a time to sow

Yesterday I planted a fig tree and three blueberry bushes. We'll see if I can keep the birds and deer away from them.

Last weekend the girls and I planted the garden. My most ambitious planting to date: 

fennel, scallions, beets, two kinds of broccoli, two kinds of okra, tomatillos, black beans, summer squash, two kinds of eggplant, cucumber, oregano, mint, basil, sage, cilantro, and jalapeño. Plus the garlic I planted in the fall and the tomatoes we'll buy as plants in a few weeks. Big dreams considering how badly my garden did last year.

more endangered species

endangered species

jerky

I got a dehydrator for Christmas. Last night I broke it in by making a batch of beef jerky. The process is simple enough. I'm not crazy about the flavoring that came with the unit; next time I'll mix my own. I made about 12oz of jerky for the price of a pound of ground beef, which is about a third the cost of Jack Links or the like. This thing will really come in handy when backpacking season rolls back around.

romanesco

When we saw this on the produce shelf at Wegman's, we knew we had to buy it before we even knew what it was. I wanted to call it "fibonaccoli," but we quickly learned that it is Romanesco broccoli. It's so beautiful we hated to eat it, but of course we did. When you cut it up, it goes from looking like something from mathematics to looking like something from the age of the dinosaurs. It tastes similar to broccoli, but with a slightly nutty flavor. We will definitely buy it again.

pumpkin cheesecake

Our contribution to this year's Thanksgiving dinner: Paula Deen's pumpkin cheesecake. It was delicious.

edc

People talk about their EDC - every day carry. The stuff you always have on you. It's a huge topic of conversation among certain people, and there are whole blogs devoted to EDC. Anyway, here's mine:

• A Coach wallet, a gift many years ago. Contains what you would expect.
• Knife. This one is a Spyderco Ladybug (now called the ManBug, which is goofy). My daughter calls this my "noisy cricket".
• Flashlight. This one is a Fenix E05. Friends rib me for carrying a flashlight all the time, but I use it often - probably more often than the blade.
• Fisher Space Pen.
• A few index cards.
• Wristwatch is a Timex Expedition. It's at least 15 years old. They don't make this exact one any more, but this one is basically the same. It's one of the few purely analog watches with an alarm. The leather band that came with it wore out many years ago (I wear it in water a lot), and I replaced it with the excellent Maratac Zulu. What I like about that band, besides being really durable and one piece, is that it has no prickly parts on the inside of the band, so nothing pokes me when I'm resting my wrist on something.

I didn't include my cellphone, partly because I just didn't think about it, but also because if all of my family members are accounted for I often don't carry it.