Let the 2014 season begin!

I have a confession. I led a very suburban life this winter. How can you not? Kansas was cold, so I would drive to work in my heated car, drive back home to my heated house, and then sit on my pre-heated couch (cats are very useful) watching Netflix. When I wanted to workout, I would drive to the gym and go to an overly heated spin class. That was basically my winter and early spring. Despite eating delicious homemade canned tomato sauce and knitting up a storm, it was pretty suburban.

We did break up the monotony by going to Italy, but we went to the tourist cities (Venice, Florence, and Rome). Although beautiful, fun, and full of history, Italy really brought home how much we love wide open spaces and nature and how much we dislike crowds of people.

Gladiatoring tour groups in the Colosseum!

Warm weather has come, and we're easing back into going outside and enjoying the longer days. Yet, even as my garden is planted and growing strong (a post to come), suburban issues arise. I worry if  I'm letting my grass get too high because despite the lack of an HOA, our neighbors sure are out there once, even twice, a week mowing. I worry that our lawn has a lot of weeds. I don't know why. The neighbor to the east of us only has weeds. The neighbor on our other side has a company come out to fertilize and weed. There are cracks in our driveway from a cold winter. I thought these were things I wouldn't have to worry about as much when we moved away from perfectly coiffed lawns and homes 6.5 feet apart.

Longer work days and teaching more classes has contributed to this overall stress, BUT Friday was my turn around point. It was the day that inspired me to come back and write. I had had a very long week of work (I'm teaching three classes this summer, which is a first), and I had not had anytime outside. I was always in the classroom or tutoring one-on-one in a windowless room. Friday was my day off, and I knew I needed a bike ride. My road bike was in the shop, so I got my oft neglected hybrid out (yes, I have more than one bike and I know this sounds very suburban). This bike doesn't have a speedometer hooked up. I could have turned on my Map My Ride app on my phone to see my speed, but I didn't. I could have strapped on my heart rate monitor to see how many calories I rode, but I didn't. I JUST RODE. I rode past chickens and cows and fields and horses and creeks. I don't know how fast I went up that huge hill, but I don't think the miniature horses that I rode past we're judging me.

If those miniature horses we're going to judge me, it should be for taking pictures while biking.

I can't see this without Dixie Chicks singing "Wide Open Spaces!"

And thus begins the 2014 season of a suburban girl seeking rural life. I'm gardening, knitting, canning, and biking through the countryside. Here's what's happening this year......

Everybody CAN CAN

Canning came on to my radar a couple years ago when my mom expressed interest in canning and my dad bought her all the proper supplies as a gift. Those supplies were, unsurprisingly, not used until my dad pickled some green tomatoes, peppers, and the like last year. I thought that looked like a good idea but assumed I'd just kill myself with botulism. Well, I got a garden of my own, some confidence, and tons of vegetables, so this year I decided I was going to can.

I tried a simple pickle recipe first. My friend made pickles for her graduation party, and I was tempted to steal the whole jar. God, they were good, and she was kind enough to lend me her great grandma's recipe. The best part about this recipe was that it didn't require a hot water bath or pressure cooking because they were sun pickles. Yes, kinda like sun tea but a lot more sour and crunchy. I just had to add the right ingredients to a jar, boil up a brine, and voila, sun pickles!

The secret ingredient is the kick from the anaheim pepper...oh and dill because any non-dill pickle fails at life

Sterilizing jars to save lives

I saw a deer approach these one day and about lost it.

The true test for these pickles was to pass my parents' discerning taste buds. My Polack mother and Polack-by-marriage father (Polacks know their pickles!) thought they were wonderful. Now I'm waiting for my cucumber plants to produce another crop so I can start another batch.

These pickles boosted my confidence, so this week I decided to go with something a little more complicated: pasta sauce. My tomato plants are producing slowly (and small-ly) but surely, BUT my in-laws, who are doing container gardening with bat guano fertilizer, have produced tons of beautiful large tomatoes. Since my ma-in-law went out of town, I was gifted with a grocery bag full of homegrown tomatoes. With a couple from my garden and my parents' garden thrown in, I had enough tomatoes to make enough pasta sauce for this winter and beyond.

I found a recipe in the book I mentioned in my last post (Homesweet Homegrown) that basically said to throw together a shoebox's worth of tomatoes, onion, garlic, basil, etc. There were no measurements, so I had fun assuming what a good amount of garlic would be. Besides no measurements, another hiccup I had was that my stove, a horrible flat top electric, is not ideal for canning. I have to use flat-bottomed cookware, and even then, heating large pots of boiling water (for sterilizing) could potentially crack my stovetop. This was almost an irrational dealbreaker when we were looking at this house, but my father-in-law mentioned we could run a gas line to the kitchen some day. I wait for that day....longingly.

