-- When I was growing up, I had a real aversion to tomato-y things. I went through a phase where I would squish out as much of the tomato sauce from a piece of pizza as I could. I liked ketchup with my fries, but only then just a tiny bit. And forget about actual tomatoes. That's all changed now, of course, especially my application of ketchup. I don't think eating it with eggs is all that odd (because ketchup + fries --> ketchup + hasbrowns --> ketchup + eggs), but sometimes I stop as I'm drizzling it over a pile of sauteed green veg and laugh at myself. Broccoli and ketchup, eh? It's good.

-- We've been having miserable weather lately, sun-wise, but the temperatures have been very mild (in the 40s!), and the snow is melting pretty quickly now. I'd forgotten what the surface of roads looked like, or how wide my driveway is (since my piles of shoveled snow narrow it considerably in the winter). I brought the garbage out this morning and then had a look around my back yard. There are things! Growing things! I even had to start my Garden 2010 set on flickr today. Quite a few of the hardier herbs seem ready to pick up where they left off, and I was pleasantly surprised to see my (wild) blueberries already growing.

-- Did I mention that I bought myself a Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker? And that it arrived a few days ago? I think this will be the weekend to finally make the pudding ice cream dream come true. The only trick is deciding what flavor of pudding to use. I'm thinking stick to the basics: chocolate, but with double chocolate Newman-O's mixed in. Oh boy, oh boy.

-- I'm running a 5k tomorrow! I've just checked the forecast, and it's no longer calling for rain, which is a relief. The race shouldn't really be a big deal because A) I'm not very fast, so it's not really a 'race' in the usual sense of the word and B) I run 3+ miles fairly routinely. But I'm still excited and a bit nervous. Mainly because it starts at 9:15am. That's still sleepin' time! I might have to fall asleep before 2:00am tonight.

Guess what, guys. This was Minnesota's second warmest November since they started keeping records. And the first snow-free November since, like, 1962. (One or both of those statements might be incorrect, since I'm only now remembering having heard them on the radio, but I'm not purposefully making them up. I'm pretty sure they're mostly true.) Every time 'they' say what the high should be for the day (aka, the average high), everybody gasps. No! Surely not! Minnesota never dips below 40F! How quickly we forget.

But the garden has been hanging in there, thanks to the mild weather. Not really in a useful way, although the kale has been plentiful. Mainly I've just got loads of happy-looking herbs and overgrown lettuces that would be tough and bitter to eat. I planted my potted strawberries in the ground (pictured), since they can come back in the spring, and I really like how the leaves turn bright red before dying off. For some reason, it's much more amusing to me when plants do this, since it's such a 'tree' thing.

We usually have a sudden drop off in temperatures, which is like plunging into an unheated pool. I suppose this tends to happen in January, but I'm hoping that maybe we'll get a gradual easing in this year. Like slowly inching into the pool, letting your body get progressively more numb, so you just don't notice the pain as much. It's good to have at least a few weeks in each temperature range -- the 50s become the 40s become the 30s, and so on. It's psychological to a large extent; seeing a high in the 20s when you've been enjoying the upper 40s comes as quite a shock.

At any rate, I really feel like the shortening of the days hasn't affected me as much, probably due to our mild weather. It's been getting colder, for sure, but it just hasn't felt like winter is barreling down on us. I DID put up my Christmas tree last night, though, and the twee sounds of my 'Christmas in Sweden' album never fails to make me feel all wintery inside!

Hey, friendpals. It really is November -- and I don't mean that in my usual 'seriously-can't-get-over-the-rapid-passage-of-time' way. It just feels really November-y around here. Cold, but not unbearable, pretty windy, and a bit cruel (Daylight Savings Time, I'm shaking my fist at you).

The weather has been tolerable, as far as I'm concerned. I got out yesterday afternoon to finish raking and bagging leaves, and I also did a bit of clean-up in the garden, tearing out dead annuals and replanting some potted stuff that I hope will come back next year. It seems unusual to me that the grass is still so green and alive this late in the year, but I suspect that was because of our late-summer and autumn rains and has less to do with temperatures. I took the picture above after my efforts yesterday, right around 4:30 in the afternoon. Too early for the sun to be that low, if you ask me.

I restarted my gym membership (I'm sure I've mentioned before that I suspend it over the summer, since I'm too busy gardening/being outside to bother with the gym), and it's actually been sort of nice to go yesterday and today. My routine last year was a morning workout, followed by time at the coffee shop across the street, time spent proof reading or going through submissions. It's a chain coffee shop, but I think the fact that both baristas recognized me and asked how I'd been makes it worth going to.

