I am a Cheater

Ive been caught!!! Im confessing now to the whole wide world. You will all hate me. There is nothing worse than to be labeled a cheater.... so? Ladies? Gardening Guys? Is this forgivable???

Wow! Ive cheated and put my garden on water timers :) Life is going to be so much easier. Have you done this? No longer do I need to waste time watering! Timers and soaker hoses are going to allow me to do other stuff around the garden and give me much needed valuable time.

I Cant Sleep

I keep thinking about that fence I need to build and that sprinkler system I need to put in to save on water and save me some time too. I keep thinking about how hot its been inside the house during the day when outside temps hit 100+ degrees. We have no A/C. I keep thinking about our garden too. 

Doesnt that dessert above look extremely juicy and appetizing? Well, it sure as h*ll was!!! The shortcake we baked at home in the skillet and topped with our own berries and strawberries, plus homemade whipped cream.... DELICIOUS! No need to add sugar in the whipped cream, the berries did all the sweet talking here (click the image to see it full size if you're hungry).

This morning for breakfast I juiced several of our carrots, a melon, a cucumber, a bell pepper and mixed it in with my super greens powder (from ShenTrition). I had so much energy all day, I ended up not eating anything the rest of the day. Well, until my espresso here at midnight. The garden is bursting. Theres only two of us. My neighbors get fresh veggies too. We cant keep up, things are growing so well.

So in thinking about the garden, and how it is exploding with fruits and veggies... I realized we havent gone to the grocery store for fresh food for a while now. I mean... I dont even recall when it last was. Probably a month ago? We just eat what the garden deems ready and necessary. Lots of tomatoes with fresh mozzarella and basil leaves lately :)

This is a testament to our hard work. Now, I cannot imagine life without a home garden. There is nothing better in life than to slow down, relax, and eat from God's earth. Nothing better in the world!

Postscript... We have easily surpassed last years harvest. Our new goal is 200 lbs of produce!

Hello & Goodbye

We have been taking a much needed break lately and enjoying our crops. We are picking anywhere between two and four pounds of produce a day now. We quickly surpassed the 100 lb. mark a few days ago and now my eyes are set on breaking last years tally of 140 lbs. Just this morning I picked a 1.5 tomato and we have 15+ more like it (those alone should help top last year). I am nursing along three gigantic tomatoes that Im sure will be in the 2-3 pound range. Cucumbers are coming in all the time for fresh salads and our dinners are as simple and light as some fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, basil, olive oil and a little salt to taste. So, a BIG hello to our fresh produce. I cant remember the last time we were at the grocery store!!

As much as I have liked the Martha Stewart Living magazine...

 

... and some very excellent articles and issues in the past years, I am going to say goodbye to it. I have been a long time subscriber... probably 10+ years (i have all the issues) and I used to read my moms issues before that. Mainly for clever and cool arts & crafts tips and ideas. Now that we own a home, it has been nice to see home furnishing tips too.

BUT... and this is a big but... Over the past year or two I have noticed a huge increase in advertising space. It used to take me a while to read through each issue, now? 20 minutes tops. I decided to do two blind tests with the latest issue. I would pick a 30 page block of pages in two different areas within the magazine (not too close to the front or back as those are mostly ads now). The heart of the issue. Two different places. 30 pages.... Here is what I found. Test #1 - I counted 16 pages out of 30 were MS stuff. Test #2 - I counted 15 pages out of 30 were MS stuff. Thats pretty well darn near 50% of the magazine being ads now. I dont like it. The ads are distracting and worthless to me. The articles... while I like most all articles, as a long time subscriber I notice more and more articles are reprints of past issues! Ugggh. OK, getting back to the tests I ran. I noticed that each Martha page there was an ad. Almost each page anyways (cept for the new article page which was full page). So most pages with MS stuff on them had a half page ad. So I recounted... Test #1 - was really 12 pages out of 30 of Martha Stewart articles (or 60% ads) and Test #2- was 12.5 pages out of 30 MS articles (or 58% ads). Yikes.

Here I am long time subscriber, not too happy anymore, gonna cancel when my subscription time comes around. I have 10+ years of magz and not sure what to do with them (they do make great insulation!). To reduce our space I am thinking of going through each issue and cutting out the pages of info we like. Thats what I do with Sunset magazine. We'll gain plenty of space as those shelves of Martha Stewart Living magazine are bending precariously lower and lower as time goes on. So, a solemn goodbye to Martha Stewart... I think your reign has ended babe. As a side note, I still like the marthastewart.com website... quick and easy to find recipes there.

PS.. here is a tip... Last time I ordered MS, I told them I was a fan and asked if they could give me a big discount if I subscribe for several years. I ordered 5 years at $8 a year... not bad :) Ive done this with Sunset magazine too. Im sure it will work with others if you just call the magazine directly and are prepared to pay with a credit card. A great money saving opportunity if you know you want a particular magazine.

Antique Rocking Chair

The story goes, soon after we bought our house, we went looking for a rocking chair. We looked all around. We didnt want to spend a lot of money, so we bought what seemed to be a sturdy rocking chair at a really good price. Turns out now, we see the same rocking chair in a lot of stores :) The more we used our chair, the more it loose it became. And the more we didnt really like the black finish either.

