Our "neighbor" from a mile up the road stopped by and gave me this. It is maple syrup! Pure maple syrup! She made it herself from the Maple trees! Local food is awesome.
Gift from the Grey Economy Cult
Our "neighbor" from a mile up the road stopped by and gave me this. It is maple syrup! Pure maple syrup! She made it herself from the Maple trees! Local food is awesome.
Seven Years
Do you know that every seven years, your body replaces all of its cells? Every seven years. Except for the brain cells, of course. Still. Every seven years. All the cells in your body.
Which means that you are almost an entirely different person by the end of each seven year period. And yet, the person you were seven years ago led to the person you are today, so it's not like you're really a different person. You've just- changed.
Morrissey, for instance, no longer looks as much like my husband as he used to.
Every seven years.
Which means that you are almost an entirely different person by the end of each seven year period. And yet, the person you were seven years ago led to the person you are today, so it's not like you're really a different person. You've just- changed.
Morrissey, for instance, no longer looks as much like my husband as he used to.
Every seven years.
A Poem for San Francisco
1989 Currant Theatre
Whores posing in our headlights
Van Ness Avenue, Curtains open
Plastic Christmas trees
Hait Street too much, too much to bear
Learning to ride a bike
Bongo drums playing
Dragon kites fighting
Polished old ladies with blue hair
and tiny dogs
Mohawk guys asking for quarters
Whores posing in our headlights
Van Ness Avenue, Curtains open
Plastic Christmas trees
Hait Street too much, too much to bear
Learning to ride a bike
Bongo drums playing
Dragon kites fighting
Polished old ladies with blue hair
and tiny dogs
Mohawk guys asking for quarters
Homebrews
A few years ago, we made a lot of wine. I stomped on the grapes and everything- much to BAH's disgust. (My feet were clean!) We made grape wine from the grape vine in our back yard, and mead from a huge thing of honey we got at a farmer's market. I think we were riding our bikes by this guy selling honey, if I remember right. Then BAH picked all the flowers from our weeds and made dandelion wine.
A few more years back, we brewed our own beer. This was in Pueblo, Colorado. We had a little two story house there, and brewed it on the stairs, because it was easy to get it to go down from one bottle to the next. We spilled a lot of beer on those steps, and I remember our house smelling pleasantly like a pub for months to come. We grew our own hops, too. Hops are very pretty plants. The beer was very heavy and almost non-alcoholic. It was like eating a meal, drinking a pint. You couldn't get drunk off of it because you could never drink enough before being terribly full. It was also very bitter. But I liked it, just because we made it.
The wine is better, but varies greatly in quality. The grape wine is okay. Some of the Dandelion wine went bad. The mead, though! Fantastic! And so alcoholic, too!
Mead takes five years to get good, though, so if we make some more now... we'll have more in five years!
All of this self-reliance stuff takes some patience.
I think we were gearing up for this move to the country for a long time, without realizing it. We made mead five years ago.
Creepy Night! & Chicken Pictures
Last night, at about 4 AM (I think!) these coyotes started howling just below our window. Loudly. Piercingly. It was beyond creepy. It was scary. It woke BAH and I up with a start. We both had the same thought,
"Did we lock up the chickens last night?"
We always always always lock up the chickens in the barn at night. But, of course, there was this nagging feeling that, because there were what sounded like two thousand coyotes howling a piercing howl just outside my window, I thought maybe I had forgotten. But no way in hell was I going out there to check!
Then I fell asleep and I had a bad dream that this evil preacher man named, "Preacher Pops" came to steal our chickens. He was holding me at knife point in the barn while his dumb sidekick stole the chickens. I was trying to wave to BAH across the field, but he couldn't see me that far away, and he just waved back and said, "See you later! Guess everything's okay, huh?" and went inside! Then I woke up.
The chickens were fine. I was so happy to see them all alive, I took their picture. They finally go outside now!