November is National Novel Writing Month; I've participated four times, and it was tempting to dive in again this year, but I'm going to give it a pass. Instead, I'm hoping to draw a comic every day this month. I'm on track, so far. I'd promise to upload them each day, but... there's a plant on top of the scanner. It'd be so much work to move it. And I'm already drawing a comic every day, so my effort reserves are pretty much tapped out. I'll see what I can do, though.

Happy November!

I feel like this has been the strangest transition into autumn ever. I was ready for it to start getting cooler about a month ago, but it didn't. Instead, we had an abnormally warm few weeks in September, including a streak of 80F+ days, which is quite out of the ordinary for this part of the world. And now we've just jumped right to highs in the 50s. They were warning of possible frost last night, which seems way too early. But maybe it's just because of all that warm weather before.

It's funny: I think I was wishing for autumnal weather so much because it was still very hot and summery. As soon as we got a blast of chillier air, I suddenly started panicking about winter. Well, not panicking -- just feeling sad to see summer go (and not looking forward to the cold months ahead).

I picked my squashes yesterday evening, just in case frost hit (it didn't). They were mostly ripe, anyway, but I hope the two big pumpkins will orange up just a little bit more indoors. I've also got three butternut squashes. Not bad! I'll puree and freeze most of it (both the pumpkin and the butternuts) to use in pie and bread in the coming months. I'm going to wait until Halloween, though, so I can do some carving first!

Yes! Tonight I had the first ear of corn from my garden. It was itsy bitsy, but it was good, and I grew it myself, and the squirrels didn't get it! I think it helps that it's right by the back steps; even the squirrels aren't quite bold enough to come that close to the house, particularly when Beany is on guard from the kitchen window. She did spot a baby bunny nibbling the phlox (or a weed growing nearby) this morning, though. Poor bunny, eating common weeds, when there was a garden's worth of lettuce about ten inches away. In a raised bed, but still -- bunnies are dumb (I predict that I'll wake up tomorrow morning to find all the lettuce gone).

The rain last week, although welcome, made me feel a bit trapped inside, so I've been taking advantage of the nicer weather and the proof reading I need to do this week and have paid a couple of visits to 2nd Moon, which is probably my favourite coffee shop in Minneapolis. A) Great location B) Nice people C) Amazing pain au chocolat (which I actually haven't had in a while. Hmmmmm...). It's nice to feel a bit more out-in-the-world, even if I still stuck on my laptop for most of the day. I've been taking strolls around the Seward neighbourhood before I head home, and there are some amazing gardens in the area.

Speaking of last week's rain, I find myself getting excited over the prospect of rainy days. A big part of that is just the garden and the lawn -- I've never had to worry about too MUCH rain, so it's always a good thing. But I think it's also due to the fact that I'm actually looking forward to autumn this year. I'm not done enjoying the summer yet, but I'm excited for the change of seasons, too. Last year, I was absolutely panicky over the thought of summer ending, but I feel a bit more balanced about it now. I had to wear a fleece on one of those rainy days last week, and it felt cozy and nice. Not quite as fantastic as the first spring day that you don't need a jacket to go outside, but almost as good.

Happy weekend, one and all! Actually, I've parked myself at a coffee shop to do some proof reading, so there's nothing particularly weekend-y going on for me, yet. I'm wearing my new shirt out for the first time today (I took a better picture, which is here), and it's remarkably comfortable. I just hope nobody thinks it's a pyjama top. And that I don't slide out of this arm chair, due to its silkiness.

This cone was my afternoon snack yesterday -- I need to restock on Clif bars, so a briefly considered having yogurt, before I remembered that I was out. So I went for the 'next best' thing, which was frozen yogurt -- yogurt is yogurt, right? Heh. The sun came out for the first time in a few days yesterday afternoon, so it felt appropriate to eat it in a cone.

I'm starting to think that perhaps nine tomato plants is too many for one person. I used quite a few to make salsa on Wednesday and felt relieved to have depleted the stock. Then I got distracted for a second, and when I glanced back at the window sill, it was full again. I've been tempted to put a sign on my front door that says, 'Heirloom Tomatoes, 50 cents each' -- but then I worry about getting fined for selling produce without a license (or whatever one might be required to have). And I wouldn't even be able to sell tomatoes to raise the money for the fine, then!

So I might have to start putting them on the doorsteps of people I know and running away. Strangely, my zucchinis (which are the usual ding-dong-ditch vegetable) have all but stopped producing.