Browsing around on the net, I came across a simple technique for getting that OLD look. It was actually quite simple! But first, I secured all the joints I could with long screws. I sunk them in well enough to add in some wood putty. After sanding those, covered it up with some black paint to match the rest of the chair. Then came the trick...

We decided on a white chair being better to lively up a room. First, I dust the chair well. and got it ready for painting. The, and most important, I used a candle to rub onto the chair where I felt the chair should show some wear from over the ages. The seat area, The arm rests, around the rockers, etc. After I did that I proceeded to paint the chair white, in my case it was an "antique white" or "shell white". So it wasnt a pure white. After the white fully dried (i let it dry overnight), I used both a green scouring pad and also some medium to fine grit sandpaper to lightly sand and rub the wax away revealing a black underneath the white. I really had fun doing this and it was pretty easy. I finished the chair off with some polyurethane clear satin spray paint I had in the garage, which was done after I took these shots.

You can only imagine all the cool things you could antique with this method. Picture frames, benches, desks, etc.

So let me know what you think! Did I distress the chair too much? Could I have done something different or better? (click pics to see 'em full size)

Our 2010 Garden (so far)

This year Im planting way more than just tomatoes. We are enjoying it so much by having a great variety of veggies and more. Ive just updated our year to date total coming in at 68 pounds so far. If I had to make a guess, Im sure we'll surpass 100 lbs with what stuff we have coming in. 30 lbs will be easy to do.  Veggies are coming in fast now, at least a couple pounds a day. We usually bring them into work and make cucumber and tomato salad at lunchtime. MMMMmmmmm!! The first batch of potatoes are coming in now. Cant wait to try them! Not sure how to cook them. Mashed? Crashed? Latkes? French fries?

We are also planning on a fall/winter garden as well, which we didnt do last year. Maybe that will put us over the top of last years 141 lbs?

Fruits & Veggies:

Tomatoes (8 varieties), Peppers (5 varieties), Potatoes, Squash, Honeydew, Garlic, Lettuce, Salad Greens (4 var), Radishes, Beets, Carrots, Spinach, Pumpkin, Cucumbers

Trees/Shrubs:

O'Neal Blueberry, Heritage Raspberry, Knotts Boysenberry, Valencia Orange, Eva's Pride Peach, CA Curl Free Peach, Dwarf Anna Apple, UT Sweet Pomegranate, Mini Royal Cherry

Herbs:

Spearmint, Lemon Mint, Peppermint, Mint Julep, Cilantro, Chives, Dill, Rosemary, Parsley, Oregano, Sage, Sweet Basil, Greek Basil, Pineapple Sage, Lavender

2010 HARVEST: 68 lbs.

2009 HARVEST: 141 lbs.

2008 HARVEST: 25 lbs.

2007 HARVEST: 20 lbs.

2006 HARVEST: 10 lbs.

Want to see more harvest photos?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/1916home/

Albertson's Files Complaint Against Farmers Market

In the Southern California city of San Dimas, a big conglomerate supermarket "Albertsons" has filed a formal complaint against the city for its Farmers Market.

In the formal complaint it says "Albertsons is a good corporate citizen that supports the city of San Dimas, but they will stand silent no longer." The letter goes on to state that Albertsons sales has been "severely impacted" with an 11% loss in sales on Wednesday nights, when the Farmers Market is going on. The complaint states that their parking lot becomes congested due to the farmers market, which is in fact shared by many other stores... Starbucks and CVS Pharmacy to name a few. They also complained about the increased use of the toilets in the supermarket. Albertsons has expressed their "disapproval" of the Farmers Market, meaning shut it down or move it.

Whats your take on this? Chime in by posting a comment. Should the city move the farmers market? Is 11% loss of profit considered "severe"? Whats next? Will Albertsons want CVS to move if CVS starts selling produce? After all, thats what other supermarkets are doing to mom & pop pharmacies all around the country. Undercut them and run that out of business. Must have learned that trick from Walmart. Would you Boycott Albertsons? Boycott the farmers market?

My take on this is twofold. #1 Albertsons doesnt like competition, and #2 people are waking up to the crap these grocery stores are selling. Drinks filled with high fructose corn syrup and almost all processed foods these days have some sort of soy in them (soy causes a decrease in male sperm count and increases hormones in males i.e. man boobs = these are facts now not here-say) and people just dont want GMO foods. Why buy processed foods when they can get organic and nonGMO fruits and veggies that are local and not trucked in from Ecuador, Bolivia, etc. Heck, Ive seen Albertsons fresh ground beef that says "product of Chile, Brasil, Mexico and USA" on the label. Who wants to eat THAT??

I stand with the San Dimas Farmers Market on this one. I hope they win!!! But what do you think?

IT'S LOVE

Bisou is a proud kitty and being recently shaved, his manliness is evident. Heidi noticed this and has been hanging around Bisou ever since! They have become close buddies. We caught this shot a second before the big kiss. Bisou always has a happy smiling face and Heidi always seems to have a question mark tail. Notice her 7 toed "mittens". I was not a big fan of her when we got her, but she has really warmed up and has become one of the family for sure!