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New garden updates:

Everything is growing really well, and thankfully the weather has remained cooperative. Of course, I shouldn't complain over a night or two of at-freezing temperatures in the past month, when most of the country can't even start gardens until the Spring. So I would like to thank the state of Florida, as well as Global Warming (or global tilting, or sun spots, whatevs), major hi-fives all around.

The peppers that were most damaged in our mini cold snap are now beginning to blossom. The cayenne that originally looked the weakest is presently my breadwinner. The flowers have fallen off and now the pep-peps are pushing through.


The carrots are becoming bush-like, but still nothing peeking out of the ground. So they're fairly boring to photograph. The strawberries have produced three more berries, and one midgy berry that I'm slightly afraid to eat. So far the fantasy of having crates of berries all at once has been forced into the reality that I only get one, maybe two at the same time. And let me tell you, it's really awkward to only eat one strawberry. How do you fit that into a meal? What kind of snack is that? I can't just mix it in with other berries...those are store-bought, they taste like sour cardboard, and it would be insulting. So I'm stuck with freezing my berries, adding them to the bag, until I get enough to figure something out.


The okra, cucumbers and soy are all coming in well. I love their fuzzies.




And lastly, here are some photos of last weekend. We went to the Game Preserve off the St. John's River. Saw some sites, and animals. The neat thing about going there is that after you take in the beauty of the animals, you can shoot them and hang their faces on your wall or make delicious meat dishes. Maybe not the alligators, but the boar and deer and fish. Although you might want to use a hook for a fish, not a gun (FYI).

pictures of the day. again.

i should just title all of my posts pictures of the day.

so the garden is growing and growing! as of this morning, we've got ALL of the plants sprouting. this means:

strawberries
carrots
okra
cucumbers
soy
cayenne
jalapeno

welllll technically the jalapeno leaves didn't survive the last freeze, but the roots are still strong. the cayennes are starting to blossom already...i think i've got four or five coming in.

this is exciting!! mostly because james and i didn't screw up. although i'm not sure how you can screw up throwing seeds in a pile of dirt. but you never know.

it's like giving birth to babies, you're so proud of yourself for creating something so beautiful, and you're proud of your little babies for sprouting out of a hole and making it into the world...but it's so much better, because you can leave these little guys outside, and they raise themselves!!! not to mention, you don't have worry about them until it gets down to 32 degrees. take that, human babies!!!

here they are:

the strawed berries...


carrots....

soy!!


This gardening business is pretty amazing. Everyone should be doing this. Liberate yourself from creepy wax-covered gassed flavlorless store produce!!! From foreign countries with questionable safety standards!!

Also today, I took a drive out to the Wildlife Refuge, and down Tropical Trail to St. Luke's. When I got to St. Luke's, I was lucky enough to go into the church. I love old Southern churches, I really do. And I love the spanish moss that hangs off the old trees in the cemetery. It feels so peaceful. Welllll not so much at the Georgiana cemetery, but at St. Luke's it does.








I feel so lucky to live somewhere so beautiful...although it's easy to find beauty in most places, you just have to open your eyes.

Pictures of the day.

Some pictures today from band practice.









James was excavating from the Moose Tracks ice cream dig site and I just ate the biggest fudge ribbon. I wish I could experience that moment over and over again. It ended way too soon.

Pictures of the day

James and I went walking around Pine Island today. I'd say we were lucky enough to spot not one but two bald eagles and a nest; however, spotting bald eagles here is almost like trying to find pigeons in a city- it's not very hard to do. I feel kind of spoiled in the way, but I make the most of my surroundings here by trying to be out on the trails as much as I can. It's really a shame that the closest people will get to these animals is by going to a zoo, because there really are EVERYWHERE here.

As far as home is concerned, I've got two more strawberries ready to sacrifice their lives to the almighty stomach gods. I'm giving them another week. The carrots are getting so big I wouldn't be surprised if they were walking and talking tomorrow; my how my little ones grow so fast.

Also, and more importantly, T-minus FIVE days until Tim and Eric Live!!!!!! Oh mama!!!

Bow Chika Wow Wow

...or however it's spelled.

Today I bring to you some SFW pr0n. Fruit and Vegetable pr0n, to be exact. The plants swear to me they like it, so I keep taking photos. They're all legal too, so don't worry.

So I ate my ONE ripe strawberry today. And it was absolutely delicious. I have an internal record of the most delicious strawberries I've ever eaten, and this is up there with the Spanish strawberries I had in Paris, and the strawberries grown across the freeway from my house in Dixon...when the entire month of May smelled like strawberries.
It was like someone soaked it in simple syrup. The most pathetic part is, I still have half of it left. In a baggy in the fridge. Because, you know, gotta savor my crops. All one of them.



Is it getting hot in here, or is it just me?


Literally the day after I bitched about the carrots not sprouting, what did they do?

Yep.
Now I feel guilty for complaining. This is what always happens.

