On traffic...

I ride in a vanpool to get to work now. It's not so bad. I ride my bike about a mile and a half to meet the group. We all (about 9 of us) pile into the van and ride into work.....way, way out on the edge of town. It's kind of like a road trip everyday, which is fun. This morning when we were sitting in stop and go traffic on the freeway someone looked out the window and realized that the person in the car next to us was a co-worker as well and on their way to work too. Then, they saw that another person on the freeway around us was a co-worker! And then I was struck with just how many cars there are out there making traffic. My office alone houses about 200 employees...even with vanpools and carpools I bet you could safely say 100 of the cars on the freeway every morning are due just from us. Let alone all the other Mega-Tech companies on the edge of town who employee multiple times that......and I was sad.

I really don't like cars and I wish they weren't such a necessity. I know they are going to be more and more expensive in the future. I like to daydream about my country cottage, a few miles outside of town, surrounded by trees and a steady drizzle. Then my heart sinks when I realize that dream probably requires a car, or better yet a truck. Ick.

Stuff I got done over the weekend.

I didn't quite get everything done this weekend that I had planned. But, I did:

• Make a batch of yogurt (My last jar went sour so I had to buy a new starter from the store. Damn!)
• Make salsa from homegrown tomatoes, onions and chiles (I had to buy the cilantro. Damn!)
• Cat-proof the garden (I haven't been out to check yet, but I am assuming the garden is currently poop-free.)
• Make spaghetti squash for the first time (it's really fun and delicious!)

There are a few zucchini left on the vine that I don't think are going to get any bigger. Also, with our recent heat wave (80 degrees) we've gotten a lot more tomatoes that are ripe. I meant to harvest before I left for work this morning, but, well, it just didn't happen. I also meant to make a Kerry Apple Cake this weekend from our last few apples, but, well, that just didn't happen either.

Next weekend it's time to pull up the cucumber vines, beans and peppers and put down some cover crop and cat proof that part of the garden. Maybe I can sneak another row of onions or garlic in there somewhere too.

Back at work.

I'm getting back into the groove of working all day. So far I have been fairly successful in still cooking from scratch most days and doing my projects in the evening, like making pickles on a Tuesday night. I was sure this morning to wake up a few minutes early so I could prep my pie dough for dinner tonight. It didn't take more than five or ten minutes to mix and then place in rounds in the fridge to rest until this evening. Of course, doing this and not getting home from work until 7pm means dinner time is now usually somewhere around 8:30, which means by the time we eat and finish cleaning the kitchen there is only another hour or so until bedtime!

I started a new knitting project last weekend too. I've had the pattern picked out for quite some time, but I just hadn't gone out to get the right size needles and the yarn. I'm making some nice tall arm warmers with thumb holes. I'm pretty excited about them. In discovering my office mate is also a knitter (and much more accomplished and experienced than myself) I have brought my knitting into work. I've been able to work on it during the lunch hour, and the last couple days during the day too. I'm working on a feature film now and since there is only one project we are all working on, when one department gets backed up it goes down the line. We have been waiting for that inevitable tidal wave of work to rush into our department all week and while we've been waiting, we've been knitting.




On the schedule for work this weekend: Cat-proofing the garden! It's been a constant struggle all summer to make the cats learn that even though there are three giant boxes filled with dirt in the front yard that it does not mean they are litter boxes. We tried the stuff you sprinkle around the edges of the garden that is supposed to repel cats and other critters. Our guys were walking right through it ten minutes after application. We tried the motion activated sprinkler, which only goes off for shadows of a windy tree, but not for cats walking right in front of it. We tried BBQ skewers pointy side up throughout the garden. I managed to poke myself on them a few times, but the cats are more agile than me and just wrap themselves around them. Now, however, that we are starting a new season and going back to the dirt level with new seeds we are going to get some chicken wire and lay it down on the dirt and let the plants grow up between it. This way (theoretically) they can't dig at all. They'll probably just poop on top now. Sigh...

Weekend Update.

