TXTibbs said:
I don't even like salt on my watermelon. But I also eat like to eat Tang mix or russian tea mix with a spoon :lol: :lol: :wink:
Now TX Tibbs, that's what I call a real sweet tooth!
or desparation.
What color are your teeth after the Tang? Probably the reversed color of this guy
?
Here's an article that has some funny parts for those of us who attempt raising our own food (what the author calls Homesteading Hysteria)
My garden doesn't fit stereotype
By Chris Remick
[email protected]
After my latest garden fiasco, I began thinking about my critical lack of horticultural aptitude.
First, let me say that not everything I planted in my fit of gardening madness two years ago is dead. Actually, a few things have grown quite well. I have a huge crop of mint that is nearly four feet tall. My ornamental grasses are flourishing in the tall grass patch surrounding my birdhouses, I think. My chives got so top-heavy they fell over but I think that is just their way of seeding themselves in.
All the things I never planted, such as weeds, are thriving. For me of the two black thumbs this is a sort of success.
There are gardeners and there are appreciators and I am definitely in the latter category. I certainly admire a well kept garden and a beautifully groomed lawn. Maybe because neither can be found at my house. I do not enjoy gardening in any form.
In a period of homesteading hysteria I did have a huge vegetable garden. It was a residual effect of the hippie back-to-the-land thing in the late 1960s and I was doing my bit to respect the earth.
I raised enough produce to can and freeze winter provisions as well as eat and share the fresh bounty. No one told me that 101 things to do with zucchini wasn't nearly enough.
It slowly dawned on me that I could simply go to the farmer's market and buy smaller amounts of veggies and eliminate the whole dreaded gardening process. We could live on canned soup during the winter.
Of course we do have to mow down our hayfield of a lawn every once in a while. I really do prefer the natural look but that doesn't work in a neighborhood. Our neighbors are much more diligent at mowing and planting their yards. I can't say it has anything do with their youth although after all these decades we are definitely weary of yard work.
Even when we were young we lived like hillbillies camping out on our property. Snow is a great equalizer.
In winter our yard looks as good as anyone's. In summer we appear to be past due for attention. I often complain to my husband that all we need is a junk car and a bathtub to make our yard complete.
I have come to realize my snide comment isn't far from the truth. I really just want to decorate the yard, not plant, pluck and prune vegetation. I confess I am a "junker." I have a strange addiction to other people's junk, which requires constant vigilance to keep under control. I lost control long ago.
Almost all my home furnishings came from auctions or yard sales. I do sell bits and pieces presumably for profit.
Having a shop helps justify my habit. Because of my accumulative nature my house reached maximum capacity long ago. Some deep-seeded impulse is driving me to expand my will toward embellishment outdoors.
As I walk about my yard I don't see my pitiful plantings, I see the stuff that declares it is my yard rather than some land-proud gardener.
There is an assortment of creatures fabricated from broken bits of tools and machinery, and bizarre wooden carvings share odd places with cut-steel figures.
There are a few cast carvings of mythological figures along with the usual outdoorsy stuff such as birdhouses, a sundial, and a couple birdbaths. There's also several large lovely pots that wold be wonderful for plants but I figure why dirty them since I'd never keep the plants alive.
A few years ago I crafted a fairy circle that consists of white sand, beach glass, a woven twig teepee and old car license plates. I have no proof that it actually attracts fairies but then again I have no evidence that it doesn't.
Under the overhang of my barn is a truly eclectic grouping of rubble. There is the usual broken but presumed repairable cluster of mowers, blowers, and unidentifiable machinery. The centerpiece, according to my husband, is the base of an old wringer washing machine I dragged home years ago. To his mind, it is the same thing as a lawn tub — big, ugly and unnecessary. I am stunned by his lack of imagination.
Once painted and the top covered with bits of broken crockery I am saving, it will be the ultimate out door table. If I never get around to the project, it will forever provide my kids with a head-shaking giggle.
My yard may reflect my house, or more likely my mind; scatterbrained and cluttered.
Perhaps it indicates a bit too much primitive civilization on this particular spot on the planet. So it goes in the land of the anti-gardener.
Chris Remick lives in Rye and can be reached by e-mail at chriskneedeepfarm.com
