12:41:34 GMT

Food

This is a slight change from the previous posts, but we’re in the process of deciding what we’re planting in the garden this spring, and it’s time to review how our frozen veggies turned out. We really like the freezer pickles, but keep forgetting that they are there. The regular frozen cucumbers (which we sauté) are really good, too, so we’re going to plant and freeze those guys again next year.

The frozen tomatoes, surprising, also turned out really good. However, those are definitely only for use in stews, soups, etc. Basically, it seems to me that they can be used anywhere you’d use canned tomatoes. We just put them under some running water, skin them, chop/slice them a little (or not), and we’re done. The frozen chard is good, but not as good as fresh chard. The pole beans are fine, but I think they have the same issue as the chard: we waited until they were too old before we froze them. They were past their prime already.

The shredded zucchini turned out really good. The sliced, frozen zukes, on the other hand, suck. They may be good in a stew or soup (I’m going to try them tomorrow in some ratatouille), but just sautéed, they are rubbery and horrible. We haven’t tried the beets yet, but because they were pretty lame in their original unfrozen state, I’m not holding out a lot of hope.

Speaking of ratatouille, that has been my “usual” homemade lunch for about 8 years now. I make a huge pot at the beginning of the week, divvy it up into containers, take it to lunch and make my coworkers jealous. Even the folks who don’t like veggies are hard pressed to resist the smell of all these stewed yummies in their herbs. I’ve changed, however, my technique at making it. I’m incorporating some hints from a recent Food And Wine on cooking quickly: Chop and Drop. No more mise en place in any of my cooking. I turn on the stove, heat the pan and start chopping. I’ve really reduced my prep time a lot, and only a few times have 1) the veggies had to wait or 2) the dish has had to wait for the veggies. It’s a boatload faster and clean up seems easier. And really, don’t all good recipes start with either an onion or garlic sautéing?

I’m also trying to be more imaginative and not rely so much on recipes. I do find that this means I have to have more general food things lying around (enough fresh ginger, jalapenos, green onions, peppers, shallots and basic meats) to not have something completely lame, but so far, this strategy is meeting my requirements of quick and easy.

That said, I am going to try out one new cookbook this year (unless I get Jacques Pepin’s new book Fast Food My Way). The one cookbook I’m going to follow more regularly is: Everyday Dining with Wine. Saturday night, we had a flank steak in herb dressing with a “matching” Zinfandel. I’m not a big zin fan, but this was really good. The cilantro/mint/basil mix of the herb marinated steak brought out the cilantro/mint/basil herbs in the wine. I would have never thought it so, but I’d take a bit of the steak and a sip of the wine and the cilantro/basil/mint taste was the same.

OK. No more discussions of food. I have to go to work and return early to meet the folks to install our new washer and dryer! Yes, we’ve been 10 days without adequate in home laundry. I can’t wait to wash and dry and wash and dry and wash and dry our stinky ash clothes!

Sun, 14 Nov 2004 17:49:37 GMT

Bounty from the Freezer

We’ve started eating the veggies we froze from the garden this summer. First, yummmmm on the freezer pickles! These are definitely a keeper for next year. They are tart, crunchy and easy to add to a weekend lunch. Even better, they were incredibly easy to make (basically send onions and cukes through the slicer on the food processor, add sugar, vinegar, salt and maybe some dill and freeze them). I also froze some cukes for sautéing, just julienned them, and put them in freezer bags. We tried those for the first time last week and they were great. It seems to me, too, that sautéed cukes are better for winter foods (e.g., heavier, roasted meats) anyway. So next year, we’ll plant and freeze cukes again.

The zucchini, on the other hand, has been a mixed bag. The shredded zukes are great. I used them in some recipe the other day and they were fantastic. It’s the sliced ones that didn’t come out so well. I may not have cooked them correctly, I just tried to sauté them. I think they may be better in some ratatouille or some other veggie stew or soup and not so much as a stand alone vegetable.

And can you believe we still have swiss chard in the garden? It’s gotten a bit gamey as Dave pointed out, but it’s still thriving. THRIVING!! That said, I did dip into the frozen chard for a quick stew the other day with yummy results. Next year, I’m definitely not going to plant as much chard. We don’t need a huge bed if it’s going to keep on and on and on!

