Taken for granite

     A few years back, as the economic collapse raged into full swing, one of my hair clients informed me that the bank she worked for had handled the bankruptcy and asset auction of a granite countertop  company and that there was a lot of granite left that would eventually be thrown into dumpsters.  I went into overdrive!  I started making trips to the vacant building, loading as much granite as I could move and my little old Ford Ranger could carry and begging male friends for some muscle to help me move larger pieces.

     Within a few weeks, I had enough granite stacked all over my yard to start my own remnant business.  I still have no idea what I'm going to do with most of it but I'm open to ideas.  

      I initially tried using smaller broken pieces as stepping stones but it was very slippery when wet and one of my stepsons slipped on it while running and got a nasty cut on his ankle.  I moved those pieces to areas under shrubs where I didn't want the chickens to scratch.

     I tried looking at some DIY info for cutting granite at home but didn't get very far because it requires a wet saw which I don't currently have money for, and lots of muscle at my beck and call which, much to my chagrin, I don't have (Mike has a job and a life of his own. Dang!).  That limits my current granite creativity to simply setting pieces of granite on top of things.

     Right in the midst of my initial granite frenzy I spied at the side of the road an old metal stand for a pedal operated Singer sewing machine.  Seriously?!  Mine!

     Top that bitch with granite and I have a very cool plant stand which you can barely see in the photo coz my plants love it so much!

     I took a couple of the smaller remnants and used them as centerpieces on my dining room table and the dresser in my guest room.

     I stuck thick felt pads on the bottom side of the remnants so they don't scratch the furniture but the piece on the dining room table is very heavy and tricky to move without gouging the wood.  It works great as a trivet.

     The piece on my thrift store guest room dresser is mostly for looks but I try to get the stepsons to park their GatorAde and Big Gulp cups there instead of on the wood (which obviously needs to be refinished anyway).

     My favorite granite/furniture combo is my bedroom dresser. 

     This was originally a banged up, dark wood buffet from a thrift store that I used as a coffee station when I had my own salon.  I bought some clearanced gray paint from Lowe's and painted it, changed out the hardware (that ended up being the most expensive part of the project), and borrowed a friend's muscles to help me set a large granite slab on top of it.  I love it!  

     I still have 2 long narrow slabs that I carefully brought home (would've been 3 but granite is fragile and the narrow pieces can shatter easily) and will eventually mount on my patio fence as orchid shelves.  I also have 3 pieces that are plenty big enough to use for my bathroom counter and a real biggun' that I plan to trim and then set on top of an iron table frame I pulled out of a trash pile.  The only thing holding my back now is learning how to cut the stuff.

...must...eradicate...grass...

      And the quest for a grassless lawn continues!

      Man, I hate mowing.  I hate it so much I just gave my lawn mower away.

     I've had the same Sears lawn mower for years and years and I put it through hell, shoving it through overgrown rental house lawns in Missouri and trying to use it as a brush hog in Florida, but every spring when it was time to fire it up again, it required a trip to the small engine repair shop.  Many a friend pointed out that I could easily buy a new mower for the combined repair costs I was shelling out but something in my German-European-old world-Missouri farmer mentality made me insist on repairing and working with what I had.

     That ended this spring.  I pulled the mower out of storage, found it seized up, as usual, and rolled it right up the street to the man who scraps my metal refuse.  I won't take the time right now to do the scrapping and I know he appreciates it so it's a win-win and he was happy to take my white elephant mower.  Good riddance!  Over the years I have worked hard to minimize the existence of grass in my yard with mulch and plants and I'm making great progress.

     I'm not certain how all my neighbors feel about this but I don't live in an HOA neighborhood, thank goodness, and I personally believe I have the best yard around but it will always be a work in progress.

  

     When I started dating Mike I had to widen the entrance to my drive on the cheap.  Still getting that project to look the way I want.  The natural stone border shifts too much and the mulch I orginally put down washes too easily as this area receives a lot of runoff during rainstorms.  Some friends are replacing the old cement roofing tiles on their home and gave me carte blanche with all the tiles they have removed.  This gave me the idea of doing the drive "Mexican style."  Back in 1993 I spent 3 weeks in Xalapa, Mexico and noticed that potholes were regularly filled with construction debris as a cheap form of quick maintenance.  I'm trying it and so far I like the results.  I originally feared a flat tire from the initial breaking of the tiles by driving over them but that hasn't happened, and a passerby recently told me it looked "cool".  Each tile weighs several pounds so transferring them to my house is taking some time but I'll get there eventually.  And even though I try to be green, I do resort to a chemical border for the grass and weeds.  Florida's plants all seem to have hyper-aggressive runners that depress me when I can't control them.

