Dude, I've changed. Sort of.

I should be packing right now - and I will - but first I wanted to appropriately SCREAM WITH EXCITEMENT THAT two things:

1. It's time again for the Annual Finny & Donk Adventure which means that cocktails/vacation/old time friend catching up/cocktails are close at hand.

2. I'm going back to Montana and this time I will see Dig.

DUDES, I'm stoked.

And if there happens to be river swimming, good food eating and mountain hiking, well then I'll be the stokedest (new word alert) person in all the land.

Though I'm not sure how or if those things are going to happen because HOLD ON TO YOUR FUCKING HATS, PEOPLE - I haven't planned shit.

Seriously.

Girlfriend here who usually plans all trips down to the mode and speed of transportation between each event/site/restaurant/mysterious hot spring in the middle of the woods hasn't planned a fucking thing beyond the flight to the place and the hotel at the place.

Granted, it's a 4 day trip and most people who are not insane will usually just go, "Yeah, well, it's two days, what's to plan?", but I'm not those people and I'm certainly insane plus also really anal retentive and control freaky, so you'd think - HELL, I'd think - that I'd have my packing spreadsheet filled out and a daily itinerary for our trip in digital and physical form so that I could guarantee fun filled days, but alas...I've changed.

I don't do this anymore.

At least for short trips, anyway, I don't plan what I'm packing or what I'm doing at every minute.

Now, to be fair, the other short trips for which I did not plan were actually planned *for* me, so there wasn't anything for me to do but show up and not be a pain in the ass (very difficult, requires effort), so this will likely be the first trip of its kind where I didn't plan activities or packing lists or make restaurant reservations or spa bookings so that we could both get our nails done at the same time followed by massages and meeting up in the lounge room to compare notes on our massages and OH how I hope that the Donk has patience with my new vacationing ways.

The good news is that, despite my lack of planning, my priorities are the same. So, you know, there will be cocktails at any and all hours, good food to eat, endless chatter and lots of inappropriate jokes and many swears.

Beyond that - who the fuck knows? Moreover, who the fuck cares?

So, you know, I haven't really changed that much.

See you in a few days with stories of a trip that hopefully didn't fall apart due to my lack of ridiculously A/R planning.

I can sometimes use my anal retentive powers for good. Sometimes.

Every fall, for as long as I've done the gardening, has been all, "OH SAD. It's fall. The garden is over. I shall perish." and shit.

I believe I've even threatened people and you with death or a sound face beating for mentioning the forthcoming of fall before I've deemed it time.

There have been rants and specific fingers thrown up in protest of fall.

Because I love the summer garden.

Because, duh.

I love the tomatoes and the harvesting of a billion green beans and making pickles from the never ending supply of cucumbers sproinging off the plants and the watermelons taking over all reaches of the property and having to dodge crazed bees while scooping Jada's doots and losing most of the walkways around the garden because of ever-reaching vines and looking at the crispifying nasturtium when temps go into the 90s and putting up shade cloth to keep fruit from sunburning and refilling the bees' waterer every day because they're sucking it down while trying to make honey meanwhile not die from the extreme heat and remembering to water and care for the potted plants that I knew better than to plant but in spring time I can't be trusted with orphaned seedlings so I just put them in a pot because "OH I CAN'T LET A SEEDLING GO INTO THE COMPOSTER even though I totally don't have room for it so I'll just put it in a pot and totally remember to water and care for it just like the other plants" and oh wait some of that stuff is not fun.

Hi. May I use that walkway or bench? Oh no. No I may not.

Ah, volunteer tree sunflowers propped up with scrap lumber. That's classy.

Why yes, it has been hot. Thanks for noticing.

Really have no idea why I let this dill just grow wild and awkward except that I can't make it down this path to prune it.

Green beans - the awkward months.

So sunflowers, tomatoes and green beans, you're just going to grow all together then? OK, got it.

Don't worry tiny supposed to be manageable watermelons, I don't need to walk there IN THE WALKWAY or anything.

Nah. I don't need that bench. You use it, cucumber bullies.

