When I started looking

Hidden

This week's GBE2 prompt is Hidden

I enjoy blogging but my summer time activities and shenanigans occur so quickly that most of my wacky experiences overlap.

Sometimes, I find that situations develop hidden from my daily observations only to slap me in my face when I least expect it.

Hidden Victories

I have been working with the trainer since May. I completed a second fit test to gauge my progress. I have only lost 9 pounds. I figure that is about one pound a week. Since focusing on weight loss did not help my ego, I looked at my body fat percentage.

In May, my body fat was so high that it didn't warrant a category on the chart. Now, at 35% body fat, I am consider Well Below Average for my age group. I will take that D-.

That is progress, right????



Well Below Average



This means that while I went from 41.5% body fat to 35% body fat, I lost more than just 9 pounds I lost a few inches. When asked I will say, "I have lost about 16 pounds of fat." And offer no additional explanation. I like algebra.

Hidden Dinner

Last week, I weeded the garden and found the lettuce I had planted from seed. I thought the bunny had gotten to it all earlier this Summer. I picked the lettuce. It seemed pretty hardy and long. Brought it into the house and couldn't figure out why it was so long. So, I tasted it. They were turnip greens. I picked the roots and made dinner with garden okra, jalapeño peppers, chives and onions. I didn't grow the turkey leg which added flavor to my pot of greens but I could have.


 Dinner 

 Garden



Hidden Creatures

I learned something using my GoogleFu the other day.

Did you know that groundhogs have a Summer burrow and a winter hibernation nest? Yep. True facts. Now think back to the possum which had taken up residence under my den last winter.

You got it. The possum was a squatter. The borrow that had an opening into my basement belonged to Sir Groundhog and he returned this summer. Story starts on Tuesday the 31st. I had been weeding the garden for two days and I finally had made my way back to the house. I saw it then. I filled in a small hole a back corner. Google suggested that I place epson salt around the hole and around the garden to discourage the groundhog from returning.


evicted


As you well know, if that had worked, I would not be writing this blog entry. It failed spectacularly. On Friday, I was sitting in my den, reading a book looking out over the garden and I spot movement. I ran out and found that all of the blue collard greens had been eaten down to their stalks. I was pissed. I had just eaten half of my turnip greens the week before. This was the second season in a row that the groundhog ate my Georgia collard greens.

My chat rooms suggested that I place pinwheels around the garden. I sprayed the remaining collards and cabbages with my pepper mixture (local garden store). I jumped into the car and ran to a few stores. Picked up some pinwheels.

By the time I returned, I caught the groundhog in the act of eating my zucchini vines.

NO, I didn't spray the zucchini vines. Sir Groundhog was sitting on the fence and only had to slightly lower his head in order to eat my zucchini vines. I screamed at him and watched him slink away into his newly expanded burrow under my den.





 bombs away   I have been bombing his burrow every day for the past four days. He just returns and reopens it. I am out of bombs. All the area stores are out of fox urine (the natural enemy of the groundhog). I may be beaten.

This morning, I bought granules that allegedly discourage groundhogs from crossing over and into the garden. Likely story.  Spreading repellent 


As I got out of my car, I heard desperate mewing. The most adorable kitten was in my backyard. As I approached it with some soft cat food, it ran into a hole in my neighbor's garage. I dragged her outside to help me save the kitten in her garage. She has just returned from a long trip, only to learn that this kitten had been hiding and living in her garage for days. We tired to coax it out to make it safe but the groundhog ran past... scaring the little kitten into another neighbor's yard.

I hope it comes back. I could use a good outdoor cat to handle my garden pests.

A simple list to do

My list for the week of March 19 2012 per the GBE2 prompt
"Make a list and title it"
 I can track my lists now on my smartphone.
Thank goodness for Gtasks app for Android.

