I've still got it. Barely.

You may not have noticed, but I haven't had a race in a while. I also haven't really posted about running in a while. Those two facts may lead you to believe that I'm not running anymore which is actually not the case.

I am. Still running, that is.

My same Made It Myself schedule of 2x/week tempo runs and 1x/week shortish long runs. Because I'm not going to be getting all double-digit miles on my ass if I'm not training for a fall half marathon, which I'm not. And isn't it just a bitch that I choose to take this year off from fall races and it turns out to be the coldest NorCal summer in 40 years?

Yes, it is a big, fat, chilly bitch.

Because if this were like any of the last three summers, I'd be waist deep in double-digit training right now - all stressed out from having to keep Luna Moons in stock and new music coming in for the iPod and OH are my insoles wearing out and can someone please tell me where I can buy BodyGlide in bulk except that, no. This is a year off from fall races and, better yet, summer training which is usually a hot, sweaty nightmare of pain and misery.

'Cept that this year it's cold. Coldest it's been in 40 years, like I said before and have repeated on a loop for anyone who will listen, and THIS is when I should be training for a fall race because I wouldn't have to be getting up in the 4s and 5s to run 12 miles like I have in the past three years just so that I could get my miles in before the big shiny ball came out to burn the skin from my bones.

No. This year, and we can take last Saturday as an example of what it's been like every Saturday since it stopped raining in May, it's cool, cloudy and just the most perfect running weather on Saturday mornings at 8 FUCKING 30 AM.

Seriously. I wouldn't even have to set an alarm to get up in the pre-dawn hours for my 10+ milers because OH the cloud cover doesn't burn off until after 11 in this big fat rip-off of a summer we're having.

So, yes, there are people out there who would, and do, hate me for complaining about lovely cool summer weather when half our country is stewing in its own juices from extreme heat and humidity, yet still, I carry on.

That's right - I'm super stubborn! And also, bitter. Because I know next time I decide I'm going to run a long distance fall race (and, to me, a half marathon is a long distance race, so QUIET, YOU PEOPLE who are about to give me the "it's not even a marathon" talk because *middle finger*) it's going to be the hottest summer on record.

It'll be the summer where California is burned off the map. The streets will burst into flames and I will be right there trudging along, sucking masochistically on my empty Camelbak hose, waiting for the sweet release of death.

But this year, well, I'm not training for anything long distance-y, so I go out for my shortish-long runs and come home without a Barely Alive story to tell. Which, I'll be honest, is kind of nice.

Except last Saturday. Last Saturday I tried again at killing myself with running. I guess I figured that if the weather wasn't going to do it, I'd have to do it myself.

See, I haven't had a race in a while - have I told you? I feel like I've told you. Just go with me, here.  And my last road race was a 10K during which I finally nailed my sub-60 time and felt the great satisfaction that comes from brutalizing one's body into achieving a far-fetched goal hatched during times of insobriety. Ever since that race though, I've been hesitant about going back out for a straight up road race because of some retarded reasons:

1. Running another 10K with a slower time would make me suicidal
2. Running a 5K in order to avoid the soul-crushing 10K disappointment would be boring/pointless/a waste of money on a race that would take longer to park for than it would to run
3. Running a half marathon at this point would be painful/messy/against my No Long Distance Races in 2010 rule

And because the only other duathlon I can find takes place when I'm going to be out of the country. So boo.
So, instead of signing up for a race to give me a purpose and a goal for running and so that when I do find another race to run I won't shame myself and my precious PRs, I decided to go back to my sub-60 10K training.

Basically, make my Saturday run a 10K and see if I still "had it". As in, can I still run this in less than an hour. And if I could, then YAY and maybe I'll sign up for another 10K. Or maybe I won't. Maybe I'll just keep it up until Thanksgiving rolls around and I'll dress up in a nice Pilgrim costume and dust some of those dumb looking turkeys while I set a new 5K PR or something.

A girl can have dreams, am I right?

So, that's what I set out to do last Saturday under cloud cover and with temps in the 50s - go out and run a sub-60 10K.

You excited I'm saying that again? Sub-60 10K? Don't gouge your eyes out with spoons yet, you dramatic whores - I will stop saying it soon.

Anyway, I went out with that intention and what I came back with was a completely empty tank. I baaaaaaaaaarely squeaked over the line (and by "line", I mean the crack on the concrete that coincided with the exact moment my Garmin hit 6.2 miles) at 59:39 and my pre-run snack creeping up my esophagus.

Pleasant.

Though, I did finally do that thing I've heard trainers tell their trainees: Leave it all on the course.

I did not, however, hit the puke threshold, and while I know that's another thing that trainers train their trainees to do, I have no aspirations in this area. Barfing as a sport really doesn't appeal to me.

Going 100% until you simply can't go anymore though - that's fine.

But it was a haul. I turned around on the trail at 3.1 miles knowing that I was going to have to pick up the pace on my return if I wanted to hit my number and then at mile 5 I knew I was going to have to either sprint or suddenly learn to fly if I wanted to make it under 1:00:00.

So, yeah, if you were driving around San Jose on Saturday morning and saw some girl wearing this outfit while running and crying - that was me and no, I wasn't crying so shuttup.

