So far, so good..

June 24...

So, putting in the new schedule at CB didn't go over well. At all. First was the bummer that I was only open for 5 hours a night on weeknights.. then when I was asked what my new job was and I answered "cook"- the shit hit the fan. They are desperately looking for grill line. Offered me a full weeks hours- at barely above minimum wage, under all the same policies I'm currently working. I told them I would think about it, but really, I'm not too sure I want to get in deeper with the company, getting seriously short pay for the work involved, and still being on an unpredictable schedule. We shall see how it goes next week when my actual boss comes in from vacation.

On the bright side, my first day of training went great! It was pretty quiet, which was perfect for starting to learn the lingo, how stuff is done.. and geez, re-learning how to cook eggs. Yes, that's right, culinary 101 newbie cooking. But sheesh, we don't do eggs fried up  over easy, medium, poached, and so on to order very often around here. And just learning how to handle a grill again is a bit of a challenge- gotta get in the wrist flips for eggs, pancakes, taters... though burgers are way easier. Eggs are the hardest to get perfect.

And super cool.. they said I would be in charge of Monday special.. and they meant it. And right now there isn't much spectacular going on with Friday special, which is the other day of the week "open" to the cook. The Friday cook told me that flat out this morning. And no one there knows how to make mac and cheese, chili, stuffed peppers.. they were very intrigued by my mention of enchilada casserole. I can also get really lazy and to a tomato soup and grilled cheese day, or a salad day, lol. So I get the security of a steady and small menu, along with the endless open options of expression with a lunch special.

Extra cool.. today was a short training day, so my work day was over at 10 AM. I came home and mowed the back yard. I mowed open a keyhole around Moons Grave- it was seriously getting swallowed up by the sanctuary. Mowed open a keyhole around the gooseberries. Mowed down the back 40 truck trail. And opened up a bit more of the alley. It was a great mowing day.
Then a smidge of shopping. Off to the Red & White for some straw bales- I want to set up a smother bed to move some irises and lillies to later in the season. Then to Menards, where I got a 2 gallon pump sprayer for 12 bucks, and three 6 packs of strawberries for 1.75 a pop. I already sprayed an intital section of the fence side of the easement drive with white vinegar. Tomorrow, depending on the weather, I will spray a section with ammonia. And probably mix up a batch of borax solution to spray all around the house to help with insects.

And can you believe it? It's already time to take an "end of season" seed tally. Sheesh.

June 30... been busy as hell with the new job, old job, and dealing with the yard... pulled all the garlic, got beets, radishes, and carrots planted in. Unfortunately, the garlic showed basal root rot, so no more using those beds for garlic for a few years. I think garlic might end up in the kennel garden this fall instead. I've been heavily growing tomatoes, peppers, squash, and beans there for a few years now, it's time to give that bed a rest. 

Got another job!

Ok, so short post yesterday.. another post today. Geez, can't call me the consistency Queen, now can we?

Or maybe we can, and rather soon. I just picked up a second job. Lead cook at a very small cafe locally. Off the bat it looks perfect. Sunday and Monday with every other Saturday, 7 AM to 2 PM. Potentially plus a couple days of working dish. This is a breakfast and lunch place only, a family kind of joint. About a dozen four tops, four booths, and a half dozen seats at the counter. The back of the house is equally tiny. Two basket fryer, two burner stove, nice sized griddle. Freezers, fridges, and a standard compartment sink.

Super local, ultra hometown. Locals have their own mugs on a rack for their daily dose of caffeine. Family runs the place, and has for decades.

Kind of exciting and scary- I would be in charge of what the Monday lunch special is since I'm going to be the Monday cook. They only run lunch specials on weekdays. And check it- they do crock-pots!! So potentially I could set up a few crocks of Monday special- or do sammies, or skillits, or whatever. They also do all their own soups. So I could end up adding to that action too.

But delirious.. It's a set schedule. After months of being early dawn to possibly home at midnight, and everywhere between, with no two weeks alike, and the hazard of being called off shift at any given day or sent home early, potentially losing 18-25% of my paycheck each week.. this is a standard set of hours. All the time, every time. Never thought an early AM set schedule would look so good, lol.

And extra joy.. I can go pee when I need to. There is a terrible thing about having to make up excuses and get floor coverage on the spot because of a full bladder. I can eat or drink as needed without having to plan on it and get someone else to specially write up my food and cover and if it conforms to scheduling procedures and if a customer might or might not see me chewing or having to hide in the far back room to eat- or have to hide quick snarfs of an ounce of protein to keep up calories to make it through the day. I get a free meal for me each shift, not a percent off meal if I work X amount of hours that day and eating within X amount of time on that shift. I get to behave like a human in this place, and not just a sale robot. 

Another joy.. dressing how I like. So long as I have closed shoe and hair up, it's all good. That means I can roll out of bed in the wee hours and slap on pants and tshirt, pull up hair and away I go. I can dress to be cooler when it's hot as fuck out, or bundle up. Have wet hair pulled back and curling left not done.


And I get to know people. Seriously know people, not just that glossy overview needed to pitch sales to the regulars. I might even learn about the area in ways I haven't before.