✔Start tomatoes indoors
This year I have committed myself to starting my garden early.
Therefore, Once Again, I am extremely disappointed at Mother Nature's early spring thaw.
My tulips are bloomed. The flowers that are supposed to be the first of the spring????? Were on time but arrived after the crocuses, daffodils, hyacinth and tulips. Am I right? Isn't it too early for most of these flowers?
Take a look

Glory of the snow sans snow

With this being noted, I am still going to start a set of brandywine tomatoes, basil and okra in the house. I need to pick up some of those seedling kits and soil. I would use the compost but I don't want bugs on my porch which is where I plan to put the seedling kits.

✔Buy Mixing Bowls with spouts
Mixing bowls should have spouts. I do not understand why this had not occurred to me when I purchased my mixing bowls. I usually place a mat or a silicon cookie mat under my bowls to catch my messes. There are always messes. A spout would have saved many an apron from the wash.
I have rediscovered aprons now that I have to prepare and cook more of my meals. I love wearing an apron. I want one with a clever slogan.

✔Get a Grease can
The PCP has suggested that I follow the Paleo diet plan to lower my sugar levels.
After researching it, I understand that I need a grease can to capture meat rendering fat. I rejected the mason jar suggestion or the old standard of using crisco can. Yes, that is what I got from my research....I am sure that if you ask anyone else about the Paleo diet he or she will mention things like

It's a really easy diet where you eat what would have been available to cavemen.
- remove all grains
- remove all processed foods
- remove sugar
- remove processed oils
- remove dairy products

Me. I mention "get a grease can."

I wanted something pretty to store my fat drippings. I looked in the stores and found nothing with a strainer, a spout, tight fitting lid and firmly sealed. The strainer to remove bits. The spout for ease of pouring. See spill-free pouring is important to me. Tight lid to keep the fat from going rancid and good sealant to keep my counters clean.
Nothing at Macys, JcPenney, Dillards, Sears or Bed Bath and Beyond. I wonder why?
Luckily, Amazon had exactly what I needed.
With recipes like these I don't see this as a diet anymore. This just might become a lifestyle change.
This diet humors me. I grew up with relying on a crisco can full of fat to fry my foods. I went to college and learned that fat in the Soul Food kitchen would kill me. I vowed never to reuse fat. I believed Mrs. Partridge when she exalted the benefits of vegetable oil but my food never tasted as good as my mother's meals.

source: http://www.cartoonaday.com/brain-juice-fake-ad-cartoon/

✔Pick up some Cheap Sugar
When Bebe "visits" my home, she makes for herself food and drink. Her favorite drink is what I call 'flavored sugar water." As you know, I only use Domino's sugar. This sugar comes with a high price tag. I even though the new diet discourages sugar, I can not permit her to use it up in her syrup drinks. I have instructed her to use the cheap sugar. After two visits, I need to pick up more for her hydration and energy needs.

✔Schedule an oil change
My helpful car has informed me by email that I need an oil change. It is true. the online program does save me money. I don't have to follow the "every 4 months" rule anymore. I just wait for the email.

That's my list I hope that you learned something from it.

No Slimy Tracks For Me

This week's prompt for GBE 2, Upset, had triggered so many thoughts.
I looked up many definitions of the word for inspiration.
I reviewed my week for issues that had upset me.
Then it came to me like a cold front.
For the past few weeks, I have heard again and again.

What lovely weather this is

or

This could be the warmest winter in decades

or

I love this weather.

I want you to know that this weather is very UPSETTING to me.
Why, WHY you ask?
because a warm winter warns of Sluggowar 2012 in the Frizzy garden.

Hey, did you know that?
☹Slugs remain active in 41° F. Active. Meaning reproducing. Meaning eating vegetable matter.
☹Number of eggs one gray garden slug can lie in a year: 400. Hundreds of baby snails could be hatching everyday the weather remains above average.
☹As hermaphrodites, slugs have both male and female sex organs which allow any two to mate.That is nasty and means more slug eggs.
☹Many predators-birds, squirrels, and mice stay away from slugs and snails because of their horrible taste.
☹Slugs are territorial and will attack caterpillars and other slug “intruders.” Slugs are the bullies of the garden pests?
☹When slugs’ teeth wear out new rows move forward and replace them, conveyor-belt style.
☹Favorite foods include: strawberries, leafy plants, and some root vegetables.Yeah, my poor berries and greens. Have you ever halved a cabbage only to find a slug in its center?
☹A small slug can eat as much as it weighs sometimes twice that amount in one night.
☹Only 5% of the slug population appears above ground at any time. This fact makes me feel icky

Those vile things are reproducing. Right now. Right now in my garden.Slug on slug sex.

a dewy dampness–

morning sunshine reflects

in slimy tracks

All I can do is try to turn over the soil when it warms up so that the next time it freezes, the frost will zap slug eggs.

