Star Trek Into Dorkness

So, I tugged on my dork hat, got a cup of coffee and headed out to see the 10:30 am showing of “Star Trek Into Darkness”.

I’m sure there’s room for all sorts of criticism of this flick, but I really don’t care. It was a fun, two-hour thrill ride, and I’ll totally see it again. I don’t know if I’ve just gotten used to Abrams’s lens flares or if there were fewer this time around.

Oh, and if you’re in the DC area, I highly recommend the renovated AMC Courthouse theatre. The reclining leather seats are primo.

Happy Mother’s Day

This is one of those days that just sucks.  There, I said it.  For me, this is a sucky day.

I lost my mother to lung cancer almost 5 years ago and today – along with Christmas – is one of the hardest days for me to struggle through.  My mother and I were never particularly close as I was growing up; our relationship improved dramatically once I moved out.  It’s not as though there were any huge rift between us; we just weren’t storybook close.  I simply don’t know that we ever understood one another.   However, as is so often the case, the older I get, the more pieces of her I see in myself: the craftiness (though I can’t draw worth a lick); addiction to trashy romances; and baking to show my love for others.

Today, I’m baking for HRG.  She’s currently munching on Strawberry-Sour Cream Scones with her coffee; they were awarded the coveted “Very Good” rating. Fortuitously, I just received my Bzzkit* for Fage Greek Yogurt, so I figured this would be a good way to kill two birds.  Since Greek yogurt can be substituted 1-for-1 for sour cream, into the mixing bowl it went!

The folding-and-patting of the dough was a little tricky for me.  I have a tendency to take a heavy-handed, how-fast-can-I-get-this-done approach, but I didn’t want to break the berries so I did my best to take my time.  The scones have a wonderful moist texture and a slightly tangy taste.  They’re not quite sweet enough for my taste, but that’s easily fixable.

Since this is the first time I have made this recipe, I cannot compare the flavor and texture of these scones with Greek yogurt versus sour cream.  The only thing I can state with conviction is that they are moist, tart and delicious.

* Disclosure: As a BzzAgent, I received a coupon for a free container of Fage Greek Yogurt.  Any opinions expressed are strictly my own.

The Kitchen Sink

I meant to do this follow up post on the Sticky Lemon Rolls a couple of days ago, but – as usual – time got away from me.

They were delicious!  I found them to be a smidge on the tart side but they earned three “very good” comments from HRG, so they have her stamp of approval.  If I make them again, I think I’d sweeten up the icing a little – then they’d be perfect!

It makes my grandmother nuts that I never (or rarely) use the same bread recipe twice.  Emma’s Everyday Bread has gotten some repeat action but that’s one of the rare ones.  Today’s recipe came from the Daily Dish Recipes blog.  Their Favorite Homemade Sandwich bread recipe has a chewy crust with a soft, squishy center.  I’m not sure how it toasts (HRG’s favorite way of eating bread) but I had a turkey sandwich for dinner and it was delish.  This recipe yielded enough dough for two loaves; the second half is in the fridge so there will be more homemade bread later this week, in case someone drops additional not-so-subtle hints.

I swung by this afternoon to rope off my plot and remove some of the larger rocks, and – to my novice eye – it still just doesn’t look plant-able.  I made a couple of phone calls about tiller rental this afternoon (because no one seems to know where my grandfather’s tiller has gotten to), and we are pretty sure the ground needs to be broken up some more.  Hopefully we can reach a decision about it before the end of the week.  We have until the 20th to get seeds in the ground or risk losing our plots.

At least we’re getting rain.

The Asiatic lilies appreciate it:

The Ol’ College Try

I’m thinking my attempts at growing my garden from seeds was HORRIBLY misguided.  The peppers, the last holdouts that seemed to be going strong, are now on their last legs.  Of course, I had to help them along their way to that great garden in the sky.

It looked like there was some kind of white scum or mold or something weird starting to form in some of the cells with the dead plants in them, so I wanted to separate out some of the seedlings so that hopefully it wouldn’t spread.   Of course, the seedlings are so small and spindly that I don’t think the roots will survive the transplant.  I’ll water them and keep an eye on them and see what happens.

