Last summer Husband bought four tarragon plants to put in the big front garden bed. We had never grown tarragon before, and I hadn’t cooked with it that much. We found it a delightful addition to the garden and to our cooking. I was sad to see Autumn come and the plants die in the first freezes. I also thought the same thing about the spinach, a late season Italian variety called Gigante d’inverno, that we plant once the peas are done in August. It is a dark green, highly savoyed spinach with large leaves. It is pretty fast growing and cold hardy. It doesn’t like heat, but likes it cool, even if it gets snowed on.
Much to our surprise, all four tarragon plants survived the winter and are growing nicely. The same is true for the few stray spinach plants we didn’t harvest last year. I never realized that a tender herb like tarragon was hardy to Zone 4, and that if well mulched, the spinach can winter over even in North Dakota. I find that amazing.
Husband plans to have lots of herbs in the garden this summer. It is also a basil summer, as we are getting low on pesto in the freezer. Can you tell I am excited about getting into the garden?
What herbs do you like to grow? What do you like to use tarragon for? How are your garden plans coming?
Year after year people I know have been dumping their land lines.
For awhile I kept ours because I hate putting all my eggs in one basket, even if it’s a mobile-phone-basket. Then right about the time I was ready to let go, my mom decided to drop hers. Why would this matter you ask? Well, my land line was saved in HER cell phone contacts and no matter how many times I said “you know, you should probably just call my cell….”, every 3rd or 4th call went to the land line. Along with a voicemail saying “Oh, I guess I’ll try your cell”. Except for picking up calls from Nonny, I’m not sure eitherYA or I have touched the handset in over a year. Sigh.
Finally I took things into my own hands in January when I was visiting. I deleted my land line from her contacts and changed “She” to “She-Cell Phone”. One and done. If she has even noticed that I don’t have two numbers any longer, she hasn’t said anything.
That was the easy part. Now I have to figure out all the various reward programs that still have my old phone number attached to them. Every time I think I have them all, I stumble across another. The Container Store just two weeks ago still had the land line!
We’ve had some nice rainfall, and I’ve got the show open, and I’m trying to stay home and get ready to farm. Yet, every day seems to be interrupted by minutiae and farming has not become the priority it should be. Yet.
My brain cleared enough I found the three things I couldn’t find last week. Kelly pointed out to me the extra chicken waterers behind the house. Yep, that’s exactly where I put them last fall when that chicken hatched those eggs under the deck. And I found the rain gauge in the garage right where I thought it should have been last week. And it turns out the dog’s tick medication is good for 12 weeks, not four, so I had only bought one dose. And that’s why I couldn’t find more. There’s usually a rational explanation, isn’t there.
Over the weekend Kelly and I got 2/3 of the seed wagon cleaned off. (The “shed remodeling tool storage wagon”) so at least I have room for oats and corn seed and the oats will be gone before I pick up the soybean seed and then that can go on there. Daughter and all three dogs and I picked up oat seed on Monday. I also picked up another ton of the layer ration for the chickens. One ton, in 50 pound bags, equals 40 bags, so they are good for about eight months.
On Friday I got the tractor hooked to the soil finisher. If you park something in a field over winter, you need to put a board under the jackstand, otherwise it will sink into the dirt and the hitch of the implement will not line up with the tractor drawbar. I had a board under the jackstand when I unhooked it back in October, but the implement shifted and the jackstand slipped off the board. And then Friday it was 8” down in the dirt. I took a regular jack out to lift up the tongue to get it hooked to the tractor and that jack pushed down into the dirt as well. I had a board to put under the jack, but it was stuck under the hitch at first. Eventually I got that out and under the jack, and was able to raise it up, get the hydraulic lines hooked to the tractor, and attach the tractor and implement. See? I’m making progress!
I moved the chicks out of their first, smaller tank, and into the larger pen. They are about robin sized now.