I have to begin my anti-slug campaign early if I expect to harvest my strawberries this Spring. And my collards, cabbages and lettuce, What will become of them???? I must work quickly.

My checklist
1. Collect egg shells. Sprinkle them on the garden all Winter
2. Use beer to attract and drown slugs
3. Use pitchfork or rake to turn over soil
4. Find the pool supply stuff my Dad uses to "guillotine" them
5. Collect coffee grounds to place around the strawberry patch

I am heading to the garden store this week to get started.

On a bright side, this week's prompt made me think of one of my favorite poems
I Meant To Do My Work Today
by Richard LeGallienne
I meant to do my work today,
But a brown bird sang in the apple tree,
And a butterfly flitted across the field,
And all the leaves were calling me.
And the wind went sighing over the land,
Tossing the grasses to and fro,
And a rainbow held out its shining hand,
So what could I do but laugh and go?

Your number one 1 fan has sent you an eCard

Three weeks ago on a Saturday I weeded the garden. This is what I found the next day

Two devoured collard plants.


I saw this a few days latter. Another collard plant devoured by the animals.

I spotted a groundhog back in July. I spied the tail end of a rabbit Monday night. I am thinking they are friends and had dinner in my backyard.

By Thursday I found all the half eaten tomatoes. My irritation mounting

Monday of the following week the freeloaders had eaten the zucchini and acorn squash vines down to the stalks. I'd had a thriving garden just ten days prior. It makes me so sad.

Strange but the okra had not been touched. Really, strange. Okra is so tasty.

All of my gardening this summer only succeeded in establishing a thriving outdoor eatery for small animals. I bet they are just dancing and eating the night way.

 
I am fighting a war here and I am losing. I am losing to four legged creatures with voracious appetites. I am in this war for the long haul. My garden or my sanity. The first battles involved the great slug infestation of 2010 and now the 2011 critter siege.

source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rea_photo/

 
The following Saturday, I knew I had a serious problem with the rodents as I headed to the garden store. I purchased some spray for the remaining three plants and covered them with bird netting. The spray should downgrade my garden eatery to one star making the food undesirable to the local residents. 
Those residents include the groundhog, the rabbit that I spotted and a family of raccoons living in the VanDamme's tree.
Hopefully, this will leave me with just enough collard greens to eat for Thanksgiving (USA). 
You know, if my childhood hadn't given me a healthy fear of putting my eye out, I would invest in a BB gun.
On the other hand, if I take up arms so will the animals.

source: http://www.fanpop.com/spots/bugs-bunny/images/21506000/title/hare-brush-screencap

Next year I am having raised bed gardening plots.

Set Love Mode On

Growing Wild

A few years ago my neighbor Lydia planted a concord grape vine.
She found the vine in the "last chance" section of the gardening department. She never picked the grapes allowing them to remain on the vine and provide food for the birds over the winter.
She really did not expect the vine to live past the first summer. In fact the next Spring, her neighbor cut the vine in preparation for a new family of rentors.
This is the vine now.




In case you are curious, I snapped those pictures from behind my garage and from my driveway.
Below is the diagram of our houses. You see where the vine was planted and how it creeped onto the power lines and is creeping toward my house and Leeza's (VanDam) house.

I finally asked Lydia "What is going on with that grape vine?"