So far, I haven’t tried the frozen pole beans, the beets, or the tomatoes yet. We will give those a test in the next few weeks and see what happens. With the tomatoes, I just need to just add some to a stew or sauce and see what happens. We have tons. I’m going to need to be creative with them soon to make room for meat from out Costco runs.

I’m still getting used to having a freezer. I forget we have meat stored out there until it’s too late to defrost it for dinner. Although when I do remember in time, I feel very frugal and mom-like creating a dinner from our food savings. Previously, I’ve either consumed what I’ve got fresh or store it away for the future. I haven’t figured out, yet, how to merge these two tendencies.

Although now that I’m writing about this, maybe we’ll have that frozen, gourmet chicken pot pie that’s been in there since Conor’s birth. Yummmmmm again.

Mon, 28 Jun 2004 13:20:02 GMT

The New Parent's Club

Yesterday, Dave and I met two other couples for dessert/snack. These are folks that we originally met at the hospital's childbirth class who are pretty cool. Even better, they are a little older than the average childbearing couple in this town, so we feel a kindred spirit. Of course, Dave and I are still the old farts by far. But they are not 15 years younger than us which is like most of the other couples we've met! Plus, we're all due within about one week of each other, so it's cool to be going through this with like minded folks.

It's really funny to hang out with soon-to-be parents. Each couple at some point expressed fear and amazement about what we were about to go through. There's this doe in headlight look that I recognize very well. The bummer is that although I feel small for other pg women my age, I definitely have the biggest belly in this group. And I'm also the shortest one! (BTW, I'm 5'8"!) So not only have we met other couples about the give birth, we've met taller people our age about the give birth at the same time.

I'm really getting into a state of insomnia. I am pooped in the afternoon and wide awake in the evening. I'm just really getting excited (and scared and amazed) at everything that's going to be happening in the next month. I want to start a pool on when the bun is going to pop out. Everyone says I can't participate because I'm the Mom---like I have some sort of inside knowledge. There is something inside of me, but I have little control over when it pops out!!

Here's what I do know: My due date based on conception is July 16th. Only 5% of women give birth on their due date. Summer babies tend to come a week late. First time moms average about 8 days late. Athletic women tend to give birth 3-5 days early--but I'm not sure I count as "athletic" any more because I'm not doing any vigorous exercise. I currently do not have any signs that I recognize as impending labor. I have no idea what to do next to start a pool, but I certainly have my own guestimates going!

Squash Vine Borer

Thanks to Dad for sharing his experience with the dreaded squash vine borer. This mean ol' bug is the reason why my squash are dying and not the overwhelming rain we've had. On the one hand, I'm bummed because we'll lose our plants within the next week. On the other hand, the squash and their output were frightening me. I think I can deal with the lack of squash by going to the farmer's market--even if I decide to buy some for freezing. According to the articles I've found, there are no known organic or biological controls for the bug; simply replanting the squash and going for a fall crop may be the best. I have to admit that sounds like a good idea right now. I can get a break now from the humongous output and when the rest of the garden will be dying, but we'll still be getting zucchini.

Right now, though, I need to tackle some paper work....not some vine work. Rain again today, but we're supposed to clear up by mid week. Woohoo!

Fri, 25 Jun 2004 14:00:59 GMT

The Bounty of the Land

We were in a drought at the end of spring and the beginning of summer. And yes, I realize that we have just officially entered summer in the northern hemisphere, but in the southern United States, summer hit here about May 5^th. Spring starts in early March.

But we were in a semi-drought, and Dave and I have been very worried about our landscaping and the garden. No more. Now we have entered into what I believe is the typical southern summer. Bright, hot, humid days followed by thunderstorms at night. It may be extreme right now. We’re getting about a half inch to an inch of rain per evening. But the plants are (mostly) loving it.

Our landscaping is doing so much better. The nandinas just took another growth spurt. Our daylilies are starting to bloom, a very pretty red with yellow background. The new magnolia recovered from a close brush with death and is now blooming and the camellias all look quite healthy. The hostas and the impatiens have both perked up and are growing. There were some shrubberies up front which were looking sketchy, but the rain has really, really helped them.