But I made it. So I still *have it*. Though *it* moves farther away with every Saturday that passes without focused training, so I'm going back to this sub-60 10K business so that I don't have to fight my way back to it quite as hard as I did last weekend any time in the near future. Painful, my friends, it was painful. And I like to avoid pain like that. So it's worth it.

If only so that I can kick some turkey ass in November.

I'm one of *those* people. Sorry.

I don't know what did it, exactly, but both Bubba and I - we snapped.

We both made silent but determined little pacts in our own brains at nearly simultaneous moments that we were done with mystery meat.

And not just like "Oh I don't know which parts of the pig's anus this hot dog contains" kind of mystery meat, but like, all meat. Steaks, burgers, those Sharpie-doodled chicken strips that come on your BBQ Ranch Chicken Salad, any meat sold in the frozen food aisle of any store and fast food meat which can be the most mysterious and ammonia-bleached sawdust filled of them all.

OK, so it might have been the scene in Food, Inc with the ammonia blasted hamburger filler "meat" going off in unrefrigerated boxes to McDonald's that did it. That at least might have done it for Bubba who used to consider McDonald's his gym.

Not like he's a big fat guy, he's not - quite the opposite, which is why it was extra amusing when he'd push his chair away from his desk at work to declare he was "going to the gym, people!" and then return ten minutes later with a bag of McDonald's.

Side note: Most impressive display of restraint ever was his boss who would, when offered some fries from his lunch, take one fry. ONE FRY. A single solitary french fry. She'd eat it, smile and go on about her day. Never did she ask for a second one. Never did she take any more that were offered. Bastion of restraint, that woman. I adore you, Single French Fry Eater - you're my hero.

Anyway, getting back to the subject of Bubba and I snapping, then.

I knew Bubba had snapped when he didn't suggest we go to McDonald's on a recent road trip. And when I dared to ask if we could just stop at a fruit stand on the side of the highway, he might have said something like, "That sounds good, maybe I'll get an apple." Or maybe that's what I said, I can't remember, but the ensuing conversation alerted us both to the simultaneous yet secret from each other pacts that we'd made in our own heads about staying away from mysteriously raised, handled, treated, processed or otherwise abused meats.

Not because we're all high and mighty. Not because we're the super healthiest eaters ever. Not because we like to be high maintenance pains in the ass. And certainly not because we want to be vegetarians.

It was because we were grossed out.

Is that too childish of a reason to avoid the products of an awful industry? The Ew Gross factor?

Personally, I think that, No. Any reason is probably a good reason to shy away from consuming the products of an industry that treats its product and its consumers as equally stupid and mindless beings and then goes about its business destroying everything in its path and where, at the end of the day, they have to bleach/flash/antibacterialize their product so that hopefully no one dies from using it as it is being advertised (aka eating it).

If Ew Gross keeps me from going through the drive-thru at the Golden Arches, then fine. Because it has to stop somehow and that is a place to start.

But then what do we do, as the meat eating people we are? Do we just give up, become sad vegans and only eat fruit that's fallen on the ground?

No. That's for morons. And some of my neighbors.

For us though - we go out to the garage, pound a few cocktails, and during an intimate three-way embrace between us and the chest freezer, promise that we'll fill her with only local grassfed and finished beef from a ranch we can see with our own eyeballs and local pasture raised chickens and grassfed and pasture raised lamb and pork.

And then we set out on a mission to find such things.

Thankfully, we live in NorCal and thankfully we have this farmshare and our farm knows of ranches and other farms nearby that have all those things.

And, most thankfully, it isn't that much more expensive (if at all) than buying the same types of things at the *gasp* grocery store.

Sure, we buy in bulk because we have a chest freezer we can fill, but if we were back in our old place or didn't have the chesty, we could make it work, too. There are ways to eat this way if we want to, we just have to want to, and, apparently, we do.

An entire half of our chest freezer is now beef and chicken. Beautiful.

We're deep in the meat.

So, that's the long way of telling you the follow up to my pre-vacation teaser about 80 lbs of beef is that we finally snapped on the topic of CAFOs/the meat and food processing industries/fast food/abuse of the American people /The Ew Gross Factor and decided we were going to buy all our meats from local and sustainable sources with acceptable farming practices.
 

Boobies.

Also, I bought 3 whole fresh chickens and, perhaps my bubbie would be proud, cut them up myself and packed them into our freezer for future meals.

For my first time following directions, it took me under 20 minutes to completely cut up 3 whole chickens.

It was a big moment. When I could break out the butchering book my mom gave me and put it to some actual real use in my kitchen.

This book is so Jewy. 

It talks about how you shouldn't think about how gross it is to cut up chicken but instead how much money you're saving. 

Awesome.

It might interest you to know that I requested a boning knife for my birthday. Which would be a fitting addition to the chest freezer I asked for (and received) last year. I'm apparently becoming odd in my old age, but I've decided to ignore that and instead focus on figuring out what delicious thing we'll have from the chest freezer this weekend that won't have gone through any terrifyingly awful series of scenarios on its way from the feedlot to my plate.