And having a problem is directly confronted and dealt with. None of this third party mediating service crap. No back biting shit.

I already made the boss aware of the weird hours of CB that I will be scheduling CB around this place and must have off at the end of July/beginning of August for Gencon. And shit, might be able to have a Saturday off for wandering around faire this year after all. Or at least some Saturdays off to get things done around here.

Damn, a second job and scheduling will make the full time job of here tighter. So two part time jobs and one full time of here isn't too big of a deal as long as I get the shit done, right? I can sleep when I'm dead. Or at least I'm trying to make sure I schedule to get some decent sleep on a regular basis.

On from new job actions.. I pickled two pints of brussels sprouts today.  Hardings had a bag on clearance for 99 cents, so hey.

How time slips away...

I try to be good about posting regularly.. but sometimes time just slips away.

We have been having an usually wet June so far. More days of overcast and/or rain than days of clear skies and sun. Temps have been pretty good though, nice and warm during the day, and a bit cooler at night makes for great plant weather.

My Alaska peas finally and really produced. I've gotten a goodly couple cups of peas so far. The plants are finally starting to die off- I think a lot of the more overcast and not as warm days extended the season. I'm kind of getting to chomping for it now since the tomatoes are starting to get big and I need the space to walk between them! The Peitit Provedence peas are now going to seed- I picked the first few ready pods yesterday. I should have enough for a nice spring planting next year. I'm not too sure just how much I want to grow shelling peas in the future though. They taste better than anything else but.. it's a PITA shelling all those pods! I think I might give sugar snaps a shot in the fall to see how those work.

Most of the tomatoes are starting to show early blooms. Means I will need to think about bagging some branches soon. And heh, those Patio tomatoes I started indoors are finally starting to have fruit turning red. I'm not too sure I'll be repeating that experiment. Or at least not with patio tomatoes.

Rest of the crops are doing pretty well. Seriously lost the Musquee de Provence squash, planted in a bushel gourd there instead. Ended up with about 100 tomato and pepper plants in the yard! Got no clue what all I'm going to be doing with all that harvest, but I'll figure it out.

On super sucktacular news... my dehydrator died. Right in the middle of a batch of something. I wish I could afford to get an Excalibur.. but as it is, I will have to try to scrape together the penny jar and hit Dunham sports for a cheaper one- they are the only ones locally that have dehydrators, and I know I seriously seriously must have a dehydrator for later on this year once harvest starts coming in. Already bad enough that we are down a burner on the stove still- I might have to try to figure out how to use the outdoor propane burner set up just so I can get tomatoes done this year. I still haven't been able to figure out how to fix the kitchen sink.. and now I've discovered the spigot out front in the house is no longer working either, and I have no idea why.

Other sucktacular. We got a big ole coon in the yard, and he loves to pull down the humingbird feeders. So I have had to stop feeding them for now till I figure out how to set up the feeders and make them coon proof. Ah well. I'll figure something out.

In cool news, I'm awaiting a callback on an interview to get a second job. I need all the hours I can get, especially since my first job is so erratic with hours, and cuts hours without notice.

So, this is a short post.. but short is better than none I guess. I've just been so busy keeping up with everything, and trying to get as much as I can done around here, plus work, plus trying to find another job that I'm having a hard time coming up with a little bit of me time regularly to make posts. But I'll keep trying :)

How does my garden grow?

So for my second post, this one with all the gardening pics in it. A lot of stuff is up and growing right now.. plus I have a whole heap of pics from when I built the tomato cages to share.
On with the pics!!

This is the kind of fencing I used- 2x4 inch holes, 6 feet tall, 50 feet long. Perfect to make 8 cages with.

This is what the roll of the stuff looks like.

Measure carefully, every section. The sections were each supposed to be 6 feet, 3 inches, but in order to make life easier, I snipped to one side of a square, leaving me long legs to wrap with. This meant I went between 6'2" and 6'4" cuts. I used the wheelbarrow to weight down one edge, and the weight of the fencing to hold it on the other side.

Use the wire cutters carefully, the stuff wants to roll up once the cut is made, and that stuff is sharp!

The stuff wants to roll up after being cut, but that's ok, because it helps it make it's nice big circle instead of the tight on the roll circle.

A closeup of how the leg part of the cut gets twisted around the square side to secure the two sides together.

One done cage, showing the edge where it's "stitched" together.

Three down, only 5 more to go!

They are super light to carry, but kind of awkward because of how big they are and how short I am, lol. But well worth the investment and time used to make them.
So now for heaps of garden pics...

 So.. the kennel garden. Not much to look at from there. That crazy vine thing to the right is the hops. I lost the Cascade, but the Nugget came back right fine- it's already so big I've started training it to cross over the top of the runs. My stringing project of a couple years ago is finally getting used!!

The west side of the kennel garden. To the right snugged up against the ropes is Eye of the Tiger beans, and the far end is supposed to be melons, but I haven't had much luck with that so far, lol.
To the left, in the front is a Yellow out, Red in tomato, and behind it are two of the white tomatoes. In the very front is my Futzu black squash.