     Now, for the rest of that unwanted lawn.

     I've been buying used sheets from Goodwill for my weed barrier and laying down pine sawdust from a friend's sawmill, a rather laborious messy process which takes some mental preparation to do in the summer heat.  I've almost got the whole area covered and will then top dress it with a couple inches of mulch and that will be the end of my front "lawn."  I will still have to use a little Round Up until the grass underneath fully dies out and I have to keep up with DIY insect treatments.  While I don't believe this type of mulch attracts termites, I do believe that they would not turn down a nice, pre-chewed meal.

     Now I like to cross the street to my neighbor's house which is on a slight rise and look at my beautiful yard.  I've been planting since '07 and some of the structure plants are gaining substance and their is always something in bloom.

   

The question of food persists

     How much of my own food can I produce from my small yard or rather, how much can I produce without investing large amounts of time or money (both of which I don’t have)?

     I planted citrus trees when I bought my house but the Meyer lemon tree has been the only consistent producer. I don't know if the reason is that my little trees already suffer from citrus greening. 

     I also grow a kaffir lime (the leaves season SE Asian cooking), lemon grass, basil and rosemary.  These have been the hardy ones.  

     Only 1 season did I have a good crop of cukes that synchronized with my dill before the dill plants, as they always do, were munched to the ground by giant swallowtail caterpillars.  I made refrigerator pickles that year.  

     I’ve finally figured out tomatoes for my ability level: 5 gallon buckets with a bag of cheap soil and only grow cherry tomatoes since they seem to outpace the pests and the elements. This season I was successful enough to have plenty of fresh tomatoes; enough to oven roast 3 batches which gave them some extended life in the fridge.

     My hens give me plenty of eggs for a protein source. 

     The wildest success has been the calabazas, a type of squash used in Latin dishes, that I grew using seeds gleaned from a chunk of squash purchased at the Latin grocery store.  

I think I should have entered this one in the county fair!

     The squash are so big and numerous and last so long, I need to ramp up my creativity in preparing them.  Last year I downloaded a recipe for Persian pumpkin stew that I will try when this season’s calabazas are ready to harvest. 

     I have a big papaya tree covered in blooms and tiny fruits but how can I sneak the papayas past all the Florida bugs? 

     I always get a few volunteer butternut squash and cucuzzi gourds, used in Italian cooking, hold promise for next year.

     My friend, Tanya, was an inspiration to grown pineapples from the discarded tops of store-bought pineapples.  Her little front yard is a veritable mini-plantation: she harvests about a dozen a year.  I grow mine in pots but don't have enough yet for consistent harvests.

     And what about those gandules?  The pigeon peas froze last year right before they were big enough to harvest but the plants didn’t die.  Now they are taller than me but will they produce again or do I need to start over?

     I am most excited about growing a moringa tree.  

     National Geographic recently wrote about this nutrition packed plant that grows in some of the poorest parts of the world and its potential impact on malnutrition.  I got my seeds from a friend who had traveled to Nicaragua with someone devoted to educating people about this plant.  It may be years before I can start munching on my trees but, as they say, those years are going to pass either way.  Might as well plan for the future.

Is this the tiniest anvil in the world?

   

     I am sure that somewhere in India or Ecuador or any of the many places around the world where people make amazing things using only what they have at hand, there is a man banging out doll jewelry on an anvil the size of a cough drop, but in my personal experience, this is a teeny tiny anvil.  I have placed a soda bottle lid next to it for scale and no, it's not from some kind of luxury Coca Cola that costs 5 US dollars a bottle but from a half liter bottle of Mexican Coca Cola that the manufacturers have suggested selling for 5 pesos (do they still say neuvos pesos as they did during my last visit in '93?).

     I use this tiny anvil to help make findings for the fossil jewelry I have started creating.

     The process is enjoyable but initially required me to build up some plier calluses.  Everything is in baby steps for me and I look forward to someday adding  tiny torches to my tool chest and skill set.  

