A month later: Happy worms, happy kitchen, happy garden! Happier Kiki!

We are doing so well me and my little wigglers!

I am happy to say that my first compost harvest shows some GREAT signs!

The yield is very woody because there were lots of yardwaste-scraps in there to begin with.
There were lots of flakes of what i suspect were yam skins that had been picked completely clean.I found an avacado pit picked clean too… i would like to imagine that one day a worm will just eat right through it, but those suckers are tough, so i’m going to leave that one out and heck, maybe plant it!
There were some rather big chunks of Carrot that my roommate tossed in, and which i pulled out and chopped so they get broken down a bit more easily by the worms and their helpers

.

My worm bag is home to:

-Millipedes
-Centipedes
-Pill Bugs
-A few ants
-All sizes of wigglers including some new almost translucent baby wigglers (ISNT THAT COOL!!!) and some yellowey young wigglers too.-lots of mites that i can’t see but i know they

are there
-very little moldiness mostly in the mushier fruits and only if you start mucking around in there.. that’s part of the breaking down process!
-almost NO SMELL other than a kind of earthiness. Because of the bedding that covers the scraps, unless you turn it over (which you shouldn’t probably be doing anyway).

Things i have learned so far:

-Worms are my favourite pet! (sorry manny)-I don’t have that many scraps in my kitchen but it smells way better in here anyway because there isn’t much left in the trash that could rot.
-those suckers work FAST!
-The bag tends to dry out even in our humid climate so i water it whenever i need to water the yarden and its been okay.

This is what my wormbag looks like, its on drawer rollers and slides in an out. the bottom is tied and when i harvest it i let it fall out the bottom and then pick out the wormcitas!

Soon i will insulate and put a front on this bin so for the fall/winter, to keep out the cold and rain. Hooray!

There is also room enough that i can add a second bag if we outgrow the size in the fall when i start restocking the soup library and have more than our approximate 1lb of scraps per week.

I’m so glad i finally did this!

Woot Woot Vermiculture!

I received my worms in the mail last week, and made a worm bag a la: Instructables using my friend kims old Polar Fleece sweater. The worms live in a wooden frame with roof that lives just outside my front door, and they are in a pull out drawer so i can easily toss in my scraps once in a while.

I saved some yard waste, leaves, sand and added to that some of my ‘sea soil’ from gardening and topped that off with shredded newspaper bedding.

Its been 3 days since the worms moved in and things seem to be going along swimmingly. They are cool, calm, and collected and next week i’m going to start adding scraps for them once they are used to their house.

This is exciting times and i feel its the beginning of a beautiful friendship!

COMPOST WORMS:
http://compostworms.ca

WORM BAG PLANS:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Worm-bin-bag-for-indoor-vermicomposting-and-easy-s/

Soon i’ll post some pictures, i promise!

May 6th dream

Okay this ones a doozie.

Dream part A:

There is a body.

I beleive its my 'boss' and i'm sure he's just about dead... been hit by a truck in the road and mostly demolished but we (my 'cousin' and I) managed to get him into the van and onto he road.

The safest place to take him is the nearby church but i'm having issues going in there.

He's not making any noises which is more troubling than if he were for absolute certain.

So we go in. (Wow, that's the shortest sentence i've ever written. I'm sure of it.) Priest tries to help us but just moving him into the triage is enough to kill him. Dead.

Dream part B:

Investigation.

My 'father' is called in. And the 'wife' comes too, along with my 'brother'.

Somehow, all of this, the body, the 'boss', the death, the driving a van (for the church) and the priest are all central in my own secret psycho-drama and the priest thinks it necessary to unravel my issues to get down to the core of the crime. (its all about me.. surprise! Its my dream afterall).

My 'family' all go into the rectory and my 'father', priest and I are in the chapel, where it is suitably dark and foreboding (#8?). I end up divulging a secret ring of high calibre pornographic filmmaking taking place within the walls of the church that revolves around the sale of drugs and other black market shenanigans. I of course (being my actual self for a moment of subconsciousness) have nothing to do with the drugs but have a serious shopping addiction which has me in serious debt. the key phrase i recall is 'Buck a Part', which i must only assume means per scene...? (momma needs some new red shoes!)

In any case the 'boss' is an undesirable fellow and it seems the psycho-anlaysis of my explicit part-time work in front of my distraught 'father' in the chapel is punishment enough for (possibly?) running dude down like a distracted deer and turning his insides into stew.