And this is how they look today:

I feel like an old family friend. Well I remember you when you were THIS big [puts hand beside knee], and now I just can't believe how much you've grown! How long has it been - what, a day? Now I just feel old!

Soon enough it'll be time to thin those little guys. Or I could just leave them be and wait for one giant Supercarrot.

And lest we forget the peppers, which were bought a few days ago and are now all snug in their planters, except for Senor Jalapeno, who will be given a proper planting tomorrow. The okra seeds have also been planted, but taking a picture of dirt is pretty boring.

On a side note, we've been watching a hell of a lot of Gordon Ramsey shows lately. I think he has 300 shows at this point, but they are all so good. Now that James has gotten me obsessed with BBC America, I've been watching a lot of The F Word. And I swear every episode, he makes something absolutely and amazingly delicious. The best part about his food is that it's so simple and fresh. Which is what I've always thought with cooking, the simpler, the better.

Lastly, this totally sounds old lady (but we know I possess the maturity of a 68 year old, with the hot looks of a 45 year old, all at 24 oh my!), but I'm really interested in canning and pickling. I mean, for reals, store bought pickles taste like total ass. And they always have this weird neon yellow-green brine that just doesn't seen natural. I want the pickles of my childhood, from the Jewish delis. So I'm going to make them.

If I have learned nothing else, it is that if no one else can do it right, it's best to do it yourself. Unfortunately this rule works horribly for retail and food service jobs, but not when it comes to pickling.

fluffy kitten marshmallow rainbows

Jeebus do I have heartburn. What the eff is that about? I think it's from the raw garlic I just consumed in my cucumber salad. I'm really working hard to keep people away. Garlic is a great way of achieving this. I think it's been successful, so far.

Anyway. We are growing organic consumables in plastic storage bins in the hopes that a) we will have a bountiful harvest of strawed berries and carrots, and b) the plastic will leach into the water and make us grow the inevitable third arm as our DNA slowly mutates.

So far no third arm, not even so much as a nub, but my bountiful harvest is slowly coming to fruition. Get it, FRUITion?? How fantastic am I?!?

For the love of god, keep it on track Lauren.

OK.

So we've got one pretty red strawberry, despite weather's cold, heartless attempt to freeze my little lovelies. I'm giving it one more day until it turns into a tasty snack.



I'm so proud of my little red berry, standing up to adversity, not wanting to shrivel and die like its other companions. Ok so they didn't ALL die, but they're just taking so very long to become delicious snacks that it makes me worry. I want instant results!!! This is America damn it!!

And as for the carrots, I haven't seen any surface results.



But the carrots are all like, "What the eff do you expect? We grow underground. We're all totally four inches in the dirt, all orange and shit, waiting to be on your salad." At least that's what I'm thinking is going on.

And of course, in the back of my mind I worry about eating my strawberries and carrots. Can one actually eat something that hasn't been hermetically sealed in plastic wrap at the grocery store? Is it safe to eat things grown in this country? All of my produce comes from Mexico and Honduras. Should I be the one harvesting these? Shouldn't I have laborers toiling over my 18 gallon planter? Why doesn't my produce have a shiny layer of carnuba wax? Isn't that like, the plant's afterbirth-- carnuba wax?

So many questions!!!

And I've been informed via TXT that we get to go to Home Depot today to buy an additional planter!! Yippee skippee! I'm hoping to plant some okra, assuming they blossom already deep fried in cornmeal. Also, I'd like some cayenne peppers, so I can make dried pepper garlands and then rub my eyes afterwards, forgetting that I was just touching the equivalent a thousand suns in hell.

this post is making me hungry.

It has been either one year exactly, or approximately one year since I've updated this. And in this time, my writing skills and lexicon have dropped down to the essentials: subject and verb, an the occasional adjective. It also doesn't help that I'm currently listening to Tim and Eric songs, which is such a HUGE distraction when you're doing anything. In fact, I just spent five minutes staring at my computer screen so I could focus on listening to "Beaver Boys".

Anyway, this morning I decided to play around with the shutter speed on my camera:

There aren't many things that move with much speed at early hours of the morning except our krispy kritters and the ceiling fans...and even the latter had to be turned on since it's been so cold lately.



I think it's about 1.5 seconds, I forgot the aperture.

And then to celebrate our ritualistic smoking of the pork butt, I took some meat photos. Meat is fascinating to me. You can add it to any photo and it instantly livens up the scene. It's quite the conversation starter.





This, of course, being the typical diet in the Mitchell household. Well, that and a 3 pound block of cheese.

And lastly, let us come together to reflect upon this hour of meat, and contemplate it's deliciously tender smokiness.



Go henceforth, my children, with my message of meat, and spread it to the hungered masses, forgiving those in vegetabledom who may not understand thy message.

and what happens to good boys and girls who eat their meat?



That's right!

So I forgot what the point of this entry was.
But I plan on taking more photographs, knitting baby blankets and booties so that my cousin's child will be wearing them until age twenty, and maybe learn a thing or two about these internets.

It's time to make nana puddins.