A serious post about pigeon peas

     I first planted pigeon peas two years ago after reading an article in a Florida gardening magazine regarding edible plants well-suited for the difficult growing conditions found in the sunshine state.  Since I did no other research, my learning curve with pigeon peas has been steep, for instance, I had no idea that the plants would grow into tall shrubs.  When a Puerto Rican friend saw my sky high bean trees, she laughed and said, "We usually prune them so that we can reach the beans."
     Thinking that this year's pea crop was a bust, I lopped the trees down, with the hope that the bare stumps will leaf out in the spring.  I was very surprised to find, hiding in the tree tops several feet over my head, a harvest of pigeon pea pods.

     My crop of pigeon peas represented all stages of maturity so it was a good learning experience.  I shelled a full cup of fresh green peas, ready to cook with some yellow rice, and 3/4 cup of marginal older or dried peas, which I will use for replanting...because now I need more bean trees!

     A friend sent me a Wikipedia link and I felt a little embarrassed that I was so ignorant of the pigeon pea's storied history, starting in India (I've probably eaten toor dal in Indian restaurants) and spreading, pretty much, around the world.  I became aware of the pigeon pea when I moved to Florida and a Puerto Rican coworker kept feeding me amazing dishes with "gandules" thrown in.

     The Wikipedia description states, "The crop is cultivated on marginal land by resource-poor farmers."   Hello!  Not to make light of the unimaginable struggles faced by people living in developing countries but what a perfect edible plant for my yard!  Apparently the yield drops after a few years so I'm trying to picture where I can stagger plantings of pigeon peas.

     As I read about the nutritive value of this humble, easy to grow plant, I thought of my quest to grow a moringa tree (please visit https://www.facebook.com/strongharvest for more information regarding this amazing plant).  What a rewarding little journey transforming my suburban Florida yard into beautiful refuge that actually affords some nutrition!

Man, I've got it good.

Eggies and other product reviews

I have lots of eggs.

     My chickens have been working overtime!

     Mike bought me a set of Eggies for Christmas because neither of us likes to peel hard boiled eggs.  I tried the Eggies out yesterday on my lunch break.  The "fast & easy" description is not entirely accurate.  Each Eggie is composed of 4 separate, slightly ill-fitting parts that must be securely connected before the egg can start to cook AND the dang things have to be oiled each time so that the egg can slip out after it's done.  I'm no mathematician but 6 Eggies, each composed of 4 components is...well...a crapload of work!  By the 4th Eggie, my hands were trembling a little because my lunch break was OVER.  Then I had to crack each egg into the Eggie which got a little messy because I was in a hurry.

     The flipside of the experience is that once the eggs were cooked, it was amazingly easy to pop them out of the Eggie and get busy on my egg salad.  Will the end justify the means?  Am I using that phrase correctly?  Only time will tell.

     It must also be noted that my hens lay small eggs which yield a cooked egg that looks like a hard boiled egg cut in half.  I mention this because it would not be suitable for a deviled egg unless I cut the bottom off each egg so that it would balance.  I am considering using extra egg white to fill the Eggie to the top.  It will create a Texas-size huevo del diablo (just making that up) but everyone loves deviled eggs!

     A cautious "2 thumbs up".

Behold the most hideous slides in the world!

     I was desperate and WalMart was out of black so this is what I ended up with.

     I love my Okabashi slides (http://www.okabashi.com/ ) but they finally wore out and I'm doing some serious penny pinching these days.  Choices must be made.  Painful choices...

     On the flipside,

     It's definitely time to take my Soviet sweat jacket (purchased from a Soviet athlete at the 1983 University Games in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada for $30 "hard currency") out of storage, pair it with my Chinese green plastic slides (shiny, 3-stripe Adidas sweat pants will complete the look...AND I have those!) and sink back into the warm fuzzy memories of my impressionable youth in the 80's when my parents actually let me follow a Soviet men's volleyball team to Canada.  The mitigating factor in the making of their decision was that Nadia Comaneci would be there, too, and she was "ok" in their book.

And now: my new favorite bowl!

I love Pepper Creek Pottery.

     So much pottery, so little time, but I know that if I am in the Homosassa area and can get to Pepper Creek Pottery (https://www.facebook.com/peppercreekpots), Angela and Martha will have the perfect bowl for me in an affordable price range.  It's a tiny gem of a store so please visit if you can.

     I eat many of my meals out of pottery bowls.  I like the feel of a bowl in my hands and I appreciate the aesthetics of Asian meals that are served in bowls.  Maybe I was set on this path many years ago when my Spanish professor admired a bowl in a Mexican market and told me that for her, it was all about the "mezcla", the mixing of the ingredients and I know she was talking about "la vida" as much as her next meal.