The garden, though, is the scary part. It is loving this weather. Well, most of it is loving the weather. The zukes are not happy. I had to pull up one plant this week when it just collapsed on the wet dirt. Of the other two, one is ok and half of the other one is wilting. I don’t see many blooms on them right now, so I’m not taking that to be a good sign. Oddly, the cukes are doing well, despite being ground dwelling, too.

Everything else seems to be a good state. The chard has grown back from my aggressive harvesting 10 days ago (I froze all of it). The okra is growing a few edible pods per day. I harvest until we have enough and then we have a good gumbo from it. The good news is that if the sketchy zuke dies, it will leave more room for the okra to grow. I’ve harvest about 6 tomatoes already---3 yellow and 3 red. And for all you new tomato growers out there, be sure to harvest tomatoes when they are turning color not when they have turned. The bugs get them otherwise.

The eggplants are producing, particularly the Japanese eggplants. The peppers are starting, but have yet to arrive at a good pepper popping. We’re going to have to pull up the beets soon and freeze them. But the carrots are not ready yet. Finally, for the veggies, the pole beans are about ready for their 3^rd harvest. We’re going to have pole beans out the ying yang all summer.

I performed some neutering activities on the herbs this morning. Although they are eager to procreate, I’m cutting off their blooms so they will focus on making more leaves and less on making love. The curry is not so happy. And the fancy purple sage wilted a bit under the sun. But everything else is turning into a big bush o’ herbs. It’s so yummy to go out and cut or rub them. The whole garden smells good. And it’s even better to start cooking dinner and think “Hmmmmm, what would taste yummy in this dish?” and go get it. That experience doesn’t last forever, so I appreciate it when it happens.

Of course, the garden is also sprouting a boatload of weeds and bugs. Yikes! This organic deal makes for some interesting work around the garden. And I’ve been up close and personal with more bugs and spiders than I care to admit. Including one small black widow looking thing; she was very small, but I swear I saw the red on her belly and her long legs. I thought, however, that black widows preferred dark dank spots so I didn’t know why she wanted to hang out in the tomatoes. In any case, she’s not there anymore, and let’s just leave it at that.

I’m trying to follow the philosophy of the Prodigal Summer. Gardens have good bugs and bad bugs. The bad bugs eat the plants and the vegetables. The good bugs eat the bad bugs (yay good bugs!). We want to keep the good ones, but insecticides don’t discriminate. Insecticides kill all bugs, both the good and the bad ones. The real problem occurs, though, in the fact that the bad bugs procreate much, much faster than the good ones. So that after one has eliminated all the bugs, the garden becomes overrun with bad bugs because the good bugs haven’t grown quickly enough to keep them in check. So, if you just let nature take its course, then there will be enough good bugs (and spiders) to feed on the bad bugs and the bad bugs won’t do that much damage.

That’s the bug plan. So far it’s working pretty well. I don’t note any real damage to the plants beyond a few holey eggplant leaves and it just feels better with a baby in my belly to use as few chemicals as possible on our food.

I spent the morning out in the garden weeding and harvesting and avoiding or ignoring bugs. Now it’s time to get some work done.

Thu, 17 Jun 2004 12:35:23 GMT

Sir James Galway

Last night was the last night of the Charlotte Symphony season and James Galway was the soloist. As I overheard one man say to his friend as we were walking out of the auditorium, "He can play a little flute." I love Southen compliments. The less effusive, the more impressed we are.

Bunny certainly liked his playing and responded to it by pretty much dancing a jig in my belly. I wonder if any of this music we hear will affect what music he likes later on. If so, he really likes the flute and clarinet.