Well, time to get back to my proof reading. Long live the weekend!

Hello, tasty dinner! This was one of those occasions when I really wished there were somebody else to share my dinner with, just as evidence of how delicious it was. The garden really came through for me tonight! I had a steamed/sauteed (sausteamed -- I mostly steamed it, but in a skillet) green beans, kale, and the very first little Brussels sprouts, with a bit of (non-garden) onion. I also made breaded eggplant medallions, pretty much exactly the same way I made eggplant the last time. Definitely a favourite method now!

And then I sliced into my big Striped German tomato. It weighed nearly 1.5 pounds (not record-setting or anything, but pretty big!), and the slices were about as big as my hand (fingers included). I crisped up a high-protein wrap in the oven, then topped it with the tomato slices, which had been salted, peppered, and sprinkled with feta. Oh boy. This was pretty amazing! The tomato was unbelievably mild (which meant the feta went perfectly with it), and it was so meaty that it was almost the texture of cantaloupe. I don't want to make any hasty declarations, but the Striped German may take the place of Brandywines in my heart.

I needed a cheering dinner today, because my laptop pretty much lost it last night. I can't bear to bore myself by going through the details again, but suffice to say, I tried everything available to me to fix it, and it's going to the Apple store tomorrow for a visit to the Genius Bar. I'm fairly confident the data will be recoverable, but it's still a great big pain in the butt. Bah.

Tada! My first slicing tomato for the year. Almost two weeks late(r than last year), but still perfect. This was a Black Prince -- I made a sandwich with hummus, tomato, and feta on Woman's Bread. The tomato was pretty sweet, as were the cranberries in the bread, while the feta was (of course) salty -- it was a flavour combination I would have despised just a few years ago, but it's something I enjoy these days.

I heard about green tomato pie the other day (p'raps on Splendid Table?), and I'm definitely going to try that in the fall, when I always wind up with a bushel of tomatoes that have no chance of ripening. Apparently you make it just like an apple pie; a quick search produces a zillion recipes, so I'll have fun finding the one that sounds best.

And maybe this year, since I have nine tomato plants (and only one of me), I might try making tomato jam. Mayyyybe. I'm not entirely sure I'm on board with that one. Ketchup first, maybe, jam later. For the moment, I'm pretty happy with simple tomato sandwiches!

I don't think of myself as a 'serious' tomato grower (you know the type), but then I think about how much care I give my plants, how I'm a total heirloom snob, the fact that I have seven different varieties (three of my plants are homestarted Brandywines -- there's actually a tenth tomato plant that's a Brandywine volunteer from last year, but I don't think it'll grow fast enough to produce any fruit), the way I keep a mental tally of the varieties I've tried and their best uses... and I think I could at least be on the road to being serious about tomatoes. Plus, some of my plants are almost taller than I am now, so that's got to count for something!

Look at this guy! I've been watching it get bigger and bigger on the vine, and it finally started ripening while I was away, so I brought it in today. I generally prefer to let tomatoes ripen on the vine (not for any actual REASON; just because it seems nicer), but I picked several not-quite-ripe tomatoes because A) I've had problems with rot already and B) the squirrels have been stealing. They usually stay away from tomatoes, but I've found a few strewn about this year. That's what I get for caging in my pepper plants, I guess.

I had a pretty good garden haul today -- you can see it here. I'm really upset that I didn't stop at Tobies for my favourite bread today (I was on my way home, with the cats in the car, and I decided that it wasn't worth the risk of roasting them alive just for a loaf of bread), as I'd really like to have a tomato sandwich tomorrow. Dang. For those who care, I've picked Striped Germans (which is what's in the photo in this post), Black Princes, and Oxhearts. I'm still waiting on the Cherokee Purples and Brandywines. And the Big Boy -- hybrid fail.

My pumpkins are getting pretty big now, as is my one butternut squash (there may be more hidden away), and I discovered a tiny (but set) watermelon along the side of the house. The melon vines haven't been growing well at all, because I've been lazy about watering them, but I'll give them some more TLC now there's a melon to take care of. What else? My sunflowers are tall, the glads are blooming, the grapes are starting to ripen (only a few of those, as the vines just went in this year), etc, etc.

It's nice to be back home after my 'week' at the cabin -- and it's nice just to feel that way about being at home, if you understand what I mean. I feel like I get so much more done when I split my time. I think it's because I work well with self-imposed structure. If I know I only have a week to finish submissions or proofread before I head home, I make sure to get it done. Likewise, if I know I've got a week to work on cover designs and to see friends before I go to the cabin, then I get to it. My parents sure were clever to buy that cabin! I bought and 'installed' a faucet aerator to fix the splashy kitchen tap, so I figure we're about even now (ha).