Yeah. That's what I meant for you to do, tomatillos. Just grow wherever the hell you like and everywhere at the same time.

As it turns out, there are things about the summer garden that are annoying as fuck.

Because, as you well know, I'm anal retentive as fuck.

And things like crispy plant leaves, never ending watering tasks, vines growing all over the place and in my way as I try to navigate my way to the never ending watering tasks and potted plants getting chewed to shit by monsters that settled in while I was absolutely not paying attention get fucking annoying when you're super anal retentive and like things neatly and tidily growing to perfection.

So I *don't* remember to take care of the potted plants that I plant in spring? Oh right.

Within the confines of their pre-determined-by-me space. With the luster and vigor of young plants. In the mild and agreeable weather of spring.

The spring garden looks awesome, is what I'm saying. It's just the way I'd like the garden to always look because when you're as anal retentive and Type A and batshit crazy as I happen to be, having a garden that's growing green, healthy and within the lines is GOOD and promise of the food to come is GOOD and the not-a-huge-time-taking-mess is GOOD.

Sunflower at a size where, if I were a smart person, I could still transplant it elsewhere.

Cucumbers INSIDE the beds.

Yes, tomatillo. I prefer you like this. AKA - NOT EVERYWHERE.

No wayward branches just needing to be tied up RIGHT NOW OR ELSE? Yes. I like this.

Which is why I've decided/realized/finally-come-to-peace-with-the-fact fall is GOOD.

WHAT THE FALL?

Yeah. After all these years of being all DON'T YOU DARE SAY FALL UNTIL IT'S, LIKE, NOVEMBER, YOU SHITBITCHING ASS BASTARDS, I've changed my mind.

You can say fall. Shit - you can say it in August for all I care. I just did, anyway.

Because if fall's coming then it means I can clean up the damn garden and reset it to Awesome.

I can take down the volunteer sunflowers that have grown into trees, getting into my way every time I go out to look for watermelons.

It's a good thing you're so cute.

I can rip out the tomatillos that grew 8 feet tall, had to be reined in by multiple means and then fell over and cascaded freely all over the place any way as though to taunt me with their growing-all-over-the-place power.

That's a start.

I can dial back my watering tasks to once a week and finally toss that potted tomato plant that I had no business growing in the first place even though its tiny fruits are really quite tasty and it turned out to be the perfect tomato plant to grow in a pot, in case you're in the market for one next spring and you're a person that can grow shit in a pot without leaving it for the caterpillars to demolish.

The nasturtium will bounce back and not look like total fried shit anymore.

Mmm...not fried shit.

I can clear my walkways and not have to circumnavigate the globe to get back to my spying chair.

So what you're saying is that no, I may not go back to the chair? Got it.

I can maybe see the beehive again from the patio.

Yeah. Not just yet.

And I can have NEW plants that are green and healthy and living within the confines of their raised beds like good little crops with their promise of food to come.

One day you'll be huge and crazy, but now...now you're just awesome and new.

So, yeah - I'm totally using my anal retentive powers for good now. In order to be not depressed by the summer's end times approaching, I'm choosing to instead be glad that I can clean this place up and have new little green plants to stare at.

Bonus is that I can do this WHILE eating all of the summer's stuff because I'm a fucking traitor like that.

Oh my god I bought so much pork

Hi friends. I have an admission to make.

I bought a LOT of pork.

Which, given my heritage is sort of amusing, but given our pastimes makes total sense.

If you just limit our pastimes to smoking meat and then eating it. Which we love to do!

Because, obviously.

So, yeah, we were about 3/4 of the way through our second split half of grassfed beef when Chestie started to feel lonely.

Empty inside if you will.

And then, handily, my local blogger buddy, IMQTPI, emailed me to see if I wanted in on a hog.

Like, do I want half of one.

DUH YES.

So we did some splitting up of logistics (she goes to the fair to bid on our hog, I go back out to Fair Land to pick it up from the butcher and deliver it) and now we are the rightful and proud owners of half a hog apiece.

Though I will also admit that our half is slightly less than half a hog already because, yes, we dug right into that tasty beast.

Nothing but First class pork for us, thank you.