And although I'm a day late: Happy Bloomin' Bloomsday. No, I didn't know at the beginning of yesterday that it was the 100th anniversary of Bloomsday, but every single program on NPR featured a Bloomsday special and Gallway even mentioned it from the stage. And although I hadn't heard it before yesterday, I have now heard 7 different versions of the Molly Bloom "yes, do me now" soliloquy. Yes it was good yes it was a right and yes celebration but yes yes why can't there be some yes variety. (<--poor James Joyce imitation)

Garden

Well, so far, I've made 4 quarts of freezer pickles, 4 quarts of swiss chard, 6-7 quarts of frozen zucchini and I have more food sitting in our fridge that needs to make a trip to the freezer. I didn't even go to the garden yesterday after Tuesday's first harvest of cukes, zukes, pole beans and okra. I'm sure the rain and the hot weather have conspired to provide even more, More, MORE bounty from the garden. Dave is actually checking out a friend's ever-so-slightly used chest freezer today. We'd rather have an upright, but the chest freezer's price may be right and it will be big enough to handle this year's frozen bounty. And our friends last night pointed out that if we keep "like with like" then we shouldn't worry about searching around for that lone bag of zucchini at the bottom of the stack. And lord knows, we'd never lose the ice cream in there!!!

The beets should be ready this weekend, but again, we're going to need to freeze some, and I don't feel like harvesting until we actually have the space to prepare and store them. (And we're going to have a boatload of beets. I cannot wait!!) I'll post my recipe for beets and dill salad up here later this weekend. Yummmmmmmm. I'm even hoping to freeze the beet greens as those are a nice tasty, tart green treat for munching on this winter. I do love my greens.

Off to think some great thoughts. Or at least some grape thoughts left over from yesterday.

Sat, 12 Jun 2004 16:26:00 GMT

It's a Jungle Out There

I've spent 4 hours this morning weeding our landscaping beds and watering the plants. So far, we've done pretty well. We've only lost one plant in the front beds, although some of the shrubs around the house are looking sketchy. I'm watering those tomorrow morning. In the back beds, we've lost all of the azaleas. At first, we were really upset. But then a friend who has a lot of landscaping experience said they are pretty easy to kill. So we don't feel too bad. They just look so sad. Finally, there appears to be one scotchbroom that's heading towards death. I don't think we've given them nearly enough water since we planted them. So hopefully, a bit more TLC it will survive.

As touch and go as the landscaping beds go, however, the garden is thriving. It is honestly frightening out there. If you look at where we were a year ago, it doesn't even seem like the same garden, much less the same growing season. The zucchini bushes are waist high. The pole beans are almost into the trees. There is no way I can walk into the tomato bed. And I'm having to prune back the cukes to keep them from invading everything else.

We have started freezing zucchini already. If I go a few days between harvests, we end up with some 2 foot monstrosities. Same thing with the cukes. I tried baking and stuffing the zucchini the other day, but it wasn't my best effort. I have to be honest with you that I'm still really digging sauteed cucumbers with a little bit of butter. That is really a nice smooth side dish which is easy to make. I think some fresh parsley would really kick it up a notch, too.

Thursday night, we had baked pork chops over swiss chard. We didn't use the stems in this recipe, just a massive amount of chard in a baking dish with oil and parmesean cheese and the pork chops on top. (bake at 450 for 18 minutes and YUMMMM!) Last night, we had whole wheat pasta, sauteed zukes, our first batch of japanese eggplant, home grown oregano and parsley and some goat cheese from Costco. Have to say that this may our new favorite veggie, pasta and cheese dish!

The cool thing is that we're figuring out how to freeze the veggies!! If we shred the zucchini, we can just freeze it outright. I like sauteed shredded zuchhini with a little parmesean, so that's ok. If we slice the zukes, we need to blanch them before we freeze them, but that doesn't seem so bad. We're not going to make regular pickles from the cukes, but make "freezer pickles" which just sounds easier. I've also frozen a few bags of plain cucumbers to see if I can reproduce the sautee cukes for this winter. We haven't frozen the eggplant or chard yet, but both of those just require a bit of blanching before they go in. And I have no doubt we'll be freezing the tomatoes because our choices are going to be freeze or open a road side veggie stand. We already have a massive amount of tomatoes already. The beets look about ready, but I harvested some too early a while back so I'm waiting on them. The carrots, onions and leeks are not ready yet. The okra and the pole beans both have something happening on them, so we may get a meal from them soon, too.

