“Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground.” Genesis 3:18-19

I often think of this scripture when I’m out weeding and fighting gophers and ants. Melodramatic? Perhaps…

1. I have sequestered myself in my office, hiding from this ridiculous heatwave. It seems to be fading back to normal spring now, and nature is doing things outside. For example, new birds have taken up residence in this nest by my front door. I found half of an egg on the ground yesterday (pictured above), so I guess the babies have hatched already.

2. For some reason, I’m obsessed with the color turquoise. It’s the weirdest thing. One day turquoise was just another color and the next, anything painted turquoise is the coolest, most vibrant, most edgy thing to me. It’s so strange that I could be into a color, like being into a band or into an author, but it feels like the same thing. I am sincerely excited about turquoise, especially the lighter shades of it.

3. I am also into tulips. For Easter, I picked one from my garden to have under the TV and then I had several store-bought bouquets scattered around the house. Finally the flowers all died and I went to put them in the new compost bin. The one that I had picked from my garden had opened wide and was filled with aphids. I was horrified. These disgusting, icky, plant-killing bugs had been in my house for over a week feasting on my tulip. I went right over to my basil and fuchsia plant, afraid the aphids had spread, but they were bug free. The aphids hadn’t gotten on any of the store-bought tulips either, just that one flower from my garden. It was weird and slightly disturbing.

4. I have a feeling aphids are going to be a problem this year….

Check out the rotating compost bin Kyle make me last weekend!

It’s a wooden box on a v-shaped stand. It has a wooden brake that you pull out so that it rotates the box for you. He waterproofed the inside so that the rot wouldn’t eat away at the wood. The whole thing cost under $20 to make.

Now it is time to rot stuff.

Last month, we transplanted the nectarine tree that had grown up behind the garage. It was a lot of work and we had to cut the roots down to get it to fit in the hole. I wasn’t sure it was going to live, but now it is busting out in pink flowers, like so:

It keeps reminding my of that part in The Secret Garden when Mary discovers that all the plants in the garden are still alive. This part, to be exact:

“There’s lots o’ dead wood as ought to be cut out,” he said. “An’ there’s a lot o’ old wood, but it made some new last year. This here’s a new bit,” and he touched a shoot which looked brownish green instead of hard, dry gray. Mary touched it herself in an eager, reverent way.

“That one?” she said. “Is that one quite alive quite?”

Dickon curved his wide smiling mouth.

“It’s as wick as you or me,” he said; and Mary remembered that Martha had told her that “wick” meant “alive” or “lively.”

“I’m glad it’s wick!” she cried out in her whisper. “I want them all to be wick. Let us go round the garden and count how many wick ones there are.”

She quite panted with eagerness, and Dickon was as eager as she was. They went from tree to tree and from bush to bush.
Dickon carried his knife in his hand and showed her things which she thought wonderful.

“They’ve run wild,” he said, “but th’ strongest ones has fair thrived on it. The delicatest ones has died out, but th’ others has growed an’ growed, an’ spread an’ spread, till they’s a wonder. See here!” and he pulled down a thick gray, dry-looking branch. “A body might think this was dead wood, but I don’t believe it is–down to th’ root. I’ll cut it low down an’ see.”

He knelt and with his knife cut the lifeless-looking branch through, not far above the earth.

“There!” he said exultantly. “I told thee so. There’s green in that wood yet. Look at it.”

Before

After

New everything: new sink, floor, walls, toilet, light fixture. It was a lot of work! Luckily, my parents helped. I’m pretty happy with the results. I learned that I don’t like tiling.

One year ago today, Kyle and I bought a house. I was not sure I wanted to be a home owner. I wasn’t in love with this house, although I thought it was a good fit for us. To make matters worse, we decided to go on a cross-country vacation while in escrow. So we would be in the middle of, say, Texas, arguing with a mortgage broker on a cellphone. Finally on October 10, we closed the deal. We didn’t get the keys to the house until two days later.