The only downside to a week of concentrated reading and proofing on the laptop is that it takes a toll on my hands. My right one is worse (since it does the touch pad and the comma and semi-colon keys, which make up 85% of my edits); it's the pressure from the edge of the laptop on the base of my palm. I'd managed to really lessen the effect by wearing a wrist brace, but now I've tweaked my thumb because of it. My wrists are pretty wimpy, so to get the brace tight enough, the thumbhole gets pulled out of place. It's extremely boring, I know, but it's hard not to think about it, since I'm typing and everything.

Anyway! I'm gearing up for a fun, friend-filled weekend. I hope you are too!

My friend Julie is coming over tonight, and it's become something of a tradition that when we get together, we have a special dessert. Well, it's one of those we've-done-it-twice-so-let's-call-it-tradition things. The first two times, we tried different cupcakes from some nice bakeries, but I've been looking for an excuse to make a cheesecake, and this seemed like a good one.

Instead of going the usual New York style route, I wanted to find a recipe for a German Käsekuchen, and this is the one I settled on. It calls for quark, which I didn't have readily available, so I substituted cottage cheese that I pureed in the blender (FYI, in order to get in thin enough to blend properly, I had to add a few Tbsp of the heavy cream that's also in the recipe). Blended cottage cheese is pretty awesome; I think it might be the whitest substance known to man.

I'm being extremely patient and waiting until Julie arrives this evening to cut into the cheesecake, so I don't know how it tastes yet (I'll update you on that once I've tried it, of course!). It's not the most attractive thing, but it seems to have set up pretty well, at least. And I guess I could have trimmed a bit more of the crust off the top, but oh well. What kind of jerk doesn't like a bit of extra crust, anyway?

Yesterday I woke up and opened the kitchen blinds to see that the above had bloomed. I'd assumed the vine that had been climbing up the shepherd's hook in my garden was a weed, at least until the buds started forming. I had a hunch as to what it might be, then, and the flower confirmed it -- a morning glory. My neighbours plant them on their side of the fence, and I guess a seed made its way to my side and about ten feet away. It couldn't have picked a better place to grow, either!

Speaking of garden surprises, I discovered a second large pumpkin hidden under the plant's leaves the other day. My gardening method looks something like this: 1) Spend all spring breaking my back tending, tidying, and planting, 2) Coast along for the rest of the summer, doing as little as possible besides watering and harvesting. That's how things like ripe peppers or giant zucchinis can just 'suddenly' appear in my garden.

But I was looking under the leaves of the squash plants (which are enormous, both the plants and the leaves) for butternut squashes, which have been slower to form, and what did I discover but a nice, big pumpkin. There are several smaller ones, but I thought I had only one that was already fairly big -- so now I have two. I am going to adopt a seasonal style of eating from now on: salads and tomato sandwiches from June - September, and nothing but pumpkin pie from October onwards.

Hello! What a gorgeous weekend we're having! I spent several hours gardening yesterday, and I managed to get the last strip of sod out of my new garden area (well, one of them, anyway) and actually PLANTED some things. I put in a section of raspberry canes that my mom dug out of her yard -- super excited about that! -- and divided some of my own perennials.

One of the only bits of gardening that the previous owners of my house had done was a tiny corner of perennials in the back yard, and it's really started to get crowded over the past couple of years. So I dug up day lillies, stellas, and irises (just the standard, big purple ones) and put them in the new space. It instantly looked like a real garden instead of a strip of dirt, and I didn't have to spend a cent!

I'm pretty excited about my apple tree this year (it's a Haralson, I think, and one of its branches is in the photo above). It's its third season in my yard, but it didn't put out any blossoms the first two. Right now, it looks as though it could have a dozen or two blossoms, at least -- I'd be very happy to get even a single edible apple off the tree!

I think Booty had the happiest day of his life yesterday. He spent quite a long time outside with me, both in the morning and the afternoon. He's very good about staying inside the fence (he CAN slip out through the gaps by the gates), and he just strolled around, alternating between nibbling grass and lounging in the sun. Every now and then he'd come over to see what I was doing, and when the wind picked up in the afternoon, it seemed to blow some mischief into him, because he suddenly wanted to play chasing and hiding-behind-the-tree. It's a bit sad for Beany, who I don't let out except on a leash (she's too fast and agile and wouldn't think twice about chasing after a rabbit or dashing up the big tree), but Booty definitely appreciated his outside time as an only-cat. I think he's probably earned it after sixteen years.

