Behold, my gorgeous
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I don’t know why it’s taken me five years of gardening in these beds to see the light as far as mulch goes, but I’m a convert. I mulched the tomatoes in the new beds first — it gets really hot against that fence, the remote thermometer routinely reads in the high 90s and 100s during a sunny afternoon, and tomatoes don’t like to have hot feet. So I mulched with a couple of inches of straw. I was shocked at how effective it’s been. Even with the recent hot weather I’m only having to water every couple of days…
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Independence Day is a three-day event here in Livingston, and the centerpiece is the Livingston Roundup Rodeo. There are so many rodeos in this part of the country over the holiday that they call it “Cowboy Christmas” — most of these riders will do two, three or four rodeos over the weekend chasing the bonanza of prize money available that might just get them through the rest of the season. It’s easier for the rough stock riders (bucking events) to do a lot of rodeos because they don’t have to haul livestock with them — often three or four guys…
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The weather has finally gotten nice, and the garden is so lovely that I find I want to spend all my time out here. I’m blogging from the garden right this very minute. My new fence adds just the right privacy — I no longer feel watched by my neighbor — and I seem to have been out here all the time lately. Of course, spring came so late that I was effectively trapped in the house from October until June. So now, it’s all outside, all the time. I’ve been eating breakfast and dinner using my dining tables Perth…
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When I bought this house there was a ginormous clothesline out in the backyard. The clotheslines of Livingston are somewhat famous with handymen around town — most of them were made of enormous plumbers pipe and set into three or four feet of concrete. With the winds we have here, you need a sturdy clothesline, especially if, in the case of the family I bought this house from, you have 8 children. Needless to say, I had that clothesline cut down when I was renovating. It was in a terrible spot in the backyard and everyone who came over for…
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In the garden that is — it was a long weekend out there — but so much fun. This year, I added containers with flowers to my garden. I bought some pretty Martha Washington geraniums that I didn’t have time to plant right away so I just stuck them out there until I could get around to doing the pots in the front of the house. But they were so pretty, and I’ve been spending so much time out there lately, that I decided to do the pots in the veggie garden itself. See — pretty! I also took the…
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We had an unexpected visitor yesterday — it was early, about seven, and I was making tea when my dogs rushed the back fence, barking. I went out to shush them because it was early, we have neighbors — and who did I see on the far side of my back gate but Jacques! I let him in and looked down the alley, but there wasn’t any sign of the Mighty Hunter. That was weird. So after I got the three of them to stop barking, I got on the phone. Jacques has been known to go on walkabout every…
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Big excitement here in a small town — the bridge to the 9th street Island is collapsing. It’s not a surprise — the surprise is that it hasn’t fallen down before now. The river has been high since just after Mother’s Day, and it really went up these last few days of warm weather. It was Thursday afternoon that the sag became noticeable, and they evacuated some folks, then closed the bridge entirely. Yesterday they took off anyone who wanted to go in a helicopter, and the DOT has arrived with a Bailey Bridge they’re planning to put in, but…
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Here it is — my first basket of greens — this is Senza Testa from Seeds of Italy. I love this strange green — it grows like a weed, is slightly bitter, a little fuzzy, and really nice. I cooked these with some onion, chile, garlic and vermouth. Then I finished it off with some of my Milk Lady’s delicious yellow Jersey cream and ate it over pasta. I also harvested this crate of broccoli rabe — both the Cima di Rapa Quarantina – Broccoli Rabe and the Cima di Rapa Sessantina. I’ve planted both of these at the same…
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Okay, I admit it, it was one of those weekends that make you really a little crazy as a single chick. I finally jumped back in the internet-dating pool at meet and fuck apps and had a Really Fun Date last week. I met him at a bar in town where I know the bartender, and one of my bestest guy friends was at the bar when I walked in (and then came over to introduce himself and sort of loom in a very older-brother kind of way that I found endearing). We had fun. We chatted. We flirted in…