Excuses? I got em! According to my planting plan I should have had just about everything planted by now, however, Mother Nature and my work schedule had other ideas.
So, in order to try to get things under control, I'm going to try to focus my activities into a managable to do list for the week so I can feel like I'm making progress.
Tuesday: *mow garden (if I can find a mower to borrow since ours is broken) DONE (Thanks Jennifer & Dan!) *unload compost from truck DONE
*build remaining rows in Quad 3
*plant okra & squash
Wednesday:
*fill potatoes trenches
*top-dress rows between potato trenches
*plant beans & corn in Quad 2
Thursday:
*spread compost over Quad 4
*till Quad 4
*build rows in Quad 4
Friday:
*plant summer squash & soybeans in Quad 4
Weekend:
*plant winter squash & beans in Quad 4
*weed
*fertilize throughout
This is probably a very overly ambitious list, especially considering that I'm working extra hours this week AND I have several evening errands to run in town. Keep your fingers crossed for me, and I'll keep you updated.
I realize I might have caused a bit of a stir with this post in which I discussed the mudswallows that nest outside our front door. Let me clear up any confusion caused by my poor writing by clearly saying I AM NOT PREGNANT. Sorry. When we FIRST saw the mudswallow family, we really wanted to be pregnant, and unbeknownst to us, we were pregnant. Two years ago. I guess what I was trying to say was that I felt karma rewarded us when we didn't knock down the bird's nest by giving us the pregnancy we were hoping for. Two years ago. Not now.
Geesh, that was kind of embarrassing. In case anyone was wondering, I am much too busy chasing after this little guy to think about adding to the brood:
In case you were all hovering in front of your computers with my blog open hitting the "refresh" button 10 million times and wondering why nothing new was being posted (you were, right?) you should know that my little pride & joy broke the screen on my laptop. It was incredible, actually. He shattered it WAY worse than his dad did a few years ago. Ah, the male drive to best one's own father.
Anyway, I should get a replacement screen tomorrow, and then I'll be able to upload the pics I've been taking. In case you were wondering how the garden survived the Saturday's blizzard, be soothed. Almost everything made it through just fine, including my nerves.
Also, I just had to share with you that while on Saturday the temps were in the teens and there was several inches of snow on the ground, a mere 72 hours later I was gardening in shorts and a tank top. Gotta love Oklahoma, I guess.
Hi out there. I'm writing this blog to tell you that I'm not really in the mood for blogging today. Not that I'm trying to be cute, but I usually put some time and effort into my posts, and while I have many posts "in process," I'm in more of a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants, can't-focus-on-a-single-thought kind of mood.
Hence, the tweeting. I've been BLOWING UP my twitter feed because it's the perfect, schizo medium for my thoughts today. I'm also buckling down on actual, paying work, which let's face it, comes before narcissistic, introspective monoblogs.
A brief update on the goings-on of the household:
*Hokie is pretty depressed about her boyfriend leaving. Boston is gleeful and practically crawls in our laps with gratitude.
*We've planted out Quad 2 in the garden, but due to retaining water (the garden, not me...this time) we might have to scrap it and start over. You'll get grids and pictures and more info than you wanted soon.
*I've been focused on cooking really healthy, really balanced meals this last week, which means fish. Those of you who know me know how much concentration and gag-reflex-suppression that requires. So far, lots of success.
*I'M WORKING OUT! A LOT! So far this week I've kept up 2-3 exercise sessions per day, which usually entails elliptical machine+half an episode of The Wire in the morning, the Biggest Loser "Last Chance Workout" DVD in the afternoon, and a long walk or bike ride in the evening with the boys. I feel good, but not like blogging.
There. I'm not going to promise a giant photo-filled post tonight or tomorrow or whenever, but you know you'll get one eventually. Geez, now I'm being kind of rude. Sorry, you didn't ask for that. Back to work and my less-offensive tweets.
I'm very excited to announce that this marks the first in a series of guest posts by my dear husband and resident Doer-Of-Things, Bill. While he's Done Many Things in and around the house since we moved in, this series will focus on The SHED! I've been dying to tell you about it (since it's hard to take a picture of the garden without seeing it under construction), but I think he should do so in his own words.
So, Kaitlyn asked for a guest post to let her readers know about a rather large project here on our little slice of heaven in Oklahoma. Since last fall, we have been building a workshop/garden shed. I have to admit that on paper it seemed a lot less—both size and effort—than it has ended up being.