...now I'm hungry...

Give a girl a chopsaw...

     Mike's house has a fireplace and now that it's winter, all I can think about is building a cozy fire, but there is never any firewood.  I can't stand the thought of spending $10 on a little bundle of split wood that will burn up in a couple of hours so I walk up and down his street collecting fallen branches from the old oaks, camphor and crepe myrtle trees that line the road.

     And every couple of weeks I ask Mike if he has a saw I can use (he DOES build fences) and he always says no.  Until yesterday.

     Not only did he have a saw;  he had my old school, cast iron base, 100+lb chop saw that I gave to him a couple years ago when I upgraded to a lightweight, aluminum based model.  Normally he leaves it on job sites but this weekend, he had it at home so I made up for lost time.  Beautiful fires every night!

This is NOT my mailbox.

     But it's close.  I took a pic of this one because I found it humorous that the owner spent a lot of time and money installing a heavy duty post and base and then opted out of replacing the hammered box.

Anyhoo...

     I've been paying for a post office box for several years now because I live down the street from a middle school and the kids can't seem to resist the lure of my helpless mailbox.  They scatter any mail they find in it, they stick gum under the handle (kids still do that?!), they try to jump OVER it, they bitch-slap it, you name it.  The post office box gives me a sense of security at around $80 a year (prices vary by post office so yours may be more or less).

     But I don't want to pay for a PO box any more and I don't want to have to drive downtown to get my mail and I've been considering investing in a locking mailbox with a solid post.  

     A Christmas gift card from Lowes turned my dream into a reality.

Just look at it!!!      

     I installed it in a stealth mode:  I set the post while the kids were in school and the next day I waited until they had walked home after school before I went out and attached the mailbox to the plate.  

     What a beauty and fingers crossed, it will survive the abuse for awhile.  I peered out the blinds the first day as the kids walked past and a couple of them seemed to notice it.  Be strong, little mailbox!

     It's winter and we've had a couple of nights where the temps have dipped below freezing.

     Suddenly I HAVE to have more orchids!  That makes sense, right?  Maybe not but I started looking around on line for a site where I could buy another stanhopea and another schomburgkia.  These 2 orchids have thrived on my patio and I'd like to find another variety of each.  The examples I found on line were very expensive so I'll wait for the local orchid show in February to see if I can scout them out for less.   

     In the meantime, to mitigate my flare of orchid zeal, I decided to prep 2 starts from the beautiful schomburgkia I already have (which just started blooming for the first time last year).

Here's the original plant:

And here's the 2 new starts:

I bought the original orchid several years ago at the same orchid show I will revisit in February, and the seller showed me how to mount the plant on the bottom of a cedar orchid box.  I'm not exactly sure why it's done this way but I'm not going to question success.  

On an unrelated closing note, I felt amused and a little baffled by the label on this dish soap...

The pronouncement "14% FREE vs. 14 oz." doesn't scream "Value!" to me.  

It just sends me down a mental rabbit hole...

...14%? What an odd fraction...

...14% vs. 14 oz.???...

...and so on and so on.

The worst question in the world

I'm crafty but lack skill and finesse and that's ok because I'd rather get a project knocked out and dumped into the Goodwill pile than to labor over it for months to the exclusion of all my other interests.
Case in point, a shrug pattern, knitted in the round, that was my first complex knitting project after I became secure with the washcloth pattern.
But the worst question in the world to hear is, "Did you knit/sew/make/draw that YOURSELF?"
I don't have time to tear down the psychology of that question; I just know I don't like to hear it.

I loved this pattern so much but every time I put it on, I ended up looking like an extra from a community theater production of The Scarlet Letter  (I held one of my hens in this self-portrait for old timey effect).

Every year I would spend an evening wearing this thing around the house until finally, in 2014, I accepted that the time has come to unravel it and re-use the beautiful wool for a better-fitting project.

Buh-bye!

Here's another thing, niggling at the back of my mind...

If I don't redo my mulch immediately, I'm going to have an unpleasant summer on my hands.

And what about this...

I looked out back this morning and found a hawk sitting, in plain view, studying my chickens.  I decided to leave them in the run until late afternoon.

But here's something cool...

A client gave me this awesome "wreath" from Japan.  No, I don't know what it signifies but I know it's beautiful and how can that cute creature at the bottom be bad?

My crusty old father loves to tell the story of a woman sporting a necklace with Chinese characters on it until someone pointed out that it said she was a licensed prostitute.

There is no way my adorable Japanese wreath says anything of that sort!

And finally, look at this amazing poinsettia!   I probably have driven past this shrub at least once a week without noticing it but now it's in full bloom.  Usually the poinsettia shrubs look a little leggy and sparse to me but not this one.  I would put one in my own yard if I could guarantee it would look like this once a year.

