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Well, the heat seems to have come back, at least a little bit (thank goodness!)

I dug up a few pots worth of plants for my friend's garden.

Mint
Bee-Balm-like-creature-of-unknown-species
Bachelors' Buttons
Wee Baby Hollyhocks
Forget-me-nots
Yarrow

Most of which should be able to spread like wild things in her yard. Hurrah! :-D

I'm hoping that the beans and what-not will have poked through the ground in her yard by this point. :-) Hurrah! :-)

Also good: I finally got around to transplanting that ruddy bleeding heart. :-D It is now located behind the hostas and in front of the rather short spirea (or whatever the heck that thing with the pink flowers is).

Not so good: I broke my trowel in the process. (Maybe that's what I'll get at Lee Valley... :-)


Had the lovely pleasure of randomly meeting Torrain and Commodorified on the way to work today (thense my turning down the offer of coffee), and getting to give (and get) wonderful, wonderful hugs. :-)
I enjoy that *so* much. :-)
Plus, I got called beautiful. Score! :-D
<*is delighted*>
:-D

Random: I had a wierd dream last night. I can't, for the life of me, remember what it was, but it involved (I *think*) my old house, and some sort of major emotional stress having to do with me running late on a project and/or an appointment.
Hrm...


Anyway. I need to figure out dinner for tonight. (Conveniently, the fella's not around for dinner for the next, erm... five or six days - which kinda sucks, 'cause for part of that he's in Hamilton again, and I shall miss him - but which also means that I don't need to worry about making something that he can safely eat. :-) So, hey. I might have shrimp and artechoke hearts in pasta, or something. :-)
Whee! :-)
(Conversely, I may eat the left-over chicken, which does need eating up... Hm...)

Anyway.

That's about where I'm at. :-)

I am quite enjoying my new hair colour and my new toenail colour. go me! :-D

(Gods, I'm perky today, aren't I? Not that I'm complaining about this. I'll take perky over despondent any day. ;-)


- TTFN,
- Amazon. :-D

Took my shovel out again today.

Dug up a squash plot (very small - about four square feet, maybe?) and planted eight squash seeds:
1 pumpkin
2 carnival
3 hubbard
2 butternut (I think)

Also planted hollyhocks and lupins (seeds) around the house-near perifery of the back yard (did that make any sense?), so hopefully those will all grow.

Along the side, by the driveway, I planted more hollyhocks and some columbines.

At the front I planted giant marrigolds and brown-eyed-susans plus some Royal Burgundy bush-beans (edible! yay!) in the front garden plots. :-)

So hopefully that will all work out beautifully. :-)



In other news: I appear to have come to a conclusion.

Ami_B mentioned that Algonquin has a horticulture program and my immediate reaction was "I don't wanna go back to school". I think, perhaps, my brain is trying to tell me something. :-)

<*sigh*>

See, at my brother's grad, I was feeling all "Oh, I want that". But the thing is, I want the prestige of the degree. Not the work it takes to get it.
Yeah, I know. Lazy-assed me. Deal. :-P

So...

This may be the death knell of the MA. Alas.

But whatever.

Anyway.

That's my thought for the moment. (It feels really wierd to say that. I mean I've been out of school for almost nine months now, and I still feel really indecisive about this *dispite* little wake-up calls like this one where it becomes *quite* clear that I don't want to go back... I really don't get myself sometimes...)
:-P


Anyway.
Snark-snarkity-snark-snark.


I am stiff and sore (backs of thighs + hands, especially the right one), due to the gardening. I think I need a soothing bath or something tonight. :-)


I'm off to get myself some dinner. :-)


- TTFN,
- Amazon. :-)

Well... maybe not extra vaganza... But vaganza, certainly. :-)

I have planted my tomatoes. Whee! (We'll see if anything grows - I hope so!)

One tomato is yellow and has low acid content, the other is (I think) a 'red zebra' heirloom variety of cherry-tomato. I enjoyed both of them very much, so I hope I get some from the seeds (by-which I mean 'whole tomatoes') that I saved from last year. :-)

I also cleaned up the squash bed a little bit. It could probably do with a better job, but until I have a wire-rake, that's not going to happen. (I'm just glad all the compost-stuff that had spilled into it had matted together and was easy to lift with the pitch-fork).


