New Beginnings

A lot of things started with the new year. 

First, I created a new beginning for myself and had bariatric surgery (January 6, 2016).  Don't think I just up and decided to have surgery and poof, I had surgery.  It is a 6 month process to get insurance to approve it.  Meetings with the surgeon, the dietician, and a psychologist, all in an effort to get the insurance company to say yes.  I've thought about it for years but never had the nerve to just "do it".

I was sick and tired of being overweight.  Well, mainly, I was just sick and tired.  A couple of things finally "smacked" me upside the head.

• First, my husband hurt his knee at a fly ball tournament and I had to run the dog.  I spent so much time crouched down that I couldn't breath, all because I was so fat.  
• Then, there was this baby shower at my new job.  I thought I looked really nice until I saw one of the pictures.  I didn't even recognize me but I did recognize the clothes. 
• Lastly, my older brother, who has been struggling with his weight for years, now has diabetes, heart problems and peripheral neuropathy problems.  I don't want to be me brother in 5 years.  I love him dearly but I don't want his life and that was were I was headed. 

Much to my embarrassment, I started this adventure at 261 lbs.  I'M ONLY 5'2".  I was as big around as I was tall.

I'm now 5 weeks out from surgery and have lost 31 lbs since I started (27 since surgery).  I haven't seen this weight in 8 years.  I am one happy camper and look forward to continuing this adventure.  Sometime later, I'll post before and after but I haven't gotten to the after yet.


On to the things you actually read this blog for........the garden.

I started seeds this week.  They include:

• 6 kinds of tomatoes.  My husband promises he will lovingly tend them since I'm allergic to tomatoes
• Cabbage
• Summer Squash
• 3 kings of spinach
• 6 kings of lettuces
• 3 types of peppers
• Parsley
• Fennel

I did have a picture of their sprouting little heads but for the first time ever, I left my phone on top of the car only to hear it shatter into a bazillion pieces on the street.  New phone, new picture.
The lavender and some lettuce survived the crazy winter and look nice still growing in the garden. 

Yes, those are heating pads under the tray.

I even ordered sweet taters from George, the Tatorman, from Tennessee.  He has the best taters ever.  www.tatorman.com

We have so many projects for this year.  Move the fence on the side of the house back to where it used to be, build a new shed, build a new chicken coop, build 2 retaining walls, make stone steps and fence in the garden.  Love them but those pesky chickens eat the blooms of my squash and stripped my spinach.  Oh, I forgot the most important one - build an outdoor kitchen (yeah right - dream on).

Well, I guess I getter get back to work.  I'll post this and add pictures later.

Happy Trails. 

Self sufficency in the Holidays........ NOT

I realize it is now January 30th and I'm just now posting this.

Things are happening besides the garden and chickens.

For some reason, I thought it was a good idea to buy 50 lbs of flour.  Favorite brand at 1/3 the price of buying it in 5 lbs bags.  Great idea - right.  We are experimenting with bread.  Lots and lots of bread.

Favorites thus far - French Baguettes and Asiago Ciabatta.

Busy making things for Christmas - hand-knitted fingerless gloves (1), hand-knitted socks (5 pairs), hand-knitted cowls (2), handwoven towels (8), walnut maple truffles, jerky, pepper sauce and spicy mustard.  Trying very hard to stick to not using credit for anything, even Christmas, so handmade gifts rule.  I don't have to worry, nobody in my family reads this.

Here is a pic of the socks.  These lovely red, white and blue beauties are for my husband.  He tried them on for a custom fit.  I don't like the hour glass shape but he loved the fit.  Perfect in the arches.

The gloves are for my brother.  His hands get cold at work and he is the hardest person to buy for.  Still in process - I've frogged (a/k/a ripped them apart) them 3 times already.   Actually - all finished.

The bad thing about socks and gloves.  The person you give them to knows about all them because you've had to borrow their hands/feet to get the sizing perfect.  Did I mention I actaully made 6 pairs of socks as Christmas presents.

Cowls - just yarn at the moment but I have big plans. So much for the big plans.  Already frogged it - that yarn was pitiful as a cowl. Now an Enterlac scarf.  Much better use of yarn.  Actually, frogged and cancelled all together.