Thankfully, my parents let me use their non-flat-bottomed canning pot on their glorious gas stove.

The gas stove in all its glory

Tomatoes stewing, waiting for their immersion blending

Everything popped like it should!

Now I have delicious tomato sauce to get my husband and I through the winter.When the next bumper crop comes through, I may try to make some more sauce or maybe something more exciting, like salsa. My next challenge will be to can something like green beans, but first I need to find a pressure canner since it's not an acidic food.

Garden 2013: War of the Weeds

Unlike last year, Kansas was cool and wet leading up to and into May. Rainy weekends continually postponed our planting, but we finally got our garden planted around mid-May. I had grand ideas of starting seedlings inside and planting broccoli and other cool weather vegetables in the spring, but due to a combination of work, laziness, and poor choices (watching Dr. Who seasons 1-4, for one), none of that happened. Lucky for us, the nursery is always happy to sell us plants grown by those who already know the dangers and ridiculousness of a time lord that fights "smart" robots with plungers for hands. We had a great time picking out multiple varieties of tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers. We also got pumpkins and planted our own green beans and carrots, two things we didn't have last year. 

Planted outside of the garden this year so that the tomatoes don't get groped

Everything is doing well so far. Kansas actually has had rain, so I've not had to water as often. The green beans sprouted and grew insanely fast. My husband worked hard to build some really good-looking trellises only for us to find out they were bushing and not climbing beans. Oh well. They look so good that I don't care. We left for a week in Glacier National Park (pictures to come soon!) and even though I didn't see a single baby cucumber growing, there was a completely mature cucumber waiting for us. It was delicious to taste homegrowns again! I picked a few peppers off today and can't wait to try those. I'm now waiting anxiously for the tomatoes to get big and ripe.

I am having a couple issues with weeds and pests. Our garden is chock full of crab grass. It's EVERYWHERE. It was difficult to pull out when it was short, but now that it's long, it looks like a real mess. I've been out there for hours at a time, sometimes even with husband, picking the grass out. I have filled buckets upon buckets, but the best I have done is clear the area around the plants' bases. The rest of the garden is a jungle. 

The peppers and the tomatoes...and the weeds

Note the cucumber rebelliously growing on the fence despite my attempts to put it on the classy trellis. Also note the wonderful green been trellis.

I got a book on Kickstarter last year called Home Sweet Homegrown. It's basically a hippie's guide to growing and storing food- I love it! It has a few natural weed killing recipes that include either pouring boiling water on a weed or spraying it with a vinegar/water mixture. Since I would have to run the length of my fairly long yard with a boiling kettle of water, I decided to try the vinegar mixture. You're just supposed to spray it on the leaves of a weed on a sunny day and watch the plant wilt away. I don't know what I did wrong (maybe too late in the day?) but my weeds looked refreshed when I came out the next day. I plan on trying it again in the morning on the next sunny day.

One recipe I did have success with last year and am trying again this year is a natural bug repellant. Whirl five cloves of garlic, an onion, some red pepper flakes, water, and a squirt of organic dish soap together and let sit over night. Strain the liquid, add some more water, and you have a potent nose-burning bug-repelling spray. You're supposed to spray it on the leaves of your plants. Just don't make the same mistake I did last year: I sprayed it on my arugula and had the spiciest salad ever when I picked it.

The brewing concoction. It smells like burning.

Despite the pests and weeds, the garden is succeeding. I hope to plant even more late summer when cooler-weather-loving crops, like lettuces, spinach, and broccoli, can be planted again. But I hear there's a new Doctor so we'll see....

Dunu nununununu nunununununu BAT HOUSE! aka future fertilizer factory. Another great build by my husband.

The Perks of Snowmageddon

If you haven't been paying attention to the news, you may have missed that Kansas is buried under snow. We have had not one but TWO large snowfalls. Large amounts of snow may make you think that I would be questioning our move to a smaller town because our streets take forever to get plowed and cleaning our driveway is an all day affair. Yet, I've grown to appreciate our life out here more since Snowmageddon has happened.

Dharma appreciates the snow, too.

First of all, we have gotten to know more of our neighbors. When we first moved into our house, I imagined our front door being blocked with large baskets full of homemade baked goods from our loving neighbors. Instead, we got a riding lawnmower when one of my neighbors saw me pushing a mower around our very grassy acre of land. The rest of the neighbors have stayed closely shut in their houses. So much for country hospitality. Well last week, while my husband and I were struggling to shovel 10 inches of snow off our driveway with a shovel and a sled, our neighbor across the way, who we have never met, came to our rescue with a second shovel and proceeded to introduce herself....10 months after we first moved in. We had only met her cats before, so it was great to finally meet her.