Will it be grassfed burgers? How about a nice filet mignon? Ooh - or maybe I should make chicken enchiladas. OH! Or order some lamb chops before the summer's over and we can't grill outside anymore!

Yeah, that summer part is sad, but the lamb part is good. I'll do that.

Now, of course, there are going to be times when we won't be eating only the fruits and meats of locally raised, sustainably harvested, only grassfed, humanely cuddled creatures. There are also times when we'll eat Taco Bell because they put heroin in that shit and it's a hard habit to break, but the snapping that we heard was our brains changing direction.

Rather than mindlessly going to Safeway and buying a shrinkwrapped package of potentially-made-to-wallow-in-its-own-excrement-while-being-injected-with-antibiotics mystery, we'll do a bit of planning ahead and enjoy something yum and catastrophic disaster-free from our local ranch.

That's a different way of thinking for a lot of people, us included, and now I will step down of this nice big soap box I've built so I can go have cocktails with Bubba and compare war wounds from our post-vacation week back at work.

My ass does not hang out of it. Score.

Wouldn't you like to know that amidst all the gleeful staycation drinking, I actually took a moment and sewed a thing.

For me.

That's not a part of a sew-a-long or anything.

Not even the sew-a-long that I allegedly host with Kelli but have been delinquent in posting photos for this time around even though I totally made another In Car Trash Bag because you know how I love self-promotion and also car cleaning.

Let's pretend we didn't hear that last part and just move on. I'll come back with that story later. And in the mean time I'll try to remember to take a photo of this triumph since the pattern was obviously SUPER GOOD and its author a SUPER GENIUS.

You know what I'm saying.

The other thing I sewed though...let's talk about that for a minute.

See, four years ago when Kelli and I got the wild hair to do our first sew along (four years really moves. Wow. I feel old or something.), we did so because we were inspired (or, rather Kelli was inspired and then inspired me - it's a cyclical thing) by Amy Butler's book, Institches, because it was the first non-barfy sewing book we'd come across in, well, ever.

I'm not going to go into the shortcomings of all the other books that had crossed my eyeballs before that one (and since), but let's say they weren't inspiring in any way that you'd want to rally a bunch of women around for a pleasant good time. A time involving matches and trash can bonfires, maybe, but that's not what I'm about when it comes to sewing.

And so we sewed from this book for a year and made a lot of nice things. One thing we did not make, however, and which spent a good amount of time that year repeatedly catching my eye, was the Kimono Bathrobe.

At least I think that's what it's called.

Which is a short-coming of all sewing books that are books rather than websites because when I want to link to a pattern or remember its proper name, I have to go hunt it down on my bookshelf which is never located in the same place that I'm located when I want to reference it. But we'll put aside my issues with actual books and the physical world for now.

When I realized that I was going to have a week off, at home, to do just whatever the hell I wanted, I decided it was time to finally make this robe because putting on my full-length terry cloth spa robe in the heat of summer is really not that pleasant.

So, on the whateverth day of vacation, I marched off to my favorite fabric store, fingered all the fabrics a million times and walked off with this yellow floral number that, on paper sounds awful, but in person seemed pretty OK for the job of a robe.

I really wanted more of this fabric, but it's nowhere to be found. And by nowhere I mean at the one fabric store I went to. Look, I have a severely short attention span and can't be driving hither and thither for fabric. I know you understand. But, if you happen to know who designs or has this fabric, you just let me know and I'll figure out a way to make another robe.

Yeah. The King Kong fabric wasn't really speaking to me.

I have a pattern, dontchaknow.

So, speaking of this pattern - have you heard me bitch about patterns lately? Probably. I do it a lot. Usually when the pattern is wrong, asks for too much fabric, too little fabric, forgets a crucial detail, requires a lot of quilting or basically sucks out loud.

Well, this pattern is one that needs no bitching whatsoever.

Seriously.

And this may be because I sewed this thing in the manner most befitting my lunatic mentality which is to say that I set aside two different sessions to complete it thereby sidestepping the terror that inevitably ensues when I attempt to cut out pattern pieces, cut out fabric and then sew something that requires more than 3 steps all in a single sitting.

People could die in this scenario and blood has been shed in previous situations is what I'm trying to tell you, so I guess I've learned a thing or two about good old crazy me, and that is that for a sewing project that requires all the steps above plus a few pages of diagrams and much measuring, I must allot myself two days and many cheesy movies on the teevee so that we all come out alive on the other end, and hopefully possessing a sewn object that isn't attached to one's self or left to burn on the lawn.

One day I ran Sleepless in Seattle in the background and cut out the pattern pieces and fabric. Fine.

The next day I ran Tombstone (I'll be your huckleberry. LOVE YOU, VAL.), Star Trek (the new one, obvi - Hot Spock) and something else I can't recall while I sewed up the robe to near perfection.

I say, "near", because I accidentally measured the back piece wrong (who me? suck with measuring or anything resembling math? NEVER.)(Always.) and when I went to piece it together, I realized that it was going to leave my ass hanging out, so I had to QUICK sew in an extension that brought it down to normal lengths.

And thank god I did because HELLO that would a been a lot of Finny cheek to be showing to the neighbors on garbage day. Not that I take out the garbage, but you know, I wander the streets in my robe and some people must think it's because I'm minding the trash.