I still love a seed catalogue

     I try to go paperless but the mail order companies won't let me.

It doesn't matter which boxes I check or uncheck when I order something, my post office box is going to be crammed full of catalogues within a couple of weeks.

Go directly to recycling!  Do not collect an order!

Still, my primitive child brain is switched on when I see a seed catalogue.  I carefully search for edibles that can survive in my hateful Florida yard, mark lots of pages, draw stars next to potential candidates, dog-ear pages, and organize my thoughts on the enclosed paper order form.  

Then I sit down in front of the laptop and join the current century.

The fabulous new (for me) benefit of double-checking my order on line is that this seed company offers an Amazon-like rating system with reviews written by people who have grown the plants in many different climates around the world and what their thoughts were on the taste/texture/etc. of the produce.  I had a particular Thai melon picked out until I read that the texture was unpleasantly mushy.

Scratch it off the list!

Here are the finalists:

Strange as it may sound, I believe I have been fed Mexican Sour Gherkins by a friend who is adept at foraging and he foraged them from the back of the parking lot at J.B.'s Fish Camp in New Smyrna Beach, Florida.  These are described as having a cucumber-like taste with a touch of lemon, huge yields, and perfect for tossing into a salad or pickling.  I'm in love!  Just grow for me!

I also ordered the Boston Pickling Cucumber, an old heirloom dating back to 1880.  I realize the climates of Boston and Orlando don't match up but cucumbers aren't usually too picky.

I love the delicious little heirloom cherry tomato that regularly volunteers in my back yard but it cannot be stored.  The moment it is picked, it splits, so I usually enjoy it right off the vine whenever I make the rounds of my veggies.  I want another tomato to compliment it and in my yard, the quicker it's ready, the better chance it has of evading the nematodes. 

I kept flipping past the Purple Bumble Bee because I found the typo in the photo annoying but that's not the tomato's fault so I added it to my order.

Of course I love the color but the selling point was a description of being crack-resistant and "unfazed by temperature extremes".  

Bring it on, Bumble Bee!

For my greens, I ordered the Ragged Jack kale, a pre-1885 heirloom that received good reviews from people growing it in warm climates.

Now for one of the nixed entries:

I'm fairly adventurous but I have an innate distaste for anything with the word "burr" in its name.  This plant seems to have it all including a USA pedigree starting in 1793 and a history prior to that of thriving in Jamaica, but I look at the fruits and I think 2 words:  prep time.

That's ok.  I find I do better if I limit my gardening adventures to a few new experiments a year.

I hope to have lots of new veggie info to post by summer!

Crap! It's cold!

     It finally happened:  central Florida got a freeze.

     I try not to let it get me down.  I put those socks on with my flip flops and switch the light bulb in the hen house to a cozy infrared warming bulb.  Like many animals, chickens seem to be able to tolerate cold weather better than extreme heat.

     My ladies are on overdrive.  That's 15 eggs in that nest for anyone who's counting.  Granted, that's 2 days' worth but they are on a mission!  Winter has been a time of bounty in my little yard: I stacked all the calabazas on the patio to be consumed at my leisure; there are enough eggs to share with friends; the lemons all ripened at once, and I continue to pick a papaya every other day for smoothies.  Fingers crossed:  I think the heirloom cherry tomato bushes might have escaped the worst of the frost damage and the fruits are starting to turn red!

     I imagine Martha Stewart has said, "When life gives you lemons, start baking."  I juiced, and zested, and mixed my way to 4 loaves of dry-as-dust lemon cake.  I'm better with savories.  Anyway, that's what ice cream is for!   

     A friend gave me an amazing soundtrack for all that baking...

She knows me so well!

    So I have a new favorite pattern for knitting hats and I had to do an Exorcist move to take this selfie:

     I'm just glad I still have this kind of range in my 48 year old neck.  

     Christmas spoiler alert to friends and family in Missouri:  I've been knitting and knitting and knitting  the same hat over and over again.  My youngest stepson grabbed one for himself and I was gratified to hear that he wore it to school.  

He wears it well!

     I guess my version of people photographing their food is photographing my plants.  I thought this winter bouquet turned out well.  The bleeding hearts are spent but the flower husks still have a beautiful color and I threw in a branch I pruned off a variegated schefflera.

     On a final note, kudos to the Dremel company for backing their product.  My 6-month old Dremel died so I mailed it to them and they sent me another which was DOA so I mailed that back and they sent me ANOTHER which works great and they included an accessory.

     Man, I could write this stuff but I never would have dreamed the above sentence would make the final cut!  :-)