The spring play at the college will close this Saturday afternoon and next week is a band and choir concert. We need to be out of the theater by about 5:30PM on Saturday, so we don’t have much time to dismantle the set. I hope to get things off the bookshelves on the set, and the small grand piano (it’s an electronic keyboard) off the stage. I’m hoping to get three or four strong young kids to carry it up the steps rather than tipping it on its side, taking off two legs, and trying to get it through a doorway sideways, like it came in. Goals.
I started delivering some straw this week.
Speaking of Straw, I was talking with a family friend about the hayrides that we used to do with 4-H or church groups. It used to be a very popular thing to take a tractor and wagon, make a pile of loose straw on the wagon, and then at night, in the dark, 15 or 20 kids would pile on the wagon and you’d go out in a field and drive around and push each other off, and by the time you got home again there was no straw left on the wagon. We don’t do that anymore. Can you imagine? What could go wrong?
I don’t know how come nobody got seriously hurt. My folks did it for the church youth groups for a lot of years. The only accident I remember is when one kid jumped off a wagon early and was going to cut across a corner of the driveway to catch a second wagon, and he ran into a barbwire fence. After that, the kids were told to stay on the wagon until they got to the field.
There is a story in my grandmother’s diaries of a 4-H hayride mid 1950’s, when the tractor slipped into a ditch. The wagon tipped over and several kids were hurt – none seriously by some miracle, but my uncle, who was driving the tractor, had several cracked ribs.
When our kids were young, the daycare would visit the farm and we used a hayrack with the tall sides, and they sat on bales, and we went in the daytime, and it was just a wagon ride. Not a hayride in my sense of the word.
I googled “hayride” to see if I could find examples of our type of hayride. Wikipedia says it’s a traditional activity consisting of a recreation ride which has been loaded with hay or straw for “comfortable seating”. They say it harkens back to farmhands or kids riding the load of hay back to the barn for unloading. And has since become a tourism gimmick to generate income for the farmer. I guess that’s one way to do it.
Husband and I have four rolling pins. Two are French-style ones I use for pie crusts, one is a knobby one for hardtack, and the biggest one with narrow grooves is for lefse. I use the French ones pretty regularly. The lefse rolling pin only comes out in November, that is, until now, thanks to my physical therapist.
My physical therapist really likes to attack knots in my sore muscles by vigorously rubbing them. This is not gentle massage. It hurts, but helps loosen the muscles. The other day at my PT appointment after the heating pad and dry needling there were very sore knots on the muscles on the outside of my right leg above my knee. My therapist got out a large and heavy styrofoam roller and rolled it up and down those muscle knots for about 10 minutes. After she was finished it felt wonderful. I told her I thought I could do the same thing at home with a rolling pin. She agreed, but cautioned that the narrower circumference of the rolling pin might hurt more than her roller did.
I spent a good amount of time Saturday doing my PT exercises and rolling the lefse rolling pin up and down the knots in my leg. I had the most pain-free day I have had in a couple of months.
What is your preferred rolling pin? What are some alternative uses you have found for objects? Any odd home remedies you have tried or heard of?
Last month, after my egg run down to the farm, I delivered a couple dozen to PJ. We spent a nice hour chatting and I don’t think we talked about eggs once.
Then as I was leaving, Hans came down and when we told him I had delivered eggs, he starting telling me about his little egg cooker. It wasn’t long before I was in the kitchen and he was demonstrating the various parts. (There aren’t actually that many parts, so it was a short demonstration.) It seemed very intriguing and with the internet at my fingers, I had ordered one before I knew it!
It’s a fabulous little contraption. It makes soft boiled and hard boiled as well as omelets and poached, if you want to use one of the little plates that are part of the kit. And it’s extraordinarily easy. I’ve been using it pretty regularly – mostly for soft boiled eggs, which I haven’t had for years since I can never get them just right using a pot of water. I also made a few hard boiled with eggs from the farm and got the brightest orangey-yellow egg salad I’ve ever had.