     I'm proud of my megalodon tooth necklace.  I found the tooth, drilled it, made the necklace, and wear it around Florida in the hopes of running into another fossil geek who knows what it is.

     Probably the most important thing I have learned so far in regards to making jewelry:  it cannot be done when my 3 stepsons, ranging in age from 9-14, are running amok in my house.  Even if they don't bump or bounce me, my hands shake a little from all the commotion.  The fear of getting bumped or bounced is almost as bad as the real thing.  Consequently, if I dare to bead while the boys are there, the tile grout of my living room gets a bedazzling.

Bag the Big Bag!

I have never been a purse loving woman

     For decades I carried one form or another of Eagle Creek travel/sport pouches.  This drove my girlie girlfriends nuts.   As soon as I started fossiling I downsized even more.  Every week I needed to fit my most important stuff into a pouch small enough to slip into a dry bag for a ride on my kayak and I realized that I didn't miss the things that didn't fit into that tiny pouch.

     I am starting to amass quite a collection of little pouches yet they all fit into one small drawer.  Brilliant!  Couldn't I make my own perfect pouch?  I was looking around my house for fabrics and saw stacks of boxer shorts in traditional boxery plaids and stacks of Mike's work jeans that were so worn they could no longer be mended.  Perfect!  I got to work.

I am not a seamstress.

     I just wanted to sew a little pouch that I could #1 Use for myself and #2 Stock in my Etsy store in the hopes of someday making a little cash from all my aimless creativity.  It should all be so easy!

I dusted off my mother's 1972 Kenmore sewing machine, found a cute pattern on the internet, and started my new venture.

     Unfortunately, a close reading of the instructions suggested that the author spoke English as a second language and suffered from some memory issues since large chunks of the directions seemed to be missing.  I tried to guess my way through it but the zipper, a notion that has always filled me with insecurity, looked "funny."

     I found a second pattern that was more clearly written and I now have my Inside/Outside zippered wrist pouch.  

     OMG!  It's so cute!  And the name?  The cutest thing ever:  "Inside" for my man's boxer shorts (even though they are actually my boxer shorts and their fabric is on the outside) and "Outside" for my man's jeans.  Awww!

     All that cuteness aside, I've been carrying my original pouch for weeks and I love it.  The fabrics are soft and comfortingly familiar and the pouch carries everything I need:  cell phone, even tinier pouch of ID's, lip gloss, eye liner, gum, fingernail clippers (gotta have those!), keys, specs (if needed), and I can squeeze in a bag of M&M's if I'm going to the cinema.

Branch out

     I posted "Time to branch out" on my FaceBook page recently because I opted for a bottle of chianti instead of my usual cabernet or red zin, while I was wine shopping at Walgreen's liquor store.  I don't know if that qualifies as trying to be creative; more like trying to find any adult beverage that tastes good while seasonal allergies hold sway; but it got me thinking about my use of branches in my home.
     A few years back, after pruning a citrus tree, I noticed the nice feel of the wood so I dried a couple of branches and made chop stick rests.  A very easy project since it's nothing more than a smoothed, finished length of wood.  Alas, I have never served a formal Japanese dinner so the chop stick rests rest in my hutch.
      After I bought my house in 2007, the dearth of cabinet and drawer pulls in the kitchen caused me to plan out a rustic look using small branches gleaned from citrus trees.

      Fast forward to 2011!  I pruned a friend's citrus tree and set aside a nice selection of small branches making sure to preserve some of the natural forks and bends for my handle project.
      Fast forward to 2012!  (I'm always going to be honest with you.  The branches need to dry for quite awhile and then I need to find the time and motivation to move forward.)  I cut the branches into likely sizes with my miter saw, slightly rounded the ends with an X-acto knife, sanded a bit, then finished with 2 coats of satin polyurethane.

     The hard part was all the measuring, lining things up, and drilling the holes...just...right.  The end result is an organic, satisfying feeling from a cool looking project that I did myself.  I use an old toothbrush to clean along the top of the pulls, just in case you were wondering.  

     I went a little wilder on the shapes of the handles for the front of a hutch I cobbled together out of hardware store cabinets.

     And now I must lament the passing of my beautiful Sears band saw.  I bought it long ago while living in Missouri and I used the hell out of it but for some reason I cannot fathom I decided I didn't want to bring it with me to Florida.

