Gak! Guests!

This year's family reunion is going to be a little different than last year.  Last year, my mother and her two sisters (and husbands) got together in a rented house for a week.  This year it's only one sister (and husband), and it's at MY house.  Gak!  Thankfully, it's for only a few days.  (I mean, I love them and all and am thrilled to see them.  But hosts don't relax. At least I mostly don't. Then again, I don't often ever relax.  When I was married, we lived in a huge, 5 bedroom house and we had guests over all the time.  Lots and lots of them.  I remember an easter dinner where we served 26.)  As the years passed since my divorce, I've lived in smaller places and hosted fewer folks.  I looked in my towel closet the other day and realized that I don't have enough towels to be a proper host for even the three people I expect in a few days.  It's been that long since I've had a house full of life.  Even towels, those long-lived things, have disappeared somewhere along the way from 1998 to now.

Mom and I picked up the new/old sofa and chair yesterday (after taking the old sofa to the transfer station Saturday), so here's what the front room looks like now.  Much better than before!  Muy bonita!

This sofa and chair look like some offered by Pottery Barn (the Manhattan collection, designed to resemble furniture used in Manhattan nightclubs of the 1930s).  Their catalog shows that this set would cost $4400.  This ersatz leather stuff cost me about 3% of that.  Ho ho, hee hee, ha ha!  Of course, the true test is how long it will look this good under that onslaught of furry, muddy paws.  I'm happy to report that Maggie has shown exactly zero interest in laying on this, when given the option of the more comfortable (for her) stripey thing near the windows.

Eleven Eggs

Must. Use. Up. Eggs.

The chickens are giving me 4-5 eggs a day, and I've been consuming 2-3 eggs a day.  After I filled up my third dozen (three dozen in the fridge and increasing daily), I declared a house emergency, googled "use up eggs" and found some recipes that should put us in the good soon.

This here lemon curd consumed eleven eggs (!!!), some whole and some yolks.  It will go on a pound cake (6-8 eggs).  Last week I made a sausage quiche (6 eggs).

My religion is egg-based.  I've been eating 2-3 eggs a day for about 25 years and when the talking heads said, "don't eat eggs," I shut my ears.  This glut of eggs and me trying to put them into everything I eat means that my food seems more ... whole, more substantial than the carb calories of my friends.  If loving eggs is wrong - I don't wanna be right!

Benign Neglect

Last year I was brutal in my efforts to "improve" this area and others around my new/old house.  I took out a bunch of stuff, planted other stuff - all before knowing what was in here before I came.  Yeah, I know.  Dumb.  In my infinite wisdom, I managed to eradicate horseradish from here - at least I couldn't find any this year after digging out a ton of it last year.  Bleh on me.

A few hardy things managed to grow despite my "help," like one, lonely foxglove.  I didn't know what the yellow thing was, so after looking in all my wildflower books and not finding it, I asked here, on this blog and got the answer tut suite.

This year is different.  I've learned (a little anyway).  I'm gonna let my plants express themselves.  The foxglove is back in yellow, and in purple, too!  You may be able to see those above.  A bunch of mystery stuff is here, too.  Some of it I know from last year is coneflower, and the rest of it, we'll just see. 

Looking at the magnificent mess from the side shows that peonies are still blooming, invisibly, below the canopy.  This is one area where I wish I could turn back time and leave it as it was when I came to this house a year and a half ago.

Pear Pests

I took a few minutes to walk around my small orchard yesterday evening and saw these pests on one of the pear trees.

There's the ants, and there are these tiny, green "balls" bunched up at the new growth at the top of the plant.

First, does anyone know what they are?  All the online pictures of pear pests show them fully grown (or at least all I could find in a 10-minute search). 

Second, can I assume they're pests, and not good?  (There I am with this whole white hat-black hat thing again!  In my newbie world, things need to be good or bad.  Shades of grey will come later, with wisdom.) 

Third - what to do about them?  Spray them off with water or soapy water?

SAP = Life

I've been getting into the depths of SAP for a project at work.  The kind of depths where I have to cancel all my meetings so I can concentrate for long periods of time on multiple tables, data field names, queries and all sorts of "fun" stuff.  (Or maybe I was looking for an excuse to cancel meetings!) 

I get so wrapped up in computer stuff that it takes over my life.  I get amused that I can name an infoset with 9 joined tables after myself.  Next I'll be naming infosets amusing things like, REALLY_GOOD_INFOSET.  It took me days to make a really good query that doesn't work right, and have to change the infoset, which means changing the query, and back and forth we go.  I remember this type of work from some programming work I did years ago, back when they had this thing called a command prompt, and this other thing called DOS.