The shed is about 25 x 12, with space for our outdoor tools and what-have-you along with some space for me to work in and a large space for Kaitlyn’s garden materials, pots, planters, etc. As of this writing, the floors, walls and roof are up, (most) doors and windows installed and ¾ of the way shingled. We still need to get the siding on, stairs and ramp built, and get the inside shelves and work benches built. So far in labor hours we stand at around 210 hours and probably about 2/3rds of the way through.
So why, oh dear God why, did I want to do this myself rather than go to Lowe’s and buy one of the pre-packed, pre-assembled sheds? Three reasons: Configuration, Cost, and Quality.
Primarily configuration—I wouldn’t be able to get the footprint, layout, spacing, or natural lighting characteristics I wanted from a pre-assembled shed.
Cost: Ok, so this little project is going to end up costing us more than a pre-assembled shed, but that doesn’t take into mind the fact that I am going to be using higher quality materials and finishes than one of those.
Quality: So this last bit is a little dodgy. I’ll be honest, I went and looked at several of the sheds available at some of the stores in the area and I didn’t have a problem with the quality of the workmanship. The quality I am referring to is materials. Many pre-finished sheds are built with 2x3 studs, or only 7’ studs. The windows are usually the lowest quality single pane glass. The doors are wood framed/barn style. The sheathing is the siding, usually using a T1-11 product (or similar). Because of its size and proximity to the house, I wanted our building to be more like the house. That is to say I wanted it to look like the house, residential style doors and windows, real siding, etc. (Editor's note: Part of Bill's actual job is to obsess over building materials. It's a blessing and a curse for household projects.)
Plus, I like to build stuff myself. I am not a ‘formally’ trained carpenter, but I have worked in construction pretty much all of my adult life and some of that time was actually spent in the field doing rather than directing. So, while I’m not a pro, I like to think I know a little about what I am doing. I won’t say that a project like this is outside of the ability of the average weekend warrior, but I will say: don’t fool yourself about the level of time and commitment it takes to get something like this done. I haven’t been outside with a hand saw and a hammer. I have some specialized tools and have had some help in getting things done.
Anyway, the short of it is that after looking at the available options we decided—which is to say, I convinced Kaitlyn—to do it ourselves. (There were ultimatums involved.) We started off long ago—somewhere around the first or second weekend in September—and have put in a lot of effort. We are almost to the point at which the building will be functional, though not finished. I’ll be writing regularly to cover most of the stuff that we have done so far and to update things as we get the finishing touches on.
Last night Bill and I watched a film called Food, Inc. which I had never heard of until it landed on our counter. Generally speaking, it's one of your typical run-of-the-mill liberal documentaries in the same vein as Bowling for Columbine and Supersize Me. Now, I've already openly admitted my bleeding heart tendencies to you, so it's not a huge surprise that this film struck a major chord with me, especially given the very context in which I write most of the entries for this blog.
A striking statistic discussed in the film is that 1 out of every 5 health care dollars spent in this country today goes to treat diabetes, which is largely preventable. We've ALL seen this commercial:
Now, I've known for years that there is something ridiculously unnecessary about high fructose corn syrup nutritionally, but Food, Inc. explains the relationship between corn and industrial food production in this country and EVERYTHING ELSE. Public health, money, the environment, corporations, labor, immigration, regulatory agencies, and our legislation.
The wonderful thing about this problem is not necessarily political. We don't have to draw battle lines based on political parties or religious beliefs. Voting with your wallet in the checkout line for organic, local, and sustainable foods benefits your family, your neighbor's family, and your planet with no strings attached. It may cost a few extra dollars today, but by increasing the demand for these products in the marketplace, supply will go up and cost will go down. There is a point in the above trailer where a family is discussing having to choose between buying a few vegetables or a few hamburgers for the same price to feed their family. I'm immediately reminded of the trip I took to my local farmer's market this past summer where I asked a farmer what his price was for a head of garlic and he literally pressed an entire handful into my hands and told me to enjoy.
I like to think that he did that because he had an innate sense that I'd mention it here in this blog, which you are reading right now, to encourage YOU to think more about where your food comes from. That and farmer's markets are notorious for generous vendors and nutritionally superior products. It's an unfortunate reality that genetically engineered foods are not engineered to be made more nutritious, they're engineered to be cheaper. This applies to industrial breeding of cattle, pork, and poultry which has far-reaching impacts on our public health, environment, and global economy. I'm not arguing against eating meat. My family loves meat and animal products, but, as a farmer argues in the film, there is something to be said for respecting "the pigness of the pig."
