Where have you been?

Coming soon a detailed explaination of what I have been up to. A dark tale of roofs, job interviews, college students coming home, and other adventures... Tune in for more information...Same Bat-time, same Bat-channel!

The green bean plants were heavy and ready to harvest the first picking of the season. I almost filled a 5-quart ice cream bucket. They were so tempting that I could not wait - and wasn't going to be home for dinner anyway!

My favorite way to eat green beans: water sauteed and served with a wee bit of butter (actually I used Earth Balance Spread) and sea salt. Yum. I had a large bowl for lunch.

Last year I was in Michigamme this month and missed the green bean harvest. In a small way I'm glad I'm still in the land of trolls.


One cucumber plant had a couple ready to harvest. We're having those for dinner tonight. Too good to cook, so I am going to slice and serve as a side dish with a bit of rice wine vinegar.

The zucchinis have about fifty blossoms between the plants and some lovely little babies beginning to grow. I have never had zucchini blossoms and am going to try some for dinner tonight if I get a chance to get back into the garden.


I was bent over the green beans, looking for some hidden in the center of the bed. I raised up to put a handful into the bucket and spooked a buck that was about 10 - 15 feet behind me at the edge of the pond. He was a younger one with a cute little rack. He sprung up the pond bank in a quick bound and ran into our wood behind the old garden shed. Usually, I just interrupt the herons!

I have plans for next year. In Michigamme I have some pine boards that we took out of the house we tore down. They are rough boards from a local mill and in really great shape. I am going to bring back enough for two more long raised beds, about the same size as the green bean bed. I want to expand the garden and have a bed for kitchen greens and herbs.

I am also redoing all of the tomato pots next year. I have had nothing but trouble with the potted tomatoes this year. They were flooded a couple of times by heavy rains and started to set a couple of tomatoes while still small. I'm going to research this and decide if I am going to raise tomatoes in pots next year or dedicate a bed to them.

On a good note... once construction is done on the porch - more about that later - I will have a place to start my own seeds.

Today's Brew: Beaner's French Roast - We needed an "auxiliary bag" of coffee so I bought a large bag of this at Sam's. Disappointing! Strange bitter aftertaste. I am going to try it in a blend with some regular roast 8 O'clock coffee and see if that is any better. Sorry Beaner's ... I mean Biggby!

Today's treat - Blueberry Muffins from Flavorvegan.blogspot.com - I changed up the recipe a bit with applesauce instead of oil and brown sugar instead of raw sugar. Great! Very tart berries in a sweet batter.

Day 24

My meatless month has been a great success. I have really tried to add more variety to the proteins by experimenting with seitan and new tofu recipes. The websites I found - and wrote about in the previous post - have been a great help.

The month hasn't been without some ... difficulties. My best friend RM has made me some delicious vegetarian dinners. She made an incredible vegetable soup and as we were eating she was explaining how easy it is..."just open a can of chicken broth! Oops! - It was wonderful and I had two bowls! I, of course, planned on the whitefish when we went to Yooperland a couple of weeks ago. Whitefish sandwich, homemade chips, and a salad at the White Tail in Brevort, Mi. Oh, and there was that spoonful of tuna salad...otherwise, GREAT!

Do I miss meat? I was really surprised by my reaction to sausage on Sunday. B-I-L made breakfast sausage, fresh from the butcher, and I was actually turned-off by the smell! Me, turned-off by sausage - I love sausage! Sausage is my favorite meat. Keep the steak, pass the dogs! I hope this was just a momentary psychosis and will pass by the time I get to Yooperland again and can have some cudighi.

I dream about cudighi and whitefish! Not together! That would be gross!

Tonight's dinner - Okonomiyaki

Today's brew - Jackson Brewing: Black and Tan

To be or Not to be - Meat Free

I decided this weekend, after a day of eating in diners without a vegetarian option, that I was going to try to go meat free for 30 days. Saturday, for lunch, we stopped at the Eaton Cafe in Charlotte. Surprisingly great salad with chicken and Monte Cristo sandwich. Not the kind of sandwich that is deep fat fried but made on homemade French toast. After a day of yard sale-ing we then went to dinner at the Napoleon Cafe. I really don't know why I ordered dinner. I should have gone straight for the dessert. Napoleon Cafe is known for it's pies, but I went for the pineapple upside-down cake.


So after a Saturday of overindulgence and the thought that I really didn't enjoy the ham and turkey in the Monte Cristo. I realized I would have been just as happy with the French toast and raspberry sauce. So, why do I eat meat? I don't know. When your favorite meat is sausage followed by tonkatsu, why continue to eat it? It really isn't good for me so, I am going to give it a real try despite the fact that I have lovely slices of pork loin from Rountree's (http://www.rountreemeats.com/) in the freezer and a package of Koegel franks (http://www.koegelmeats.com/) in the fridge.


Tonight I tried a recipe I found online at the Vegetarian Times - Spicy Asian Stir-fry with Whole Wheat Linguine (http://www.vegetariantimes.com/recipes/10900getariantimes.com/recipes/10900getariantimes.com/recipes/10900). Super easy and delicious. I thought the sauce was a bit bland. I don't think that my chile sauce is as hot as it could be, so I added a bit more of my vegetarian Hoisin Sauce and a quarter teaspoon of red pepper flakes. The red pepper flakes and peanuts really made the dish. Being the busy chef that I was I didn't even think about a picture until I decided to write about dinner. So... the photo is from the site.