The Brahmas are my favorite, as we all predicted. This next one is pretty, too, but I don't know what it is:
These ones with no hair on their necks are in some circles referred to as, "Transylvanian Naked Necks":
They're supposed to be very cold weather tolerant and good egg layers. They're all rather interesting, though, aren't they? Really, all of our chickens are a bit exotic. Once we have them mating with each other, they will be incredibly exotic, perhaps!
This next one is the "exotic". He has now taken charge of the flock. He's a Dark Cornish. BAH calls him, "The King". He crows so loudly! I like how he looks so classic roosterly.
"Did we lock up the chickens last night?"
We always always always lock up the chickens in the barn at night. But, of course, there was this nagging feeling that, because there were what sounded like two thousand coyotes howling a piercing howl just outside my window, I thought maybe I had forgotten. But no way in hell was I going out there to check!
Then I fell asleep and I had a bad dream that this evil preacher man named, "Preacher Pops" came to steal our chickens. He was holding me at knife point in the barn while his dumb sidekick stole the chickens. I was trying to wave to BAH across the field, but he couldn't see me that far away, and he just waved back and said, "See you later! Guess everything's okay, huh?" and went inside! Then I woke up.
The chickens were fine. I was so happy to see them all alive, I took their picture. They finally go outside now!
The Brahmas are my favorite, as we all predicted. This next one is pretty, too, but I don't know what it is:
These ones with no hair on their necks are in some circles referred to as, "Transylvanian Naked Necks":
They're supposed to be very cold weather tolerant and good egg layers. They're all rather interesting, though, aren't they? Really, all of our chickens are a bit exotic. Once we have them mating with each other, they will be incredibly exotic, perhaps!
This next one is the "exotic". He has now taken charge of the flock. He's a Dark Cornish. BAH calls him, "The King". He crows so loudly! I like how he looks so classic roosterly.
A Little Orchard
Our trees came from the Arbor Day Society today, a long thin box with twigs that are, supposedly, alive. You're supposed to plant them right away, so I did. We found a nice, untouched spot behind the barn ("organic machine house", to people who keep up with these things). The hose didn't reach to water them, so we had to haul water: I with my bucket marked "toilet" (it was the best bucket I could find- don't ask), BAH with his milk jugs, and Little Z with her sand pale full of water. Little Z was watering rocks and the like, but BAH and I were watering our new trees:
one early harvest apple,
one yellow delicious apple,
two montmorency cherries*,
two kiefer pears,
two orient pears (pears are my favorite fruit),
two golden jubilee peach (I can't believe you can grow peaches in Wisconsin! We'll see...), and
three pecan seedlings (for protein, as Roses commented once).
Pictures of the "orchard" coming soon. (Although you may not be able to discern the trees as yet!)
* The first house BAH and I lived in together was really a trailer, and it had beautiful cherry trees along the edge of the yard. We weren't allowed to pick the cherries for ourselves, though; that honor went to our landlord, Art, who sat underneath the cherry trees in his lawn chair with a handgun and shot birds who tried to eat his cherries. Art told BAH not to tell me it was a gun- as though I couldn't just look out my window and see him sitting there in his lawn chair twenty feet away, shooting birds with his gun.
We can get nets to put over our cherry trees to protect them.
one early harvest apple,
one yellow delicious apple,
two montmorency cherries*,
two kiefer pears,
two orient pears (pears are my favorite fruit),
two golden jubilee peach (I can't believe you can grow peaches in Wisconsin! We'll see...), and
three pecan seedlings (for protein, as Roses commented once).
Pictures of the "orchard" coming soon. (Although you may not be able to discern the trees as yet!)
* The first house BAH and I lived in together was really a trailer, and it had beautiful cherry trees along the edge of the yard. We weren't allowed to pick the cherries for ourselves, though; that honor went to our landlord, Art, who sat underneath the cherry trees in his lawn chair with a handgun and shot birds who tried to eat his cherries. Art told BAH not to tell me it was a gun- as though I couldn't just look out my window and see him sitting there in his lawn chair twenty feet away, shooting birds with his gun.
We can get nets to put over our cherry trees to protect them.
