Toddler Vomit

just learned toddler-fun-fact #173:

It is possible to catch her vomit with a just a paper-towel!

Long time no post.

Tomorrow Facebook will change its privacy settings to allow Mark Zuckerburg to come into your house while you sleep and eat your brains with a sharpened spoon. To stop this from happening go to Account> Home Invasion Settings> Cannibalism> Brains and un-check the "Tasty" box. Please copy and repost.

I have a question....

With my history, who would give me a dog? Why would my girlfriend want to get a dog with me? She's seen the shirt for RAMHADAB 4, she knows the "No! Ingrid, don't eat that!" incident. But she really wanted a dog. So after a couple months of looking on rescue groups, we found one. She's a 4-1/2 year old weinaraner named Kasey. She's small for the breed, about 55 pounds, but a perfect size for us. She's such a sweet girl. She started life being abused, but was rescued by a family who she lived with for four years. They could no longer have her in their home, so we got her. I took her for a hike this past weekend, off leash. She didn't run away, she kept making sure she was with us. She had a blast. The first couple days with the four cats was a little hairy and anxiety filled, but the are getting along much better now.

One problem though. Don't leave your car door open. She will get in and not want to get out. She'll be very stubborn that way. We'll have to work on that with her in training. Some training for her, some for me.

Not a gloomy post.

News: Lil Ms 40 learned how to walk this weekend! It is fantastic. She just decided it was time to get up and walk across the kitchen. Great stuff!

I ate my first vine-ripened tomato of the season. It was a Japanese Silver Fir I have growing in a container on the deck. Tasted amazing and I almost made my goal of having ripe tomatoes by July 4th. I missed by about a week. Next year I'll make it by 4th of July now that I've learned the tricks. I've since rooted several more from suckers. Time to plant some more for Thanksgiving tomatoes!!!

Other than that the garden is doing okay even though I've been taking it easy this season. The corn was easily "Knee high by 4th of July", and now it is about waist high. Hopefully it grows a bit taller but some are already putting up tassels. Hmmm, not sure if that is too early? Also wondering if it is it too late to plant an short season variety before frost in some empty garden beds. Hmmmmm the dilemmas of rural life.



Now for some random pix from the last month, and none are of oil soaked birds I promise!

Lil Ms 40 thinks goats are hilarious. If this was a video you would see an emu come up next to Mrs 40 and try to eat her hand. We thought that was even more hilarious.
We had a great strawberry harvest this summer from the Early variety. The second, mid-season variety has begun producing for us...well, for Lil Ms 40. She wanders out to the garden with Dad in tow and eats them all for breakfast everyday.

A couple weeks back Crayons and I took an impromptu Father's Day kayak trip from rt165 to Hope Valley. We saw lots of wildlife, human and natural. Here is a turtle sunning on a branch.

Contrary to other snapper I saw that day, this one didn't like being poked.

Snoopy likes hanging out on the new lawn in the backyard. Hopefully the grubs don't eat it all this year.
Kaptain Krunch relaxing in the water at the top-secret beach location. I was mexico-hot, but this beach is not in Mexico. That is the only hint you are going to get.

What's new with you?

Seven Generations

So I was thinking today (as I walked through the grocery store which was built where FiddleSticks used to be, which was where a farm used to be...before the highway was built right through it) about that 'green' company Seven Generations.

You know the company...the one that sells fancy biodegradeable toilet paper, 'green' disposable diapers(LOL!), expensive cleaners and such... A clever marketing ploy taken from the story that there are supposedly native tribes in North America who maintain a pledge to preserve the world for the next Seven Generations.

I can not stop thinking about the massive clusterf*ck in the Gulf of Mexico spilling so much oil per day that no one seems to care to debate it any more, or even cover it in the news?

If our society were to make such a pledge right now it would be the opposite:

"We pledge to absolutely destroy, ruin, and poison the earth for the next Seven Generations."

So f*cking sad. Too bad it is true.

(Of course the hypocrisy is not wasted on me....I'm not helping driving my oil-powered car to the giant grocery store with the ridiculously huge oil-paved parking lot where the farm used to be to buy oil-grown food to bring back to my oil-heated home.)

Anyone want to propose an alternative?

Extra points if you don't mention a Prius.

March, April, and May

Hey there!
It's been a long time with no posts. Crazy spring with all the folks around procreating, raising babies, digging gardens, planting stuff, planning FARTAB, FARTAB itself, working, and whatnot.

Instead of trying to catch you up, I'll just post a few pix.

March:
Starting garden seeds inside the first week of March

Transplanting a Rhododendron in the yard. It was half dead when we got here and I brought it back to life by keeping the deer from eating it every winter. Then this spring I decided it needed to move so I transplanted it.


Little Miss Forty relaxing in the fresh air out in her swing. She loves the swing!

