First catch-up. Then gardenblahblahblah.

You guys, it keeps being too long between posts.

I used to be a Coupla Times a Week kinda gal, now I'm...less so.

I get all busy with school and driving to Santa Cruz five days a week and the starting up of this business and the garden OH THE GARDEN and the hunt for snow and then BAM it's been forever since I posted anything.

Rude. It's very rude of me.

So let's catch up really super photographic-like, OK? Then we can all feel better about how it's not you it's me and whatever other relationshippy cliches that I just will not trot out on this blog because they make me want to slice everyone's throat including my own.

I don't do cliches, people, and you know this.

Photo catch-up, then? That's what I thought.

Also, forgive me in advance for showing you photos taken with my phone. You'll know which ones they are because blech.

I brewed my first batch of beer (Chocolate stout) under Bubba's watchful brewer's eye, of course.

 Thing #: I Do Not Know What on the four page To Do List: Tear out the hideous old Santolina and put in a new and ridiculously small Rosemary.

On a separate but equally important To Do list called, "To Do In My Life" - Get first chair at Heavenly.

  Thing #: I Do Not Know What on the four page To Do List: Ski some backcountry (like a freak)

 Thing #: I Do Not Know What on the four page To Do List: Irrigate the new garden bed. WHAT NEW GARDEN BED? I'll tell you in gardenblahblahblah. Just wait.

 Thing #: I Do Not Know What on the four page To Do List: Make lap coasters. Which are, for those of you wondering, a large semi-absorbent fabric coaster that can sit on my lap and absorb the condensation of my cocktail so that it doesn't get my fancy attire all ring stained.  No, I don't know why I make almost pointless things. Let's call it a character flaw.

 Thing #: I Do Not Know What on the four page To Do List: Insulate beer fermentation chamber.
This was certainly NOT pointless.

 Thing #: I Do Not Know What on the four page To Do List: Make new couch cushion pillowcases.

Oh finally it snows in Tahoe. FINA-FUCKING-LY.

This wasn't on any specific list, but who doesn't love watching a cute puppy run around in the snow? Only assholes, that's who.

Some QT in the Sierra backcountry.

And then QT with Bubba at the bar.

I studied for four hours last Saturday and then my neighbors took pity on me and hosted a study break. It is possible that I never returned to studying so it may not have actually qualified as a "break".

I brought these over to the neighbor who hosted my study break. I think you'll agree that she sorely deserved them.

I baked Farmgirl's bran muffins instead of doing 600 other things I should have been doing because that's how I procrastinate, friends - with baked goods.

I shredded all of these vegetables into a big bowl and have been eating it for lunch every day with a squeeze of lemon juice, some olive oil and an avocado sliced on top. It's actually really good and, no, I have not yet shit myself from raw vegetable overload, though I appreciate your concern.

I made some awful Chocolate Chili recipe and it was not good. I still ate it all, but it was way too gritty with spice and too sweet with all that cinnamon. Never again.

For one of my classes I had to open and check our water meter. I found a black widow in there and nearly shit the sidewalk. If I don't get an A in this class, I'm putting a black widow in my teacher's coffee.

Avocado with tuna and fresh dill. It's my lunch about three days a week and every time I eat it I feel like a nerd. I have no idea why.

This is one of my favorite trees in the spring time and this day it happened to have a very cute truck parked next to it. Yay for spring and old timeyness.

We've had some unseasonably warm spring weather and everyone except Bubba wants to soak it into our bodies like big sun sponges. Bubba just shakes his fist at the sky and mutters something about a traitorous so and so.

Remember Rocket? Yeah, she reminds us of her existence by squeezing into spots that are clearly too narrow for her.

And then by taking up spots that are clearly too big for her and that belong to the dog.

The front yard meadow is totally starting to bloom. 

Remember my 500 new pets? They've been pooping and I've been stealing their poops, mixing them with water and spraying it on my plants. It's the weirdest thing I've ever done.

I keep making Brussels sprouts like always and MAN are they good.

I made Farmgirl's Carrot Orange soup, ate it for a week and could still go back for more. That shit is goooooooooooooo-od. 

So, feeling caught up? I'm so glad. Me too. Sorta.

Anyone up for gardenblahblahblah? Because I've got some. LOTS.

500 new pets

As I said at some point, though I'll admit I don't know exactly when, I was drafting up posts during the BIGHUGETHINGNEWS IS COMING in between period, and now that the secret's out, I can share these posts.

Even if they seem all weird because I wrote them, like, weeks ago. 

Anyway, remember when I said I have 500 new pets? I do. 

Here you go...

So, have you already guessed that I have a box of worms making poo outside of my home office window?

NO?

Who are you people anyway?

Kidding. I totally love you guys.

Meanwhile, that was my way of telling you that my 500 new pets are worms. Red Crawlers from what I understand.

They are in a plastic tote drilled with breathing holes sitting atop a few excess pavers from our forever-ago-now backyard landscaping project getting started on the business of eating my kitchen scraps and pooping them out.

I have an actual shit box in my backyard now because we've gone Full WT around here, folks.

Even more fun will be when I get to make poo tea and then spray it all over my property.

RIGHT?

Sounds like some sort of sick porn fetish, but I swear to you (I was so tempted to say "shit you not" right there, but you don't come here for cliched bullshit so I will just give you uncreative bullshit instead. See how I could have said "wormshit" instead of "bullshit" right there? Again - saving you from cliches. I know it - I'm amazing and generous.) it's just a 1/2 pound of worms squirming around in compost and kitchen scraps shitting up the joint so that I can, later on, mix their shit with water, strain it into a garden sprayer and just go merrily spraying it about on all of my plants and especially my vegetables so that they can grow big and strong and disease-free just a-makin' my food.

That's right - poo > food > food > poo > repeat.

If Bubba were here, he'd totally call that a shit sandwich even though "shit sandwich" is usually used to describe a hopeless situation and, in this case, it's not hopeless at all. Unless you consider it to be hopelessly fraught with cliched shit jokes peril, in which case...Oh, yeah it probably is. I'll have to be careful about that one.

Oh, and if you missed that gentle similarity to beekeeping back in there, go back and look harder and then come back to me down here and we can be all, "Oh my god, when did you start buying pets by the pound?"

Are you with me on this one yet? Let me help you out since I know this post has gotten weird and off track and poo-smeared: I bought the bees in 3 pound increments which amounted to 10,000 bees. And then I bought worms in 1/2 pound increments which amounted to 500 worms.

I now, it would seem, buy my pets in bulk and by the pound. It's very Big Box sounding, but I assure you it's not Big Box-ish in any other way. I mean, I didn't have to get a membership card or a giant Rolls Any Which Way cart to procure these fine beasts or anything.

And now, as though I'm living my childhood fantasies one at a time, I have a box of worms outside my kitchen door into which I may peek at any time of the day.

Didn't I have the weirdest childhood fantasies? I swear that I also had normal ones that involved certain members of New Kids on the Block dancing nude in my living room. And also Joe Montana. But never at the same time I'M NOT A FREAK.

So, to conclude this post which is sure to get me some raised eyebrows in the SPAM and porn traffic departments, I now keep stinging insects and slimy creepy crawlers, set up seasonal grow ops in my kitchen, shout biblical commandments, do The Science, let things ferment and mold in my kitchen, brew tea from poo and happily receive dirt as a gift all in the name of growing organic vegetables.

I've officially hit What-The-Fuck-O'clock on the ole life timer.