Unfortunately I can’t use it for the dyed eggs this weekend. The cooker requires a teeny pin prick in the top of each egg and that pin prick will let all kinds of dye into the eggs when they are submerged. Oh well, not the end of the world and my little cooker won’t be side-lined long!
Thanks for PJ and Hans for introducing me to my latest kitchen gadget!
Getting dressed is the official start of my day. All the things I do before I get dressed (Connections, crossword, Wordle, Duolingo) don’t count. This part of the day I am still in my jammies. While there were a couple of times I never changed out of my pajamas for the entire day (working from home, no zoom meetings), those were complete anomalies. Once I get dressed, I get on with my day.
Of course the problem is Wednesdays and my doughnut habit. For some reason, all bets are off about going to the bakery early in the morning and there are a sizeable number of Wednesday that see me at the bakery in my nighttime garb. Mind you, this is in colder weather when I can cover up with a sweatshirt or a winter coat – my summer nightgowns don’t lend themselves to early morning bakery forays.
This past Wednesday morning, I looked down as I was getting into the car and realized I was still wearing my slippers. Long story as to why I still had my slippers on, involving having to let the dog out earlier and it being quite cold that morning. I did sit for about 15 second debating whether to go back in the house to put on shoes and decided “what the heck”. Really what’s the difference between my Birkenstock clogs and slippers anyway, except for the faux fuzz.
This made me think about fashion in general. There aren’t really any rules about going out in slippers, are there? For that matter, except for not going out naked, are there any rules at all? Even the never wear white before Memorial Day or after Labor Day is just silly, right? And what’s the difference between my jammie pants and overshirt and any other nylon/orlon pants and matching shirt? In fact, why do we even HAVE pajamas?
I love house plants. Unfortunately so does Nimue. In the first few years after she joined the household, she has decimated ALL the plants. Nothing was safe from her. I can’t even start seedings.
As I realized she was laying waste to my house plants, I was able to train her to stay off the bookcase in my bedroom. YA’s fish, Sheldon has come to live in my room and I hoped that maybe a couple of plants could survive there. I pulled out all the books and them stacked them sideways at all different angles. When Nimue tried to climb up (as she had done many times before), her weight would shift the books and down they came, cat and all. it took about a month before she gave up; Sheldon and my two plants had found a safe haven.
Then about six years ago, I found an inexpensive coat rack at a garage sale. Just plain black metal but the arms stick out from the rack about 10 inches so it’s made a fabulous plant rack. I found some inexpensive macrame pot holders so they hang very prettily. Sheldon has since gone to that great fishbowl in the sky and a couple of succulents have taken his place on the bookshelf. In all these years since her catastrophic attempts to scale the books, Nimue has left the bookcase completely alone.
So when I saw class at Gertens for making a terrarium I thought that might make a nice addition to my small greenery collection. It was a Saturday morning – one of the only really cold mornings this year – and about 40 hardy souls had ventured out. They supplied everything: a little fish bowl, rocks, charcoal, soil, piece of screen and itty bitty plants. The two folks running the class walked us through the various layers and then let us loose to chose which plants we wanted, which rock, etc. I actually took notes – in case I wanted to make any more on my own. This turned out to be very helpful and most of the folks at stations around me took a peek at my notes while we were making our layers. The class was only about an hour but I really enjoyed it.
The gal doing most of the teaching also mentioned that if we wanted any little critters or fairies or gnomes, we should check out the fairy garden section of Gertens. I hope she got a commission as I think ALL of us stopped by there. I got little bunnies and a crystal sphere on a tree stump (it just spoke to me).
I don’t know if I’ll make more… I’ll have to research how to get the very small amounts of some of the layers (rocks, charcoal) without buying whole bags of the stuff. And, of course, I’ll have to find a spot where it will be safe from the Plant Ravager!
