So my body is starting to crave veggies to eat but I’m feeling like a failure this year at the garden. I think it is the cycle that I go through. We get the garden in late because we’re always so busy working and doing other pressing projects around the house and then things go well for a while and then the summer heat hits. Once the heat hits and the bugs come on, I start feeling crappy about the garden again. I hope we are starting to see the slow down of the japanese beetle infestation. The damn things are eating marigolds! Nothing is supposed to eat marigolds *shakes head*. I think I let the rough time get to me too much AND I end up taking Mother Nature’s decision on no rain and a lot of bugs personally. I have to remind myself it is not my choosing. However, I do need to remember to not ignore it and to get out there to weed and water on a regular basis.
Overall, I think things are going ok, at least as well as can be expected. The okra is doing ok, hopefully it will start to bloom soon. The corn is coming along. All the squash that was planted is blooming like crazy…now if it will only start to produce. My first try at radishes sucked since I planted them too close together. I’m going to try those again since they are a quick grower. So far the peppers are going slow. The catnip overwintered from last year and went berzerk. I cut it almost in half and you can’t even tell. Once it’s done flowering, I’ll cut it all the way back. Right now the honey bees are loving it too much to get rid of it.
One of my goals is to take some pictures this weekend to post.
I am beginning to actually eat veggies… and like them! I know, the horror abounds.
Some close to me already know this, but I have always had an issue with eating vegetables and fruit. The issue was that they were disgusting. It didn’t matter what it was, how it was prepared, whatever. If it was not on the “approved by me” list then it didn’t get eaten by me. Until I was in my early 20’s, my vegetables were limited to okra and potatoes – that was it. And they both could only be eaten when fried. I finally added corn when I was 21 or 22. Slid in some squash every now and then. Up until recently, that was it. Last year, I finally added beans to my “approved” list and even went so far as to make bean soup twice – liked it so much the first time I did another batch and canned it.
I had told a friend of mine a couple of years ago that my body was rejecting all the processed food but it had not yet started craving the good for me stuff. I hoped that I would loose some weight in between there somewhere. Well, I haven’t lost a lot of weight, but my body is finally starting to crave the good stuff.
A couple of months ago, Mr. Dare and I were out at a local restaurant. Instead of getting the fries on the side, I choose to go with the original side of sauteed vegetables. It was a mix of carrots, green beans, broccoli, cauliflower, and squash. Lo and behold, I really liked it. Well, everything but the squash I liked. I have found that asparagus seems to be a new favorite as well.
I think that one of the biggest issues that I have with vegetables and fruit is the texture. I now have a new task on my never-ending to do list and that is to learn how to cook the vegetables that is appealing to me texture wise and healthy as well. Hell you can deep fry just about anything and make it taste good but that is not what I want to do.
I try not to post any commemorative blurbs and I really try not to get too political here since there are thousands of other sites who do that and can do it much better than I. With that said, here is one of those exceptions.
Since it is in the news, I’m sure most everyone knows today is the 20 year anniversary of Tian’anmen Square. This is a defining event for me and what I have become – an anarchist – even if I had no idea at the time it was happening. I’ve heard people who tell stories of how they came into their worldviews and how they were influenced by what they read (Heinlein, Rothbard, Rand, etc.), they had parents who brought them up that way, or something else to that effect. I did not have that. I’ve come down the path much, much slower than some people and I still have a long way to go.
I have always been distrustful of government because I was (and still am) distrustful of most everyone until I get to know them. If I didn’t know the person telling people what to do from his/her cushy seat in D.C., why would I trust them? It seemed simple enough for me. But Tian’anmen Square is one of those moments where I remember feeling how incredibly wrong the world was. I think the sight of the young man standing in front of the line of tanks will forever be etched in my mind – as it should be – right beside the news footage of watching the Berlin Wall coming down. Is this event any more atrocious than others that have been done by governments or in the name of religion all over the world? No…no, it is not. It’s just one of those events that I can say had a profound affect on the mind of me when I was a teenager. One of the first stark looks at the effects of power-damaged minds. Although it took me twenty years after this even to fully define myself and my beliefs, my first look at seeing people killed just for speaking their minds was the start of my journey.
I hope that those that died found peace and I hope that those that lost friends and family, as well as everyone else who remembers the event, never forgets why it happened and what those who died that day were standing up for. I hope that I can honor their memory by one day inspiring someone else by standing up for what I believe in, just as the students did for me so many years ago.
It’s been busy as usual around the dare household lately.
The garden is completely planted – as of a couple of weeks ago. It was just in time for the two weeks of rain we’ve had. Thankfully it hasn’t be a constant 24 hr a day rain, but every evening we’ve had major storms and heavy showers. Turned the large garden into a muddy mess but the way that Mr. D said to stagger the beds has been fabulous. We’ve had minimal runoff or erosion! And the rain just used the pathways we made to flow out of the garden area which has made the paths pretty smooth looking. Since it just stopped raining yesterday it’s not quite dry enough to walk on but hopefully the paths won’t sink in and will stay smooth once they’ve dried out some. Also it doesn’t look like the newly planted seed washed away since most, if not all, of what was planted is well on its way to poking their heads out of the dirt and in some cases, going on their 2nd set of true leaves already (beans & squash which are super freaks when it comes to quick germination). The raised beds came through nicely. It looks like we may even get real potatoes this year.. Yay!!!
My fledgling business seems to be picking up which is wonderful. I hope to have a site built for that in the next week or so and I’ll put more info here when it is done. I’m also working on a new idea that I hope pans out. I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed on that one
