The Dog Days Are Over

As I watered my beans Friday morning I noticed that my patio needed to be swept. I got out the broom, started sweeping up big yellow leaves and then realized

I'm sweeping up big yellow leaves, Fall is nearly here.

The signs have been slowly emerging..

 A pumpkin spice latte sign at Starbucks
 Cinnamon pine cones at the craft store
 Back to school supplies
 Squash displays at the market

 ...since these are commercial signs and they can be ad-set months in advance, I didn't buy into it.

But you can't argue with big yellow leaves.

Fall is my favorite time of year. Always. There is nothing I love more than boot weather, hot chocolate, nearly naked trees, couch snuggling and the fall premier of The Vampire Diaries.

Yes there is... Pumpkin flavored everything, It's a Wonderful Life, Halloween costumes, slouchy hats, big piles of leaves and the color Orange.

I know that here in California Fall will be different than it was back home in Kitsap. Which is okay because I don't like frozen sidewalks or monsoon rains. But I'm looking forward to whatever change may come.

When we knew we were moving to Las Vegas, which was approximately 1 year ago, I was so worried about what would happen to Fall. I estimated that living in Las Vegas would be like an endless summer. And that proved to be true. When I arrived in January it was 70 degrees. I had my sun dress on right away because to me it was summer temperatures. Our endless summer began. I haven't had a day below 70 degrees in 8 months.Chris hates it when I say the endless summer part because it implies some sort of vacation and our day to day life was far from a vacation. But we are settling in to Sacramento quite nicely. Chris is still on his training schedule so he is home most evenings and weekends. I am enjoying my first ever stretch of unemployment by being a better housekeeper and learning to do new things.

As it turns out, it's impossible for me to sit still. In addition to cooking recipes out of the Julia Child cook book I have canned several types of jam, a batch of pear chutney, and a huge crock pot of tomato sauce THAT I MADE FROM SCRATCH. And as most things I cook, will never be replicated ever again because I tend to throw pinches and hand fulls in the pot and never write anything down. But when you find beautiful San Marzano tomatoes at the market for .80/lb, buying 6 lbs of them, roasting them up, mashing them down and sprinkling them with with herbs from your own garden seems like the right thing to do.

And I made homemade butter. For real. Chris said I'm cheating because I used my Ninja instead of a freaking churn, but it's the 21st century my friend. And I'm not Amish. In the event that China attacks and enslaves us all for not being able to pay our debts there will still be gourmet eating at my hut. I know how to make butter in a mason jar and a blender and have 100+ jars of sauce to pour over our Soylent Green. ( I'm mixing futures here but you get the idea.)

I also made a batch of home made granola. Pennies on the dollar cheaper then the grocery store. And my apartments smelled fantastic.

My gardening is going well. My beans are growing like wildfire, or like Kentucky Pole Beans.

I have crocheted over 20 hats with the intention of opening a shop on Etsy in September. Last year I intended to keep my head fashionable and warm but had to throw an elbow or two to get people to stop snatching them off my head. That shouldn't be a problem this year as I plan on opening an Etsy shop where all of you can acquire my style through less violent means :)

Speaking of Kentucky, in a few days I will be there! Another perk of my temporary housewivery is that I can travel with my husband for his job. He has gone on trips to Utah and Arizona this year without me which is all good and fine. But Tennessee? No way he is going without me! Friday we fly into Nashville and since he doesn't start work stuff until Tuesday, we are spending the weekend in Kentucky. Elizabethtown KY to be exact.  This is a big deal to me because the movie Elizabethtown is one of my favorite movies of all time. Chris and I have always loved it and we have really bonded over it. Whenever we are sad about something we watch it and remind ourselves  "If it wasn't this, it would be something else." We constantly makes comments about our friends Chuck and Cindy, who are loving life 24/7. It has my second favorite funeral scene in a movie ( the first is Eulogy). Chris can recite entire passages from that movie and that is not something that Chris regularly does. I named my blog after something Claire Colburn says. And while I know that most of the movie was filmed in Louisville I still can't wait to actually see the town. And go on the tour of Makers Mark. 'cause we're loving life 24/7 :) Our hotel is on music row and I have a list of places I want to check out in Nashville like The Country Music Hall of Fame, The Parthenon, The Hermitage etc. I've been scoping out cemeteries too. I love historic cemeteries.

And because September can't possibly be busy enough, I have two job interviews the two days before we fly to Tennessee. So I will very likely get the rejection/acceptance phone calls while in Nashville. Neither job would start until October which is good because we just found out this week that Chris has to go to a 2 day conference in San Francisco a couple of days after we get back from TN. I've never been and unless something pressing comes up, I'm going to San Francisco too.

And at some point during all of this, I have to squeeze in some training for a volunteer position I will be starting at the end of the month.... Reading Tutor. The paperwork ball is already rolling and barring something like me actually having Tuberculosis, I will start tutoring 1 or 2 kids at a local elementary school in October. This is something I have always wanted to do, but I have always worked during school hours. I know that this will be challenging but I think the rewards will out weigh the hardships. Chris is afraid that I will have to end my commitment when I find a job and therefore I shouldn't even start. But I think I have to know that I at least tried.