After hours and hours of SAP work, I looked up and saw a neat, swirly icon.  Hovering the cursor over the icon shows that it means Enhance.  My brain is discombobulated in SAP-land, so the first thing I thought was, "How cool!  If I click this button will my life get better? Will it be like going through a wormhole in space and everything will be wonderful?"

Even better is the icon two to the right of Enhance.  It looks like a matchstick, but it's really a magic wand!

Tonight I think I'll dream about clicking buttons called Enhance and swirling into a better world...

Playing Before Bedtime

A few evenings this week, I got a kick out of playing with the goats for a while before I put them to bed.  I had a terrible time getting them to go in the shed on the second night.

I had to push them in.

I came inside and told mom about this, and she said, "Of course.  Every parent learns not to play with the kids before bed."

Persistence Pays and Clearing the Deck

I wanted to get rid of my uncomfortable sofa and had a picture in my mind of what I wanted. Even though I wrote here that I didn't think I'd be getting a new-to-me sofa this year, I kept looking, and finally found exactly what I was looking for.  It's even vinyl.  And really cheap.  We'll be picking it up this weekend.  One of my characteristics that I most like - I don't give up easily.

Which leads into item number two.  Mr Third Date never stopped texting me, even after he no-showed on a Saturday morning date almost two months ago without apology, email, call, or anything.  Somehow I let it go, and we got close to getting together again this week.  I had a chance to think on Friday as I was mowing the lawn (good time to think, mowing the lawn!), and I came inside and cleared the decks.  No more Mr Third Date, about 6 weeks too late.  Sometimes not giving up easily means things last longer than they should.

Visual Progress Report

June 15th status of everything in the south yard (from lower center left clockwise):

- Woodshed rebuild is not complete.
- Chickens are happy, but not being moved frequently enough (coop is difficult to move), they leave denuded dirt in their wake.
- Cherry trees and orchard doing OK.  Apricots are just beginning to leaf out.  If they're this slow in future years, I doubt I'll ever get apricots.  Moved a bunch of rocks from here today on my day off (cue any song about the hard rock pile).
- goat shed and yard.  Spent 1/2 hour last night before bed time with them in their yard.  They are really amusing!
- garden raised beds.  Planted a bunch of stuff I've never grown before without doing research on how or when to harvest!  I'm not going to complain about this "problem."
- sundial.  Slowly removing grass from around the rock it's resting on. Considering which ground cover to use.

(Yeah, OK.  This seems Power-point-y to me.  I do project updates like this for work ALL the time. Finally - a project update on something I care about!)

Disposable

This, my friends, is a push nut.  It's a little bigger than an inch in outside diameter and until yesterday it held a tire on my hand truck. 

You can see that it's not holding anything now because it's broken. I broke it, trying to get it off so that I could replace a hand truck tire that won't hold air. This push nut is designed to stay on, and never be removed.

After I broke this push nut, I spent hours (OK, maybe minutes) looking up where to get more.  I've stopped by two hardware stores today so far, and while they sell push nuts, they do not sell push nuts this big.

I've gotten myself into a little bit of doo doo with this one. All because I'm trying to replace a tire on a piece of equipment that's likely designed to be disposable. (Never mind that I may have been able to get the tire repaired without taking it off.  We're a little past that point, now.)

I'll give the big box stores a shot, then may try to order this push nut online, where if I find it, I'll have to order at least 10 of them.  Anyone want a 5/8 ID push nut, or a few of them?

The Wellies

It's been rainy, cold and crappy for six out of the last eight days and these wellies are getting a lot of use.  (Rainy, that is, when I've been home.  It was sunny and wonderful when I was trapped behind a desk.)  I'm beginning to get a feeling of dread that this summer will be a repeat of last summer, where June in Albany was the wettest June EVER. Next week's forecast shows scattered showers or thundershower possibility every day except Tuesday.  Good thing I'm taking Tuesday off work, or else I might be heartbroken for lack of sun.  Me and the basil, which is turning yellow and red.  (The basil I started is doing fine.  The basil I bought is becoming colorful.  Hmm.  Another drop in the bucket of starting vs buying started plants.)

An Embarrassment of Riches

When my friend Linda was here, she identified a bunch of my mystery plants.  Like this one, she pointed out, is stinging nettle.  (Aha!  So THAT's what made my thumb tingly and numb for an entire day!) 

See the stingers on the stems?

And the stingers on the leaves?

As I walked the goats back and forth through the week, I noticed this "ground cover" around an apple tree looked newly familiar.  Stinging nettle.  Then I saw it near where the fire pit used to be.  And more of it all over the orchard area.