Yes, she lives in the house at the bottom of our driveway, and it still took us 10 months to meet her.

We've also been able to enjoy the hospitality of our neighbors. The same neighbor who let me borrow his riding mower also owns a bobcat. He had our cul-de-sac and everyone's driveways shoveled hours before the city came by!

Bobcat FTW

The snow has cut into my trips to the gym, but who needs a gym when you have a unique form of exercise that works your quads, various arm muscles, and abs. Thanks to our steep, long driveway, I get all the exercise I could ever want....and more.

This is what we had to shovel when we had a light snow. Now add 9 inches.

Another perk of the snow was seeing the city's version of a snow plow. I looked out our door one evening to see a Transformer-like John Deere machine shoveling our road. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before. It looked like it could shovel snow and save the world.

The last neat thing about the snow is that it reveals how many creatures prowl our yard. Our front yard is covered in mysterious prints. The snow has also proved quite entertaining, because I get to watch creatures frolic and wade through the snow.

Hi-ho! Hi-ho! We wade through the snow!

New Year, New Cat

Update: In my last post, I mentioned that I didn't like seeing discarded Christmas trees in the lake. Well, I heard a story on NPR a couple weeks ago that said fishermen actually like having those trees in there because fish like to hang out and feed among the trees! Now we know!

To begin this New Year, New Cat post, I will apologize for not writing as often as I could. My goal has been to write once a month until the summer/gardening/composting/etc adventures begin. Life is a little slow out here in the country during the winter. But to make winter a little more exciting and to ring in the new year, my husband and I adopted another cat on New Year's Eve. Meet Hurley:

Herro! (When Hurley meows, it sounds like he's greeting you.)

"Herro?"  "Get off my tower."

Hurley is a lovable, overweight ball of love. His passions in life are eating, opening any and every door, getting in his little (by size and age because he's a little older) sister's way, and greeting everyone with a friendly, "Herro?"

Talking about Hurley is a nice intro for a post I've been wanting to do about pets in the country. It seems that adopting Hurley will bring up our country cred because most people that live around us have a good number of pets. There are some strict laws in the suburbs about keeping pets on a leash. (My dad got ticketed in the park for letting his shih tzu off the leash in a very large open field. I would have hated to be the park ranger who gave him the ticket after just hearing my dad angrily tell the story.) Yet, one of the things I noticed when we were even just looking for houses is that pets, especially dogs, get to roam around. After one house visit, we actually had to trail behind a pack of dogs as they took over the small road.

This roaming behavior has become even more apparent as we have lived in our house for almost a year. Here are some of the funniest tales:

DOGS
We have a lot of dog encounters on our walks and bike rides. A couple yorkies  live down the street. While they charge at us during the day, yipping and jumping for attention, they stealthily stalk us at night. I have come home at night and seen a creature darting up my driveway at full speed. There are no street lights on my street, so as you can imagine, I maced the thing. Just kidding! I just kicked it and ran in the house. Also not true.

A pair of smelly golden retrievers live on one of our favorite walking routes. Although we have now learned to walk single file sneakily on the opposite side of the road, in the past we have had to endure them charging at us. After a little bit of barking, they decide that they would actually love a walk and will follow wherever we go. We have had them follow us on a two mile walk. They walk in the middle of the street and go wallow in the golf course pond. They do this while staying pretty close to us, so I spend a good portion of the walk letting people know these are not our dogs. I'm sure they assume I'm a complete liar.

One of my least favorite dogs is on our bike route. He is usually passed out on his porch until he hears the gentle hum of bike tires on pavement. There is a sign in the yard that says BEWARE OF DOG, but what it should really say is THIS DOG WILL RUN AFTER YOUR BIKE, AND EVEN THOUGH WE HAVE A FENCE, HE KNOWS WHERE THE WEAK SPOT IS. The dog usually chases us a couple feet past his fence and then gives up. I thought about bringing mace on the ride, but my dad pointed up that, with the wind, I might just mace myself in the process. I now keep my water bottle ready in case the dog needs a shot in the face.

CATS
Very few of our neighbors have come to introduce themselves but have opted instead to send their cats. Our neighborhood is full of roaming cats, and they are extremely friendly. The only bad thing is that they don't understand privacy or creepiness......

'Sup?