We are not vegetarians around here. I forgot to warn you. Sorry, meat fearful people - this is a meatful post. Please come back another time when I'm talking gardenblahblahblah and your eyes will be safe from LOOK AT ALL MY PORK:

Why Spreckles, you look different somehow...

Sorry, that might have been scary. But still - you want to know where your food comes from - there you have it. In our house, it comes from Spreckles and YES PLEASE and also thanks, buddy.

Filled to the brim with tasty meats. And also tomatoes, hops and chicken stock BUT NOT ON THE PORK SIDE.

Perhaps more impressive is my anal retentive divider to keep the pork on ITS side and the beef on the other. It's very technological and advanced what with the box from somethingorother that I sliced in half and wedged in there, but nonetheless - it keeps the squabbling meats separate.

MOM! THE BEEF IS TOUCHING ME!

Can't have them mixing together, now can we? That would be wrong. And not kosher at all.

SARCASM, people. Sarcasm. No need to add your corrections to the comments because I'll just roll my eyes and call you retarded from my side of the computer.

Also, fun and anal retentive (yes, these things exist together in my world)(all the time) is my new Pork checklist that is taped to the inside of Chestie's lid above the Pork section of the freezer.

Yes, that DOES say 15 packs of pork chops - two to a package, thankyouvermuchandalsoBACON.

The Beef Checklist is a bit more worn, as you can plainly see.

Notice that the Beef side has its own checklist. ON ITS OWN SIDE.

That's right - we segregate the red meat from the (other, other) white meat. But we love them both the same, which is to say A LOT.

And we have already loved the pork A LOT since it arrived on Wednesday night, as I immediately made some of that hot Italian sausage into the most badass soup (recipe down there, just keep scrolling) and then I made the Burn The Fuck Out of My Left Hand pork chop recipe without WITHOUT burning anything at all.

No hands were irretrievably scorched in the making of this pork chop.

Que milagro.

Now, let me just say that I took some piss poor photos of this soup, so please do not judge me because all I wanted to do was eat the effing thing because by this time I was starved.

I wanted the pork inside of me.

Enjoy that one.

Badass Pork and Kale Soup

Recipe by moi

Ingredients

3 spicy Italian style pork sausages, cut into 1" slices

1 lb of kale, ribs removed and ribbon sliced

1 clove of garlic, minced

1 onion, chopped

1 leek, whites chopped (compost the rest)

6 fingerling potatoes or a normal sized potato equivalent, peeled and cut into big chunks

1 quart of chicken stock

Salt, pepper as you like

2 T Olive oil

To make

In a good sized stock pot, heat oil over medium heat until shimmering and add your onions, leeks and garlic.Saute until soft, about 2-3 minutes.

Add potatoes and stir to coat everything all nice like.

Add your chicken broth and a bit of salt and fresh ground pepper. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat, cover and simmer for 15 minutes or so, until the potatoes are super soft.

Heat a large skillet on medium high heat and add your sausage to brown it thoroughly on both sides. Keep this browning and cooking while you do all the soup stuff. Keep a friggen eye on it though - if it burns, I will spank the ever-loving crap out of you.

Turn the heat off and, with your stick/immersion blender, go to town blending that soup right in the pot. If you only have a blender for this, pour portions of the soup mix into your blender and puree until smooth. 

Also, I'm sorry you have to contend with that hateful task. It was the A#1 reason I wanted an immersion blender and BOY HOWDY do I love that thing and thank you, mom, for giving me your old one - best gift ever. Never again with the muther effing blender and shooting hot soup all over my kitchen.

Or whatever! I hear that happens. To other people.

Bring your newly pureed soup back to a low boil and throw all that frightful kale in there, stir it up and put the cover back on so the soup can simmer over low heat for about 10 minutes.

Check on your sausage, if you haven't been all along (SPANKING SONG), and make sure all pieces are nice and brown on both sides. 

After 10 minutes with the kale in the soup, turn the heat off on the soup, add the sausage and whatever pan spackle-y goodness exists in there (there should be some and it is THE MOST. Scrape that pan if you have to. It's worth it.) and stir it all into magic in your soup pot. 

