"...And it's a great way to stay in shape!"

So Crayons, Mrs. Crayons, and Sleepy came over for Inaguration Eve dinner, and we made a sledding run with the foot of fresh powder we got in the last 24 hours. Good Times. And it's a great way to stay in shape!

PreOccupied.

Hey, I'm thinking of going on a blog-hiatus. I've been pretty preoccupied these days with getting my sh*t together for ch-ch-changes around here. You know what I mean? Yeah, I think so.

Over the holidays I had about a dozen topics I wanted to post about, then sat down and nothing came out. I just have been having a hard time summarizing what I've been pondering, soooo I won't. Right now I'm been busy working on winter projects, and getting to planning the garden for the spring/summer/fall. If you call around to the more well known seed suppliers(No, not Burpee and Monsanto), they are in short supply this year and are already backlogged on some of the more popular varieties of veggies. Seems like there are quite alot of people freaking out about what is going on in the world and planning on planting a much bigger garden this year.

Here's a few pictures I took over the past couple weeks, but never got around to post them.

Carrots in a cold frame, trying to see if they can overwinter under some mulch and a cold frame:
These carrots are just outside under mulch. They might not make it but eh... its worth seeing how much it takes to keep these going all year.

This weekend I finished a couple long standing projects. One was cleaning the garage. Here's some SwampYankee champagne cooling in a bucket o snow. Now that is living.
See you in a couple weeks!

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Gas Prices

I know everyone is all excited about gas prices going down. I like money in my pocket instead of the oil companies, just like everyone else. But it's not a good thing all the way around. With higher gas prices, not everyone was driving as much and looking at alternative energy, which can be good for the environment. Or bad if they just look for cheap energy which may not always be the cleanest. With gas prices going back down, people will soon forget and go back to their gas guzzling SUVs. But what about alternatives to this.....

Here's one that is simply financial. Put a tax on gas now when gas prices are low. This will raise prices making people drive less. Save that tax money so when gas prices rise, you can lower the tax to less than it is now and use the saved money to fill that financial void. This will even out the gas prices and reduce spikes.

The second is tax the gas now, since the price is low. Again, this will keep people from driving so much. Take that money and put it into research to get us off oil, create the 21st century Manhattan Project. Personally, I like this second idea better. In the long run, it would help out the country and the world.

I know I'm a financial genius, but I don't know how bad this would hurt the economy, so it may not be the best idea, but we need to start somewhere.

The last harvest

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! We had a long weekend up north with our family.

This year I've been trying to grow vegs as late into the fall as possible. I made it all the way to december 1st with carrots, lettuce, beets, and peas. Today at lunch I ate the last of the homegrown lettuce, and I've been waiting for the ground to thaw to dig up the last of the potatoes. BTW, don't be a slacker and dig up your root vegetables before the ground freezes solid. Today it was warm enough so I dug these all up. Sweet.


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Go Vote Tomorrow!

Happy Halloween

I just want to wish everyone a Happy Halloween. And I want to assure everyone that I did not do anything to any pumpkin!

Changing seasons, Ramhadab V etc.

Ah...Fall is finally here... though it seems late to me. I thought it used to be alot colder by halloween, but I could be wrong. The maples have gone through their thing, peaking about a week ago, then dropping this past week.


Along with colder temperatures and the foliage, one clear sign of Fall around here is the emergence of douche-baggy dumping. I'm not talking about a Bud bottle or dunkin donuts cup here or there... This is the time when the real Dickheads come out in force. The dump stickers expire in October, and they give you a week or two at the transfer station for a grace period before you have to buy a new $ticker. This year I guess quite a few folks couldn't, or wouldn't, afford the sticker. Around mid month there was a brand new slew of illegal dumping around here. The used tires were too many to count, and up at the pond where dozens of people walk their dog every day, someone decided to dump a week's worth of trash for 2 weeks. here are four bags of trashbags strewn about in the woods. Makes you want to find out who dumped it, and dump it on their front porch or the hood of their mercedes. But I didn't.

Next up if one of my favorites, Oil Filters. Yup, this is about a dozen used filters dumped up the road at the next pond. About, Oh, six feet from the pond. I found these about a week of moderate rain. Ah.. the oily sheen on the surface of the pond was beautiful

The potatoes are all done for the year. Here is BBW and snoopy digging up some gems from the ground. I got to say, its almost as much fun after a few beers as clamming. Almost. If you have some room (like, 4 square feet will do), plant a potato or two.. its fantastic.


RAMHADAB Vol 5 was last weekend. Unfortunately my camera battery went dead on friday night so I missed taking any good pix, tho I think CTLP did. This is the only pic I took, of the pre-weekend shopping trip. Good times, You get the point:
Hopefully CTLP can post a few of the better pix.

$700 billion

If I had a million dollars, I'd buy you a house.....
Ok, this isn't going to be a praise to Bare Naked Ladies. I know you all want to just have a discussion on how great they are.

But if I had 700 billion dollars, I'd buy everyone a house....
Ok, this isn't going to be how good or bad the bailout is, even though the exec of AIG took a $400K spa trip after they got money from the feds. Hey, I would celebrate too. Or how NASCAR got a $120 million tax break.

But it looks like something good may have came out of the bailout. I'm not sure how good it is. I've never been good at interpreting these things. Or how easy or what to do to collect this. So anyway, here's a couple links. #1 and #2. It sounds like to me that you can get $20 a month for bike maintenance, tax free, for commuting to work from your employer. It sounds to me that it's only if the employer wants to give it to you. So it's a fringe benefit from work, if they want to give it to you, but it would be tax free. So I guess that's the big bonus, you can get $240 tax free a year. That's how I interpret it.

If I only drove a car in circles for hours, instead of riding a bike to work, then I would get millions of dollars. It is a good thing though, it's a step to maybe getting more people riding their bikes more.

See you at the NEMBA Fun Ride Sunday!

BYOB Bitches!

MOAB defeated and a beer review

Wow.. they did it. Not much to say about it online, but over a nice brew I would love to discuss today. btw, I didn't make up MOAB, i read it online a week ago or so, and thought it was perfect description since it was the same MLA(multi letter acronym) to describe the Mother Of All Bombs, another ridiculous device used in Iraq.

So, on the way home from work I picked up a new favorite brew... Magic Hat seasonal, Jinx. Holy crap, if you haven't tried this one please do. Pick one up immediately. Along the lines of Long Trail Double Bag, but a little more flavor and about the same @sskick of high % alcohol. Hmmmm Mmmm perfect. Who knows, if the economy really tanks like they're saying on the news, this could be the last expensive six pack I can afford for awhile....

In some more cheery news, today I scored big at work, I got the sole collection rights to all our coffee grounds. Coffee grounds make ridiculously good compost for the garden.

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