This is going to sound gross, but I have to share with you our new favorite salad. It's French in origin, so don't mock us too much. We gather some greens from the garden, clean them, and maybe add some bacon (or today, i'm going to steam some beets and add them), and dress the salad in a vinegarette. And then....here's the potentially gross part.....we poach some eggs and put them on top. It's really, really tasty. Yes, the yolk is still runny. But it contributes to the dressing. And it's really, really good. Dave even likes it, and he's not just saying that to be nice. In fact, we're going to have that for lunch when Dave gets back from Daddy Boot Camp today. Yummmmmmmmy stuff.

OK. I've cooled off now. Time to go do yet another chore.

Tue, 25 May 2004 12:47:11 GMT

Garden Update

Time for a break from all things baby. Today's blog is about all things green.

Oh. My. God. I cannot believe what is happening in the garden. It's amazing what some good dirt will do because I cannot take any credit from our learning from last year. OK, maybe the Burpee seeds were a better choice than Home Depot's. But really. It's nothing to do with us.

We have lettuce out the ying-yang. It's actually nice because I have not been a real fan of salads for dinner. But when you can go pick a basket and have fresh "veggie spring mix" right out of the garden, it's not so bad. Washing the lettuce is a pain in the booty. We're going "organic" so no pesticides. I have to inspect every leaf and remove all the extra protein. And the good dirt tends to cling to everything, so there is multiple washings. But it's sooooooo good!

Our herbs are doing well, too. Last night, I cut some dill to put over our salmon fillets. I love the smell of dill. And this year, we didn't get the fern dill. We got the stalk deal. The real dill. I'm afraid though that it may not be enough to last the summer. Although I cut entirely too much off last night and must figure out what to do with the rest of it today. Ya just can't throw dill into any thing; the food has to be dill friendly.

I'm actually frigthened of the pole beans and the zucchini. Dave thinks Patches may wander into the plant-zone and be held hostage for more fertilizer if we're not careful.

The best thing about the garden, though, is the smell. I remember that from last year. I had forgotten from growing up how all the plants have their distinct smells. My favorite is the tomatoes. They have this musty, earthy smell that merely brushing up against the leaves releases. I am flooded with all these childhood memories of gardening when I smell our tomato bushes. And the dill yesterday. I could have just rolled around on that plant yesterday after I cut off the fronds. It's such sweet and spicy smell. If there was fresh dill perfume, I would wear it.

So far, the only plants looking sketchy are the spinach and the leeks. We'll see how they turn out. The snow peas look as though they are not so happy with the heat. I think we'll pick what we can off those tonight to have with a roast chicken. The English peas have just started doing there thing. I'm hoping we can have a fresh "mess" of them for the weekend.

OK. Now off to work on writing for work. Yippee!!

Thu, 06 May 2004 13:07:18 GMT

How Green is My Garden

Lord have mercy. Last year, we would have starved if we had been pilgrims. This year, we have (currently) an embarrassment of riches. Granted some of this increase in growth is due to experience (a very small increase), but the rest is largely attributable to a truckload of good garden dirt from Blue Max Materials and good amounts of sun and rain.

The main thing we're dong differently this year is how we planted the beds. Now, for all of you out there who have tons of gardening experience, please keep your mocking down to a low howl of laughter. But last year, when the garden lady in the Charlotte Observer suggested rectangular bed for lettuce, radishes, beets, etc. I just sort of scattered the seeds in the bed. That was not the optimal method of sowing seeds.

This year, I planted rows of seeds about 3 to 5 inches apart within the beds depending on the seeds requirements. We also ordered the seeds from Burpee Seeds, a vast improvement over Home Depot. They have good instructions about what the heck to do on their seed packets. It looks really pretty because there are a multitude of beds with varying colors and textures of green. The only thing I'm bummed about is that I haven't been able to find any eggplant! And last year, the eggplant was so yummy. It's getting close to being past time to plant the eggers for the summer.

There are a few questions I still have about the garden peas and sugar snap peas. Do I need trellises? It seems like I should, but the packets said I don't and I've searched the web massively and still can't find out what the answer is. Any thoughts out there is blog land???

