Sometimes...

Friday morning, we got a call from my mom.  These kind of phone calls have become somewhat of a routine joke in our family.  However, Friday's call made me uncomfortable.  My mom knows more about what is happening around us then we realize.  We have joked about the calls about cannibals in Rio, the jumper in the apt right below us, the terrorist car bomb a block away, rats at the Taco Bell we secretly frequented and several other incidents but Friday made me wonder.

10 minutes after the shooting, mom calls to say that a designer named Jeffrey just shot a man at the Empire State Building.  Her first question was "Do you know him?"  Tim and I had to laugh but when I googled it - there it was on my laptop - a designer shoots a co-worker at 10 West 33rd St across from the Empire State Building.  I tend to be a little superstitious about coincidence.  When we bought the property upstate, the owner coincidently worked for the realtor who sold me my apartment in Manhattan who also lived on the floor beneath me.  I considered it Kismet. Or, is the world just getting smaller?

I am a creature of habit.  I have worked in the same neighborhood for 14 years.  I get off the subway at 32nd and 6th.  I walk down 33rd St. to the art supply store at 14 West 33rd St. before I go into the office.  I get coffee at the Starbucks on the corner of 33rd and 5th, cross the street to my bank on 34th and 5th, grab an egg McMuffin at 33rd and 5th, pick up my prescriptions at CVS Pharmacy at 32nd and 5th, passing my old office on 32nd and 5th on my way to my new office at 29th and 5th. I frequent Mandoo dumplings for lunch at 32nd and 5th,  eat too much yoghurt at 32nd and 5th and catch the subway back to the apt... I pass that corner way too many times in a day for this not to feel slightly uncomfortable.  However, I hate people who attempt to personalize events that didn't affect them. It just creeps me out that that guy possibly might have stalked his old office waiting for the right moment?  We happened to take Friday off and both Tim and I were glad that we were upstate - far away from the chaos.

There are days when sometimes... I think we would be better off moving permanently to Bovina sooner then later.  I have other memories just as uncomfortable - standing at the corner of 33rd and 5th watching the first tower fall on 9/11.  When we have weekends like this one upstate - that are so perfect - I have to wonder why would we continue to go back and forth to Manhattan?  It turns out that the guy who was murdered Friday went to school in Oneonta - 40 minutes away from us upstate - that headline was on the newspapers as I walked into our little post office to get our mail on Saturday.  I spent the three days working in the garden, perfectly quiet, watching the leaves start to turn red,  picking blackberries, digging up potatoes, picking cucumbers, making jam, having cocktails in the backyard. watching the sunset, having a quiet dinner with a friend,  drinking coffee while watching the frogs in the pond.  Sometimes....I just wonder.

In The Pink

Friday morning, when I woke up and made a pot of coffee and went for my morning walk in the garden, I half expected to see a disaster in the garden after we had been gone for 3 weeks.  However, it's as if the entire garden had changed it's color palette from mid summer white and yellow to late summer pink.  The hardy hibiscus and flox and hydrangea and coneflower all bloomed simultaneously and it was  a sea of pink.  The smoke bushes are also purple and had grown 2 feet in the same time period.  The lawn needed mowing and the weeds in the mulch are horrendous but the garden was In The Pink.

Summer Harvesting

It's time to start raking in the vegetables and fruit - it's been a dry summer so some of the veggies aren't looking so great.  Being gone for the last three weeks didn't help.  Lost some tomatoes, zucchini just isn't doing well, pumpkins are struggling and the potatoes are on the small side - but what we lack in size we make up in quantity.  It was hot out but we dug up all our potatoes and despite how dry it's been the blackberries look better then ever.  We washed and dried the potatoes and put them into paper bags to store.  We washed all the berries and put freezer bags of them in the freezer and made a large ball jar of blackberry jam to use immediately.  We will start more bread and butter pickles next weekend.

DIY Beach Chairs

I have had these beach chairs for over 18 years and they were vintage when I bought them.   I purchased the pair of them at an antique mall in New Braunfels, Texas and threw them on the back of my little red Miata at the time and took off.  I have repainted and re-fabricated them so many times and they just keep on going.  I use them for the front porch and they have a canopy for shade on them but haven't used that in a long time.  They are comfortable and functional and so easy to update.

San Antonio Week

What a great vacation! It was my mother and nephew's birthdays so we made a trip to San Antonio for a couple birthdays and lots of Tex-Mex food.  I hate Texas in August - it is just disgusting - UNBEARABLE WHO COULD LIVE HERE HEAT - however with a pool, LOTS  of air conditioning, BBQ ribs, puffy tacos, queso, guacamole, an unbelievable brunch ( Thank You Linda!) , lots of brain hemorrhage shots at my brother's nightclub Zombies and some outlet mall shopping in San Marcos - it was hmmmm tolerable.  However, United Airlines - the worst airlines ever! Exhausted, but Happy Birthday Mom!  Happy Birthday Devin!

Sookie Napping

Sookie is getting more mature and calm now that she is exiting her terrible twos.  However, she still hasn't mastered lady like sleeping behavior.  She sprawls wherever she feels comfortable.  She gets this from Tim.