After that one little fix though, it was totally done and now I love it.

I mean, I have to wash it still, because I am one of those lazy ass seamstresses who doesn't always (ever) wash their fabric before they sew with it, but I'm sure that whatever shrinkage occurs won't be nearly as terrifying as the scene that would have unfolded had I just cut the front panels to the length of the back panels and gone about my neighborhood tour as though my bits weren't 100% showing for everyone to see.

So, there you have it - this pattern, while requiring of much fabric (3 1/2 yards is a lot to me) and two days of sewing because I'm a loon, is absolutely solid and I have zero beef with the design, instruction, diagrams or final product.

Thank you, Amy. This robe is a gem.

Actually, yes, I do recall feeling relaxed.

I was a little worried that taking a vacation to go nowhere (aka my house) rather than somewhere (aka Hawaii) was going to be a bit boring and not all that relaxing and something of a bummer.

Not so!

Well, not so once I decided that a No Rules approach was better than an Apply All The Random Rules People Spout When They Hear You're Taking a Vacation at Home approach.

Man, people will make rules about any old thing, won't they?

Don't do any laundry!
Eat out at every meal just like on regular vacation!
Remember to cancel/postpone/hold all your stuff like mail and cleaning ladies!
Don't run errands!
Don't work out!
Sleep in every day!
Don't watch TV!
Visit new museums around your house!
Go to the movies in the middle of the day!

NO.

I'm proud to say that, while I was planning on abiding by a few of these rules (laundry and working out come to mind), I didn't. I think, in fact, that I DID do most of the shit on that list. Because you know what stresses me the fuck out?

Coming home from a Somewhere Else AKA Hawaii type vacation and having to do laundry, go out to dinner because we don't have any food in the house, collect mail, clean the house, run errands, work out every single moment to regain control over my waistline from a week of drinking cocktails at every meal, make up sleep, and catch up on the TiVo.

Going to museums and movies doesn't show up on my To-Do list regardless of the occasion, so those rules fell on completely deaf ears.

But don't worry, friends, it wasn't all Hey Bubb, Do We Have More Detergent? the whole time.

Oh no. We did things.

Think things like cooking, canning, beach-going, impromptu road tripping, running, going on bike rides, sewing, gardening, drinking of new cocktails, drinking of old cocktails, accepting delivery of local-raised chickens, shopping, *censored*, wine country visiting, wedding going and just plain sitting on our asses.

As you can plainly see below.

It was relaxing in the sense that I cleared my mental mind list of a lot of stuff that's been sitting around taking up space in there for a long time.

And relaxing since I did sit around a lot in the garden and stare at the birds, plants, my book and the bottom of a cocktail glass.

About those salty stories...well, I can't say that any really come to mind since I didn't kayak into a boulder, get washed ashore face first, take pictures of dead fish on a beach, or narrowly avoid being buried in a snowstorm.

I did, however, try a new cocktail and now my life is forever changed. Mostly because it gives me another way to use the garden produce and enjoy my gin in one sitting.

Welcome, Cucumber Cooler.

A friend of mine dropped this little Hendrick's booklet on my desk the other day, an act that would normally elicit very little response beyond that of throwing it in the trash since I don't deal in clutter, but something told me I should take it home and absorb its contents.

And absorb I did.

Mostly because Bubba's been plying me with a different gin cocktail every time we go to a new restaurant or bar because on a recent work trip he tried, "a gin drink with ginger beer and cucumber something in it and it was so good and I knew you'd love it but I can't remember what it was called or where I had it" (helpful, this one).

So, when we were in Anaheim for the All-Star Game, we went to Morton's and I had their "Cool as a Cucumber" drink, which was good (I swapped Hendrick's for the filthy vodka the thing called for) and since I determined that this change from plain old gin & tonic or vaguely more interesting gin & ginger ale (Gin Buck) to something more exotic was actually not a pointless activity, I set out to recreate the magic at home. Where I could also control the amount of gin going into my drink (more) and also use up some of the vegetables and herbs trying to take over our front room (cucumbers, mint).

Good call, me.

So I made one of these Cucumber Cooler things, even though it called for about a hundred more ingredients and dirtying a dozen dishes unlike my typical G&T.

And that garnish you see on top there? Yeah. That's a garden cucumber after a meaningful run-in with my melon baller. SCORE!

I haven't used that melon baller since I bought it and am only now beginning to realize it's potential. Awesome.

And the drink was awesome. And I had many. And then maybe Bubba lit the fire pit and we got so into our cocktails that we maybe had to take a bike ride to the booze store the next day so that we could relive it again that night.

And that, my friends, is a big benefit of staycationing - all the comforts of home, like your own bike, patio, fire pit, bar and booze store are, RIGHT THERE because...well, you are at home with all its comforts.

Back soon.

You're probably used to my yearly proclamations that come this time of year - "We're going on vacation so don't get all 'Where the fuck are you?' and what not because I'll be back in a week to show you photos of my flip-flop tan from some beach whoknowswhere" - right?

Did you follow all that?