Trees and Cats

A couple days before Thanksgiving,  my husband and I went Christmas tree shopping. We could finally fit a big tree in our abode! Previously, we were making due with a 3-foot tree that I had been putting up in my room since I was in sixth grade. It was time for an upgrade.We wanted a tree that was fake but looked real. I know a real tree would fit a "country" style better but cutting down a tree for a month of use does not really fit my inner hippie. It always makes me sad to see Christmas trees in the middle of the lake. Anyway, I digress.....

 We also wanted to put our own lights on it, but practically EVERY tree we found was prelit. We know how to put lights on a tree! We went to Target, Home Depot, and the other usual culprits, but all of the unlit trees were hideous. We ended up at Sears. They had our dream style of tree, but it was, of course, prelit. We hadn't found a tree that looked like this at any of the other stores, so we ended up relenting and decided to invest in some wire cutters. Although the tree came in both colored and white lights, we picked the white because we're racist the colored ones weren't very pretty. 

Dharma wishes you a Merry Christmas...kinda

The tree is now wrapped in pretty colored LED lights. We have yet to cut out the white lights, because they are easy to ignore. We turn both the white and colored lights on when we want that Griswold Christmas vibe.

To conclude, I share these pictures with everyone to raise your Christmas spirits!

Dharma got chickies and air pockets in her stocking!

Feliz NOM-idad!

The First Thanksgiving

When I say the "first" Thanksgiving, I don't mean the one in which the Native Americans saved the pilgrims. I mean the first Thanksgiving that I've had at our new place, in which I (sorta) played the part on the Native Americans and my extended family (not really) played the part of pilgrims. They have yet to come back and demand my land, so I'm feeling pretty good.

Thanksgiving was a big deal to me this year because it was my first time cooking a turkey. Also, it was my first time hosting a party of 10+ in which the guests weren't expected to graze off a bag of chips, a vegetable plate, and whatever beer could be found in the fridge. This was a CLASSY meal and my first attempt to prove that I was in fact edging my way into adulthood.

My first issue was that I was missing some of the key classy kitchen supplies. When my husband and I were registering for wedding presents, we were living in an apartment with a kitchen the size of a broom closet. I enjoy cooking, but I knew I could not fit half the stuff I wanted in the kitchen. I had to pass on the items that were use-once-maybe-twice-a-year-if-you're-lucky types of things, so I was missing those all important Thanksgiving dinner items: butter dish, gravy boat, and a turkey roasting pan. I know I referred to this as an issue, but it was the best issue to have. It gave me an opportunity to visit Pryde's, the wonderful, local, hole-in-the-wall kitchen store in downtown Westport. They have kitchen crap piled EVERYWHERE. It's orderly, but it's certainly no Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Every inch of this store is taken up, and they have every kitchen doo-hickey you could imagine. I got to enjoy a free cup of coffee while I ogled their gigantic supply of Fiestaware. We got a lot of beautiful Fiestaware for our wedding, and I wanted to continue the colorful trend in my Thanksgiving service. I hadn't been able to find a Fiesta gravy dish in the larger retail stores, and Pryde's had them in every color of the rainbow. I got a beautiful lemongrass gravy boat, because what goes better with brown gravy than bright green (just go with it). My parents, either out of love or trying to make sure I didn't embarrass myself during my first Thanksgiving, rounded out my collection with a Fiesta butter dish in flamingo and a stainless steel turkey roaster.

Just like the pilgrims used hundreds of yeas ago.

So I had my kitchenwares; now I needed to put them to use. It's overwhelming how many different turkey recipes are out there, but lucky for me, Food Network Magazine's November issue was really an idiot's guide to Thanksgiving. I used their basic recipes to make what I think turned out to be a pretty darn good turkey. My gravy was so good that my dad said so, which is a big deal coming from a man who has worked in and around the restaurant industry most of his adult life. My husband made his signature mashed potatoes, and the rest of my family filled in the gaps with all of their delicious sides.

20lbs of beauty

Apparently making a turkey was not a enough of a challenge, so I also made my own centerpieces based on something I had seen on Pinterest. With the guidance of my husband, I (mostly him) drilled small holes from the tops of gourds and inserted votives. I don't know how safe it was to have open flames on the table as my family handed dishes back and forth, but no one caught on fire from my festive table decorations. I think I learned in leadership class and from Stephen Covey that this is what we call a win-win situation. They win by not being caught on fire. I win because something I took from Pinterest actually worked out.

Don't burn yourself reaching for the butter!

Pinterest FTW

Overall, the first Thanksgiving at our country home was a success. Both the food and the company were exceptional. My favorite part was seeing my family sitting on our porch, swinging on our tree swing, kicking the bouncy ball, using our playset, and enjoying each other's company. It's a great way to break in a home.