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Month: May 2014

woo!

woo!

spent 2 hours at the tattoo place today! got my book tattoo pretty much redone and the semicolon! woo!
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slowly but surely!

slowly but surely!

excerpt from DS writing because i’m lazy tonight.
My family lived on the farm my dad’s father had purchased in 1944, where we lived from 1979 to 1993. (The farm did stay in the family – we sold it to my cousins.) The house was the original house, falling apart at the seams as well as everywhere else. The kitchen tiles were so old, that a quarter of them were broken and missing from the floor. It was easy to sit on the floor and pick at pieces of tile. The kitchen was large, a real farmhouse kitchen with space for a hutch, woodstove, big kitchen table, fridge, and after a while a gas stove. It also was the place we did most of our living. After suppertime, my dad would quiz my siblings and me on geography, referencing the large, laminated map of the United States that hung on the wall. While our living quarters had definitely seen better days, I took pride in the fact that we were the only family I knew who had a complete encyclopedia.
In addition to the evergreens, we had acres and acres of wooded land full of oaks and maples, as well as a few apple trees. There was a large crabapple tree right outside the kitchen window that bloomed white, frilly flowers in the springtime that I would cut slips of to take to my teacher. It smelled delicious. There were also a couple baking apple trees as well as a few eating apple trees. When I was eight or nine years old, I went out to the baking apple tree, picked them, peeled them, and made a pie using the crust recipe on the back of my mom’s pumpkin pie recipe card. My dad was home, so there was no fear of me starting the house on fire, but when my mom walked in the door that evening, she was completely flabbergasted. So started a love affair with baking.
When we moved in (I was a newborn), the farm had the house, a barn, and a garage on the property. The house was yellow, but early in my life I remember a platoon of painters (all friends, family, and acquaintances, I’m sure) setting up shop on scaffolding surrounding the house, and the house went from the flaking yellow to a barn red color that would define the house for years to come. Whenever my brother, eight years my younger, references that home, he calls it the red house.
We spent many hours playing in the barn, charging up its stairs to the hayloft that didn’t have any hay in it, and playing house. I remember gathering nuts, grass, old vegetables from the garden, and sometimes dirt to pretend to cook – no doubt concocting something brilliant. The big white barn was built by my dad and grandfather, and it was a shock when I woke up one morning and saw the barn was on fire – a raging, huge fire. Firetrucks rolled in the yard and started spraying our house down so the fire wouldn’t spread. The barn and everything inside was lost, as well as a chunk of the large oak tree that defined our playtimes many days toasted. I was devastated when I saw the barn burning, not because it was burning, but because I realized it was probably my fault; we always had candles lit in the hayloft because it was dark in there. I imagined that candle I had burning down to its stub, then the flame licking along the old wooden dresser we sat them on, finally catching and causing complete disaster. I held onto this for years and years, and it was only in the last couple years that my sister and I (she felt as equally guilty) learned from our parents that the fire started in a completely different area than where we had our candles, and that it was most likely the cause of faulty wiring.

74

74

i walked outside today, and it was the most comfortable i’d felt outside since probably late august or early september. it was a gorgeous 78 degrees! it’s about time, mother nature.
i got home, changed into a tshirt and shorts, and strutted around my house completely comfortable because it was that perfect temperature of 74 inside. glorious!
then i went for a run, and i forgot how running with a little bit of heat kind of sucks. not so glorious. no worries. i’ll deal!
******
my tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, and brussels sprouts are in the ground! here’s hoping something comes of the seeds i started myself. i’m really worried about my tomatoes.
i think i want to plant another row of potatoes in a week or two so i have a more prolonged crop. i’ve got to do that with the lettuce and herbs, too, and maybe i’ll try it with the cucumbers.
*****
i decided to have a birthday party because i turn 35 – THIRTY FIVE – this year. ack. so bring on being with people i like, some booze, and a fire.

ATK: ultimate oatmeal cookies

ATK: ultimate oatmeal cookies

NOTHING WEIRD. i was shocked.
recipe
this recipe calls for pecans, dried cherries, and chocolate chunks, BUT it says you can swap out the additions for other stuff, so i used pecans, craisins, and chocolate chips. i’m not a huge fan of nuts in my cookies, so i put in about half the amount it called for.

is toasting your pecans a weird thing? i don't think so.
is toasting your pecans a weird thing? i don’t think so.

i am always a fan of oatmeal anything (except oatmeal raisin cookies, because they are SO DECEIVING!), so i skipped over the peanut butter cookies and went straight to oatmeal. maybe i’ll come back to peanut butter cookies.
dough
recipe called for it to make 16 cookies, and i got about 20 out of the dough. ATK calls for ginormous serving sizes. those cookies would’ve been the size of my head! there are a couple i made that ARE the size of my head!
cookie
these are pretty darn good cookies. i always have a tough time finding a decent oatmeal-chocolate recipe, so i’ll give the point to ATK.

