Fruit Trees survive the summer drought

Cute little thing isn't it?

Looks like the trees survived the complete lack of rain this year, so now we're in the true home stretch to see if they can survive the winter. Hopefully this winter will be nice a moist - instead of a cold and dry disaster.

The pecan tree is perhaps the most interesting one this year. Totally refused to leaf out this year or do anything - but remarkably it's still alive. Don't know if it knew there would be no water this year, or whether it's just high maintenance - but hopefully it will do something come Spring.

Obie Expands Diet

Obie has now expanded his diet to include cashmere sweaters - most notably my favorite cashmere sweater. You can't really see the gaping holes in this picture, but believe me they're there.

I was originally plannig on putting the sweater on Obie, but he thought I was tormenting him and ran away - so you'll just have to use your imagination. I was going to toss the sweater, but instead I'm thinking of something to do with the fabric, since it is softer than a baby's butt.

I suppose it shows that all things are transitory

Winter Harvest

Meager I know.

Turns out potatoes don't really grow well if you forget to water them in the middle of August and they turn into brown sagebrush. Actually it wasn't that bad, but almost. Realize now that the future garden needs to have a built-in watering system to keep things going - and my lack of sunlight doesn't help matters much.

On the carrot front, I also learned that those little root crops don't like containers. Even though this variety is a nice baby carrot variety - I need to have nice sunny loamy soil - which just doesn't cut it on the bedroom balcony.

Genealogy: Family Bible

In the contuining genealogy quest, I have the Getz family Bible back from Tom and Sherry. There's not a ton of information in the Bible, but it does have the births of my Great Great grandmother and grandfather on my maternal side.

I updated the birthdates of all my great aunts and uncles, and now I'm tracking down my great great grandmother's birth certificate, which is turning out to be a little tricky. Apparently New York has birth records starting the year AFTER she was born - so we might need to rely on census records. We'll see.

Crepe Night

With Joe Moeddel back in town for Fall break, we decided to invite everyone over for crepe night. Not an easy task with 9 people, but it was fun.

The crepe pan is working very well, and it only took a couple of tries before the crepes were working the way they were supposed to. I think I'll just keep a little bit of the batter in the fridge for last minute crepes - shouldn't be too hard.

Yes, I know this is an after picture of the dinner (all the wine glasses).

Starting Strawberries

Realizing that I cannot afford to keep myself in strawberries throughout the year on Farmer's Market prices - I decided to make a little investment a la M. Emanuel and start a strawberry patch.

I purchase three different varieties, but only one has arrived so far. This is Honoeye (Fragaria x ananassa), which is supposedly good for freezing - should come up around June.

Daffodils are in

Even though we had a crappy growing season this year, at least it's time to do some plantings.

I really should have written down what kind of bulbs these are that I got from Mom, but mostly their daffodils I believe.

Cider: Step 1 Primary Fermentation

Fall is here, which means it's time to start making cider - hard cider that is. Really can't have crepes from your winter leftovers without the hooch, so I thought I would try making it myself.

Some of you may already know that I've been known to make wine (which has aged well over the past two years), so making cider ain't too much of a stretch. As you will see, it's basically substituting grape juice with apple cider.

Not sure if I'm going to put little bubbles in the stuff or not - but stay tuned.

But for the first step, called primary fermentation, all you have to do it put the cider (about 6 gallons) in a container with yeast (not bread yeast, but the yeast used to ferment champagne grapes). Stick it on a hotpad to get a nice warm temperature, and wait a couple of days (I think I did 14). A little measuring tool will tell you the alcohol level and let you know when the majority of the fermentation is done.

I know, I know - it looks nasty - but you'll be impressed.

Custom Shirts Arrive

Ah, it was Christmas a little bit early this year, as my custom shirts arrived from Hong Kong.

The NY Times had an article about a year ago about custom shirts - and they highlighted mytailor.com. Basically you take 20 measurements of yourself, enter them on the website, and then 6 weeks later a custom shirt arrives. Yes, it's expensive (about $80 smacks a pop) - but well worth the insurance of not flying away in a freak wind storm to Canada from all the excess material that would spontaneously create a wind glider. (Have you ever noticed that a "large" shirt is worn by 90% of the male population, and there is enough extra material in the waist to make a small pillowcase?).

Anyway, as you can see - I went with the stripe theme. That's kind of the other thing too - there are about 400 different fabrics to choose from - so not only do you get a cool monogram, but you get a spanky style.

And yes, if you're concerned about taking the measurements yourself - a tailor runs through town about every three months, so you can just visit him to do your measurements. The only problem is that he'll then try to sell you on getting a tailored sportcoat - and they have cashmere - yikes.

Mona Returns

Alas it is a bitter sweet day, as Mona, otherwise known as my Nespresso French Coffee Maker, returns to my desk. I thought I had a post on this, but I must have gotten behind.

When we were back in Indy for testing in March 2006, I bought Mona in order to get me through what we Americans call coffee. The French and Italians think (correctly) that our coffee tastes like the liquid that comes out of the coffee machine when you forget to put coffee grounds in. No wonder we need to buy a Venti at Starbucks - we need that much liquid just to get some taste.

Anyway, back to the Mona move. Mona is back because her original home was Mike Raftery's desk, who has recently left Lilly - I'll make another post on that - but the important thing right now is that Mona is safe and sound.