Anyway, I've got plans this afternoon, involving a tempeh gyro (probably) from the Seward Cafe and then May Day parade fun (definitely) involving giant papier mache puppets. Sounds like a good time to me!

Hmm, cocoa isn't a very May-y, spring-like thing to photograph, is it? Oops. But, see, I spent four hours in the garden yesterday, and two more today. I'm not talking about leisurely hours pottering around -- I've been tearing up sod, which is pretty back-breaking work. So I've needed some extra fuel to keep me going, hence the cocoa (and the Reeses eggs, in such a clashing shade of green).

I don't particularly like ripping up sod, but my garden ideas get more elaborate each year, so it's always the first (and biggest) step in getting things going in the spring. If I try really hard, I can imagine a year in the future when I won't have to tear up big patches of lawn first thing -- it'll be the year right after the one when I finally rid my yard of grass altogether!

I do like the manual labour aspect of it, though, once I get going. There's no looking at clocks to know when it's time to stop; there are only the tasks at hand and the point at which my body starts complaining. Both yesterday and today, that was in the form of a sore wrist. The bending and heaving and twisting don't seem to have hand any effect (although it's often the second day that's the worst, so we'll see how I'm feeling tomorrow!) -- but the gripping and pulling have taken their toll on the tendons in my arms.

Never mind. I only have one skinny strip of grass to pull up tomorrow and then I'll be done... with half the yard. I'll have to tweak the PDF I made last year to reflect the changes, so you'll be able to see what I've been up to. Basically, the entire perimeter of my back yard will be garden. Three good reasons for this:

1) More garden! How could that be bad?
2) I can never make my weed whacker/strimmer work, so it's always been impossible to keep the grass by the fences looking nice.
3) There are patches of lawn that are always dry and deadish, so I've incorporated them into my garden design. Last year, I turned the entire strip of land on the side of my house into garden, and it went from a dry wasteland to the best spot in my entire yard for growing veggies!

Happy May Day, everybody! Hope yours has had at least a little sunshine and green.

So, that first round of seedlings, the who-cares, come-what-may round. . . they all died. No big surprise there. I knew there wouldn't be enough hours of sun so early in the year, which I think was exactly what wound up being their downfall. They just never grew big. Unlike some beans sprouts which are threatening to take over the kitchen:

I would be SO pleased with my baby beans plants. . . if only they weren't almost a foot tall. Bum. We had almost a week of cloudy skies right after my latest batch of seedlings sprouted, so everything grew taller and taller, apparently trying to go right up past the clouds. I've had to start new seeds for the kale and broccoli, although the tomatoes (Brandywine) seem to still be holding their own. We'll see how these beans do, but I can't really imagine their long stems holding much more weight than they've already got.

The last couple of days have been brilliantly sunny, and I'm almost beginning to remember what it's like to spend time in my backyard. More after the cut...

[Garden Journal 2. Apologies for the recycled photo, but everything outside happens to be dead at the moment.]

It seems strange to start talking about flowers so early on in my garden journal, since flowers are so low on my list of priorities. But the spring (did I say spring? I meant the deepest deep of winter) is the time for planning, for choosing what will go where in your plot of land. So, flowers.

It's hard for me to want to give over any space for a plant that doesn't earn its keep – and by that, I mean 'feed me.' Gardens are a lot of work, after all. Last summer was filled with unbelievably hot spells and marked by a distinct lack of rain. Getting out with the hose every day, usually more than once, was necessary to keep everything alive, and I'm not sure I would have been as dedicated if it weren't for all the vegetables clinging to life. They were like my tiny children that I had to cherish and tend to (and then pick and devour).

[This is my first garden journal entry. You might notice a slightly different style in the writing (and the length), which is because it was written in Word instead of MT.]

So, it's only the middle of early February (or is it the beginning of the middle?), and I've already got my garden started. Of course, it happened by accident. Yes, I'm guilty of fondling seed packets, was doing so as early as a month ago, but I've always had the good sense to put down the packet of potential bush beans (or whatever) and face the fact that it's still winter. And it will be for a long, long time.

Even though I've been thinking about this year's garden since before last year's was done growing, I don't want to rush things. The Minnesota climate doesn't support year-round growing, unless you count listless indoor herbs. The fact that Swiss chard supposedly gets sweeter the colder it gets outside is interesting, but useless. Nothing gets sweeter at twenty below (that's Fahrenheit, of course); it only gets crispier. Frozen, I mean.