All of this coupled with the fact that we opened a credit union account here means we are actually putting down some roots. In Vegas we always felt the need to remain portable. I guess we always knew Vegas was semi-permanent. I have even started to go through and update our addresses with our accounts. Which was something I was way to lazy to do before. One account even had our address from 3 years ago on it. Sometimes I wonder if that was my subconscious trying to not admit that the last two years happened. Like if there isn't a permanent record of it, we can try to deny it's existence. But all the hardships and OMG-IS-THIS-REALLY-MY-LIFE? 's we've endured have brought us to this spot. The spot where I wonder OMG-IS-THIS-REALLY-MY-LIFE? because of wonderful things.

Like this weekend...

I told Chris I needed to go to Penney's. He said he knows where a good outlet mall is instead. We hit the road and somewhere near Vacaville...

Chris: Are you going to ask where we are going?
Me: You said the outlet mall. Right now I'm assuming one in San Jose.
Chris: Nope.
Me: Are we just driving to San Francisco for the day?
Chris: Nope. Better. Napa.

Bra shopping at Penney's can wait. We're going to Napa Valley.

It was beautiful. I guess Chris drives through there every week to go to Santa Rosa and he wanted to show me our future house. I was expecting a great big villa in Sonoma naturally.

Welcome to the Ledson Winery. Which was originaly built as Steve Ledson's home. But he got so tired of people driving up and asking when the winery was going to open, he ran with it. He built a smaller McMansion out back to live in, quit selling his grapes to others and the Ledson Winery was born.

 

I just can't understand why people were driving up his driveway and asking him so many questions. You can tell by the understated driveway and entry that a Quasimodo style hermit lives here. Nothing says " Leave me alone, I'm recluse" like columns. And turrets. And medevil architecture. Seriously.

 (And in between those columns is my 6'3" husband for scale.)

 

 

We had a fabulous tasting and then drove back to downtown Napa. We had dinner at a little cafe called Downtown Joe's next to the Napa River. We talked about what we need to pack for our trip down south next week and it hit me.

 

OMG-IS-THIS-REALLY-MY-LIFE?

 

Eating dinner at this adorable cafe next to an adorable river in Napa discussing what distilleries we want to visit while we are in Kentucky next week. And how big of a cooler should I bring when I go to Fisherman's Wharf when we get back? And I hope I get the last spot in that cheese-making class I signed up for? And don't forget we have to cook up that King Salmon I bought at Whole Foods?

 

Yes, somehow this really became my life.

 

And trust me, I do not take one single minute of it for granted.

 I know what it is like to lose your job, sell everything you own, move into a bedroom at your mom's and be diagnosed with a debilitating disease. Some of you may not be enchanted with the idea and think a vineyard is a vineyard but I so clearly remember what it was like to not see straight for a week and I still want to look at everything possible. Especially when I know in the back of my mind that this is only the beginning and at any point Chris could be pushing my wheelchair up those steps.

 

Next blog will be coming from Nashville. Stay tuned.

There She Grows

What happens when you mix Peggy Bundy, Martha Stewart, and Ann Romney?

You get me!

This is not a huge stretch. I have the fashion sensibilities of Peggy Bundy. I have almost exclusively worn stretch pants since I have arrived in California. Like Martha, people be constantly fawning all over things that I make. And like Ann Romney, I have a husband who is ready and willing to indulge my every whim.

You thought I was going to say Ann and I both have MS huh? That would be correct also. But when Mrs. Romney was diagnosed her husband went and bought her some of the prettiest ponies in all the land. Now as part of her therapy, she gets to flat iron their hair, weave ribbons in their tails and prance them in pretty circles.

Mine bought me a big bag of dirt.

I'm taking up gardening. Urban gardening to be precise. Apartment gardening.We have a tiny apartment with a large patio that gets sun all day long. It's perfect. It's the first stepping stone towards having a our dream farm and the next step in my housewife project.

A few weeks ago Chris and I bought a Basil plant and a Rosemary, Thyme, Oregano combo plant at TJ's. I've been wanting to learn gardening for a while and these were my starter plants. I've managed to keep them alive and blooming for the last three weeks so we decided I was ready to take the next step. I have also read several blogs and websites about apartment gardens. The best piece of advice was so obvious: grow what you can feasibly eat. Yeah corn is delicious. But at 2 heads a stalk how much space are you willing to take up? Herbs are best. They are the most useful and are hearty. I looked at getting a community garden spot but the waiting lists around here are 2-3 years long. So we went to Capital Nursery and picked out our goodies.

Chris is my gardening teacher. While I have never seen him do anything harder then water a Hosta in the last 10 years, he swears he is an advanced gardener. His credentials are his Future Farmers of America jacket from high school that we have been dragging around with us the last 10 years. It's covered with pins and ribbons so he must have excelled at being a future farmer. I have a text book too.

 

Here are my supplies. We found pots on clearance at Target and decided that was perfect. We had a blast at the nursery. I'm committed to learning all this botanical stuff so I can grow cooler stuff later. Like a lemon tree. And tropical flowers. Did you know you can grow Hibiscus and Plumeria here in Cali? Blew my little PNW mind when I learned that.