Well, it's my way of creating something of a segue for this year's Vacation is Here So I'm Peacing Out For a Week post even though there aren't any beaches involved. At least none that will win me a flashy new flip-flop tan. And there's barely any peacing out either because, well, we're not going anywhere that requires a flight, long drive, or more than a sack lunch.

And that is because Bubba and I, with an exciting and out of character early fall trip, are foregoing our beaching for a nice, restful...try not to barf or hate me when I say this...staycation. Or, StayVacay as I've called it. Or, Food, Booze and *censored* as Bubba's called it.

So far, it's been all of those things plus some other things like Eating Our Tomatoes At Every Occasion instead of coming home from, say, Costa Rica, to find that the plants have gone into full production as soon as I left the house and Taking a Million Pictures of Hummingbirds We Didn't Know We Had since we actually had time to set my big camera up with his giant lens on the tripod to capture these flying piglets draining the feeder.

It's different, this staying home for vacation. So far I extra love that I get to sleep in my own bed, which is a fancy thing that I miss a lot on vacations, and riding my own bike when we go out for shopping or getting tacos or refilling the bar at the booze store.

Of course, there are some downers - most notable being the personal realization that it's not actually my piss-poor packing that forces me to wear the same clothes every day while I'm on vacation (at least on the beach ones) but instead, my own laziness because don't you know that here I am on the 4th day of our vacation wearing much the same thing I've worn for the last few days without any intention of changing that.

I guess I'm gross. Or lazy. Or without the desire to do laundry. Which I've been told is a major no-no of staycationing (barf. I just barfed from that.) and since it doesn't seem to interfere with the *censored* portion of our staycationing (I still shower, don't be nasty.) I figure it's somerthing that's proved successful whether we're on the water in Maui or hanging out on our patio at home in NorCal.

So yeah, picture that, Bubba and I wearing our ratty best, drinking cocktails and picking tomatoes while we stare at the bird feeder, intermittently read our books, cook recipes that have been sitting around waiting for attention, ride our bikes every old place because hell, we have the time and then maybe, when we get restless, going off fishing or climbing at a new place within a morning's drive so that we can feel like we did something. Plus, you know we'll make a beach run because what is a vacation without some play time for the dog. And, of course, a beach. Even a cool, foggy NorCal type beach where you wear more clothes than you would at home and leave with purple lips and red toes.

I might blog a bit while we're dicking around here, especially if the garden does something incredible or I cook something incredible (Tomato Pie is on the docket for tonight, so incredibility is inevitable) or Bubba catches a huge trout that requires ample blog real estate to properly appreciate.

Otherwise, I might be missing from the blog for a few days but don't panic because you know I'll come back with a few salty stories to get you back up to speed on the minutia of my week's break from work.

Until then, I'll be here.

My meadow and poo.

Here's something fun and potentially shocking - I'm not a totally delusional liar!

In the case of meadow grass, anyway.

Yes, friends - the meadow, MY MEADOW, has come in. Just as I imagined/predicted/hoped/shook my fist that it would way back last year when I defied all logic and flipped over my lawn.

No one wanted to mow anymore. I hated watering a stretch of grass that no one but the neighborhood dogs used and which didn't want to grow in the shade of our street trees anyway.

The lawn in the backyard? Well, that's there because OUR dog loves it and rolls in it and has accepted it as her own personal lord and savior (seriously, you should see her roll around on the thing - they are having a love affair. I'll stop now.), so I let it live on. Bubba mows it and I don't have to do anything except enjoy watching the dog roll all around on it and look blissfully happy, so it works for me.

The front yard though? No lawn. I'm not about providing a lush and high maintenance toilet for all these dogs, birds, cats and wildlife that roam our little neighborhood.

I bet you didn't know that the Silicon Valley area had wildlife did you? Well, it does. If you consider possums, squirrels, rats (barf), raccoons, hawks and skunks to be wildlife. Which I do. Because they poop anywhere they want. Though, in that definition, some of our neighbors' dogs could be considered wildlife. And that guy that drags the shopping cart down the middle of the street while he yells at his big spoon.

You know what I mean.

The meadow though - It's totally IN.

Which was the point of this post, anyway.  Whether any wildlife is pooping in it is beyond my knowledge. Which is how I prefer things. Though I can tell you a grody animal poop story later if you're interested. Think about it, I'll come back to it.

For now though - look:

LEGIT.

I'm sorry folks, but that July shot looks a lot like a meadow would look if, say, someone were to drag their porch out into nature and then park their car next to it.

Thankfully, that fountain grass gets mighty tall, so I imagine I'll be able to take this picture again in another month and all signs of cars, gas meters, neighbors' kid's shitty cars and kitchen windows will be completely lost amidst the wild sea of flailing fountain grass.

Goodbye, neighbor's stuff.

Plus, I planted gaura galore from my mom's garden (thanks for the plant babies, ma!) and that shit gets huge and wild, so I should also be able to hide the hose (not shown)(because it's ugly) that's coiled up next to the porch and, HEY, most of the porch itself because whoopsy I planted a lot of gaura and also a Hot Lips salvia by the front step there and, well, both of those plants are low-water monsters.

They live to grow! They live to attract pollinators! They live to tickle your legs when you walk by! They live to invade every space around you with their nefarious seeds! They barely need water and don't care if you step on them in your heels! It's a good time.