She had no idea that the vine covered the power lines leading to my home. She thought that it had died years ago. I am so tickled by this vine that I have been telling everyone about it. I have called other neighbors into the backyard to see it. I have picked the grapes. They are quite tasty. I have a canopy between the garage and the back neighbors mulberry trees. (Those trees are their own nuisance.)
This week, I called the electric company and took great delight in describing the shrubbery that covers the power lines and everything else behind my garage. They promised to send someone out to remove the vine.Lydia is so embarrassed but to me the 'vine gone wild' is just another summer on my block, this time reminiscent of one of my favorite sci-fi moves.
With that being said let me show you the out of control zucchinis I have growing in the yard.


This is the fourth one that reached this size this summer. I simply cannot keep up with them.

And I have lost the war with the groundhog. These pictures document  what remains of the cabbages despite my attempts to thwart the ground hog

 

Apparently my garden = his grazing station. He ate all of the first cabbage and started on the bottom one. All of the red and green peppers were gone. He nibbled them from the bottom up. Sadly, I will have to pay someone to dig up area around my house since the horrible creature made tunnels under the house and along the driveway. 

Today, a friend shared with me that Juicy Fruit gum gets rid of groundhogs. Next Year. I will be prepared.

Data about staying fit.

This has been a fun summer so far.
First, the garden.

I had a ground hog. It ate all of my cucumber buds. It dug up my radishes and my turnips. It nibbled on the cabbages and the collards.
The creature covered up the strawberry patch with its digging and dirt relocation  to create a home under my house. It is much to hot to bother with all of this.
Much, much to hot.
I had to protect my garden.

I used the bird netting from the strawberry patch to cover my turnip greens and radishes.

The netting protected the cabbages and the collards. I figured that lazy ground hog would not want to bother with the netting to nibble on my plants.
For the cucumber I took a more creative approach.

I purchased fence poles and more netting. The ground hog will have to dig his way under the netting in order to eat my cucumbers. The nerve of this animal to take advantage of my plants. I have not been able to grow an adequate cucumber in two years. I will not permit this hungry pest to take away my cucumbers.
I am protecting the okra plants with the remaining tomato cages.
I planted more marigolds.
My roommate laughed at me. She thought the ground hog would just dig under the fencing and knock over the tomato cages.

Now, two weeks later, I have seen no sign of the ground hog. Indeed, I have seen evidence of cat poo. Meaning that the ground hog is gone and the cat has returned to poo in my yard. I am both delighted and disgusted. I hate finding cat poo in my garden.
I swear if it isn't the slugs, it is the ground hog, if not the ground hog then the cats.
I think that the groundhog met its maker. There are a lot of dogs in my neighborhood.
Summer also means  wildlife.
Every summer we have families of ducks in and around the river that runs through campus.They are hard to ignore waddling around on campus all week.
They don't seem to be bothered by the heat.
They are not even bothered by wading in the creek-like river bed. The lack of rainfall has dried the Ottawa river almost completely to muddy bottom.



Finally, summer means I can count on the neighbors to entertain us all.
My eastside neighbors tried to show us how to beat the  summer heat last week. (click the tag for eastsideneighbors for listings of their previous shenanigans)
The electricity failed us for about 4 hours on one of the hottest days of the summer. I traveled home to pick up my roommate. The garage door would not open without electricity and I had stacked crap in front of the access door. She was going no where but on the porch along with most of the neighbors.
Which is why on my way home I receive a text from the VanDammes.

Omg. Wish you were here... Eastsiders put tarp in bed of truck and r filling it w water

So when I got home, I called the Leza and we took pictures like real paparazzi from our porches.


As you can see, the tarp idea did not work. I commend them for trying to stay cool and laugh at them for thinking this would work.

Just a few more weeks of summer to go.

Mystery shoppers new months bonus.its fun

My purse is really heavy when I have my camera, a paperback book, and my makeup in it. Wait....

My camera was not in it when ....

it set off my passenger seat alarm and I took the picture with it....
Wow.

I need a new purse.
For the season.
You probably are thinking that I need to take stuff out of my purse.
That would be silly. Don't you think everything in it is important to me? What could I choose to remove?
The wallet? The tissue case? Change purse? The book? The cellphone not pictured?
2 year calendar?
Sunglasses??????