In the last year, we have put in new floors, sheetrocked the living room, painted all the rooms, put in a tankless water heater, a dish washer, a garden, and countless other things. The house is far from being done. We still have to remodel both bathrooms, paint the outside, fix up the garage, landscape the front and backyards, and completely re-do the kitchen. However, the house has already appreciated because of our work, and that’s a good feeling. The more it changes, the more I start to love the place I live in.

Looking back, Kyle and I bought at the right time. Housing prices had dropped, but people were still putting homes on the market. If we had waited, we probably couldn’t have gotten a loan. Even a year later, I feel confident we got a good deal. There were several components to that:

a. We used one of the best real estate agents in Petaluma, Peg King, who earned every penny of her commission.

b. We picked a fixer-upper on a big lot in a good neighborhood, insuring that our house would appreciate over time.

c. We pitched two mortgage brokers against each other during escrow. I highly recommend doing this. By using two mortgage brokers, we had negotiating power that we never would have had otherwise. We were able to remove over $5,000 in fees, negotiated a lower interest rate, and we did not have to pay a point.

A year later, I’m glad we bought a house. I like feeling that my money is going to something valuable every time I pay my mortgage. Remodeling still isn’t fun for me, and I’m often frustrated because stores never seem to have what I want. (Oh the curse of a vivid imagination.) I keep telling myself that someday my house will be pretty and I won’t have to explain the 1970s wallpaper anymore.

The biggest thing I learned from buying a house is that banks are jerks. I was shocked at how skillfully we were fleeced by the banks with their tricky language and fees. I’m happy I married someone who is good at math because I had trouble keeping all the rates and “insurance” and fees straight.

Having gone through it, I can see how people ended up with bad mortgages. I’m not saying they aren’t responsible for their actions, but the banks are more responsible because they have set up a system that is deliberately obtuse and deceitful. Or as I wrote on here a year ago:

I don’t have one iota of sympathy that the banks are losing their shirts right now from foreclosures. They gave loans to people who couldn’t afford a house and therefore had no business getting a loan for one in the first place. The banks did this knowingly and what’s more, they told people lies about how they would be able to afford the loans in the future, or at the very least, refinance if things get tough. …

So now that this has all come to a natural end, and people have ruined their credit and lost their homes, the banks are complaining that they are losing money. Well you know what? You bet on a horse with a broken leg, banks, so don’t whine. Maybe if you weren’t so greedy and slimy, you wouldn’t forget basic tenets of finance, like that people should make enough money to afford the product that they are buying–otherwise, they will not be able to pay for it. You should be held accountable for your actions, not given money to bail you out, but because you are so big and powerful and affect everyone else, you’ll get your way in the end. So cheer up, there are new people to cheat all the time. Why, here comes Kyle and me right now! Maybe you can charge us a $300 printing fee. Go ahead. See if we’ll go for it.

Take that, banks!

Happy anniversary, house!

My grocery bill has dropped significantly. The reason? Squash. I have so much squash right now, it’s not even funny. The zucchini plants are probably producing a zucchini a day at the point. If I leave them go, I end up with zucchinis the size of clubs. Last weekend, I made two batches of zucchini muffins and two loaves of zucchini bread from one large 5-pound zucchini.

But that isn’t the problem, because zucchini it very versatile. It’s the yellow squash that is hard to use up. Especially since they are rather large too. Case in point:

I shouldn’t complain. The fact is, this is the best garden I have ever had. Everything is producing and I am delighted. Even the baby cherry tree managed to produce four cherries before it was done.

Right now, I’m getting a lot of bell peppers, jalapeños, and, as mentioned, squash. But I have three loaded tomato plants, along with green beans, green onions, and leeks about ready to be harvested. My fingerling potatoes plants grew strong, blossomed, and now are starting to die away, which means I should get to dig up potatoes in a few weeks. Most excitingly, my three crane melon plans (like cantaloupe but sweeter) have gone nuts and are covered with little yellow flowers—I even have my first baby melon out there. And just a few minutes ago, I went outside and discovered artichokes! Three of them! Right there on my plants!