     What was I thinking?!

     Mike knows that the way to my heart is, among a long list of things which include sugar, alcohol and...shhhh...(sex), tools!  I may just ask Santa Claus for a band saw this year.

That cursed learned curve!

     Just when I think I have a project all figured out, I discover a misstep that sends me back to square one, sometimes with a serious loss of supplies, ie cutting several lengths of necklace cord too short.
   

     I want to thank H&M clearance for the $5 giant muumuu dress.  I can throw it on over the craziest combination of grungy house clothes, hiding my sartorial sins just long enough to get in and out of the craft store without wasting precious time at home trying to make myself look "presentable".

Gotta work with what I have

     Mike (my man) is a fencer which does not mean that he earns his living wielding an epee but by building fences in the ridiculous Florida heat.  A large percentage of customers who want a new fence or deck have an old fence or deck that's got to go.  That's a lot of wood going to the landfill. Granted, much of it is trashed, but the 4x4 fenceposts are usually in good shape with the exception of a couple of feet of rotted wood were it was buried and old decks usually yield some good boards that survived the elements.  How could I use that wood?

     I've had backyard chickens for a few years now and they are beasts.  It is their nature to dig constantly and I discovered that if I put something, like a stone, over the spot where they are digging, they seemed doubly compelled to dig deeply all around the edges of said item.  But I want my ladies to roam freely (they almost never leave my yard even though they can fly) so it's been a constant struggle to protect things like veggie plants, flowers, and the large mulched play area of my backyard (ping pong table, water balloon fights, firecracker staging, etc).

     One afternoon, I was watching Mike cut long boards at an angle with a handheld circular saw.  Before he knew what happened, I had the saw and was constructing a walkway with all the reclaimed deck boards he had earmarked for a different project.  He is kind and generous and let me have my way (always best) but as he observed my untutored wood working (I can do it myself!) he did suggest I use fewer nails so it would be easier to "fix" in the future.

     WHATEVER!!!

     I admit, my walkway has a bit of a funhouse feel to it but it's so much better than the previous path of stepping stones that had become dangerously bumpy with all the chicken scratching.

     I am now in the process of surrounding the mulched area with a walkway constructed of reclaimed 4x4's, cut down to 4' lengths.  I took Mike's advice to heart and while I originally envisioned staggering the joins of the 4x4's like a hardwood floor, I realized that by using 4' sections I could more easily perform repairs as needed.

     This is not a project I will finish anytime soon.  The 4x4's are heavy which is why I downgraded from my original plan of connecting 6 across to just 4 across; still ample room to walk and wheel my garden cart.  Also, it's dang hot, and sometimes I just don't feel like dragging my chopsaw outside.

     I give myself permission to work at a comfortable pace and I simply direct my gaze above the stack of mismatched 4x4's demanding my attention.

      

Next Easter

     Next Easter I'm letting the Ladies do the work.

     I can't wait to check the nesting boxes every afternoon to see what the hens have been up to.  There are definite cycles with the eggs, for example, it will be obvious that one of the hens is laying ridged or misshapen eggs for a number of months but it's constantly changing and every so often there is a unique work of art included in the clutch.  My hens tend to all lay their eggs in one nest even though there are 3 nesting boxes so it's difficult to know which hen laid which egg, but not impossible.  It requires lots of patience, constant vigilance, and a little luck to be there the minute a hen hops off the nest after laying an egg.  

     I used to save eggs in the beginning, blowing them out with a nifty little German device I ordered from a pysanky supply company in New York.  I almost filled a large Mexican agua fresca jar (I freakin' LOVE those jars!) with cool looking blown eggs from my hens but, just like the jar of polished fossilized bone from Venice Beach, I felt that 1/2 to 2/3 full was enough.  On to the next thing!

Forget about the Royal Baby!

     Seriously, forget about the Royal Baby and look at my cucuzzi!

     Or should I say, "OMG! Oh my gourd!"  

     Gardening in Florida has not been a smooth road for me.  I moved here from Missouri where the seasons are cut and dried and the veggies do what they say they'll do on the back of the seed packets.

I finally adopted a Carribean state of mind after reading a magazine article that featured edible plants at home in an enviroment that swings wildly between scorching, freezing, drippingly humid and rife with pests.