So far, we've got radishes and mesclun out the ying yang. The swiss chard (yummmmmm!), beets and carrots are coming along. Our spinach is not in the best place of the garden and it's showing. We tried leeks this year and they appear to be in good shape. I love the idea of not paying $1.49/leek to cook good food this summer. The beans/peas are actually beaning and peaing, which is well beyond what they did last year. We have a few okra coming up, but one whole row didn't make it. I have no idea why. The tomatoes, squash, and cukes are looking heathy. The herbs are herbing the best they can. The onions are ok. They are not going to win any prizes from this garden. I've got a few peppers already in and a few more to go later this week. The only thing I'm missing are eggplants. I'm really not sure what to do about trying to track them down.

OK. Off to work at home today and then run errands. Bunny boy appears to be moving up in my belly. What we think is his booty is finally above my outie belly button. And he's currently kicking my under my right ribs and poking me over my left hip. Or he's kicking over my hip and poking under my ribs, I can't really tell. Oddly, blogging about the whole birth process has calmed my fears. Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts and experiences.

Wed, 28 Apr 2004 12:44:42 GMT

Work at Home

I have a confession to make. Yesterday, I took a nap. A 2 ½ hour nap. I think that’s a sign that I should not regularly be working at home until we finish the garage-to-office remodel. I was reading a paper I need to review and I kept hearing my bed calling to me. So I gave in. It felt wonderful, but totally threw last night’s routine off.

It took me until 12:00 a.m. to get to sleep and then I kept waking up every 2 hours. I did discover during my light sleeping that the cats have been battling over who can sleep next to my belly. I had heard that cats like pg bellies (which I’m still not sure I believe), but considering all the places that they normally snuggle against, my belly usually isn’t one of them.

And it was not very comfortable. With Bunny pushing as hard as he could from the inside, the last thing I want is two cats fighting about who can push as hard as s/he can from the outside. Thus, there were kitties flying across the bed during the night, and not on their own accord.

The Garden

I’m still amazed at how much the garden is producing this early on. Yesterday, we had our first real harvest of radishes. Only, we didn’t eat the radishes; we’ll have them tonight with some salt. What we actually had was radish greens soup. I had found this recipe years ago in Food and Wine, but couldn’t find fresh enough greens to use with them. I figure that the 30 minutes it took to harvest, clean and chop them could count as “fresh.” And the soup was really good—very mild and tasty. I didn’t tell Dave until we were halfway through in case it induced a weeb reaction, but he liked it a lot too. And it just seems so gourmet and frugal at the same time! I love the idea of eating the entire plant. Actually, I can’t wait until the beets are ready. I love roasted beets, but it’s the beet greens that come out beyond delicious either steamed, sautéed or in a soup!!

OK. Off to work. I had to write this entry twice b/c stupid, frickin’ radio refreshed and I lost the original much wittier entry. I’m hoping tomorrow to finally post my review of birthing books. You’re going to be shocked about what is out there.

Sun, 15 Feb 2004 14:35:30 GMT

Anita Vs. The Ivy: Round 3

I hate ivy. I take that back. Partially. I hate out of control ivy that tries to take over our yard.

Round 1 of the this fight occurred during our first summer here. My goal: take out the poison ivy first. This, quite honestly, had to be my task because the dear husband is very allergic to it. He even walks near it and he's broken out in blisters of various oozing nature. Not a good look. (As an aside, his first outbreak was at our engagement party! It was funny at the time!) I'm not allergic to it so far. I say so far because according to some sites, people develop the reaction after a certain number of exposures. 15% of people are not allergic to poison ivy. So I don't know if I'm one of the lucky 15% or I simply haven't been exposed enough times yet. In either case, Round 1 went to Anita as I hacked off the ivy at its base and rounded up its little stubs to kill it dead. HA! Take that Poison Ivy!

Round 2 was last spring as we hacked the huge rope cords of regular ivy off of our trees. Dave actually had to get an axe out to cut the ivy off at its base. But now all our trees are ivy free and seem to be doing much better. We certainly are doing much better.