Past Tense
Little Z and I went to a garage sale today, the first of the season. There was a fifty-something guy tending a lot of women's clothes, knic-knacks, cookbooks, and such. There was a whole huge box of vacuum cleaner bags dating back half a century.
"My wife never threw away anything," said the man. "When she got a new vacuum cleaner, she had a cupboard, in went the old vacuum cleaner bags, in went the new vacuum cleaner bags. She never got rid of anything."
I went on to examine a funny looking owl cookie jar.
"Kathy collected cookie jars, too," said the man. "I had about thirty of them, and all but that one went in the first two hours this morning! It's funny the stuff people will buy."
I tried on a pair of shoes.
"What size are all the shoes?" I asked.
"Oh, they're probably a six and a half or a seven." The shoes didn't fit me right. "I remember when she tried on that pair, too, and they never quite fit her right. She was so disappointed."
I was beginning to feel like I should ask when she died, but I just didn't feel like taking on that burden, today. I felt selfish. I didn't want to hear his problems.
I settled on a cookbook.
"Kathy never saw a cookbook she didn't like. The last garage sale I had was full of cookbooks, that truck over there filled to the top! By the end of the day, only one book left-- hey, there she is now! Don't mind the dog. He's just friendly. I think Kathy forgot the leash."
A car pulled up, and a gynormous dog jumped out, as did a very healthy looking fifty-something lady named Kathy!
"Sorry, I forgot the leash!" said Kathy. "Does she want to pet the doggy?"
Much ado was made over Little Z petting Kathy's dog.
I was speechless.
That guy really needs to stop talking about his wife like she's dead!
"My wife never threw away anything," said the man. "When she got a new vacuum cleaner, she had a cupboard, in went the old vacuum cleaner bags, in went the new vacuum cleaner bags. She never got rid of anything."
I went on to examine a funny looking owl cookie jar.
"Kathy collected cookie jars, too," said the man. "I had about thirty of them, and all but that one went in the first two hours this morning! It's funny the stuff people will buy."
I tried on a pair of shoes.
"What size are all the shoes?" I asked.
"Oh, they're probably a six and a half or a seven." The shoes didn't fit me right. "I remember when she tried on that pair, too, and they never quite fit her right. She was so disappointed."
I was beginning to feel like I should ask when she died, but I just didn't feel like taking on that burden, today. I felt selfish. I didn't want to hear his problems.
I settled on a cookbook.
"Kathy never saw a cookbook she didn't like. The last garage sale I had was full of cookbooks, that truck over there filled to the top! By the end of the day, only one book left-- hey, there she is now! Don't mind the dog. He's just friendly. I think Kathy forgot the leash."
A car pulled up, and a gynormous dog jumped out, as did a very healthy looking fifty-something lady named Kathy!
"Sorry, I forgot the leash!" said Kathy. "Does she want to pet the doggy?"
Much ado was made over Little Z petting Kathy's dog.
I was speechless.
That guy really needs to stop talking about his wife like she's dead!
For those of you who don't read fiction...
A few years ago, I read this book called, Rat Scabies and the Holy Grail: Can a Punk Rock Legend Find What Monty Python Couldn't? I thought, initially, that it was a fiction, but after a few chapters, something didn't feel quite right. I looked all over the book and there was no marking that it was fictional. Then I looked up Rat Scabbies, and became friends with him on Myspace, downloaded some of his fantastic music, and noticed his status update was "Grailhunting". No, no. This was truth!
It's a fantastic story about these two guys (Rat Scabbies and Christopher Dawes, his fan) from England who go to a small town in France where people believe in Holy Grails and aliens, among other things. It's truly laugh-out-loud funny all the way through. My favorite little detail is that Rat Scabbies does the whole Grail hunting trip, which lasts for several months, in his house slippers. He never puts on a pair of shoes. I won't reveal to you what exactly they find. I think the best way to read it, though, is to watch that ridiculous movie with Tom Hanks before hand, just to set the mood. Then watch it all fall apart in hilarity when you read the Rat Scabbies book.
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