Towels still on the loom.  Gave up on this Christmas - maybe next.

Answer me this - why do some people complain about a gift idea?  Don't they realize that means that won't get anything.

Happy trails.

P.S. - the lovely thing about writing a blog.  There is a sense of empowerment in putting words out into the universe even if nobody reads them.

P.S.S. - don't faint.  I actually cleaned the chicken coop instead of having my husband do it. Still have feathers everywhere because two of them are molting.

WOW - has it been that long?

So many things has happened since my last post - um - over a year ago.  Last Christmas, Jonathan got these great corrugated steel raised beds.  We were so excited.  Ooh'd and aah'd over them and there they sat, leaning against the wall.

New Year's  came and went.  

Easter came and went.  

Finally, the weekend came for us to really, truly put them together.

All was going fine until I decided we needed to turn it over.  There he is, turning this steel rectangle over.  He steps in to finish flipping it over and IT grabs his shoestring.  Oh -- did I say the edges are super sharp and you have to wear gloves to handle them?  Down he goes catching the edge in the stomach.  There was so much blood, I thought I had killed him.  Just a bruise at the ribcage and a pinhole on his cheek.  All that blood from his cheek.  (I still feel guilty but don't tell him that.)  That was enough for a couple of days.  Didn't want to even look at the offending things. 

We did move the new raised beds and the horse troughs off the patio and down to the far corner of the yard.  Okay, far corner may be an exaggeration but down the hill and at least 100 feet to the north of the patio.  Let the planting commence.  Yeah, right! 

We did plant.... tomatoes (which were few and far between), peppers (amazing), basil (did great but we never harvested any), lavender (wow), mint (which didn't spread - what's up with that), squash (apparently the native bunnies love the blossoms so alas no squash), onions and sweet potatoes.

Well, Texas had this flood.  Our house is 20 feet above the creek yet the creek decided to flood the garden, chicken coop and compost bed.  We got this call from our house sitter - yes, we actually took a vacation - (a) should there be snakes in the chicken coop, and (b) can't get to the chicken coop because there is 2 feet of water in the yard.  That was followed by the voice mail from a neighbor asking if we knew our chickens were in the street.  Teach us to take a vacation.  After the flood was a drought and legal watering only every 2 weeks.  Not so good for a garden. 


We attempted to increase our flock this year.  The newbies did great for about 5 weeks.  Lost 2 to the aforementioned flood, 2 to the hawks and 2 to the drought (hens were hoarding the water).  The surviving 2 are doing great and have reordered the pecking order.   

Fall is now upon us according to the calendar (it's still in the 90s during the day).  We used the peppers throughout the season with more still in the garden.  We got a large grocery sack of sweet potatoes which my brother said were some of the best he has ever eaten.  Go figure, I don't eat sweet potatoes unless my mom makes them for the holidays.

We have a new friend that we introduced to gardening.  She and my youngest son (ahem 20) helped plant collards, green leaf lettuce, cabbage and cauliflower.   Of course, I forgot to label any of them.  Little sprouts are coming up and we see what is what. 

The only pest this fall is the person that keeps throwing a tennis ball into the garden for the dog to retrieve. 

Happy trails. 

A Picture is Worth a 1,000 words.

Here is my picture.  The jewel of our garden and I can't even eat them.  ALLERGIC.

Enjoy. 

Update for this year's projects.

The 5 week project that turned into 3 months........

Well, I promised pictures of the kitchen remodel.  Here are the before and after pics.

That wall with the cabinets on one side and the china cabinet on the other is gone.  That was scary.  It started making a lot of noises but the house is still standing. 

I confess, we still need to caulk the baseboards and do some touch up painting.  I swear, every time somebody did anything, I had to repaint.  Some places have 3-4 coats already.  I never covered up my kids' doopers on the walls that much!  :)  Come to think of it, they didn't have doopers. H


Now that it's all said and done (wonder where that phrase came from), I can't picture it any other way.  I don't even regret painting the pantry tangerine orange and I love my Mason Jar light in the pantry.  