The north side of the kennel. To the right snugged up against the fence are succotash pole beans, with 5 of the white tomatoes spaced in between. Since the beans are just a grow and forget it till this falls harvest, it can share space on the fence. I only had one Great White tomato survive to planting out, so it's one one in the wayy back.
In the middle is a row of peas- why yes, that does seem like close spacing, but in a month or so those will be wiped out by the heat and taken down, leaving the full space between the fence and tomato cages. On the left are two each of the rest of the white tomatoes. And in the very very front is a pair of my Italian round zukes :)

Here's a closeup of the lone Bloomsdale spinach that actually came up, sharing space with a white cherry tomato, that tiny little plant in the center to the right of the big spinach. The spinach will be allowed to go to seed, which it will do when it starts to get really hot, then it will be pulled, just in time for the tomato to really need the space.

 Hungarian wax peppers- these were an unexpected add on when my sister discovered I did not start any from seed, and demanded pickled peppers which we ate the jeepers out of from last years plants. I did it with 6 plants last year, but I figured I'd only need two this time since I'm growing a lot more other peppers.

Sweet banana peppers- a critter snacked on the one on the right, I'm hoping it will survive anyway. These are to go into the pepper ring mix with the Hungarians.

Tequila sunrise peppers. A very pretty sweet pepper that is small enough to be container grown.

 Bins of container sized tomatoes of various kinds, and that messy looking straw bale has a buttercup squash growing out of it.

And more bins of tomatoes and peppers.

 Sweet potatoes

More sweet potatoes. I also have two more bins up by the porch that I need to eventually move.

 Lasagne bed #1- last years tomato jungle, this years pepper patch. Most of the peppers are planted in, but a few of the super hots just are not big enough yet, and are still in pots. All those craptacular tomato cages actually have a use supporting peppers!

 Lasagne bed #2- what should be a bean bed. And three tomatoes in the back.

Lasagne bed #3- another bean bed, with two Georgscu Chocolate peppers in the back.

The squash and bean bed down by the garlic. I lost my Musquee de Provence, but reseeded it, so here's hoping for the best.

The garlic beds, looking good. They look better now that we got some rain.

And check it out- proof that our cherry trees do indeed make cherries- it's just the critters get them all before we do, lol.

So there we have it.... the second set of pics from the sanctuary.

Picture Day!!

So yesterday I did an epic mow of the entire yard, including getting a section behind the barn cut in... and got 4 spots where there are wild asparagus growing. Now I just need to make sure I get those spots cleaned up and keep prompting the asparagus to grow! There is one stretch where there is an asparagus on either end, and I think I may cultivate that into my asparagus from seed patch. Can't hurt, now can it?
Today was a couple hours out in the woods, taking pics and building a several feet tall deadfall barrier in the back corner. But since I'm waaayyyy behind on posting any pics, I'm going to do that now. I had to cut it down from about 90 pics, lol.

First up, the mint border- it looks scrappy as hell, but just wait till a year or two when it all grows in!

The chocolate mint is in the foreground, and pineapple behind it. The other mints you really can't see.

From the bottom of the hill, you can see the cleared out swaths where mint got planted in. There's still a lot of grass clumps because I gotta leave something there to hold the soil in place till the mint really gets a good foothold.

And we have a Killdeer nest on the arch drive this year. Killdeer are super cute, and play the broken wing act when anyone comes too near their ground nest.

See those sticks on the ground? I placed them there so we wouldn't accidentally lose where the next is and smush the nest.

Here's a closeup of the nest.. those four little round "rocks" in the center are the eggs. Kind of weird that they lay on the ground, but very smart camouflage of the eggs themselves.

Some random flower pics from around the yard..

 Fancy Alliums I planted in on the edge of the herb garden last fall

This is kale that I left to overwinter, and is now in full bloom. Once all those seed pods are ready, I will pick them and have a whole new seed stock of kale for next year.

The rather large snowball bush is in full bloom :) I seriously need to clean that area up a bit more.

And the irises are starting to bloom :)

Moons white irises

Some of the irises blooming behind the solarium.

Iris close up

Nother Iris closeup.

And a lovely yellow iris growing down the row.

And now for pics from my nature walk and barricade building...

A view from the back 40 towards the house.

This is the barricade I built to help keep the crazy truck neighbor from driving onto the back 40. The bulk of it is about 4 feet tall, but the rest of the brush stackup makes it around 9 feet tall or so.

Another angle of the whole thing.

And this is what it looks like from the "approach" side off the property.

And now onto some pretty picture pics :)

Birdsfoot trifoil

Wild blackberry in bloom

Common Cinquefoil. I might also have Dwarf cinquefoil growing out there too, but they are hard to tell apart and I didn't know I was potentially looking for a second kind till after I came back in and identified this one.

Lanceleaf violet, AKA White Bog violet. This is a damn pretty and dainty flower I'm going to for sure encourage growth of the patch on.

Purple milkvetch

Some ferns

More ferny bits :)

I'm going to post this now because I don't want any one post to be too pic heavy... and of course there are garden pics to be had too! Gonna do a second post about that.