Round 3 started yesterday. We are preparing some of our beds for new landscaping, which we're going to do ourselves this time as opposed to hiring it out. The scoop is that ivy doesn't responde all that well to Round Up. Just spraying Round Up on it damages a few leaves, but this is hardy stuff. What one needs to do is to pull it up by its roots in the late winter/early spring when the ground is still damp. I cleared out half of the ivy yesterday. It was amazing: one yank would pull up 20 feet of vine. I'd think that I'd finished one section and be yanking up vines in another, and I'd be pulling up a tendril sneaking back to the cleared spot. This stuff is a virus. I'm actually sore this morning from all the yanking and tugging to clear out what we did. I think one more go at it will clear off most of the evil ivy. We're going to leave a big patch by the side of the house for some easy ground cover, but we're going to tame the parts trying to make it out into the yard.

Decor Redux

My wonderful husband brought home some new software: Total 3D Home. It lets you set up a room complete with windows, doors, closets, etc all the the exact measurements of your specific rooms. And then you can specify your furniture options and move them around the room and organize them. It even lets you paint the rooms and stain the furniture We have put the three rooms we're working on (master bedroom, family room and baby room) on the software and have measured all the furniture which has even some possibility of going in there. After spending hours figuring out how to get our furniture into the new master bedroom, we think we came up with a reasonable solution which will not be crowded. Our solution involved NOT putting a piece of furniture where it looked like it was obvious that a piece of furniture should go. It would have taken me a long time and a lot of effort to have finally gotten out of that conceptual rut and realize the solution was in not doing what seemed obvious.

We have also settled on a color for the room---ix-naying the monochromatic scheme for a one-half shade lighter version of the paint we currently have in the master bedroom. Eastway Paints (a Benjamin Moore paints dealer) rocks! If you're in the area--go there.

They are predicting snow again for tomorrow. We'll see. I think something may happen, but I'm still skeptical of anything major happening. We'll see.

Sun, 02 Nov 2003 21:02:22 GMT

Oh. My. God. For a few years, I've been bugged that gardening counts as "exercise" but housework does not. While I've been scrubbing the bathrooms and dusting and sweeping and working up a sweat, I figured it was some sort of sexist conspiracy.

But then there was yesterday. At no time after cleaning the house have I ever woken up in the middle of the night going "Ow! Ow! Ow! Tricep! Hamstring! Ow! Ow!" I've been hobbling around today with painful tricps, biceps, glutes, hamstrrings and quads. One could say pretty much everything. I'm surprised that my back is not in more pain since at one point yesterday the only comfortable position was standing up, but bent over with my arms hanging loosely by my sides.

What on earth did I do to cause my body such pain? Not that much. I planted annuals in one small landscaping area and then I went for a ring-around-the-humongous-tree of annuals in the front yard. 4 entire flats of pansies later....I'm halfway around the tree! *Four* Flats!!! That means that to circle the tree with pansies would take 8X6X6=288 plants. YIKES! The bummer is that I planted the half of the tree closer to the road, so I really can't see that many from where I'm sitting. Perhaps next weekend, I'll plant the other half of the tree. But OUCH! Oh, I almost forgot. I also planted about 80 bulbs in the front area, too.

So what have I learned? Bulb planters are a good thing. That's what I call this tool that you push and twist into the group and then pull out leaving a nice round hole and dirt stuck in the tool. You can easily plant a bulb and replace the plug of dirt you've just pulled out. Or you can transplant the annual into the hole and use the dirt to make a mound around the plant. It's a very nice tool.

I've also decided that it's much, much easier to plant into the bed after new dirt has been added on top. This spring, I think the plan will be to pull the old annuals out, rake up the crap, add a good amount of high quality dirt on the top and then plant the new stuff. We've also decided that as soon as possible, we're going to ring the planting area around the tree with gray slate. It will help define the planting area better. I also have a feeling that I am not going to be replanting annuals there twice a year forever. I'm thinking some sort of perennial will be a lot easier and not as many annuals. Even the three rows of annuals I have out there right now look pretty thin considering how big the tree is. Maybe next weekend, I'll go again! AHHHHH. Maybe not!

Booooo. The Carolina Panthers just lost. What a blast this season has been. We're going to see the Panthers vs. the Redskins in two weeks. I can't wait!