      I ordered the cucuzzi seeds last year but they never sprouted.  Failure accepted; slight sting after loss of about $6 (12 seeds plus shipping and handling).

     This spring I left my garden boxes to the volunteers: butternut squash, gandules that now look like trees, 1 papaya plant, my favorite heirloom cherry tomatoes that I long ago forgot the name of and a batch of dill that was quickly eradicated by giant swallowtail caterpillars.  In the midst of this craziness I spotted a vine that was obviously "something."

     The elusive cucuzzi finally made its appearance.  There are only 2 on the vine and I decided to let them grow to the seed stage so that next year I can test some recipes being sent to me by former classmates of my heavily Italian high school.  In the meantime, I'm having fun seeing just how big this gourd will grow.

It's getting hairy in the tomato patch

  It's hot out and I can't say "already" because it IS July.  While this is the time to hibernate in Florida, I am faced with a plethora of unmanageable projects in my backyard that require me to venture out in the brief period between dawn and 9 AM when the yard begins to feel like the surface of Crematoria.

     A few years ago I built 4'x4' raised planting boxes with untreated pine boards I got for free but I don't have the budget to completely revitalize the soil every season so nematodes immediately began plaguing my box-grown veggies.  This season I cribbed an idea I saw in someone's backyard, and planted all my tomatoes in 5 gallon buckets (drill a few holes in the bottom, fill with cheap topsoil and manure).  What a difference!  The plants have been very productive but the increase in temperature has seen a comparable increase in insects, vermin, and split skins due to heavy rains.  The plants are well over my head, surrounded by chicken wire to, well, protect them from chickens, and reaching into that hot mess freaks me out but the tomatoes taste fabulous and while I can't claim they are organic, I KNOW they are better than what's for sale in the grocery stores.  Meanwhile, I now use the planting boxes for edibles that are tough and grow in less hospitable environments.  Currently I'm nurturing gandules, calabaza, cucuzzi gourd, volunteer butternut squash, and papayas (we'll see how well that works).

      

Goodwill, you're killin' me

     My local Goodwill started displaying an amazing variety of fabulous glassware; every visit reveals new treasures.  I already purchased several pieces of a set of made-in-Japan, etched stemware that I'm going to use as my wineglasses but now I have 5 adorable shotglasses but at 59¢ each, what was I to do?!

     It was suggested I start drinking shots but I only like gin.  Isn't a shot of gin called a martini?

     And then there were the compotes...

     Guess I'll have to plan a compote party.  And make some compote for it.

It's hot up in here...

     Florida in the summer, not the easiest place to be.  When I moved back to Florida as an adult in 2004 I quickly realized that "paradise" is a mixed bag and not everyone can cut it. My house is open to anoles, geckos (my favorite for their quiet, nocturnal ways), snakes,  and, in rapidly decreasing in order of tolerability, ants, palmetto bugs (yes, yes, giant ROACHES), rats, raccoons, possums, on and on, ad infinitum.

     Everything molds from the humidity.  I run my AC as little as possible so the winter is the worst.  My shoes disintegrate in the closet and I have to scrape down my kitchen cabinet doors every couple of weeks.

     All that being said, I feel at home here; Florida is a good fit for me.  I don't know if it's because the crucially formative first 5 years of my life were spent chasing lizards and digging holes in the sand in Bradenton but I've landed in a spot that has expanded my personal growth by an order of magnitude.

     And...back to the heat.  Living in Missouri for 35 years I briefly labored under the delusion that I could be a quilter like my grandma but I only wanted to do it if I did all the quilting by hand and without the room for a large quilting frame, I had to do my handiwork buried under a hot pile of fabric; it's ok in the Missouri winter, but it NEVER works in Florida.

     Along came the knitting needles.  I will forever be grateful to the older woman who introduced me to this hobby that has enriched my life in many ways and even though she ultimately treated me badly (I ain't gonna sugarcoat it!) I still send gratitude thought bubbles into the universe for her.  

     I can knit anywhere and knitting on airplanes has enabled me to fly without being stupefied on xanax to deal with my fear of flying.  It's amazing!  Who woulda thought it?

     Oh!!!  The chicks are in a pen on the grass and a swallowtail kite just swooped over my yard.  Time to check on the babies.