At the end of the film there was a series of call-to-action suggestions which included one that I'd never thought about before: making sure your local farmer's market accepts food stamps. Makes perfect sense, doesn't it? Why not cut out the all of the middle men (Walmart, etc.) and connect two groups of people in the community that desperately need each other. I have no idea what would be involved legislatively to ensure that the vendors at my farmer's market are able to accept food stamps, but I am planning to ask the next time I'm there.
"A culture that just views a pig as a pile of protoplasmic inanimate structures to be manipulated by whatever creative design a human can foist on that critter will probably view individuals within it's community and other cultures within the community of nations with the same type of disdain and disrespect and controlling-type mentality." --Joel Salatin, Polyface Farms
Hello dear readers, and Happy New Year. Yes, I know that it has been more than a week since I posted anything (ack! no Mutt Monday post!), but I'm not apologizing. I've been too busy enjoying my family during the holidays and surviving Snowpocalypse 2009, and I hope you have been, too.
That said, I am itching to get back to blogging and to share with you some of my awesome Christmas presents (including a new camera--no more blurry shots!). I'd like to take a minute to jot down my resolutions for 2010, so we can all look back in 12 months and laugh at me.
In 2010, I will:
*Get organized. I've already gotten started by FINALLY UNPACKING MY CLOTHES that have sat in a Rubbermaid tub since May '08 when we moved here. I've overhauled my closet, Joe's closet, and I'm attacking the kitchen next. Employees of Bed, Bath, and Beyond: your jobs will be secure in 2010 thanks to me.
*Reduce paper consumption. Honestly, we do a pretty good job of this already, and if you've ever seen Mt. Cardboard in our garage, you'd know that we never throw this stuff away. However, I'd like to cut way back on paper towel usage this year, and maybe eliminate it entirely. One day.
*Lose weight. Roll your eyes, America. There is no such thing as a new year's resolution list without this one. This year, however, I have a running start (20lbs down!) and lots of knowledge and tools to help me get into better shape. I've done this one before, and I have awesome motivation. Besides my sister's upcoming wedding in May, I'd also like to take a shot at giving Joe a sibling one of these days. I did what I said I would: I enjoyed my first pregnancy and put no pressure on myself at all. Now that I know what to expect, I'm going to be a little smarter next time around and much more prepared. But first things first: smaller waistline.
*Homemade majority. This holiday season I tried my hand at baking my own bread (more on that in a future post) and it went really well. So well that when I went to Walmart last week and they were out of my favorite kind of wheat bread, I just shrugged and said "oh well, I'll just make some." And I did. And it was good. Better yet, it was a LOT cheaper than driving 25 min to town to feed the corporate beast. Moving forward, I'd like to try to eat at least 75% of our meals from homemade sources (and homegrown, too, as soon as the temps warm up). Beyond food, I'm going to try some other homemade avenues around the house, too. Stay tuned to hear how our adventure in homemade play dough turned out (hint: salty).
That's all I can think of at the moment. I think if I'm struggling to come up with more resolutions just for the sake of resolving to do them, then there's no way they'll get done.
Here's wishing you a happy and healthy year, folks! Let's make it a good one!
Christmas is kicking my butt this year, friends. Actually, this time of year usually causes me to irrationally bake, overbuy gifts, obsess over cleanliness, and unnecessarily lose sleep for no good reason. It's a little more worth it this year since all of this effort is actually for the benefit of my son, which is what Christmas is all about, really.
However, I am tired. This is one of the lame "I promise to post soon" posts that I hate writing. But I will! Promise! I have pictures! And enthusiasm! Just no energy. Sorry.
The Watkins family considers itself to be somewhat "crunchy," "tree-hugging," "green," and any other dirt-implying adjective used to describe people who believe in global warming and not littering.
Okay. Maybe we take it a step farther. Yes, we use cloth diapers, make our own baby food, grow our own vegetables, recycle, compost kitchen scraps, buy energy star appliances, drive a hybrid. And yes, at Christmas we use LED lights. Here's where I'm going to be brutally honest and say that I can't stand our Christmas lights. I cringe when I see them. Truly. Not only do they harshly clash with our lovely incandescent faux candles in the windows, but they really seem to make the cold nights colder. I mean, come on! We don't put hundreds of lights on our house to save money, we do it for purely aesthetic reasons! What is the point of stringing up lights you can stand to look at? Oh wait...the alternative is to have no lights up for Christmas because you don't want to be a yuletide hypocrite and string up energy-guzzling traditional lights? Um, that's not an option for me. I am nothing if not unapologetically and ruthlessly festive.