Little Miss Forty driving around out on the deck in the 'jeep'/walker

Oh, you may have heard that we had a flood at the end of March. Here's the woods under 4 feet of water. That is FlatTires out there.

April:

Time to dig new gardens. We have alot of rock. Alot.
Little Miss Forty discovered going barefoot. She just sits there sometimes and shuffles her feet in the grass.

And that leaves are crunchy.

Around mid April we had WAJAHADAB. Work Around J's Awesome House - ADAB. Here FlatTires demonstrates the proper backhoe technique... that is why they put cupholders in them.

Purgatory Black Magic dirt/compost that was painstakingly raked smooth and seeded with Horse Pasture Mix. What else to use in the Beermuda Triangle?
Big River cleanup. Lots of tires in them-there woods!

Someone else had the same idea as Sleepy G for a table decoration. Except I don't think Sleepy had a Buzzcocks album cover on his. Or are these tape covers? Found at "The Sisters".

BaldBoyWonder trying out the go cart rollframe aka my greenhouse for seedlings.
Snoopy resting the winter garden by the coldframes.
May.

Digging new gardens at Casa de Crayons. Good times!


Little Miss Forty is showing off on Little Greased Up Deaf Guy's ATV. She's a hot sh*t!
FARTAB Vol 7 was a success. Here is BaldBoy at the take-out in Westerly. I only got one other pix the entire trip, and that is at the very beginning of BaldBoy's 'costume'. And it is inappropriate for such a family friendly blog.

Rumor has it that the Umbrella Factory in Charlestown is up for sale. That would be a shame if it got developed... it has the claim to fame for being the oldest farm in continuous operation in North America..since the 1700s. Most of the animals are gone and the shops are looking a little empty. This is still there, and here are Mrs and Little Miss Forty checking it out. Last week the strawberries got ripe! They are Everywhere!!! Hope all is well!

Impressive

Take some time to read about this guy's mini farm. Pretty impressive efforts(and results) in season extension, composting, and energy production. Make's me think 'WTF have I been doing with my time??' oh that's right, baby-raising and working... and winter.

Check out the latest here: OneStraw Blog

And some popular pages here:
HOA Meets CSA

Sub-Acre AG

Wood Gasifier

Not long now till it's time to start planting here!

-40.

The Garden

I'm beginning to plan out the gardens for the season. Last year at this time I was busy starting things from seed... a little too early. This year I'll wait a bit. May go a little less intense this year overall. The neighbors are getting antsy to start planting too. One was over last week to talk about seeds and compost and he recommended watching the movie 'The Garden' when we started talking politics.

I had no idea what it was about... Here is the synopsis from the website:

"The fourteen-acre community garden at 41st and Alameda in South Central Los Angeles is the largest of its kind in the United States. Started as a form of healing after the devastating L.A. riots in 1992, the South Central Farmers have since created a miracle in one of the country’s most blighted neighborhoods. Growing their own food. Feeding their families. Creating a community. The Garden follows the plight of the farmers, from the tilled soil of this urban farm to the polished marble of City Hall. Mostly immigrants from Latin America, from countries where they feared for their lives if they were to speak out, we watch them organize, fight back, and demand answers:

Why was the land sold to a wealthy developer for millions less than fair-market value? Why was the transaction done in a closed-door session of the LA City Council? Why has it never been made public?..."

Go watch the trailer then watch it on netflix... they have it on the 'play-now' section.

YABADABADOO Vol 2

You may remember Yabadabadoo Vol 1 (Part 1, Part 2). It's been a couple/few years and Sleepy decided it was time for Volume 2. He has settled into his new house and has begun accessorizing. Obviously, the first major project (ahead of fixing leaky toilet) was to build the world's greatest Beer Die table.
What you are looking at is a 4x8 sheet of plywood, with 124 album covers scaled down to 6" and arrayed onto the wood using spray adhesive. Then, no less than 1/4" of clear bar-top epoxy to seal them in. It gleams like the crown jewel of drinking games... which it is.

The Proud Papa
The fans approve

Later, after many hours of beer die, Rock Band, watching Olympic Curling (i'm addicted), it was time to start eating.

Sleepy reproduced Mrs 40's famous buffalo chicken dip. Mostly molten lava, it disappeared quickly.
Then, a dinner of IPC stir fry, it was time for the trek to Crotched Mtn. The troops rallied admiredly, even though the couch was calling. I ignored the siren call of sleeeeep, and suited up for SNOW!
.....to be continued....

Because it has been a while...

Sleepy out-does himself at the Yankee Swap

I can't leave it all to 40oz... I have been downloading pictures SO infrequently that it seems too late to post them after the fact- but the CTLP clan had a great time at the Flat Tire's residence for New Years that I had to put some pictures in:

Wife-swap? Nope. BABYSWAP!!! Coming to Fox this fall...

This was the right way when I downloaded it.

Too tired to care that I am screwing with her.