Okay, but here's where it gets weird;

'Father' is super unhooked over the whole thing, and convinced that I too am involved in drugs. 'Cousin' is most certainly implicated and likely with cause, but doesn't especially care unless the police become involved (tough madonna from suddenly susan type) and my 'brother' (who i assume is younger than my 'cousin' and I) has a life threatening "air pressure" problem which entails him carrying around a big squeeze bottle (like anesthesiologists use) that is connected to a direct line to his lungs... and mostly he lets it drag on the ground behind him like a little kids blanket. Sometimes he nearly passes out because his lungs start collapsing. Things in dreams don't have to make sense.

So yeah. 'Father' is pissed, 'Wife' is distraught and confused, 'cousin' is defiant and quiet and brother is mostly untroubled but perhaps less than a top notch student. We're all sitting on the roof of the church listening to our thoughts. Next thing you know a Witch swoops in all broom-like and knocks 'father' out of dispair and into a three story fall. His head is bleeding. We all go down to rescue him but one after the other fall victim to minor injuries in the process... (giant spiral staircase made of computer breadboards) When confirming that 'priest' is on his way and 'father' will be alright i start to notice that fathers blood tastes somewhat delicious. Like gravy. It is gravy!

It seems the witch for whatever reason has seen fit to turn us into a walking buffet, while 'wife' fusses over 'brother's' air pump her hair becomes mashed potatoes, etcetera and well all end up eating big handfulls of one another for dinner. I think I had corn abs.

Please let this dream be my subconscious livin' it up and not a sign of things to come.

People turning into food scares me more than zombies. But not as much as clowns.

Fin.

April 28 dream

Hi there.

so i just woke up from dreaming that i was a member of a team that was orbiting a foreign inhabited planet for observation before first contact.

It was the end of our 3 year shift and i was flying back in our little pod to earth. there was a dog on the station and his owner was super cool and thought about letting him go back with us but he didn't come through the door when it pressure locked.

most of us were sort of ragtag.

we understand the basic science and everyone has a specialty but in general we are just regular folk with a sincere interest in people and most of us were super positive which perhaps was our skill.

there were two other girls around my age on the pod with me back and it seemed like our little crew was pretty tight, we even lived together on earth in a common apartment and part of our pod talk involved who might have condoms left since we had sublet to the other rotation.

I like the visual aspect of this dream it was REALLY involved and i especially like that there were these pad sized 'post cards' (lol spellcheckker just deleted the i infront of pad) that were supposedly technology gleaned from the colony we were observing and they allowed us to make contact to our earthbased families while in faster than light travel… pretty rad no?

Also, have you seen 'moon'. best movie of 2009… in my opinion.

Also Also, don't bother watching Leviathan. Lame-i-thon.

100 things that make me happy Spring 2010:

1. Peanut Butter

2. Sitting on my new Zafu

3. Freshly trimmed ends

4. Tuba Dents that i can actually reach (until i get magnets and then i'm dents unlimited)

5. North American Long Distance Calling

6. Sun Breaks!

7. Coffee, even the gross work kind.

8. The Tyee's arts section

9. Text message invitations

10. People who 'pop by' my work and brighten my day!

11. Wednesday Chats with my coworker

12. My GARDEN!!!

13. Zee, the best roadbike i've ever loved. Free, and she shifts even though the cables nearly cut right through!

14. Mclaughlin group and smoothie sundays

15. Walk/Talks with mom in the afternoon.

16. Bumping into people I know in Vancouver!

17. Pop Radio Thursdays

18. my wallet sized photo of the Harasewich Family.

19. The Brittania Centre & Pool!

20. The Pogues

21. Cheap wine from south of the border.

22. Magazines. Still, yes, i know...

23. Spray Tanner, i think dyeing my skin is still better than dying of skin cancer.

24. Legumes. I hardly eat meat anymore at all... and i'm down with that. Lentils are my fave.

25. Okay, Mole Salami from Salumi in Seattle.. MOST AWESOMENESS

26. Grandville Island Winter Ale.

27. Skype

28. Being friends with my childhood friends parents.

29. Helping people with their bags, holding doors, being kind.

30. High Fives with the print music kids.

31. The mountains! They are my neighbors.

32. Roadtrips to Seattle and Environs to visit my favourite americans!

33. Lardizabol.

34. Cookie Day!

35. When the rain chases me home on my bike and I win!

36. Thinking up new ways to use all my free time

37. Making lists

38. Nesting in my new home city

39. Checking out local bands and co-workers shows.

40. A good americano.

41. Kissin'

42. Football... you know what i mean! And the american kind, mostly the superbowl.

43. My fur earmuffs

44. Bert my workplant

45. Yamaha chrome plated conical dent roller

46. Scifi reads

47. Facebook, and the people it has brought into my life unexpectedly!

48. The luck i have finding just what i need and what i didn't know i needed.

49. my long hair!