All of this has seen the horrors of 4 inch heels and lived to tell the tale.

So, yes, I've planted things in addition to the grass plugs that like to grow big and strong without the assistance of regular watering and also like to reseed with abandon so that every year I don't have to go through the hamstring and back breaking agony that I did last fall right before I ran a half marathon.

Bad planning.

Also fun was when I decided last weekend that I would hand prune our Japanese maple. Yeah. Because that's a good thing for someone without any experience to do when all they have is the vague direction of an creepy arborist with questionable credentials.

"Just prune it the way you want it to look."

"And don't use shears. Just your hands."

"And don't cut the top branch."

Oooooooookaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay.

Does it look normal? You decide. I mean, it's going to look how it looks now, because I have no control over how the thing grows, obviously, but maybe just tell me if you know anything about pruning Japanese maples that's more helpful than, "Just make it look the way you want it to look".

Not helpful. Can you imagine getting directions from this jackass? "Just drive the car to where you want to go."

Thanks, asshole.

Anyway, this post is derailing from its original purpose of telling you guys that the idea to scrape up the lawn, flip it over and plant grass plugs and wildflowers in it in order to create a personal low-water meadow is totally working.

And also Bubba has given me the thumbs up on getting a nice big stone to put out there so that, when it rains, a little water collects and creates a natural water feature for, like, the shitting anywhere birds and such. Fun!

So, for that grody poo story: (You thought about this, yes?)

Once upon a time I was standing on our brand newly minted front porch with Bubba and the contractor, saying our farewells and high-fiving ourselves on a porch that was in no way a result of our own handiwork, when I got a whiff of something FOUL.

Like Poo Foul.

It smelled like poo.

So, I checked my shoes, ever so inconspicuously I assure you, and found nothing. I tried peering under Bubba's shoes and saw nothing. I started to think maybe our awesome contractor had wandered through something Foul but saw no evidence of that either. And then the whiff hit me again.

Definitely poo.

And then, because I was standing on the porch where there was light and the whiff was coming from the yard, where there was no light, I squinted my eyes against the light and followed my nose ever so carefully toward the stench only to find that someone had:

A. Let their dog walk all the way up to our porch, even though it's plenty far from the sidewalk to make this totally inappropriate

B. Then let their dog take a monster dump IN THE MIDDLE OF ONE OF MY PLANTS

and then,

C. Not pick it up at all so that it could sit there and smolder in the warm springtime weather.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, nice.

So, as we were celebrating the conclusion of our porch and the aliveness of our yard, a giant poo wafted in and ruined the moment.

Grody.

But perhaps I will have the last laugh now that the yard has grown in to the point where I can have wildlife hiding out and waiting to pounce on the no-poo-picking-up owner and their giant-poo-pile-making dog.

Do you think I can entice a bobcat to come hide in my yard? They do live around here somewhere.

It's all BLAH in there.

I've tried to write a decent post about something interesting four times in a row now, but my brain is crap on account of a very, let's say, demanding, week at work, so I'm officially giving up and showing you pickles.

Hey, it's what I've got.

I'll be back after this week of mind-sucking meetings with something about either front yard meadows, 80 pounds of beef, brown bikinis or what it's like to spend 10 years with a man who believes that one can not own too many tents.

Look forward to that.

Stop staring at me, tomato. [RecipeS]

You're aware that the garden's been busy. I know you are because I keep telling you.

But, what I haven't told you lately is what the F we're doing with all that garden business. Rude of me, I know.

I also haven't been telling you exactly what the F I'm doing with everything in the farmshare for the purposes of weekly Farmshare Project updates, and for that I apologize. In the sense that I'm sorry I decided to do a tedious weekly post that would actually be more useful for people being buried alive by chard if it were a directory of recipes listed out by scary, unknown or potentially hazardous amounts of vegetables.

So, I am just going to be telling you, at random intervals, what all I'm cooking with these vegetables (because LORD KNOWS WE EAT A LOT OF VEGETABLES) and then linking to those recipes from The Farmshare Project tab that lives on the top of the blog there.

Yes, there. Go look. There's a lot of recipes already. You know this, too, because I have already told you, but I won't hold it against you if you forgot. YOU DIDN'T FORGET DID YOU? Sorry. I promise I forgive you.

No hard feelings.

Meanwhile, in all of my rudeness I haven't told you my new favorite tomato sandwich, and that is just not right.

What am I if not a dedicated tomato sandwich maker? Nothing, that's what. I friggen' shell of a gardener, perhaps.

Anyway, I was working from home the other day with my tomato (it proof reads and provides much needed tea refills) and by the time lunch rolled around, I'd hatched a plan for its demise. This plan also included getting rid of some leftover ciabatta type bread before it went bad and some cheese.

Except we didn't have the typical eat-it-with-ripe-tomatoes-cheese: fresh mozzarella.

Sadness briefly washed over me until I realized that HOT DAMN we have blue cheese. And not just any blue cheese, but some fancy ass buttermilk blue cheese that needed to go before we could break into the Amish blue cheese I'd gotten to make Bubba's favorite chicken salad.

It's a specific schedule for the blue cheese and we must follow it closely.