Harvested today:

• 2 tomatoes
• handful of beans
• handful of blackberries
• about 5 pounds of onions
• 2 pickling cucumbers
• 1 lemon cucumber
• 1 bell pepper
• 3 chile peppers

Planted today:

• 2 rows garlic
• 2 rows shallots
• 1 row arugula

Other notables of the weekend:

• Went to the ReBuilding Center, Home Depot, Lowe's and IKEA in search of a screen door and a bathroom lighting fixture. Returned home with new water glasses, a mixing bowl and a drill.
• Stood in the rain for five hours to see Willie Nelson in concert. It was worth it.

Now to make that apple pie...

The 'Burbs

I work in the suburbs now. Even though the commute is pretty brutal; I'm glad I don't live there. Although, just working there is making my life harder. My last job I worked in the city, so close in that when several of my co-workers had ridden their bikes into work in the summertime we would all ride over the bridge into downtown together for lunch sometimes. There were a plethora of restaurants and food cart pods for any lunchtime craving within easy walking distance. If there was an errand that needed running I could do it on lunch no problem. Run to the post office, run to the bank – and all with no car! And then I could hop on my bike at the end of the day and be home in a half an hour.

Now, I work in an industrial park on the edge of the suburbs. Another two exits on the freeway and it's farmland. There isn't much within walking distance. Within a mile there is a slew of fast food joints and a grocery store, but they still require walking almost 2 miles round trip and eating all on my one-hour lunch break, which gets tricky. Forget about trying to run errands on lunch without a car. Even if I were to take my bike to the bank, a mere three miles away, it would be on busy streets with high speed limits and I would have to cross the freeway. It is just not conducive to any transportation other than a car. It's depressing.

I grew up in the suburbs where you didn't walk anywhere. You needed a car because that's the way everything was set up – they didn't give you another option. And then you get into that mindset and find yourself driving the car to the other side of the parking lot in the strip center instead of just walking. I like that where I live now everything is set up the other way around. Hardly anyplace has a parking lot; they have store fronts that are set up for passing pedestrians, not passing cars. When you go out there are people walking everywhere. The streets are small and speed limits are low. Most of the time it makes more sense to walk or bike than drive a car. It slows things down a little and makes people nicer. They get more fresh air and have to see you face to face, not through the tinted barrier and anonymity of an auto.

I'm pretty bummed that I have to spend most of my time back in the suburban land now. It's a stressful place to be. I'm really going to have to make the most of my weekends and slow down the pace of my life at every opportunity. This weekend I have some fall gardening to do. Putting out garlic, shallots, onions and I think one more row of arugula. Tomorrow I'm canning apples and I might make a pie.

OMG-The Patio is Done!

Yesterday was a very long and tiring day. We started about 9:30am and finished about 4:30pm. But we finished and now there is an awesome patio in the backyard!

First, we dumped gravel into the patio hole and spread it out and rolled it flat.

Then we started laying bricks and pounding them in.

As we went we added sand and packed it in with the big water rolly thing.

Then we were done and took a shower and drank beer on the patio with the dog.

The cats really loved the giant pile of bricks we had in the yard the last month. It stayed warm long after the sun went down and they would lounge on it about dusk. Tim is sad the pile is gone. There are just a handful of bricks left, but he's still sitting on them.

Late summer harvest continues; harvested today:

• 2 big tomatoes
• 6 yellow pear tomatoes
• a handful beans
• 5 pickling cucumbers (this is the last of them, the rest of the small cucumbers are rotted on the vine)
• a few pounds more onions
• 1 bell pepper (first of the year! We'll be lucky to get three total)
• 2 zucchini

As a side note, I am officially gainfully employed again as of tomorrow. Time management is going to be rough. I'm already trying to figure out my canning schedule for next weekend. Let's see how I fare keeping up on all this while working full time!

Late harvests.

It has been a weird and unseasonably cold summer in these parts. Actually, I have been hearing that from a lot of parts this year. It's already September and the clouds have rolled it and it's chilly and wet. And just today I got my first tomato, and my first good Lemon Cucumber, and the first good batch of cherry tomatoes, and the apples are finally ripening. Summer harvest comes in the fall.

Non-Commercial.