I’ve been a vegetarian for 51 years. At that time there was a company in California called Loma Linda who made a handful of meat analogs; here in the Midwest you could find them in the occasional health food store. I only tried one of their products once. Too much money and the taste didn’t appeal too much. It looks like they are still in business but I haven’t seen their products around here for a few decades.
Meat alternatives have never been a big draw for me. We do some vegetarian sausages regularly and occasionally a veggie hot dog or veggie bacon, but that’s about it. I’m not interested in fake tuna or fake corn dogs or fake chicken filets. There are TONS more vegetarian/fake meats out there these days but I don’t pay too much attention.
Last week Trader Joe’s featured “Vegan Pepperoni” in their monthly flyer and it caught my eye so I stopped by when I was out and about and picked up a package. Also got some herbed pizza dough while I was there (pizza dough is in the refrigerated section right beneath the pepperoni – coincidence?
I made the pizza the next day – tomato sauce, pepperonis, green olives, black olives, provolone, shaved parmesan/romano, mozzarella. It was quite yummy.
There is a half package of the vegan pepperonis left – I will probably make another pizza in the next couple of days. I’m pretty sure that the pepperonis won’t ben a regular purchase for us. While they were OK, they certainly didn’t make the pizza stand out. There are so many good things that can go on a pizza; pepperonis just aren’t necessary in my book. I’m not sorry I got them, just not looking forward to getting them again.
Yesterday afternoon, after doing a boatload of errands, I came home feeling… joyous. I’m not exactly sure why – it’s not my normal go-to reaction to doing errands. The only think I could think was that yesterday, I finally handled two issues that have been on my back-burner for months. Neither of the issues is the biggest deal, so it’s been easy to put them off.
The main reason that I addressed both these issues is because this meme has popped up a couple of time the last two weeks:
It’s funny because it’s true of a lot of us, especially me. But seeing it multiple times felt like an omen that needed addressing.
Anyway, when I got home in my great mood, I asked Alexa to play “Sugar, Sugar” by the Archies. I’m not putting the song up here because if you have any liking for it at all, you remember it. And if you don’t like it, I don’t want to torture you. But it’s a happy tune and it’s great to dance to in the kitchen while you’re putting away groceries. Alexa then went on to play a lot more bubblegum rock – more good boogie music. Gave the dog and cat some extra afternoon treats. Texted YA that I love her.
It makes me wish I had more things I’ve been putting off; wondering if I can recreate this mood at will by playing a silly song by a made-up cartoon group?
Do you ever dance in the kitchen? Sing in the car? Or the shower?
This weekend Husband and I are going to have a shred fest, disposing of lots of unneeded documents that we sorted through and discarded last Saturday. For some reason probably having to do with all the renovation in the basement, our housekeeping has really gone south over the past 18 months.
What with Covid and our busy schedules we have had very few guests over to the house in the past couple of years. Last Sunday that changed when Husband gave a cello lesson to one of our church choir members. The aspiring cellist brought his wife along, also a choir member, and we had to do a lot of house cleaning before they came. The dust was awful, and there were countless dog nose prints on the bay window that needed to be cleaned. We even cleaned out closets and brought lots of stuff to the thrift store. We also gave the basement a good cleaning now that the renovations are completely done. We were exhausted by the time we were finished.
We really don’t have a schedule for cleaning. We just do what needs to be done when we see it. I think that when we are both fully retired it will be easier to be more intentional housekeepers. Cleaning closets is pretty low on the list, but it sure feels good when I open the closets and see the organization and fewer things. I have the same approach to cleaning and organizing my desk at work. I have a far too grand, u-shaped desk at work that allows me to have stacks of papers that get bigger and bigger and still leave me room to do my work. You can see how ridiculously big this desk is.
I also have some odd figures that I have acquired over the years that hold pride of place in one corner of the desk. You can see them in the header photo. When the paper piles start encroaching on Moishe and Sigmund, then I know it is time to file things and straighten things up.
What did or does your desk look like at work? What is your decorative style?
Trail Baboon 