I'm putting in a garden for a friend of Paul's. There will be beans, and maybe carrots & peas (I'll have to hit up the seed-selection at Loblaws and/or Home Depot) and (of course) squash. There will also be yarrow, echinecea and/or brown-eyed-susans, spearmint, forget-me-nots, possibly periwinkle, and possibly some sort of low-growing bean- or pea- related critters for the front. Lots of good fun. :-)


- TTFN,
- Amazon. :-)

Well, what an eventful day this has been.

I'm currently watching the wind play merry hell with the giant spruce tree across the street. I'm surprised the thing isn't dropping cones like small, paper bombs, given how the wind's tearing at it.
I wonder if there is something wrong with my roof. Again. Because it sounds like the wind is getting inside of it. Hm. :-\


Anyway...

Today I got sexually harrassed at work.
Loser. :-P

This jerk decided that (I can only assume) he thought I'd be flattered if he asked me how much I cost, and suggested that I should take my clothes off.
Where he got that idea, I have no clue what so ever.
Anyway.
I told that I most certainly would not, and that (upon being asked why... ???) it was my perogative not to do so.
Anyway.
Eventually he left.
The bosses are letting Rob-the-Security-Guard know what he looks like, etc. etc.

What I find interesting about this is my own reaction.
I didn't panic or freeze or anything.
He didn't scare me.

Now, granted, he was old and leaning heavily on a cane, which might have something to do with it.
None the less, I never felt like the situation was out of my control. I told him off (if rather politely, and it probably went right over his idiot head), and he never got inside my space (which I think is about a meter in all dirrections).

I am, in point of fact, surprised that I'm not angrier than I am about this complete denial of my humanity.
Huh.
I wonder why that is.


Anyway. That was my 'adventure' this afternoon.


I think I may be coming down with something. I've got a tickle (or whatever) in my throat that's been getting steadily worse all day.
There will be turkey for dinner. And then tea and ban lan gen tablets, and possibly some Eucalyptus oil to breath heavily into my lungs.


In other news: I am now considering moving the furniture around in the bedroom.
Hm.
See, I figure if the low chest of drawers in where the high-boy and the tall chest of drawers are now, then I can move my stuff into the low drawers, and use the chest/counter top to house bouth of our electric fans and (maybe) the waste-baskets and such-like.
My Fella, in turn, can use the high-boy (which has cupboards) as his 'open-shelving' for his clean clothes (which currently never see the inside of a drawer). (The clothes he wears less often can live in the three drawers, and the dirty clothes can - I can hope - end up in the hamper).
His CD rack can go next to the high-boy (and will still have some space for another CD-tree, or something, too -- which he could definintely use).

Doing all of this will, I *hope*, give me the chance to get rid of (A) the doorless 'cupboard' that used to house my parents' stereo system but now houses the garbage cans + a small heap of clothes that need repairing, as well as (B) the tall chest of drawers.

Which, in turn, will mean I have a lot more space -- e.g.: I will be able to get *into* the other half of my closet (and, possibly, eventually install some bifold doors - oh rapturous dream - on said closet, thus making its interior even more accessable to me).

I think this is a really good (although somewhat time-consuming and inconvenient) thing to do. :-)



In further other news: I just planted my daffodils. :-) By golly, it's windy out there. I think there will be a thunderstorm tonight, but I could be wrong. :-)


And, lastly: Because it is Shakespeare's birthday (and because I finally found out what the whole "Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Wretch" thing is about), I give you a vignet:

Goats and Grain at Sunset.


- Cheerio,
- Amazon. :-)

Well, I've been oggling the Vesey's catalogue again...
<*sigh*>

It's unfortunate. I really can't justify spending that much on flowers, even when I'm getting half of them for free. My garden's pretty full, anyway.

I do want to get a new blueberry bush. I have a Bluecrop (maybe) bush. Or at least a bush that comes in that height.
Unfortunately, I don't know if my surviving (I think) blueberry bush goes with the 'bluecrop' label I found blowing around my yard.
As such, I have no idea what type I should get as its companion (you need to bushes - different varieties of the same height of bush in order to get the cross-polination to work).


I am thinking, again, about sustainable-hobbit-style housing and the ammount of land I would need to have a meadow[1] full of berries and flowers and herbs, an annual vegetable garden, and a forest-garden full of fruit and nut trees (and other trees as well).


So, let us see...

( Trees )


( Fruiting Shrubs )


Ideally, most of the fruiting bushes would grow on the roof/walls (think of a geodesic dome, covered in terraced earth, with windows and maybe a balcony/veranda... Just to give you an idea. :-)

With enough patio and garden space around the house to grow (perenial) flowers & herbs and annual veggies (Squash!!! And beans, peas, and a couple of other things, but we all know where my loyalties lie when it comes to the vegetable patch), before the trees closed in. :-) There would be more trees on the north-facing half of the house than the south-facing, in the interests of a windbreak, but also because the annuals need the sun a bit more (and the trees will probably get taller than the house... at least some of them will).