Here is an update from June on what I am producing:

Crops that are done from last month: Radishes (47 total), Baby Spinach (22 total), Green Onions (1).

Mushrooms: 15 in June, 19 in July. Increase of 4 mushrooms between June and July.
Carrots: 11 in June, 36 in July. Increase of 25 carrots.
Strawberries: 35 in June, 49 in July. Increase of 14 strawberries.
Peas: 34 in June, 131 in July. Increase of 97 peas.
Zucchini: 3 in June, 39 in July. Increase of 34 zucchinis.
Beets: 9 in June, 10 in July. Increase of 1 beet.
Cherries: 0 in June, 4 in July. Increase of 4 cherries.
Jalapeños: 0 in June, 34 in July. Increase of 34 jalapeños.
Yellow Squash: 0 in June, 34 in July. Increase of 34 yellow squashes.
Bell Pepper: 0 in June, 9 in July. Increase of 9 bell peppers.

There have been a few surprises here and there too. Sunflowers have magically sprouted all over my yard, including one huge on in my front window box. I may actually get some seeds off that one if the birds don’t get to it first.

The other surprise is that a nectarine tree has grown up behind the garage. The neighbor said it just sprouted there in the last year or so, I guess because a bird or child must have dropped a pit there. The thing is, the tree is loaded with fruit! The neighbors called it a weed, but Kyle and I are going to transplant the tree this winter. Why waste a perfectly good nectarine tree?

I’ve been hearing these baby birds cheeping in their nest for weeks now. Today, they finally looked out of their nest enough for me to see them.

They look worried.

Happy 4th of July, people.

This year, I’m keeping track of the yield from my garden, not counting herbs. It’s pretty fun to see how many things I’ve grown (and to see if it is worth it to grow them again next year). Here is the list so far:

Radishes: 47 (I will sow again in fall and break 100, I hope)
Mushrooms: 15
Green onions: 1 (this was an experiment to see if the root of a green onion bought in the store will yield another green onion. It does.)
Baby Spinach: 22 (my spinach bolted, sadly.)
Carrots: 11 (I have at least that many still out there waiting to be harvested)
Strawberries: 35 (I lost 5 others to the birds. Still, not bad considering it’s the first year)
Peas: 34
Zucchini: 3
Beets: 9 (These I will try again in the fall as well)

Not bad, if I do say so myself.

Sorry I haven’t blogged. I can’t blog when there’s a heatwave. I can’t do anything during a heatwave except hide from the sun and moan about being hot.

But I have been meaning to tell you about our mushroom farm. We bought it at Maker Faire a couple of weeks ago. It looks like a molding loaf of bread in a plastic bag, but it is actually sawdust and rice bran that has been cured of bacteria and infused with water and mushroom culture.

We bought the organic Shiitake Mushroom farm for $19.98. The guy who sold it to us said that they guarantee one pound of mushrooms from the farm. I was a little doubtful, because $20 for one pound of mushrooms is pretty high. However, that is the minimum amount that they guarantee, and the farm is supposed to go through 3-5 cycles, and besides, it’s just cool to watch.

We took it home and put it on our kitchen counter. Within two days, lumps began to rise out of the farm. Within three days, something that looked like mushrooms began to emerge:

Within a week, we had huge Shiitake mushrooms coming out of the bag. We harvested 15 in all, over a pound of mushrooms, and we have 2-4 more cycles on the farm to go.

Even better, the mushrooms were fresh, tender, and clean in a way I have never had before. I guess like all other food, they are best when fresh. We had them in a mushroom ragu over pasta and then a mushroom strudel wrapped in phyllo dough.

Now the mushroom farm is supposed to rest for a couple of weeks before we get our next crop. Hurrah! If I get as many as I did in just the first cycle on the remaining cycles, I will definitely buy this thing again.