The pink organizer containing: all these things

A psychologist once claimed that a woman's choice of handbag and what she chooses to carry in it could reveal her character. 
Must have been a male psychologist. I am sure my purse means that I am Frizzy seeing as there is no comb or brush in it EVER.


 I want this for my birthday next week
The Knitter's Satchel™ [K4P5] - $89.00 : Knitting Bags and Knitting Patterns by Jordana Paige
Yummy..... You can paypal me your donations
You only have:

---

 
Until my birthday
It is finally summer. I am doing yard work despite my best efforts to find a boyfriend who would do it for me.

Here I am cleaning the gutters.
I believe that they should have been installed at an angle. Water seems to stand in it.
I am pushing it along with one of my gardening tools.











Look. I have no butt. My little sister was right. God walked right past me when she was handing out butts.
Damn her!







I have a groundhog. It has eaten everything. I have no budding eggplants, peppers, or okra.
Look at what it did to the cucumber plant.

M

It is digging under the house. I have a bit of a overhang where I have a book shelf and my desk alcove in the house.




To the right are the remains of the covered strawberry patch. Darn groundhog. Destroyed.

Strawberries after the groundhog

I finally rid myself of my slug infestation and enjoyed strawberries for the first time in two years only to have a groundhog take up residence under my house and eat my other vegetables.

The strawberries before the groundhog

Will I ever win?

Business Greetings

Good Day,

I am writing to solicit your sponsorship of a business deal worth £7,700,000.00 Pounds Sterling belonging to a late customer of my firm; that made an open-ended investments with us. Coincidentally this customer shares a common last name with you and i will need you to come forward to claim this invested; sum, since there is no one coming for its claims since the investment period elapsed over a year ago. I will furnish you with the full details of how we can realise; this deal itch free when you get back to me. Please only get back to me if you are interested in the deal and capable of financing its realisation. You can get back to; me if you are interested on this email address: bruce.shawcross4@hotmail.co.uk

Do these work anymore?



Ahhh. Spam. You are so predictable.

And I have purchased my first flower purchases for the year.

 And the poor Gerber Daisy that was destroyed a few days after planting by some of the neighborhood kids playing Hide and Seek.

And the vegetables. I am planting

• zucchini
• collard
• turnip
• radish
• roma tomato
• early girl tomato
• cucumber
• eggplant
• carrots
• cabbage

Wish me luck

Blood Won't Leave Willie

The latest flowers

 I am excited that the clematis is winding around the staff.

The rhubarb is huge.

My effort for Vegetarian Awareness Month

Acorn Squash with Tomatoes and Pesto

I adapted a menu that I found online to fit my ingredients; the original recipe can be found here

Ingredients

1 acorn squash
2 TBS olive oil
1/2  onion thinly shaved
1/2 small turnip chopped
1 carrot chopped
1 celery stalk chopped
3 tomatoes chopped
2 cloves of garlic finely chopped
1/4 tsp kosher salt
dash of pepper
 1/4 cup of pesto
Vegetable broth

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Cut the ends off of the squash and then cut it into four rings.  Remove seeds and string.

Arrange squash rings in a casserole dish. Add 1/2 inch  of vegetable stock.  Bake  for 25 minutes. Flip rings and bake for  30 minutes, squash should be easily pierced with a fork.

Pour olive oil in a frying pan, heat it on low and add the onion  and garlic.  Stir occasionally and let cook until the onions are clear.  Add turnip, carrots and celery.  After five minutes add chopped tomatoes, salt and pepper.  Cook until most of the water has boiled down.

Spoon tomato mixture over the squash. Top with pesto. 

I didn't but you could broil the squash ring in order to warm the pesto.  I found that the pesto warmed up quite nicely from the heat of the tomatoes.  I ate the squash right out of the skin.

Most of the ingredients came from my garden.  I liked the crunch of the turnip, carrots and celery.  They are not essential ingredients. I wanted to add as many garden foods as possible.