When we bought our lights last year, no stores in town carried the then-hard-to-find "warm white" LED strings. So we shrugged and bought the "cool white." The only two houses in our neighborhood decked out in the icy, bluish hues were ours and the electrician down the street. And of course, after laying out a ton of not-so-cool cash on lights, we couldn't just yank them down and rethink our commitment to the cause. Sure, THIS year all of the stores are now stocking the warm whites. Buy more lights, you say? Well while that might be feasible at the incandescent price of $1.99 per 100 lights, it's not so much at $11.99 per 60 LED lights. Bill promises me that next year we can save up and splurge on the warm whites, but this year it's blues or nothing. Besides, he says, we're making a statement!
And he's right. This year it looks like more folks have jumped on the enviro-friendly--albeit blueish--bandwagon as there are now THREE houses in our neighborhood with cool white LEDs and several more with colored LEDs (including one for-real blue LED house). Was it our awkwardly clashing and kind of ghoulish display last year that convinced them? Probably not. But I'm sure that, like me, once they saw that they wouldn't be the only weirdos on the block with an eye on the electric bill, it was slightly more okay. So after much inner turmoil and mind-changing, I decided to throw up the blue-tinted white flag and stick with the statement-making LEDs. For one more year.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go hug my trees and make another batch of granola.
I've recently been thinking a lot about the idea of "taking care of oneself" and the widespread ramifications of not taking care of oneself. With news stories about the growing obesity problems among all walks of American life and the choices that people are making regarding paying for health care in this economy, this has become a topic that is becoming harder to ignore.
What does it mean to "take care of yourself"? Does taking care of yourself involve waking up at 5am everyday to work out for hours, have a manicure on your lunch break, and then spend the evening meditating in your home zen garden? Or does it mean driving past the fast food restaurant in favor of a homemade lunch, taking a walk with family after dinner, and taking a long, hot bath every once in a while? How can one quantify "good" care versus "neglect" of oneself? Who can judge?
As a parent, I know that after 2 nights in a row of little sleep due to a teething baby, I am completely useless without a good nap. And by useless, I mean I can't focus on work and Joe can expect a "Yo Gabba Gabba" marathon. And therein lies my point, I think. As a mother, if my basic needs are not being met (food, sleep, shower) than the needs of my child (attention, activity) suffer as a result. It is fairly easy to see the care relationship in that example, but how common is this scenario? How often to parents today come home after work, toss a few frozen entrees into the microwave, and hunker down on the couch for some veg-out time until bed? It's not exactly an option for many families to have less than 2 full-time incomes, and with that comes full-time exhaustion. Where is the care in that?
At what point do we stop blaming our childhood customs for our adult problems? When the overweight 20-something who has no idea how to cook a nutritious meal for herself decides to fix a packet of Ramen noodles instead, is her mother to blame for not loving her enough to show her how to take care of herself? Is society to blame for placing so much emphasis on convenience and discount? Do we blame schools for offering products like Ramen noodles in a la carte lunch lines, therefore institutionalizing poor nutritional choices? Who is responsible when this girl one day becomes a mother and then begins the cycle all over with her own child?
On a macro level, are we as a society expected to begin taking care of each other financially? The controversy over "public options" for universal health care packages is directly related to this issue of responsibility for one's own care. As it is today, even with privatized health insurance, we often pay higher premiums because SO MANY people are on medications for conditions that could be controlled through taking better care of themselves. Since when did "medication" stop meaning something one takes when one is very ill to something one takes chronically to feel normal? The number of people in this country--especially young people--who are on daily medication is staggering.
Another issue that stems from this core question is the idea that we are supposed to be taking care of those who protect the population and their families. Our veterans are returning from war with not only physical wounds, but severe mental disturbances in record-breaking numbers; yet they are faced with bureaucracy and self-imposed humiliation when they attempt to treat their issues. In many cases they turn instead to self-destructive behavior, which is one way to "take care" of the problem. How are we, the citizens of the country they are fighting for, supposed to live up to our end of the bargain when it is sometimes easier to ignore? Sure we all know someone who has been deployed, but how far should we as individuals be expected to go in taking care of those who serve? Vote on legislation? Volunteer at the VA? Thanking a vet at the airport? How much should we consider what these vets go through to be "just part of their job" because they "signed up for it" and we didn't? Like parents and other guardians, it's sometimes most easy to take it for granted that these folks will always be around to take care of us, regardless of how we treat them on an individual level.
As are most things in life, I believe these issues are utterly cyclical. I posted the following thought in a tweet the other day, and I think I am going to strive to make it a new personal motto: "We should strive to take better care of ourselves. Failing that, we have no choice but to take better care of each other."
The Wat family is headed to Gramma's house, so there will be no written post today. Please check back later a picture post, and many safe travels during this holiday week!