I took a vow to myself a little while back that I was going to stop buying commercial products across the board when I could. I've taken out most of the commercial made food products from my life. There are, of course, exceptions. I buy pre-made salsa and chips, Trader Joe's boil in the bag Indian Fare, and a few other things, but not really that much – I stopped buying paper towels too and switched to just regular towels. Next I am no longer going to buy commercial cleaning products. As we run out of various things I'm just not going to replace them and I am going to use some combination of vinegar, baking soda and Castile soap.

We ran out of generic surface cleaner for the kitchen counters a while ago. Mike's work has a Kangen water filter, which produces alkaline or acidic water, which is not only supposed to be good for drinking, it's great for cleaning. So, now we fill up a bottle of acidic water and use that. Maybe I'll start adding a couple capfuls of rubbing alcohol to it as well for a little extra cleaning punch.

We ran out of toilet bowl cleaner last week. Yesterday was the first day cleaning the toilet with vinegar and baking soda. It worked! The vinegar helped sterilize a bit (but really, it's a toilet, it's not going to be that sterile) and the baking soda helped to scrub away residual stains. And when the two come together they sizzle, which is kinda fun. Like pop-rocks.

We are running low of laundry detergent too – that's next on the list. There are several recipes online for homemade laundry soap, but I would prefer to not cook soap for a day. That just sounds like a lot of work. I saw a recipe for homemade laundry powder at one point and I am going to try to find it again. Either that or go with simple diluted Castile soap. Done and done.

Striped Hat.

My most recent knitting project – Striped Hat.

Now that I have proven color change capabilities to myself I want to try cables.

Baking vs. Schedule

I learned something this week. If you spend six days waiting for a loaf of bread to be ready for baking, don't skimp out on the last hour of rising just because you want to go to a movie that starts at 4. It does make a difference.

It's hard to see from the picture, but the sourdough is definitely dense. It still tastes good though.

The pear thief.

I left the house on my run this morning and glanced at the pear tree to see how the pears were doing only to find I didn't see any pears on the tree. We've been robbed! Seriously though, there are a couple pears up high and a couple rotten ones left on the tree, but the rest have been stripped. Who does that? I would think anyone who would have a mind to need an entire tree's worth of pears would also have a mind to not steal from their neighbors. This is why I don't like living in the city – people are just awful. Can't I have a little house in the woods where no one will bother me and I can keep my pears?

Onion harvest.

I harvested the first batch of onions. They are curing in the sun as I type. Very exciting.

Harvested today:

• A few pounds Siskiyou Sweet onions
• 2 zucchini
• a handful yellow pear tomatoes
• a half pound beans
• 1 pickling cucumber

The Patio Hole.

It's been a while since we started the patio hole. Mike and I weren't getting too far too fast with our various ailments prohibiting working for more than a few minutes at a time. Plus it's kind of a sucky job and got pushed down on To Do lists pretty often. We got some help though and this morning Mike's mom and her husband came over we finished the patio hole!

If the weather holds we will finish it off in the next couple weeks! It just needs a layer of gravel and then the bricks and then some sand. It's going to be like a whole new yard with a patio back there. I'm already thinking about the landscaping we could do next Spring in the back to really tie everything together.

Pantry Expansion.

I have a tiny house, with a tiny kitchen, with a tiny pantry. Well, really, there is no "pantry" per se, just some cupboards. I have two cupboards acting as the pantry right now. It's filled to the brim. I also took over a shelf in the plates cupboard for bulk food items like rice, dry beans and oats. When I started canning I ran out of space and fast.

Before I knew it we had stacked all our bowls and plates together and had potatoes piled on top. Every time I needed to get a plate out I would have to move a pile of other things to get down to the size plate I needed.

So we decided to turn our hall closet into food storage for canned goods and what not. I am totally going to start buying flour in 25 pound bags now. I had found some good metal shelving at a decent price that I was all ready to go buy when Mike came home from a run one day with a giant shelf. He found it about 7 blocks away and carried it home on his back. Hooray for free stuff when you need it!

I finally got around to labeling everything that has been canned so far this year and moved it out of the kitchen. It was very liberating. And there is so much space for more!

We got our first real, mostly ripened apple this morning, so there will be lots more canning starting up around these parts soon.