So yesterday I put on my gardening hat and my fancy new garden gloves and got to work. I know that plants like music and that transplanting them can be a little traumatic to their roots and stuff so I decided to play cheerful music to them.

The Stoop by Little Jackie has always been one of my favorite summertime songs. We listened to Jay-Z after that. My plants should get accustomed to the neighborhood.

I realized while planting that I must have done this at some point in my life and just don't remember it.  Girl Scouts perhaps? I instinctively knew I was supposed to soften the little starts root clumps and pack them firmly but loosely in the soil. Or maybe I was just born to be a plant mama? Should I post their pictures on FB every 30 days so you can track their developments? I think I am going to photograph them for my own benefit. Someday when my beans are fully grown and at my dinner table, we can look at their pictures and wax poetic about their sprout days. And then we will eat those little fuckers up.

A couple of things are bothering me though. First is that I didn't get to plant my starts as far apart as recommended. Chris assures me that this is fine. That it is for optimal growth but it doesn't mean that they won't grow. I read in my Western Garden Edibles book that if they grow to close together I can thin them out by replanting them in another container. I have already forgot what the second thing was.....

When Chris came home he inspected my homework and said I don't have enough soil and I need to replant them again.  He also said I need to soak the plants when I planted them so the soil integrates better. I had  lightly watered them because I was afraid of traumatizing them further. He also approved of the plant stand I purchased for them. Extra credit for me!

Today I got another bag of soil and got to work with my beans and onions. I'm afraid for the little onions. In there little start packages they were all happy and upright. Now they are kind of... splayed? (Is that a word?)

We listened to a little Brandi Carlisle in case my beans aren't hip hop fans and I filled the containers up, replanted the beans and onions and re-watered them all.

Ha! I remember the second thing! I bought the wrong kind of beans. I thought I picked up a container of Blue Lake Beans, what I actually have is six little starts for Kentucky Pole Beans. I did my research and if I can grow them correctly they will need a trellis they will get so big. We will see. In a month I can plant what I really want: Garlic and Carrots.

Here is my end result:

 L to R: We have Marjoram, Rosemary/Thyme/Oregano, Italian Basil, Peppermint, Garlic Chives, and Sweet Basil.

Back to Front: Kentucky Pole Beans, Green Onions, and Yellow Onions.

If I can keep these plants alive I will plant Garlic and Carrots in September. I've been reading my book and the internet and studying when you can plant what for a winter garden. I would really like to plant berries in the spring but I'm trying not to get too far ahead of myself. I still need to learn about pest control as I don't have a chicken to take care of that for me. But I will someday :)

And yes, I made my garden markers. I snagged a handful of paint stir sticks at Home Depot, painted them with craft paint, stamped them with a little leaf stamp, and wrote on them in Sharpie. Easy Peasy.

So, How many of you are gardeners? Got any advice for me? I'll take it. Have you container gardened before? And I'm still taking suggestions on " Woman's Work" and other things I can learn while I am a temporary housewife. I hit up the grocery store this morning for the ingredients for my next blog and am currently saving up Michaels coupons for soap making ingredients. Did I mention my grandfather called me a homesteader? Yeah. At least I know that when the Zombie Apocalypse comes, I will survive on my food making skills. Which reminds me....

Chris and I have seen two gangs of wild Turkeys since we have been here. I always thought a group of Turkeys was called a congress but a Google search says it's a gang. Which is hilarious since there is only one male and several females in a Turkey gang so it's really more of a Turkey Harem but who decides this stuff anyway? The first gang we saw was in an rural area but the Tom stood in front of our car while all the hens crossed the road. We could not stop laughing. When we mentioned this to other people, they were not surprised. Apparently it is very common to stumble upon Urban Turkey Gangs in Sacramento. We were baffled but in love with the idea that we live in a city where Turkey gangs run the streets. Then we saw a gang of Turkey's in the parking lot of Chris's office. I shit you not.

Urban Turkey Gang Bitches (Hens) with their Turklets (Poults).

Their baby daddy, Big Tom.

Because I am curious about hunting these Turkeys we asked around about gun laws etc. Chris says I cannot discharge a fire arm in city limits. This halts my ambition of driving up and shooting the Turkey out of my car window. His cousin informed me that I cannot use a bow and arrow or slingshot either. This sucks because last time I was home my Grandpa and I made a totally sweet slingshot together and yes, I really have homemade slingshot in my kitchen. Which only leaves me one option:  I will have to learn how to make snares and traps. Chris and I had a great laugh imagining me setting traps in his office parking lot ( They were back again on Monday), while sitting on my SUV and blowing my Turkey Sex Whistle. I mean, If I can be an urban gardener why can't I become an urban hunter? In case of  the Zombie Apocalypse I don't want to be one of those lazy asses on The Walking Dead that is always digging around for canned food. I'm going to be Daryl, with a garden. A stretch pant wearing, poncho crocheting, urban hunter-gatherer who has a bad attitude and a requires a lot of naps.