DIY Herb Drying

When Tim and I were designing our gardens - it was essential that we had a herb garden right outside our back door.  What we love about summer cooking is being able to step outside the kitchen and pick any herb we would need for recipes.  In addition, we grow a lot of extra herbs for tea blends that we make and we added blueberry bushes and an apple and pear espalier.  We need to add raised lettuce beds out there next summer.  However, we started picking herbs to dry and store this past weekend.  The best thing about this is that we know that the herbs are pesticide free. 

For DIY dried herbs, simply do the following.

1. Harvest your herbs. Make sure you cut herbs in the morning, before the heat of the afternoon sun wilts the leaves.

2. Tie bundles of herbs together at the stems, using thin twine or ribbon.

3. Hang your bundles to dry in a cool, dark place. We hang dry our herbs in the basement or we use pasta racks in the kitchen.  Hang drying takes a week to a few weeks, depending on the moisture level of the herbs and moisture levels in the air. Check on your herbs every few days, and once they are dry and crumbly to the touch, remove any twigs or sticks and crush the leaves (you can use a fine sieve for this too).

4. Store your dried herbs in small glass jars with tight fitting lids or corks.  We like the jars with the chalkboard paint lids so you can write on them.

Garden Before and After

I have been looking at a number of before and after blogs for gardens and home remodeling and it just reminds me of how much work we have done over the past few years and how much has transformed.  This summer was a turning point and as a result of July 4th week and preparing - we got so much done.    Now it's time to just chill out for the balance of the summer and enjoy.

When we bought the property there was nothing on it - just a small clearing.  We had one cabin put on the property for camping and a second one for our friends to join us which then led to gardens , having the pond put in and eventually building the house.  Lots of work and lots of good times.

Bread and Butter Pickles

It's mid-Summer and it's time to start harvesting those vegetables.  Despite how hot it's been, we managed to still have a decent crop of cucumbers, potatoes, zucchini, tomatoes,  and onions.  We also need some new recipes.  I love Bread and Butter Pickles and I have been looking for a good recipe.  I am going to try this one this weekend but if anyone has a better one, email it to me.

Preparation Instructions

Mix everything together cold and store in covered container in refrigerator. 

It’s best to allow it to sit for about 5 days so the flavors can mingle. These keep for months. 

Ingredients

• 7 cubes Sliced, Unpeeled Cucumbers
• 1 cup Sliced Onion
• 1 cup Slice Green Peppers
• 1 cup Cider Vinegar
• 2 cups Sugar
• 1 Tablespoon Celery Seed
• 1 Tablespoon Salt

Alternative Composting Ideas

Tim and I are beyond frustrated with our composting efforts.  Every time, we build something to contain it - the bears and raccoons destroy it.  We have been looking for alternatives, some of which I have posted before like putting metal garbage cans in the ground but digging through the stone in our yard is impossible.  Here are a couple new ideas which we might try:

Trench Composting

Trench composting is as simple as it sounds: just dig a trench about 12" deep and fill it with 4"-6" of kitchen scraps before recovering with soil. Depending on the material and soil type, the scraps will usually take between one month and one year to break down. If you'll be regularly composting scraps using this method, you may want to develop a long-term plan for your garden. According to Colleen Vanderlinden at About.com, there are three general methods:

Trench Rotation

This is a method of incorporating organic matter into a garden a bit at a time while maintaining active growing and path areas. The general idea is that you divide your garden into three zones: a trench composting zone, a pathway zone, and a growing zone. Each year, you move the trench compost to a different part of the garden, and shift the paths and growing areas as needed. By the end of three years, you've got compost under every part of your garden bed, and you can start the rotation over again. If you like things very orderly, this is probably the method for you.

Trenching Between Rows

This works in any vegetable or annual garden in which you would plant in fairly regularly-spaced rows. Basically, plant your crops as usual. In the space between the rows, dig a trench to toss your compostables into. Fill the trench as you add materials, and it will break down and nourish the plants nearby.

"Dig and Drop"

This is the easiest way to do trench composting, and works even in perennial gardens and shrub borders. Say you've collected a large bowl of vegetable and fruit peelings. Simply take it into the garden, dig a 12" deep hole wherever you can find a spot, dump the kitchen waste in, and cover it over. It's fast, it's easy, and it requires very little digging.

In addition to no visible collection bin or odor, another advantage of trench composting is that the buried nutrients encourage a deeper, stronger root structure from nearby plants. The only downside - if you have a curious dog, this might not be the best method!

Building a Worm Tower

A worm tower not only enables worms do their work at composting, but it also helps them spread out and distribute the compost in your tank garden. This is such a low maintenance way of keeping nutrients cycling in your garden, and easy to put together.

All you'll need is a 3 or 4 foot piece of PVC piping (or a 12" concrete pipe) and a flower pot.

According to Ecofilms, be sure to use a food grade PVC pipe to avoid any chemical contamination - and the concrete pipe often works best. Punch holes in the side of the pipe. This is where the worms will travel back and forth between the compost and the garden patch.

Once you've got your pipe, the next step is to bury the tower half way down in your garden with half of the pipe sticking out the top.

Then, add some manure, compost worms (it's important to use compost worms), and secure with a flower pot lid. It's also important that you feed your worms every couple of days with vegetable scraps from your kitchen ... and voila! The worms will do the work for you!

COFFER SHORT FILM

I loved this short film from Lost and Found Films on a guy named John Coffer who now lives in NY.  It's from a series of short films called THIS MUST BE THE PLACE  that explore the idea of Home.

http://vimeo.com/28676720