I have found the web to be a wonderful resource for vegan and vegetarian recipes! My favorite sites right now are:
http://www.vegweb.com/ - mostly vegan. Several recipes have become weekly staples. http://www.fatfreevegan.com/ - a blog with never a bad recipes! http://vegandad.blogspot.com/ - blog with lots of "meat" alternatives and now... add http://www.vegetariantimes.com/ - I think I need a subscription!



Today's brew - The last of Sterling's Northern Nighthawk from Dead River Coffee in Marquette.


Tomorrows brew? - I went to Jackson Coffee today and bought a bag of Black & Tan (my favorite from this roaster) and a bag of Kenyan AA.

May Catch-up

Things got pretty busy around here in May. I had a wee bit of time off between Winter and Summer semester and made the drive to open up the camper in Michigamme. My new semster started with two classes and is down to one - I think it is a good thing the evening class got cancelled, I really don't like teaching a swing shift of moring-night-morning-night! It is hard to get up for a morning class after teaching until 10pm the night before.

Around the house it is project time...

The gardens are coming along nicely. I was going to take special JUNE FIRST pictures today but it is too dark, wet, and rainy outside for that. So...

May 25th!


This hosta bed near the house is looking very lush, filling in nicely! The iris have finally started to bloom. I don't understand why my iris are usually a week or two behind other yards. Shade? Low yard? The pond?





I am going to check on dividing the hosta. I think I have a couple of years before they outgrow this little garden.






This garden was started three years ago. We have a trio of trees near our driveway so we put in a wedge of a garden using the trees for the points on the triangles.


In this garden are more hosta, primrose, and creeping charlie. We used to fill-in around the plants with annuals. This year I am not going to add annuals because the hosta have gotten larger.




Here is the view of the new garden as of May 25. We actually finished this bed last night, but I did not get pictures yet. The bed has a slight mound and is planted with a new butterfly bush at the top. I moved about a dozen or so iris that were under the new lilac bushes near the rock and a couple of dozen narcissis that were being over run by the purple cone flowers. We bought some border that a neighbor posted on Craigslist.com. The guys scraped the center flat between this bed and the large planting of daylilies. I'm thinking about a bench or picnic table between the beds.


The vegetable garden is coming along well. On May 25th the green beans were just peeking out. Yesterday they were about three inches tall and some had their first real leaves.







Today's brew: Jackson Coffee Company - African Blend! Yummy - dark and smokey!

Gardening Pictures

As promised...some pictures from the garden. I took these Thursday before it started to rain...again!

These beauties came with the house and I think they are Narcissus Bridal Vail. This year they have bloomed bigger and better than ever before.




This is the major project for the season - the front flower garden. If will stop raining long enough to get some work done in here I will be very happy. We are still feeling some cold nights, so I know I have a bit of time.

This is a close up of the lilacs at the end of the front flower garden. I have two new ones at the other end that have leaves, but no blossoms.

Here are some of the containers for tomatoes and peppers. The cage behind the plants is for the beets which are going into the large raised bed.

Here is the Red Grape tomato plant in its container.

Garden Plans Version 2009

We had a couple of days of decent weather, not too warm but I got the tomatoes and peppers in their pots. I still have the raised beds to do and work on the front flower bed. I've decided to leave the hosta beds alone this year and observe before adding or subtracting anything.

The large flower bed by the pond has been a problem since we moved in. Andy even mowed it one year. Another year I took out half of the day lilies and planted them along the far bank of the pond where they provided a wonderful snack for the muskrats. This year, after re-reading Lasagna Gardening for Small Spaces: A Layering System for Big Results in Small Gardens and Containers (Rodale Organic Gardening Book) by Patricia Lanza, I decided to start over. I want to save the remaining day lilies, paper whites, and echinacea while adding a butterfly bush and several other perennials. It is a rather large garden bed, so I am planning a sculpture for the middle for clematis to grow on. Finally, I want a bench for watching the pond. If it stops raining I'll take some pictures of my projects.

I'm not a very good gardener, but love the idea of a garden. In a perfect world this would be easy. I would have perfect soil, perfect sunlight, in the perfect place. Instead, I have a yard that is back-fill and clay with seven acres of mature trees and one small patch by the pond that gets enough sun. That is where the raised beds are.

I have two raised beds one large one - 8x8 feet that we were going to grow strawberries in and another - 3x8 that was added last year. I have tried to grow vegetables using the Square-Foot method and end up with an overgrown mess. Last year, I went up north to our place in Michigamme for 7 weeks and the garden was neglected by the Trolls who stayed home. So this year, I'm keeping it simple!

The Vegetable Plan - version 2009:
2 - Early Girl tomato plants in large pots
1 - Red Grape tomato plant in large pot
2 - Sweet Peppers in large pots
1 - Jalapeno plant in large pot
3 - boxes of lettuce
1 - Basil in medium pot
Large raised bed - zucchini, cucumber, beets
Small raised bed - green beans

Last year the rabbits, turkeys, and deer made a mess of my leafy vegetables. I never caught the rabbits or deer, but the stupid turkeys left scratch marks and foot prints all over the large raised bed. I lost all of the chard and beets that I planted. So, this year Andy made me a chicken wire cage to cover that quadrant. If this doesn't work I just going to have to get up earlier than usual and wait for the buggers to show up...just me and my shot gun. I wonder what wild turkey tastes like?

Brew of the day...nothing special - Eight O'clock Columbia Roast