A Windfall

We had ourselves a mighty bit of wind and rain here in Western Washington last night. So much so, that I could barely sleep for fear that the next wicked gust would topple my sad and dying ash trees, and send them straight through my bedroom window. I probably needn't have worried overly much about that, since the trees in question are so thouroughly rotted that in the event that they did fall and strike something on the way down, they would probably just explode in a shower of spongy bark chunks. But I digress from the point of this post.

The result of last evening's mighty wind was to remove the last of the leaves from my trees, leaving my yard suddenly, startling bare. In such a state of nakedness - the yard, not me - I found a few hidden treasures. I was scrounging up some old bricks that we salvaged from our very old chimney to shore up one of my hothouses that has lately been under daily assault by the chickens. In collecting the bricks I happened to look up and see some completely unexpected kiwis. Amazing!



The plants leaves, which are at this time of the year about the same color as the fruit, had been removed to reveal our little surprise fruit. We found seven in total, which is pretty awesome, considering that our male kiwi plant, has yet again died. I don't know if "he" managed to fertilize our enormous female kiwi before biting the dust or if, as has happened in the past, a bee has made it's way from my neighbor's yard to mine with a bit of kiwi pollen on board. We also found a little four inch delicata squash near the kiwi plant. I hadn't noticed that a vine had wandered over there, but it obviously must have.




I love little surprises like that! Alas, my joy will be short lived, since now that the leaves are all down, I have no more excuses to delay raking them up.

By the way - kiwi pics by Olivia - copyright 2009. :)

This appliance will self-destruct in 3 ...2 ...

We've been having clothes dryer issues lately, which may or may not be attributable to a rodent of some sort making a home in our crawlspace. The dryer's misbehavior coincided with the discovery of the varmint break-in, thereby leading us to believe that the two were connected. About the time that the mystery critter started living under the house, the dryer stopped venting to the outside, and began making a weird high-pitched whine. One friend suggested that our dryer hose might have been obstructed by a nest or a stash of winter walnuts, so we took things apart and checked them out. Even after thoroughly cleaning and re-sealing the dryer vent hose, the dryer is still producing the weird noise, but seems to be drying clothes well enough. So I'm debating on calling out the dryer repair man to see what's what, and I am positively dreading it.

If you have needed a service call for an appliance lately, you'll be familiar with all of the little joys that accompany it - the vague appointment time, the minimum service charge, and often in my experience, the cranky attitude. Am I the only one who feels like I pay $90+ to have an insolent little old man come into my home and shame me for the way I treat my appliances? As if that weren't irritating enough, add to that the fact that with increasing frequency, any given appliance can be deemed unfixable by virtue of - a) the complexity of accessing the problem area b) the impossibility of obtaining a now-obsolete part c) the cost of repair being the same as or greater than the cost of replacing the appliance altogether.

This "problem" is actually a well-designed scheme called Planned Obsolescence that exists to encourage our consumption of the "latest and greatest" that the world of technology has to offer, and trading heaps of money for heaps of trash. It is so commonplace that even the most steadfastly Granola among us is likely to question the wisdom of fixing a however-many-years-old clothes dryer for $300 or buying a spanking-new energy efficient one for four hundred.

But what happens to the old one? Why is that one little cog so complicated and expensive that it is worth everyones while to junk a hundred-plus pounds of metal and plastic in favor of another that will also, inevitably fail? We covet shiny new things, and the manufacturers and marketers of the world have seized upon that by designing products with an inborn propensity for failure. They don't want you to repair your microwave, they want you to toss it out and upgrade. Have you ever even heard of anyone repairing a microwave?

This is just another area where our culture has given in to our lazier nature and taken the path of least resistance, and we need to stop it, NOW. Next time you're faced with repairing or replacing an appliance or anything else, take just a few seconds to think about the process that your choice sets in motion and the consequences of it.

Ok - I'll get down off of the soapbox now and back away slowly... for now.

For more info and opinions on the evils of planned obsolescence -

The New York Times, December 10, 2008

These Days in French Life - A wonderful blog - one of my very favorites! (Update - Unfortunately Rianna has decided to no longer publish her blog publicly.)

Name that Domain!

For my latest project, I have decided to try and cobble together an informational website about foraging in Western Washington. I'm eyeball-deep in research at the moment, reading scads of field guides and encyclopedias of edible plants and fungi, and pumping friends, family & neighbors for information on their picking & fishing hotspots.

However, a larger task looms - settling on a proper domain name for this proposed project's website. So far I've purchased two, but I'm not super in love with either one, and therefore thought I'd ask y'all for your two cents on the matter. Here are your choices -

A) easypickins.info
B) millionsofpeaches.info (a tip of the hat to the Presidents of the United States of America's song "Peaches")
C) Something else altogether - but probably still a .info, because they are by far the cheapest, and I'm all about frugality. ;)

Kindly cast your vote and feel free to offer suggestions, please and thank you.

I'm not the only one...

...who appreciates a good late-season raspberry or three.



Go, Bob, go!

Sacré Bleu!

Things have been a little slow around here, so the excitement surrounding the discovery of our first blue egg this morning can scarcely be overstated. My husband came in from letting the hens out of the coop and like a goofy magician turned over his opened palms to reveal two fresh eggs - one brown and one blue.



Needless to say, the girls were equally delighted, and briefly debated which of our Americaunas was the likely mama, before somehow deciding that this must surely be Strawberry's egg.

We aren't sure how much longer we'll be getting eggs, as according to Yahoo Weather, sunrise and sunset are now just over 9 1/2 hours apart, with the folk wisdom of chicken-rearing stating that hens must have at least 10 hours of light per day to continue laying. We could throw a blue light in the coop to keep the girls cranking away, buuuut....

a) The idea behind this whole raising chickens thing was to simplify life and consume less. Having a light burning in the coop 14+ hours per day kind of defeats the purpose.

b) My feminist credo is not reserved exclusively for the human female. These girls deserve to take a break, if they so choose. I won't love paying for eggs and feeding non-laying hens at the same time, but fair is fair - this is not a sweatshop.

c) Not knowing if we'll get more, and if so, how many more before the chickies decide to take their break makes every single egg that much more precious - and worth using well.

When all four hennies finally start giving us an egg each per day, we, not being major egg consumers, will likely be looking to share our wealth. Check in once in a while on my GGG facebook page where I will post about extra eggs and any other garden goodies that we have to share or trade.

Rosemary, Baby!

Free to a good home, my ginormous rosemary bush/tree -



This is a "u-dig" adventure, with the prize being what is easily a lifetime supply of beautiful rosemary. We are making way for more raspberry canes, so old rosey has to go.

Total Laziness Sauce

Bill & I finally cleaned out the tomato and squash beds today, and in so doing, grabbed up the last of the tomatoes, ripe or not, and tomatillos. We also discovered our first chili pepper and one scraggling onion. I figured that I might as well just chop it all up and cook it down, since I didn't have the quantity or inclination to try and make a proper salsa out of it, and so I did just that. Viola! Total Laziness Sauce (aka End of the Garden Sauce).



I basically just roughly chopped everything, threw it in the pot and seasoned the bejeezus out of it - cumin, red pepper flakes, sea salt, chipotle, etc. After it cooked down, I took the ol' immersion blender to the whole mess, then poured the sauce through a mesh sieve and that was that. It came out very much like an enchilada sauce, but Bill has visions of dressing some pulled pork with it. Whatever - I'm just glad that we were able to eek one last batch of tomatoey goodness out of the garden before putting it to sleep, and with a minimum of effort on my part.