Friday, November 5, 2010

Bye Bye Autumn Garden

After a week into my busy quarter I got home at a decent hour and the sun was shining. I decided to take a looksy into my garden and to my surprise, I had so much beautiful produce!!


This huge zucchini I didn't even know was growing until I peered through some poky zucchini leaves and saw this monster sitting there in the dirt waiting to be picked. I had to compare it to something to show its size; this is one big, healthy, organic zucchini!


A few weeks after these photos were taken, and a few weeks ago, I decided to rip up my rotting tomato plants and all the not-so-healthy looking kale, leaving only some zucchini plants. Goodbye autumn garden!

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Hummus Recipe

Hummus (also spelled hamos, homos, houmous, hommos, hommus, hummos or hummous) is one of my FAVORITE snacks of all time. It's an amazing veggie dip, great with pitas, amazing in a falafel or a sandwich, and pretty darn good on the tip of a finger! Although this specific hummus concoction I made in April, the photos are still good and I figured I should share.



Ingredients needed are as shown above: Garbanzo beans (aka chickpeas; they truly are better if you have the time to soak them the night before then cook them), tahini (this specific one I get from Trader Joe's; it has the perfect mixture of lemon and garlic already in it... other brands tend to be bland and difficult to season up correctly), olive oil, cumin, lemon, salt (not pictured) and beloved garlic.

Although I do not normally measure the ingredients I put in my hummus, I've made it enough that now I use the guess-and-taste method, for the purpose of posting this I am going to post the measurements as suggested by one of my favorite hummus recipes. This one is adapted from Vegan Planet, by Robin Robertson.

1 1/2 cups cooked or one 15-ounce can chickpeas, draining and rinsed
1/4 cup tahini (sesame paste)
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 garlic cloves
1 teaspoon cumin
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt



Put all the ingredients into a food processor and go crazy! Spoon into a bowl and enjoy!



YUM!

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

A Day of Celebrations!

Today is the day to say goodbye to summer and hello to autumn. And what a better way to celebrate than with a MyEternal show at Hell's Kitchen!

And a cake too, of course.

It didn't turn out quite like I expected, but then again, I wasn't sure what I was expecting.



Good luck, MyEternal, with your show tonight. Finally they're playing again after two and half years! I just spent an hour looking through photos to find some band photos to attach, and well, there's just been two much rearranging of band members that I gave up on that.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Vegetarians Rock!

"The health benefits of a vegetarian diet are directly linked to the fact that plant-based foods tend to be rich in dietary fiber, vitamins, minerals and cancer-fighting antioxidants and don’t contain the cholesterol, saturated fat and toxins found in animal flesh."
~Jason Baker

Friday, September 17, 2010

"One of the most important resources that a garden makes available for use, is the gardener's own body. A garden gives the body the dignity of working in its own support. It is a way of rejoining the human race." — Wendell Berry

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Le Jardin d'Automne

My garden is loving all the rain and sunshine! Here she is a week before Autumn Equinox.

Oh how my little seeds have grown!


Lush and beautiful.


Zucchini, kale, and green peppers.


Dinosaur kale.


I have A LOT of tomatoes!


Here's the big mama.


A pretty little zucchini.


We let the chickens run loose in the yard for some fresh grass, worms and fresh air.


They picked on Leo. He was confused.


Pretty Michelangelo and Raphael.

I love my autumn garden... and I really love that I barely have to water
it because Mother Nature has been doing that for me. She's great.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Beauty in All Things

Today while reading my Yoga Journal I stumbled upon this and thought I should share, as it is too wonderful to not.

"In classical Tantric philosophy, the yogi seeks to perceive all things as they really are: a manifestation of the Divine Light of Consciousness. In this process, you learn to go beyond the artificial preferences of your mind and gradually come to see all things as equally beautiful. This sense of wonder, a kind of aesthetic rapture, derives from a profound inner realization of the miracle by which the one Light expresses its innate beauty in an infinity of different ways while never relinquishing its essential nature in any of them.

You can cultivate your capacity to see yourself and all of reality in this way by holding the awareness of innate beauty shining through all that you do. As you go about your day, silently repeat to yourself with everything you see, "Beauty is seeing beauty"; with everyone you meet, "Beauty is greeting beauty"; with everything you touch, "Beauty is touching beauty"; and so on. In this way, you will expand your capacity to see all things as beautiful."

Embrace beauty, my friends!

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Hens and Veggies

The ninja turtles are growing mighty quickly.