I chose to post on this topic because as we travel for the holiday next week, we will be forced to use the evil disposable diapers (not because there aren't products out there made for traveling green, I just was too late to buy them before our trip), so I thought I'd put some good diaper karma out there. I also wanted to help dispel the misconceptions that cloth diapers are still the old piece-of-fabric-and-safety-pins models that weren't waterproof and were picked up by a cleaning service. Please. Do you think I'd do something if it wasn't easy, modern, and cute?
WARNING: This post involves a discussion of BABY POOP and how we get rid of it. To make up for it, I've dispersed adorable photos throughout to keep things fun. Although our friends and family thought we were gluttons for punishment and too "crunchy" for our own good (and maybe even a bit gross), Bill and I decided to use cloth diapers on our son. We did this for the following reasons:
1. Over time, it is cheaper to buy 24 cloth diapers than thousands and thousands of disposable diapers. 2. It is more convenient to have diapers on hand at all times than drive into town (25-30 minutes) when we're low. 3. The obvious environmental savings of keeping chemical-laden diapers and poo out of landfills and our water supply.
The cloth diapers of today are cute, functional, easy to clean (no, our washing machine does not smell like poop), and hardly ever leak. We LOVE BumGenius One-Size* cloth diapers because they can be adjusted to fit throughout the entire diapering period.
*I'm not compensated by BumGenius, I just love the product. I pulled this picture from the CottonBabies website.
After we wash the diapers (I do a load every 2 days or so) we stuff them so they are ready to go at the changing table. Sometimes Joe "helps" like he did tonight: Sometimes some of the diapers even make it back to the changing table.
We also use homemade cloth wipes. When Joe outgrew all of his tiny newborn receiving blankets, I cut them up into squares. I whip up a spray with a little baby soap, some baby oil, and water and we spritz the wipes as we use them. I know it sounds crazy, but after using disposable wipes and having to fish them out of the diapers and then have them sit in the trash (do you know how long it takes to fill a trash can with just wipes?), the cloth wipes are SO much easier. It's all about setting up a system. We use a regular plastic trashcan with a lid and a waterproof pail liner that we throw right into the wash with the diapers. There's a little patch of felt in the bag that I sprinkle with lavender and tea tree oil to eliminate smells. And the KEY to removing "solids" from the diapers is a sprayer we hooked up to our toilet so there is no touching the nasty stuff. Best of all (for me) is that this is all Daddy-approved. My husband is wonderful, but he feels the same way about poop as these guys:
But even my poop-hating husband (and babysitter, visitors, etc.) feel like cloth diapers are easy (been using the same ones for 8+ months). There's is a huge wealth of information over at the CottonBabies blog, but I just wanted to add my $.02.
In college I took a course on the Internet (this was pre-Facebook), and a major part of the course requirements was that I had to maintain an active blog. It was such a drag. Writing for the sake of participation is beyond forced, and I sort of felt dirty knowing that my professor was reading my posts everyday. So my blog was a drag. I gave it up the second the semester ended.
Now I think about participation in a totally different way. I work from home and I live in a very rural area where I know a handful of people. For me, participating is anything I want it to be that day; whether that means getting dressed, arranging to visit friends, completing an assignment, or baking all day. This is not as luxurious as it sounds. It's very easy to feel like I've spent all day rattling around inside my house with nothing to show for it.
I am very good at keeping in touch with the people I care about, and I'm not ashamed to admit that most of that communication happens online. I spent the first 2 weeks I lived in Oklahoma at the Burger King 10 miles down the road because it was the only place that had wireless internet and mine was not yet set up. It only seems natural that so much of my product--the result of my days spent puttering around my little acre of land--appears online. I send pictures and video of my son to family via YouTube and Facebook; I send and receive assignments from clients through various FTP sites; and I spend an embarrassing amount of time looking up recipes and gardening tips...mostly while I'm elbow deep in flour or soil. I've noticed lately how I seem to get "stuck" on other people's blogs, scrolling endlessly backwards through their posts as I learn more than I ever intended to.
So. I guess what I'm trying to say is that in an attempt to not live life in a vacuum, I'm going to blog. I'm not one for scrapbooking or photo albums (did we ever get one printed of our wedding? Um, that's a big no.) but I do love progressions. You could probably call me a line graph kinda girl. Here is my first dot.
"A Maryland native and daughter of the DC 'burbs, I've given up a deadline-driven office life to work from home on the prairie in Oklahoma. Now that I'm freelancing, I'm taking time to pursue other life goals such as being a full-time mother, an avid gardener, and living an environmentally responsible lifestyle. We'll see how this goes..."
It went.