Give it a minute to mingle and get to know one another and then AFTER COOLING IT A LITTLE BIT GEEZ taste the soup and add salt and pepper if it needs it.

It probably doesn't, but I shan't judge you since I'm a salt addict and can't be stopped. 

I'm puffy and defiant!

Whatever.

Now go enjoy your soup with some warm bread or a crisp salad or just whatever the hell else you feel like having. A dirty gin martini? Why, yes, I hear that's quite the accompaniment. 

Life With Meadow. (Not a tampon ad)

For those of you who've been riding the roller coaster known as My Front Yard Meadow, you may have noticed that this not an approach for the anal retentive, tidy-minded, control freaks of the world.

Who needs tidy when there's POPPIES.

 Not that I want to scare anyone off of turning their lawns over to create their own personal near-xeric WILD ASS meadow in their yards, but I am still getting used to Life With Meadow and thought I'd drag you all along for the ride today.

 I'm the nicest.

Life With Meadow - sounds like a lame TV show that might be on Lifetime. I assure you, this is not that.

See - there are the upsides to the concept:

• You can get rid of your water sucking lawn and it's water shooting sprinkler system
• You can roll your mower into the street for the garbage truck to play with
• You can go through intensive physical therapy to regain full use of your rotator cuff and then never use the muther effing asshole string trimmer again
• You get to inhale all the oohs and aahs from your neighbors as they admire the many colors of poppies sproinging loose from your yard all over the damn sidewalk
• You get to watch hummingbirds, butterflies, honey and bumble bees, lizards and finches all return to your yard to play, eat, kill one another and fornicate now that it's no longer a wasteland of useless lawn out there
• It's pretty

This is the former pee-hole. I think you will agree that it has improved somewhat.

But then there are also the downsides, which, now after more than a full year's seasonal changes under my belt, I'm just starting to get a handle on:

• In some seasons the yard just looks like shit
• There's some maintenance involved in ripping crap out once it's gone to seed (poppies - I love you but WOW do you get ugly when you're done)
• You find trash that's flown into the yard and gotten stuck and then you have to pick it out and throw it away
• Some neighbors think you're totally a nutter

Now, I can still count and that still looks like more pros than cons for the Front Yard Meadow concept, but I thought I'd be remiss if I didn't bring it all out into the open for you fine people so that no one went wandering off into the sod cutter rental yard thinking that yard dominance was at hand with just a few quick swipes of the yard.

That is not so and I'd be doing you a disservice to lead you to believe that it was, indeed, so.

Instead I will tell you that I'm pretty SUPER glad that we're past the It Looks Like Shit Right Now But Wait Until Spring When It Looks Really Pretty time of year (AKA Fall and Winter) and getting into the Yes It's Beautiful Now So Please Remember This Come Winter When It Looks Like Shit Again time of year (AKA Spring and Summer).

 Another thing about this whole meadow concept is that it's not a one shot deal. You can't just (or, I guess *I* can't just) plant it once and forget about it, leaving it to do its xeric beautifying of the neighborhood without any additional intervention.

No. It needs help.

Help in the sense of pulling shit out that randomly grows (weeds, overturned lawn with a new found lease on life, the nefarious offspring of one slutty Guara...), pruning crap back that gets wildly out of hand (Guara, aforementioned suddenly virile lawn) and planting new stuff in the spots that become bare from the pulling out of shit I don't want.

It's a process, you might say. It's a "labor of love", some might say even though that trite bullshit saying makes me want to jam spoons into my ears and those of the person saying it.

I'm going with - it's a process. And I'm getting used to it. Life With Meadow means I'm not done yet and I probably won't ever be *done* and that's actually OK because I like this messy, weird, unpredictable space way better than the neat, tidy and predictably needs to be mowed every five goddamned minutes in between intensive waterings lawn that lived here before.

So, there's your Front Yard Meadow update. I'll be sure to post some photos after the whip and chair taming action I'm going to lay down on this beast this weekend whilst handing out tomato plants.

Just try not to get the Crazy all over you.

I think I promised you all something about running updates and garden updates, so I'll just get on with it if you don't mind.