excerpt from devil's syrup book

excerpt from devil's syrup book

i just finished up my environment chapter on devil’s syrup – it’s my longest one yet. and in case you needed any more of a reason to think i am a tree-hugging anti-establishment hippie, here it is.
“How are you going to feed the world.”
This is a question I ran across more than once while doing my research on corn. By the year 2050, the demand for food worldwide will be double what it is now, according to more than one study.[1] It seems that traditionalists believe the answer lies in the field corn that lines the roads I drive every day. Funnily enough, that corn isn’t edible off the stalk.
Our fields have been planted fencerow to fencerow; land is becoming so scarce now that, ironically, our pollinators are having a hard time finding their own food and living spaces. One billion people go hungry on this planet while about 30 percent of food produced goes to waste.  Meanwhile, chemists are finding ways to make corn grow closer together to increase yields so that half – HALF – of the corn crop can go to animal feed and thirty percent to ethanol production.
Dan Barber in his TED talk, “How I Fell in Love with a Fish” tells of the traditional agribusiness model and its simple statement, “if we’re feeding more people more cheaply, how terrible can that be?” What about the costs that come with that cheaper food – people’s health, local economies, the environment. Especially the environment, because without the earth, what’s the point of everything else?
I remember reading a passage about a farmer who planted corn. When the interviewer asked him about the corn he grew and if he would consider growing something else, he responded, “What would I grow? Broccoli?”
To which I say, why not? Sure, in the Midwest we have a short growing season compared to California, but if we grow crops that are sustainable, in-season, and native to the growing zone, it could be done. I think it’s time to turn the agribusiness model on its head. Food as it is has “…been the business plan of American agriculture…a business in liquidation…a business that’s quickly eroding ecological capital to make that very production possible.”
There are so many things we can do to help. Let animals eat what they’ve evolved to eat instead of something that requires antibiotics. Enable communities worldwide to grow their native food sustainably, helping the local economy as well as the local ecological system. Instead of gobbling up land to till and leach nutrients year after year, farm conservatively and in a way to help the land; you serve the land, the land doesn’t serve you. “Instead, let’s look to the ecological model. That’s the one that relies on two billion years of on-the-job experience.[2]” Consider growing the broccoli.
We need food?
So let’s grow some food.
 
[1] “Can we feed the world and sustain the planet? A 5-step global plan could double food production by 2050 while greatly reducing environmental damange” Jonathan Foley, Scientifici American, Nov. 2011. 60-65
[2] Dan Barber in “How I Fell in Love with a Fish” TED talk.

toodles, weekend

toodles, weekend

so begins my summer love affair with weekends. i’m so sad to see them go. BUT.
this summer i am in a house again. this summer, in my own house, i will be done with work at a reasonable time of day and be able to come home with a reasonable amount of daylight left in the day. this summer i’ll probably enjoy my weekday nights a little bit more.
man, the work hours at merrill sucked.
*****
i smashed my way through “fire and flood” by victoria scott. i really enjoyed it, but it did seem a little recycled. girl goes to life-threatening “game” to save a loved one, meets boy, decides to bring down the system with said boy.
now that i’m done with that, i feel kinda bleaaaahh in the book department. what do i read next? i have a collection of essays by john mcphee, but it sounds really boring compared to what i just finished reading. might have to go see what the library has for s. king books.
*****
someday i’ll go to the st. charles farmers’ market. last thursday was commencement; this thursday is TATTOO DAY.

signs of spring!

signs of spring!

when it’s warm enough to get outside, it’s time to get outside and do stuff. this is one of the reasons i love may (along with the greening of everything). it’s tied with october as my favorite month!
since it’s new house time, this means it’s time to get everything in order again outside. *sigh* but this is good – it gives me a reason to get outside.
yesterday my dad came over and we put together the garden beds in the backyard. after nate balked at how much dirt we would actually need, i poked around town and found a guy who delivers dirt. $100 for 5 cubic yards of dirt (that’s a lot of dirt). compared to the $280 at the first place i called, i say that’s a steal.
today the dirt showed up, but first i stained/sealed the post on the front stoop. it was a gross blond wood color and needed something.

the backside is stained; the right side is not.
the backside is stained; the right side is not.

after the dirt showed up, nate and i spent probably a couple hours getting some dirt back there. we still aren’t done; i figure another 25 wheelbarrows before the bare minimum is done.
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the dirt. omg.

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then i decided to try to get the rain barrel done. it was surprisingly easy.
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finally, i screwed in the basket hook on the front post so i have a place for both my fuschias.
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birdie

birdie

Yellow-rumped_Warbler_m17-48-113_lit was a little after 10 p.m. when i got home from commencement last night. i grabbed the pizza i had brought home out of my passenger side and went to walk in the house, when i noticed right there in front of the door was a little bird hopping around. i think he was a yellow-rumped warbler.
i didn’t know how long he’d been in there, but he didn’t fly away when i got near him, so i stuck a cup over him to make sure he didn’t hop under my car while i put the pizza inside. nate came out too and poked the little bird to see if he would take off – nothin’.
so i scooped him up and placed him outside on the grass, hoping he would find his way back to wherever he came from. he didn’t fly away or anything, just hopped, and i wonder now if he had a wing issue that i should have helped him out with before throwing him to the elements.
this afternoon i suddenly thought of him and wanted to make sure he got away last night, so i scanned the part of the yard where i’d let him loose. sure enough – there he was on the grass, dead. 🙁 poor little bird. i don’t know if he was on his deathbed when i let him outside, or if he just didn’t have the wingpower to get through a close-to-freezing night. maybe i should have let him spend the night in the garage.
i know he’s just a bird, but it makes me kind of sad.

no blog for you

no blog for you

commencement was tonight, and i’m bushed. on the plus side of working 13 hours, i get tomorrow off! maybe a more thorough post tomorrow.