Here are the babes on a rainy May 21st afternoon:


And here they are again on May 26th (Donatello was walking around looking for worms):


This crazy springtime weather is doing lovely things to my garden!

These are the broccoli and romaine starts my mama got me for my birthday:


These are my peas I planted as seeds about a month ago.


VoilĂ ! Le jardin. There are many other things planted but they are either teensy weensy or have not yet germinated and come up from the soil.


Oh yes, and I cannot forget my indoor plantlings.

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Progress

April 1


April 25



I'm excited to see what July looks like!





Saturday, May 1, 2010

Mon Jardin

April 11
Midday.
I started edging along the grass with a shovel,
and this made me realize how overgrown the area was.


Pretty gross.


The boys began making a much-needed chicken coop from a
beer pong table that was given to us from our past neighbors.




Et voilĂ !
It's small for now and the cover is so that predators don't get our little gals.


The babes love being outside.


April 12




April 15



April 21
Sprouts! 1 week old.


April 25
The garden is bordered and the plants from my mama are in the soil,
along with some of my seedlings.




The chicks are getting big!




And they love organic baby spring greens.


April 26
8 days old.


2 weeks old.


April 29
Beefsteak tomatoes: 2 1/2 weeks and thinned.
My kindergartners' milk carton collection provided the containers.


Calendula: 11 days old.


Kale: 11 days old.

Friday, April 2, 2010

Chick Update

The chicks are doing well, and they're growing quickly! My babes have been living inside for the past week (tomorrow will be one week since we got them) because it's still pretty cold outside, we have not yet built them a coop, and they are itty bitty. My mom told me that as soon as they have feathers they will be ready to be outside. Also, I figure that when they have feathers the weather will be warmer and we will have a coop built. Here are the little buggers... they're already getting taller!


As I was outside preparing my soil for the garden I let the chicks outside in their fenced-in area.



When I took this photo the sun was shining. As soon as it began raining I ran to the chicks to see how they were doing. The first time they looked like this, all hiding their faces in the straw.



The second time I went to check on them I could not see one of them! Upon closer inspection I saw three little butts. I picked them up and put them back into their tub. But where was the fourth?! Her orange fuzz matched almost perfectly the color of the straw and for a good few minutes I could not hear or see Raphael anywhere! I freaked out for a bit, put Leo in the house (my loud beagle who was shouting back and forth with the Doberman through the fence), and came back and could hear Raphael screaming for help. I barely spotted her in the straw and back in the tub she went.



I decided my chicks were not yet ready to be outside, so I brought them back inside where they were kept warm and protected by their heat lamp. They were content.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

My Garden

Spring break has brought many things, one of which is my organic garden. I have much to accomplish at this point, but a start is a start... and I have begun.

Yesterday and the day before I bought the majority of my seeds.


I prepared the tiny beds for my seedlings to live in before they are ready to be outside in the dirt (only some plants desire this method).


Upon waking up this morning my garden looked like this:















As I started removing unwanted weeds and things, I stumbled up some big, poky plants.



I looked at them and said to myself, "I have no idea what these things are, but I do not want them in my garden". I began to hack away at these funky plants and stopped myself; I had to know what they were. I went inside and typed into the Google search engine: palm tree bush. I had no idea what else to call the plant. The only thing that popped up that somewhat resembled my plant was an agave plant. Agave, the very thing of which I use its nectar to sweeten my teas and treats, and the plant that grows in regions such as Mexico and becomes tequila. I knew this couldn't be right so I called my father, the tree guy, the smart plant man, and the soon-to-be certified arborist. "It's a yucca," he said, "I don't know why people like those things". I didn't like them either, solely because they were taking up my vegetable garden space, so I continued to hack.

Hours later, with a sore back and wrists, a bruised leg, and a broken shovel, I nearly removed all the yucky yuccas.

The reason for my saying nearly is that there was a HUGE root that was immovable... by my truck, two gentlemen, and me, anyways.

This truck with this rope:
Pulled out this root:

And the rest was, well... stuck. Upon looking closely one can see that this gigantic yucca root is growing underneath the concrete slab on which the sun room sits.



















Here we have it... the end of gardening day #1. As soon as the dark clouds came in and the rains began pouring on me I decided my work was done.

I have yet to decide what to do with my pile of yuccas, but it's looking like I will attempt to transplant some of the lively ones (I've read that they are a challenge to transplant, but I shall try). I don't mean to dis on any plants, even if their name sounds much like "yucky"... so I plan to save the majority of the pile I created. But look, now I have a lovely space for my veggies and flowers!