I've got a TON of this stuff.  It's growing in all the places that were disturbed last year.  Time to do some internet research on how to get rid of it.

After reading about all the medicinal uses of this stuff, how it can be eaten, made into tea, astringent, diuretic, etc, etc, etc., I'm wondering if I should be harvesting it instead of trying to kill it.  Do any of you folks do anything with stinging nettle?

Hillbilly Parking

Some of us hill folk have to be taught how to act in the city!  It's a rainy day today (again! for the 5th or so time this week!), perfect for running errands.  I took mom into the city to a few architectural salvage stores.  There was a world cup soccer event taking up most of the parking places, which doesn't bother this creative, country person!  Note my big black truck parked cattywumpus to all the other cars, which are lined up so primly and properly parallel to the curb.  (Big props if you knew what "cattywumpus" means before you looked it up just now!)

Serene Saturday

It's thyme time. This ground cover is expanding in several places in my yard.  Not knowing that, I planted one in the kitchen garden where it is thriving.

The Pond

Update on the neighbor-guest "issue,"
I spent a major part of yesterday being worried and distracted about this thing, and hours (really - hours!), finding out what police phone number I should call if this happens again.  I left work at the end of the day not knowing who to call, spoke with my mother when I got home and she told me that a white work van came up about 9 am and sat in my driveway for a few minutes before leaving.  When the feller drove away, he put his fingers in the "peace" sign out his window.

That's how I had left it with him yesterday morning, "Peace," after asking him to turn the music down and listening to all his reasons why he felt the need to drink a lot of beer and play music loud.

Anyway - the state trooper finally called back and I spoke to him.  My town doesn't have a noise ordinance, so he's not breaking the law.  However, Mr Trooper said that 5am is out of line, and police would respond if I called in the future.  I've got phone numbers now, for the state troopers and the county sheriff.  He even offered to go talk to the guy (I passed), and said that it's OK to call 911 if he comes back and sits in the driveway again, so I feel better about the whole thing - at least for now.

On another note...

I'm only half embarrassed to say that when my friend was here last weekend and we were catching up, it was mostly about guys.  She had some luck (the exact, right amount of luck) with match.com, a site I haven't used in years.  So I signed up with them and am impressed.

The pond is a lot bigger over there!  That means more very interesting people, and more weird people.  Here's an email I got yesterday:

Subject: Match.com Message: Capricorn?


do you like men in general?.....do you need a handyman?.....do you have hairy legs or pits?

I would entertain the idea of travel to NY., not a problem for me. Your line of work sounds interesting. I would like to know more, please.

Homesteader? hmm
xxxx
Saco, Me.
------

Sigh .... just ... sigh.
I'm not going to respond to that one.
 
Last week someone emailed me to ask if I had nice feet, not to be odd, he said.  When I responded that it was odd that feet were the most important thing to him, he wrote that he had never said they were important.
----
 
Sigh again. That was the end of that.  I'll let folks like that have the last word.

Thanks Linda!

Good Neighbors

The neighbor-guest down the hill who's been playing music very loud in the mornings finally got me at a weak spot.  A work morning when I could be sleeping.  The music woke me up this morning at 5.  Seeing red, I threw on some sweatpants and roared down the hill to find a guy with a beer in his hand doing an  imitation of Leonardo Di Caprio, "I'm the king of the world!" on some rocks.  The music was playing from his work van.

I had to yell a few times to get his attention (the music was really loud), but he apologized a thousand times and tried to beer-ily explain his situation.  One of his reasons was that he likes to get away on the mountain for the quiet.  (Um, yeah.  Me too.)  When he started to put his arm around me and suggested that that he'll bring some steaks up or I should come down to dinner, I backed off and got out of there.  I really hope I didn't replace one problem (loud music some mornings) with another problem (amorous, unwelcome neighbor).

I made feta cheese last night with 2 gallons of raw milk.  It drained in the sink overnight, and this morning I cut it up and put it in some brine I made up last night.  I hope the taste of this cheese improves with brining. This might be the first cheese I've made that I don't think is edible.

Here's the young, small orchard.  First, two apricot trees.  Then two pear, and finally, one apple tree over by the dogs.  It seems like I wouldn't need another apple tree, but Esopus Spitzenberg apple was recommended by a few people and I wanted to try it.  I have to get another pear tree next year because according to the nursery, the Seckel needs to be pollinated by two other types of pear and I only have one other.  I need to clean up all the small rocks before I can mow the grass over here, and I should re-seed.  The grass I planted hasn't really come up. Some sort of protection for the little tree trunks would probably be a good idea, too.