Of course, while the healthy foods fail, the not-so-healthy ones are going gangbusters!

These sticky lemon rolls are in the fridge, waiting to be baked tomorrow morning for breakfast.  Flavored by butter (of course!), lemon, sugar, and a little nutmeg and ginger, they seem like they should be fabulous.  I’ll whip up the lemon glaze in the morning and hopefully have them out of the oven before HRG* has to leave for her morning meeting.  Unfortunately, this will only happen if I can manage to turn off “Young Frankenstein” and go to bed.

* Her Royal Grandma

 

 

Farm Day

May 1 marks the first day of planting season in the land of my community garden, so I swung by to see if where things stood.

The phrase “dust bowl” comes to mind.  They claim that the large plots were tilled, though I’m not sure that explains why I still have this straw strewn across my small section.  Most people have started to mark off their plots; I’ll head back over tomorrow and do the same with my little corner of the world.  It’s hard to say which is larger – the rocks scattered throughout or the hard, dry clumps of dirt.  HRG claims that there’s a tiller somewhere here on the homestead; we’ll have to go digging through the garage this weekend and see if we can turn it up.

After checking out the sorry state of my plot, I decided to check out the rest of the farm at Possum Creek.  This little fella was the first to greet me:

Mostly, I think he was begging for food.

I know he was.

I felt bad, but there’s a big sign that says I can’t feed the little guy so he’ll just have to make do.  The final photo shows him yelling at me, which he continued to do until I finally walked out of sight.

It was a little warm this afternoon – the high temperature was somewhere in the mid-80s – so these sheep were trying to keep cool in the shady grass.  They were a little wary of my presence, but not enough to leave their comfy spots.

I’m not entirely certain what this structure was supposed to be.  It’s located near where the map indicated the rabbit house should be, but those fences don’t look like they’d do much to keep rabbits inside.

I believe this is one of the two chicken houses.  The majority of the chickens and turkeys were scratching in the yard behind the other house, but there were a couple of rowdy roosters caged in this one.

Wrapping It Up

Another month has come and gone, so it’s time for a Fat Mum Slim update!

Somehow I managed to not do ANY weekly updates this month – sorry y’all!  You can see all of the photos in detail on my photoblog or my Flickr feed, but here’s my month in review:

I missed a couple of shots while I was in North Carolina and Virginia a couple of weeks ago, my first misses this year.  If I’ve only missed two out of 120 opportunities, I feel okay about that.  Knowing me, I’ll make up the photos before the year is over, just so I can have the complete set at year’s end.

Unfortunately, out of the 28 photos I DID manage to take this month, I’m only happy with maybe three or four of them.  Photography is a patient man’s game, and I am exceedingly lacking in that department.  In some instances, the prompts didn’t speak to me on a given day and in other cases, I just punked out & phoned it in.  My personal goal for this project is to try and be more mindful and deliberate with my photography.  With this in mind, my goal for May is to double the number of photos with which I am pleased.

(Yes, I did just do the English major double-take and reword that to move the preposition away from the end of the sentence.  No, I’m not going to fix the other sentences with the same oops.  No, you shouldn’t judge the rest of my writing based upon that proclamation.)

I also need to look ahead in the prompts a little.  Sometimes, I’ll snap a shot of something at the beginning of the month and two weeks later, realize it would’ve been PERFECT for an entirely different prompt.  Aiming for ten photos I don’t hate this month – wish me luck!

Earth Day

Officially, Earth Day 2013 was last Monday (also my dad’s birthday), but “Earth” also happened to be today’s Fat Mum Slim photo prompt.  Coincidentally, it was also the Spring Gardeners’ Meeting at the park where we have our community garden plot.  It’s still in REALLY rough shape, especially since we’re supposed to be able to plant as soon as next Wednesday.  The coordinator says she’s going to try to get them to till the plots again before 01 May but she’s not sure she’ll be able to get it done.  As little as I know about sowing and reaping, I know even less about plowing and tilling.