50. being an independent woman, with lots of support.

51. Jam it, Pickle it, Cure it! and my project

52. Lapping the old folks in the swim lanes!

53. Playing my brass' (tbone/euphonium/trumpet)

54. Grey's Anatomy nights with girlfriends.

55. Dance Parties with the Maddams Family Gang

56. Seattle! I love that city.

57. Evrott HiJinks!

58. Renting a car for the weekend.

59. Sarah Brett and Jimmy!

60. Getting letters/postcards and emails from loved ones.

61. Popcorn and SoyaSauce

62. Wintersoup Library.

63. The library's selection of dvd's

64. Power Yoga once in a while

65. Blackberry Season

66. Mountain Snowboarding

67. Wes Anderson Movies.

68. Cereal Anarchy

69. My L A B E L M A K E R

70. Red Shoes

71. High Thread count Sheets

72. My rock collection

73. Starfishes! Orange, Gold, Red and Purple!

74. Ballet and modern Dance.

75. My theatre, the cultch!

76. RTC Bakery, You Complete me.

77. Orange Hand Cleaner with Pumice

78. Sleeping in!

79. Biking downhill to work.

80. Camping in the rainforest

81. Moss on EVERYTHING

82. Flip Flops.

83. My fish Manny

84. Singing to myself.

85. Freezing things.

86. RUST

87. Cephelopods, as always. (except humboldt squid, they're bitches)

88. My family. Coolest EVER.

89. Partying during the 2010 olympics, i will NEVER forget it!

90. My Crazy and Crazier Dreamscapes.

91. Babies. They're cool. Because they're people.

92. The Canucks! Inspiring me to actually enjoy hockey.

93. Barack Freaking Obama and the new left realism.

94. My soon-to-be-city bike! (Blight! Short for Blue-Lightning)

95. Slippers.

96. Accents, and boys who have them.

97. Menswear. Good Tailoring. Bowties, Neckties, Cumberbunds, Suit Jackets, Suspenders, Hats, Moustaches and snappy shoes.

98. Romance.

99. The beach, tide pools, tide flats and old men tanning.

100. Sunshine, Glorious, Beautiful Uninhibited Sunshine!

Toaster Tarts are good enough for Jazz!

I like pastries… maybe too much, and i like making them too.. enough that i could happily keep this recipie in circulation and never buy a bakery version again! I know what’s in these at least. :)

They are intended to bear similarity to pop tarts or frozen strudels, and i would say that they are more like the latter.

I used the fruit compote we had left over from a dinner party as the filling but it was a little runny even after i thickened it and simmered it down for an hour or so.. so the goo was leaking out the sides as i was assembling the two halves of pastry, but once they were baked they held tight. I reccomend using your absolutely favouritist jam… My next batch will be filled with apricot&brandy jam.

Indulgence!
Oh yeah, and they keep really well in the freezer and are ready in the minute or two they take to toast, but are crispy and delicious!

SO MANY LEMONS!

My roommate half-arsed the master cleanse.

I love her, but somehow she wasn’t able to sell all 30 on craigslist even for the bargain basement price of 6.75, and she wasn’t willing to cut back on her level of physical activity while cleansing. I totally get it. But its been driving me nuts to see all these lemons sitting on the table getting old. Its sort of heartbreaking.

I had an idea that what i could do is use them to make yellow snow cones to distribute during the downtown spring olympics madness here in vancouver, alas, my plans were much more complicated by the details such as lacking a snow machine.

Anyhoo, there are rather a few recipies in the JPC and i opted to make enough lemonzestvodka to make a double batch of both Limoncello liquor and Limoncrema.

I juiced all the lemons after zesting them and wound up making a lemonade sirop that i’ve frozen for the summer, I froze 6 icecubes worth in the icetray and will try making individual lemonades by adding a cube to a glass of water. its about 4TBSP of sugar to 1.5 cups of lemonjuice and seems to be about the right amount to add to a pitcher of water. :) Hooray for useful.

I will update on the progress of the liquers as they progress, pretty good work for a sunny sunday!