This is the after on the fire place.  No idea where the before picture is.  What is black now was this glossy dove grey porcelain tile.  The fireplace surround is approx. 120 years old and Jonathan and I built the hearth.  It is now painted to match.

Shout out to BECKY, thanks for finding the fireplace surround.

These projects have kept us from really aggressively gardening this year.  We only have potatoes, Egyptian onions, and three kinds of tomatoes this year.  I may or may not plant other things.

We have an actual plan for converting the backyard to ag but since we will have to terrace, it will be a 5 year plan.

My other project for the summer is sorting out the loom room.  Everything that we didn't know where to put or what to do with ended up on the loom room.  Now I have some weaving that I need to do, I've got to have room to do it.  Every house needs at least 1 loom.  At one point, I had 6.  I've cut back a little and just have 4 now.  2 with projects and 2 without.

HAPPY TRAILS.........   

Silence......

Yes, I've been quiet for some time now.  Not that I didn't have a "voice", I just chose not to use it.  

Urban Farming 1.0 was an unmitigated disaster.  Things I learned from it - lots of DON'Ts.  

• Don't plant too many seedlings in a space - those spacing recommendations are there for a reason - USE THEM.
• Don't skimp on water, especially with potatoes.  If you're planting in potato sacks, water more than you think you need.
• Don't be too ambitious.  Ambition is a great thing but start small, 1 or 2 varieties - not 20 or more.
• Don't plant in one of those upside down planters.  They @&%*#.  The tomatoes didn't like them but the Serrano peppers did okay.  Well - at least they didn't die.  

Things we did right -  actually, the Serrano peppers and the okra.  We had enough of both to pickle them.  

Burning question - why doesn't my compost, well, um....., actually compost?

Urban Farming 2.0 will be much better.  So far, the only things growing are my Egyptian Walking  Onions.  These are upside down onions.  The onion is actually the fruit at the top.  When they get heavy, they drupe down and the onion touches the ground and starts growing roots, then sprouting out again.  Ta-da, they "walk" around the garden.

Things Chateau Willow (yes, our house has a name) has done since the spring/early summer fiasco.  Jonathan's little brother Scott died from AML (a kind of leukemia).  He had a wonderful spirit and it was sad to lose him so young.   There was an upside to that, we got to know Adrian and Emily better (Jonathan's siblings that were really little when we got married).  That has been a gift that we never would have pursued.  We sought the services of a great landscape designer and actually have a "5 year plan" to transform the backyard into a real urban farm.  

Then, someone felt the urgent need to do a 1st floor remodel.   NOTE TO SELF:  Never start an extensive remodel project the Friday after Thanksgiving and expect it to be finished by New Years.  We tore up 4 different kinds of flooring, ripped out a wall and built a walk-in pantry plus new cabinets, a farmhouse sink and granite.  Of course, we're to the end of January and still haven't finished the backsplash or the baseboards.   If we ever get an "after" picture, I'll post both before and after pics.

Hope all finds you well and blessing to you for the future.

Cabbage Loopers - oh my

A picture is worth a thousand words and I'll still probably add a few.

See those sticks.  A week ago, those were my lovely kale, collards, broccoli, lettuce and radishes.  (Okay, so the lettuce was getting bitter and needed to go but.....)  I have another raised bed that looks just the same.  My precious brussel sprouts, cauliflower and cabbage look just like this. 

Can we say "NOT A HAPPY CAMPER"?  All together now. 

 Apparently, my choices are to spray pesticides or completely cover the ground with broken eggs shells.  My vote, broken eggs shells.  We did do that but not unbroken lines around each plant.  Second big lesson for next year.

Lesson One - don't plant things too close.  There are spacing suggestions in my seed books for a reason.  I guess I was just a little too over anxious - don't you think?

If the actual baby cabbages aren't damaged, I can save those.  I'll try and replant the rest, just not as many. 

See, I said I was going to add more words.

Now off to rip those puppies out of the ground and send'm to the composter. 

P.S. - on the upside, my potatoes couldn't be lovelier.  (it's funny if you say it with the My Fair Lady accent.)