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, the peppers are the only items to have survived either my inattention or smothering – it’s a toss-up.  Today I tried Round 2 with my tomato seeds:

Insert, the Tomato Greenhouse (exit, sucker for marketing).  Each of these little peat pods has been planted with 2-3 tomato seeds; hopefully they’ll start to do their thing.  Theoretically, when the time is right, I can just plant the entire pod.  I also started pots of basil, thyme and parsley seeds because…why not?

At the meeting this morning, the coordinator mentioned that there were a couple of extra plots available so I went ahead and signed up for a second one.   Remember when this was just going to be a couple of containers on the patio?  Me neither.  *sigh* I don’t know how this got so out of control.  That’s not true; I know exactly what happened.  My grandmother happened.

Every time I turn around, she’s casually mentioning how she would like to add some or another vegetable to the garden.  It went completely off the rails this morning when she discovered the seed table where last year’s seeds were available for the taking.  Fortunately, my cousin and co-gardener had begun to realize that her planned plantings exceeded her half of the plot, and she was completely okay with splitting off on her own.  

Now I have to figure out what I’m doing with 18′ x 36′ all to myself.

Back to the drawing board.

No Furniture So Charming

“No furniture so charming as books” – Sydney Smith

Today marked the first day of the Dayton Metro Library‘s annual book sale.  It goes through the weekend at Hara Arena, culminating with a $1 “all you can carry” final day on Sunday.   I was introduced to the joys of library book sales by my friend Elizabeth when I lived in Arlington, VA.  As a voracious reader, there’s nothing like snapping up a stack of books for next to nothing.  Unfortunately, re-sellers tend to swarm these sales with their handheld scanners, hoarding boxes of books before “normal” people can even get a chance to skim a title.  That book on best job options for introverts would have come in mighty handy, but what are you going to do?

My take this afternoon was a little on the conservative side.  I was only really looking for any David Eddings books that may have turned up, as well as any titles on photography, writing, gardening or job-hunting.  Since I’m still unemployed, I gave myself a $10 budget and – after a couple of minor purges – managed to escape for $8.50.

The last couple of years, I’ve been picking up books on writing in hopes of becoming a better writer, though blogging is the only writing I do (and even that is infrequent and half-hearted at best).  The job-hunting books are rather self-explanatory.  I also snagged a couple of cookbooks – The Weekend Baker by Abagail Dodge and a Cooking Light cookbook.

Tomorrow morning is the pre-planting meeting for my community garden.

After a great start, all of my seedlings have died off except for the peppers and I fear it’s only a matter of time before they go meet their maker.  Sadly, I didn’t come across any books on vegetable gardening at the book sale this afternoon.  Ah well.  I think I may have been underwatering out of fear of drowning them and instead, left them crying out for moisture.   I’ll try planting more tomato and basil seeds tomorrow and if those don’t take, then seedlings it is!

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Today marks the beginning of my week-long visit to the mid-Atlantic. I’m looking forward to my weekend camping, bookended by a couple of days on either end in VA.

The sheer comfort of being back on my home turf is difficult to put into words. There are a couple more unnecessary condos and the never-ending construction but I’m so happy to be back.

Thank You, Napali

In part of my ongoing quest to avoid discussing and providing evidence of the horrible turn my garden has taken, I’ll show you what I got in the mail today.

In September of ’09, my friend Stephenie & I went on our first trip to Portland, OR.  It remains my only trip, but she went back to PDX recently and sent me a care package, care of her pup, Napali.   Steph & I discovered Knit Purl when we were there four years ago, and she snapped up some sock yarn for me on her recent trip.

Shibui Knits sock yarn in Tweed & Velvet

The tasting glass from Deschutes may get put to use during the Caps game tomorrow night and I’ll have to come up with some snazzy use for the button she picked up as well.

So thank you Napali (and Steph) for my snazzy yarn.  I’m doubly grateful for it being pre-wound, since my ball winder is tucked away in Arlington.  With any luck, I’ll come up with a pattern to use before I head to the airport on Wednesday.