Anywhoo. That's about where my brain is right now. :-)


- TTFN,
- Amazon. :-)


[1] Do 'meadow' and 'mead' come from the same word, do you think?

[2] I'm not sure if they grow this far north, or if I'm mistaking black raspberries for them... Hm...

I am filled with a profound sense of well-being. :-)

(How cool is that? :-)


Possibly you've noticed that I've been rather morose, irritated, anxious, etc. in the last slew of posts.

I made squash tonight.

I took one of the squashes -- small, orange, drop-shaped, fibrous-fleshed -- that grew in the garden last summer.
I felt better just to be picking it up. :-)

I cut it open with my axe, and scooped out the seeds (some of them are now drying on my cutting board, the rest have gone into the compost).

It was 'round about this point that something started dawning on me. :-)
I felt *better* just working with this squash, just scraping out the seeds and preparing it for cooking.
:-)

I poured apple cider into a shallow dish and added the squash, cut-side-down.
I baked it at 400F for an hour.

The cider caramelized.

The sqaush was soft, the fibers cooked to smoothness, and the cider's sweetness mixed with the smokey-bitter flavour of the squash, and was quite beautiful.


I may have said, back when I made that batch of brownies last week, that I sometimes forget how much I actually enjoy cooking.
I do. Sometimes I treat it like it's a chore, or something that I have to get done by a certain time, or something.
But this was so, so simple.
(I bought a pre-cooked chicken from loblaws, and one of those tastey half-sized baguettes, too, so really the only thing that ever saw the inside of my oven was the squash).
And I felt *so* good when it was done.

Now, I can happily reference the whole cyclical nature of food, how I nurtured the squash last summer, and now she's feeding me, and her seeds will end up growing in my garden in a few months (Only a few months! :-) and I'll be tending those plants then that will feed me over next winter.

But: This is simpler than that, I think. I just had this wonderful feeling of "I made this". But also of: "It likes me". :-)

It was wonderful. :-D (And is still here, a good hour or so later. :-)

So yay. :-)

I think if I ever get around to writing that cook book, I'll have to talk about how food ties into (A) my sense of self-worth, and (B) my sense of religion. :-)

I think that needs to be said, and that it would be good. :-)


In other news: As it turns out, Around the Goddess will not being doing an equinox ritual. Due to lots of crossed wires, and an (intelligent) executive descision to Just Say No to more headaches. :-)
So that's one less thing for me to worry about. :-)

I do, however, get to do a big altar-piece for the Salon. So that will be fun and good. :-)

I need to come up with some stuff to put in The South. Everything else is mostly sorted out, but the Southern quarter is a bit sparse. (Heat, prosperity, energy, confindence, courage... Suggestions? :-)

- TTFN,
- Amazon. :-D

Okay, so as most people who read this thing regularly know, I like making lists of stuff I want to grow in the eventual House Of My Dreams that will magically(***) come on the market just as someone makes an outrageously high bid ($200,000!) for the house we currently live in.

It will be in Westboro.
It will be a falling-down piece of junk that is being sold purely for the gloriously fertile oversized lot that it's on. It will cost us $150,000 or less. It will be a ten minute walk (or less) from (A) The Transit Way, (B) the giant Loblaws, (C) the Ottawa River, and (D) the local elementary school.
The lot will be graced with one, and only one, very healthy crab-apple tree, in the northern corner of the front yard. Otherwise there will just be meters and meters of boring, easily-removed, dying-brown grass.
the hosue *will* have a fully functional sump-pump, though, because: Hello. It's Westboro. The water gets a bit high at times. :-)


It will be razed to its foundation and re-built into something mind-blowingly beautiful, *and* increadibly energy-efficient. :-)

And the yard will be a food-supplying garden of loveliness. :-)

That's what I like about perenials. Flowers and food, both, you plant them once and they just keep feeding you. :-D
Yay perenial food sources! :-D


( Perenial Foods (Mostly Berries )


Of course, there are also the annuals (some of which, like ground cherries, are -- I think -- self-seeding), but they are important, too. :-D

( Winter Squash )

( Beans and other Veggies )


I love food. I love growing it, and cooking it, and eating it. What could be better? :-D

I love my Land. :-D