Anyway, and let's not pay any attention to the fact that I have a variety of blue cheeses in my dairy drawer, when I finally approached the tomato and plucked it from the plant (you really have to love the satisfying *snap* these Better Boys make when they are picked) and marched it off to the kitchen for slicing, its fate had been sealed.

Finny's BCT (Blue Cheese Tomato - der.)

Recipe by moi

 

Ingredients

1 sun-warmed homegrown tomato, sliced

2 slices of ciabatta bread, lightly toasted

2 T crumbled (buttermilk) blue cheese

(Olive oil) mayo

Fresh cracked pepper

To make

Scrape just a bit of mayo on both sides of the sandwich, add black pepper to the top half, crumbled blue cheese to the bottom and stack the tomatoes on top of the blue cheese. Press the top half on there and cut it in half if you so desire.

And, right there, I just told you how to make a sandwich as though you've never made one before. Retarded!

Oh well. You forgive me now and we'll all go on with our lives.

Also, with these slowly ripening tomatoes, I made my go-to hot weather tomato dish: Mellow Tomato Pasta and paired it with my go-to WHAT THE F AM I GOING TO DO WITH ALL THESE BEANS beans: Roasted Green Beans.

Notice those purple beans turned green when cooked. Purple FAIL.

Those recipes can also be found on the Farmshare Project Tab because I love you a lot. See? It's true.

Don't believe me? I've found a way for you to kill green beans, carrots, peas, onions and fennel in one meal.

Really. 

And if you happen to have most of a can of coconut milk threatening to go bad in your fridge, well, then you'll be extra happy, too.

I can't, however, take credit for the recipe because it's another Sunset one, but I totally recommend Pea and Carrot Coconut Curry if you're a curry person. Or a carrot person. Or a person woefully at a loss for what to do with all the vegetables included in the title. You get it.

The beans though? Let me tell you.

Roasted Beans with Fennel and Onion

Recipe from Live Earth Farm's newsletter

Ingredients

1 lb green beans, trimmed

1-2 fennel bulbs, sliced thinly (if you have a death wish, use the mandolin)

1 onion, sliced thinly (see dare above)

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

To make

After taking your own life in your hands by choosing to use the greatly-feared mandolin, add enough oil to cover your thick-bottomed pan and, when its warmed and fragrant, add your sliced fennel and onion, stirring occasionally until it's browned. I hear this process is called, "brown frying", but I find most technical cooking terms to be subject to user invention, so who knows if that's a real thing.

Anyway, while your fennel and onion is frying and browning, steam your beans until just crisp. Rinse them with cool water so they don't get all brown and grody. 

Could we call that, "brown-grodying"? Probably.

Once all your fennel and onion shavings are brown and such, toss in your crispy steamed beans and give them a good toss with some salt and pepper - as much as YOU, specifically, like. Me? I'm a salt girl. Which may explain why I drink so much water and feel like my tongue is shriveling half the day, but hey, that's my issue.

When everything has mingled to your satisfaction, serve it alongside your Pea and Carrot Coconut Curry and bask in the glow of having killed many vegetables with one totally edible meal.

You rule.

Look at my melons.

When Bubba and I were at AIDS Walk on Sunday, I nearly tore myself off my bike mid-pedal (with the clip-ins, so it would have been messy) to get at a painfully cute Aussie puppy trotting along with its owners.

Seriously, I cried out. I made grabby hands. The puppy cut across in front of the lucky soul walking him to come toward my magnetic grabby hands. It was very nearly one of those cheesy reunite-y moments where violins play in the background.

Except I stayed on my bike (fucking pedals) and settled for making squeaky I LOVE YOU PUPPY noises in his direction and then probably (definitely) said something like, "Bubb! Did you see that puppy?? How fucking cute is he anyway?!" because I'm very classy and that is what you yell at the top of your lungs when impressionable children and drag queens dressed in leathers are right there.

Bubba, however, was halfway up the hill I was ignoring during my puppy loving moment and didn't hear me. Or, perhaps he didn't want to admit that he was associated with the psycho puppy chasing girl on the orange bike with the paper crown taped to her helmet.

Though, I'm not sure why.

Psycho.

Anyway, I told you that to tell you this: When I saw the first watermelons making their appearance on the vines later that day, I made the same squeaky I LOVE YOU PUPPY noises except I probably (definitely) said something like, "BUBB! Come look at my big melons!"

And then I think I heard my neighbor laughing.

So, that's how my maternal instinct plays out. Some people get all squeaky for human babies, I lose my shit over puppies and watermelons. Plus, it's always fun to make reference to big melons. It's half the reason I grow melons. The other reason is I don't know what. So that Bubba can make reference to my nice big melons, I suppose.

Though for now, the melons are small babies. But WHOA CRAP there are a lot of them. I haven't grown watermelons in a few years and I don't really remember how many babies would appear on the vines, but this one Moon and Stars plant, which was planted at random between the other two melons I was sure were going to die (and are now, of course, totally alive), probably has around a dozen babies on it right now.

Maybe I should have a baby shower. I could go for some cake.

Not really sure what we'd do with a dozen watermelons.

In other Baby Watermelon news: look at the Mexican Sour Gherkin cucumbers that look like super tiny watermelons.