[Edit: I went outside an hour+ later (7 am) and the music was on again, louder than before, and he was yelling. This is thorny. The phone number I have for the lady who owns the house doesn't work, although I have some options for getting her phone number. The next time her dogs come over I can read their collar tags, or I can stop by a bar I know she frequents and ask the bartender. Next step is to call and talk to her about this guy. If that doesn't work, would I really have to call the police? That seems a bit extreme. It really annoys me that someone else is rude enough to play excessively loud music at 5 in the morning and I'm the one trying not to piss anyone off. Is it possible that I'm being unreasonable wanting peace and quiet at my place in the woods, and I should just go ahead and let him play his crappy music??]

First Day

I'm halfway into the fire department, approved by the members, but not yet approved by the commissioners, which will happen Monday.  The department has weekly drills, and me and one other new guy went to our first fire drill last night.  I got to suit up and hold the big hose!  (well actually, it was a small hose and it didn't have a lot of pressure, but anyway...)

Embarrassingly, they couldn't find any pants that fit my womanly hips.  It's all made for a man's shape, so it'll be a pretty big man whose small hips will be big enough to fit my shape.  Sigh.

Article on Goats: Charlotte, North Carolina

This article is from the Carolina Weekly.  Sorry, no pictures...

Planning the return of UCity's green goats



June 4, 2010 University City’s green goats are off the clock.

A team of 15 goats needed less than a month to clear some 2 acres of brambles, poison oak and brush off the grounds of Environmental Way’s Louis Rose Place land in University Research Park. The goats, from Wells Farm in Horse Shoe, served as an alternative to “diesel-guzzling” machinery, according to Beth Machen, project manager for Environmental Way.


Environmental Way takes over what used to be an IBM facility on Louis Rose Place. It’s a move in the right direction for University Research Park, according to Mary Hopper, executive director of University City Partners, as Environmental Way embraces a number of green initiatives.

The building will be the area’s first “LEED-Certified Platinum” building, according to Machen, with updated air and heating units as well as an energy management system. Tenants leasing room in Environmental Way’s building must meet certain green guidelines as well.


With environmental friendliness in mind, Environmental Way leader David Bowles agreed to call in the goats May 7 to clear undergrowth near his building. University City Partners organized a festival of all things green to celebrate the goats’ arrival. The Charlotte Area Transit System, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department and others provided information.


The goats were gone by Memorial Day, having eaten most of the underbrush inside their fenced-off forest and starting to look elsewhere for a meal. At least one goat decided to hop the electric fence in search of greener pastures, getting a small shock for her effort.

University City Partners already is planning another Green Goats and Gardens event in University Research Park next year, Hopper said. Meanwhile, Environmental Way hopes to soon sign a lease with its first tenant – Southern Energy Management, a sustainable energy company.

The Goats Are Getting Bigger

Our twice-daily practice on the leash and time spent together is getting to be fun.  I'm trying to handle them a bit more, their legs, their feet, etc., so they get used to me doing stuff to them.  We play for a few minutes in their area before they go into the shed.  They play king of the mountain on a bench and do real sk8boarder antics jumping off the bench.

Every morning when I bring them into the overgrown area (the same one for the last 2 weeks), the first place they go is to this blueberry bush, and then the next blueberry bush.  I don't mind donating 2 blueberry bushes to the goats - I've got plenty more, and they're learning valuable skills, like how to push down a branch and how to work together.  It's for a greater cause!

The Whole Reason

The whole reason why I planted broccoli rabe is in this Broccolini salad from the Duplex Diner in Washington DC.  I had the salad a few times when I lived in DC from 2003 thru mid-2007 and it is To. Die. For.

I planted rabe seeds in March, nursed it along, planted it in the ground, and then got busy, and now it's begun to bolt.  Even though you see the recipe plain in front of you, it occurred to me exactly 1/2 hour ago to look it up online.  Before then I had a memory of a yummy salad and was thinking to send my Dad to the restaurant to order some and figure out the formula.  My Dad is laid up these days and I was bereft for weeks.  What to do?  What to do?  (I may be an engineer, but there's a difference between being engineer smart and being "smart" smart!)

So, anyway - I stood looking at the bolting rabe and it occurred to me like a thunderclap.  Email the restaurant!  Ask them for the recipe!  I came inside, got online to the website and the menu - and there's the recipe, plain as day.  Sometimes it's convenient when restaurants list every single ingredient on the menu!

PS:  I think maybe I planted these things too close together.  Lesson learned!