Like you'd really mind. I mean, come on, you're HERE aren't you?

Whatever. This is already getting weird.

So - garden updates:

I have one again!

Forgive me for only using pictures from my phone. I'm very lazy these days.

Yes. It is official, I have planted the garden for the year.

And what did I plant without even asking you to Adopt a Crop because I'm just so obsessed with other garden-y things which I will talk about in just one second so quit pressuring me?

From back to front (which sounds wrong and gross, but that's *not* what we're talking about here):
Swedish Peanut Fingerling Potatoes 
Tall Telephone Peas
Solly Beiler Cucumber
Sunset Lettuce
De Pierre Petite Lettuce
Toma Verde Tomatillos
Golden Greek Peppers
Padron Peppers
Numex Jalmundo Peppers (aka Jalapeno Popper Peppers - WT Garden woo!)
Green Giant Tomatoes
Hillbilly Tomatoes
Brandywine Sudduth Pink Tomatoes
Better Boy Tomatoes

Plus, also the alleged Slo-Bolt Cilantro and a mess of Lettuce Leaf Basil, which LOVE.

And if you want to watch this garden as it grows and I take anal retentive photos of every step of its life and then record all of its harvests down to the last ounce and go completely monkey ass bonkers - you can follow me on myFolia, look at the myFolia gadget on the right nav bar, there or read this blog. Also, do not forget about The Finny Farm - it's the home for Crazy.

Because it's Garden Crazy All The Fucking Time Around Here, folks.

Speaking of which...

I think I am a nursery.

Um, so, more than the four plants I have room for.

You guys were warned when I told you I was going to learn to FINALLY GEEZ start tomato transplants from seed and properly harden them off.

You knew it'd come to this.

And, alas, it has.

I have gone 100% over to the dark side of my Crazy.

I realize - not the darkest of the dark sides, but wait.

I knew I'd hit Full Crazy when I bought a laminator, but let me back up.

LET ME.

So, I think the tomatoes were about yay big in their four to five seedling trays when I had a little coming to Jesus moment with Bubba.

Me: Bubbs, I have to admit something.
Bubba: OK.
Me: I think I'm going to have to make proper plant tags for all of my tomato plants.
Bubba: OK.
Me: I think I'm going to have to make proper plant tags for all of my tomato plants and then give them to people in exchange for AIDS LifeCycle donations and then sell them at our neighborhood garage sale and then trade them for other goods and services.
Bubba: OK.
Me: I think I'm going to have to just let my crazy out all over these proper plant tags though. Not just, like, write the names of the plants on a tag with a crayon, but, like, actually design some plant tags and then maybe make a support site and then try to get people to give me their seeds back so I can save them to do this again next year and everything. Like, I'm going to go all the way crazy with this and I just think that you should know.
Bubba: OK.
Me: DOESN'T THIS SOUND FREAKY? AREN'T YOU SCARED OF ME?
Bubba: No. I assumed you'd do this.
Me: *silence*...Really?
Bubba: Yeah. Totally.
Me: Oh yeah? Well. I'M GETTING A LAMINATOR.
Bubba: Yeah. I suspected.
Me: OK. I give up trying to scare you. You're UNSCARABLE.
Bubba: That's not a word.

So, yeah, not sure why I feel like I need to let you guys in on the mundane and boring conversations that go on between the Bubba and I, but basically, he can see the future, I'm crazy and my Crazy leaked out all over the tomato transplant situation to the point where I custom designed plant tags for everything, laminated them, built a support site to gather pictures and tomato seeds and other people's Crazy and holy hell if it's not all the way out of control and so super fun that I'm feeling like an extra big nerd.

NERD ALERT.

And for those who came to pick up their tomatoes last weekend, they got to see my Crazy in person and no one was even scared.

See? That is not the face of a scared person. Brave woman, she!

In fact, they seemed thrilled! Which does not bode well for my future Crazy levels.

Like my mom used to tell us when my brother was acting up around the house, "DON'T ENCOURAGE HIM!"

I think that applies, but now that I'm a grown-up, I don't have anyone to warn me.