Though you won't hear me shrieking, "Bubba! Come look at my super tiny melons!" because that would be contradictory. And I'm nothing if not consistent in my overly loud backyard proclamations.

Instead I think I'll yell something about pickles. Because my plan is to pickle these little weird things and give them as little weird pickled gifts come the holidays. If we don't eat them all first because WHOA can we eat some pickles.

And that is as far into that rabbit hole as I'm prepared to go.

To change the subject to something less lascivious, I've been updating the Garden Tracker (which also lives on the left side, there) and wouldn't you know that we crossed Zero Barrier (Dorks unite. Thank you.) a while back and we're well into Not a $64 Tomato territory.

In fact, we're into the black to the tune of $100+ dollars, so that's good news given we have an untold number of watermelons, tomatoes, cucumbers, beans and tomatillos yet to ripen and tip the scales ever farther into Cents Per Pound territory.

Last year I closed out the season with my investment of $91.34 reaping me hundreds of pounds of produce (literally, 273.98 lbs) for a value of $.33/lb.

This year, because I'm a psycho that way, I want to beat that. I want to come in with a value of $.32/lb or less. Perhaps I'm just missing having a running goal to bang on about, but I nearly called it a Sub-30 goal.

Wow. I've said too much.

Well, that only took 2 and a half months. [Tutorial]

Back in May I was over at Wendy's cruising her always creative posts when I got all inspired and mouthy over chalkboard paint and the associated markers and OH WHAT I WOULD DO with those things if I got them alone in a dark closet...wait, no, that was Hot Spock...OH WHAT I WOULD DO with those things if I had them in my house and near my bulk dry goods.

Yes. That's more like it.

(But really, isn't Hot Spock hot? Especially when he's slicing people's heads off on HEROES? Plus, funny. Sheesh - the hotness.)

Anyway, my closet is still Hot Spock-free, but I did finally triangulate the perfect combination of brush-on chalkboard paint (neater than the spray kind), chalk paint pens and AHA! chalk.

Yes, I had to buy actual chalk. I will tell you in a minute.

Anyway, I got them all in my house recently (minus Spock, sadly) and then had my filthy way with them. In the sense that when I was done, there was some paint on my hands and I had to throw away some tape and, well, there was a bit of a mess BUT THAT'S OK because now my cupboards look like this:

Also, what kind of person has currants in their cupboard? Freak.

I should have taken a "Before" photo, so that you could see how they looked just like boring recycled jars full of mysterious unknowable items (walnuts, almonds, pasta - who can recognize these things without labels?), but I bet you can just imagine it. You have so much practice at imagining things when I tell you to already anyway.

So, how did this all come to be? Let me tell you.

Recycled Dry Goods Containers

Materials


A variety of recycled glass jars with lids, labels removed
Chalkboard paint
Foam sponge brush
Chalk
Chalk Ink pens
Painter's tape

To make
With your first jar, find a flat space on the side of the jar and, with your painter's tape, mark off a good sized rectangle.

Do this for all your jars.

Then, with your foam sponge brush, paint on a single layer of chalkboard paint, making sure not to leave any areas too thin.

Do this for all your jars.

Let them sit for about 30 minutes, or until the stuff seems dry to the touch. I think the paint container had the nerve to suggest leaving it overnight or for three days or some bullcrap, but you know I totally ignored that. What? Am I made of three days? No.

Remove the painter's tape carefully from all jars.

NOW you get to wait three days. Which wasn't my favorite news, but, as it turned out, was just fine because I had to pack for our trip to SoCal and had finally used up my last procrastination strategy by painting these jars when I was supposed to be finding my iPod headphones.

Also, running in SoCal was sucky. Since when is it humid in California? Yet another reason that SoCal is a different state than NorCal. Also, so many palm trees. And Mickey Mouse. Barf.

Moving on.

When you're back from LA, or wherever you travel at random to watch baseball games, get out your regular old chalk and, instead of writing, "School makes me puk [sic]" on your elementary school's handball court (name the childhood book that I can't believe just popped into my mind), scribble it across the painted part of your jar.

Fill it all in. Using the flat side works best, I found. After doing it like this once. Oops.

When you've covered it completely with your regular chalk, wipe it off with a towel or Bubba's shirt. It is now ready for writing with the chalk ink pen. FINALLY.

Before chalk. After chalk. You get it.

Get your pens out, realize you got the "Earthy Tones" ones, curse yourself for being so retarded as to not buy a WHITE one, begrudgingly choose the yellow one and start labeling your jars IF you can identify their contents.

Thankfully I didn't run across too many mystery items.

Then, because you're suspicious of all things that seem amazing and useful at the same time, test out the wipe-offable-ness of the ink.

Yup. Totally comes off.

Yup. Totally goes back on again.

Do all of your jars.

Then line them up in the cupboard and imagine everything else that needs chalkboard paint RIGHT NOW. Fight the urge to paint the cat.

Then celebrate the moment by Googling images of Zachary Quinto and ignoring the one of him in a sexy man-embrace with whoever that dude is.

Then cheer yourself up after that bummer of a photo you couldn't ignore by looking at one of your Hot Husband.