The City Mouse in the Country

The month of May for what ever reason seems to be passing slowly, but the year seems to be flying by.   Suddenly we are nearing the end of the month and I'm only now getting to work on the yard.   I did go in search of an electric powered riding lawnmower, for the same reasons that I went in search of an electric car.    Both searches failed, as the local hardware, lawncare and "big box" stores simply didn't carry any electric riding mowers.  I could have ordered an electric mower off of Amazon, or similar site, and had it shipped but then I would be looking at a two week delivery timeframe, and would have exceeded t he budget that I had set for myself. The grass, though high and feeding a variety of pollinators and other insects would simply not wait much longer.  Plus ticks are always a concern in Western PA at this time of year, and one way to control them is to keep your grass cut.   I had already had a few instances of dealing with...

Bad things they say; happen in groups of three.  Lately we feel that this has been multiplied by at least three, then that by three.  Nor was this the article I was hoping to publish this week, but here it is warts and all! Thankfully there is nothing seriously wrong with my family health wise, and this is nothing that some more hard work and dedication will get us though.  There is one big personal item that I can not go into details on to protect her privacy but what is affecting us right now is that we are again faced with decisions on what to do concerning some major purchases.   I've already written about having to buy a "newer" car but I'm not going to bore you with details about replacing the water heater or unexpected tax bills.  At the beginning of May, our riding lawn mower died.   This in itself is not that big of a deal because I got a good five to six years out of a used machine, and the fact that it has started to give up the ghost ...

  This is a true story.   Years ago when I was a young man studying Evolutionary Biology as part of my teaching degree; our professor told us this story.  His professor at the time walked in, dropped the textbook into the trash and said something to the effect of " The discovery of complex life developing in deep sea vents changes everything we thought we knew." In other words....the biologists at the time were surprised to discover multiple colonies of complex animals with completely different biochemistry living in a very hostile environment, at that time it was believed that only small organisms evolved in the extreme temperatures and high pressure of the deep sea vents.    Suddenly there were advanced forms of life (worms and crabs) whose biochemistry was unlike any thing else on the planet.   Evolution, at least the way it was understood at the time, changed.   This story has stuck with me all these years because it teaches a v...

       In many ways, I want to make this home of ours into a gem.  We have an idea of what we want to paint, what we want to update and what we want to replace completely.     If the weather cooperates, this morning at the time of writing there is a heavy thunderstorm moving through, I hope to add some more rocks to my "Dry Creek" project and start/finish the often delayed fire pit build. Taken from a window during a storm     Well we did not plant a garden this year for a variety of reasons; we do have the room in front of the house for a wonderful and varied garden.   It's also the part of our property that gets the most sun and has a very fine slope away from the home so water can flow out towards our road.     We may never be self sufficient but we can be a little smarter and environmental conscious on what we do, and how we do things.   This is why I am thinking about letting so...

       When you own a home or any piece of property, you realize how much you don’t really know.    You become a plumber, an electrician, a landscaper and a painter.   You become, or are forced to become, a lot of little things as part of being a homeowner.   It’s in the fine print of that contract you signed.        I thought about that and 1001 little things during the last few days.  Recently my riding lawnmower needed a blade replaced, which I replaced with mulching blades, only for me to hit a hidden root with it again – on a tree that was scheduled to come down this weekend.   Now the mower assembly will not engage at all; shutting down the whole machine.   We have to have it repaired for the second time within a week.       I thought about how the summer thunderstorms moving through our area all this week were turning our “dry creek bed” project into a very wet, very...

      The official first day of spring was roughly three weeks ago, although I think in most people minds, spring officially starts around Easter.   The last of the cold fronts have hopefully moved through and we are all waiting, anticipating, the growing season to start.     It's almost a palpable energy sweeping through this small community.  All around our small town; I see fields getting plowed, garden beds are getting readied, even our own.  Talk of what fertilizer to use and potting soils fill each and every store around us.  Weed killers, organic and otherwise, are quickly flying off the shelves.  The hum of lawnmowers and other equipment fills the air.           With each day that passes, another tree blooms.  Another flower sprouts.  Our yard is filled with daffodils and here and there, even a dandelion pops up.      Officially the first frost free day is...

    Hey everyone!  Did you know that this page now has a companion Facebook page?    It will have articles, memes and such that interes t me that relate to this page but don't really apply.  For example, did you know that for thousands of years it was considered rude if you didn't let the bees know there was a death in the family?   Anyhow, check out the link above and let me know what you think.   Now on with the show!!!            Over the past few days I've had a few things on my mind.   When I was focused on getting our house updated and up to code it was easy to concentrate on what needed done. Finishing the roof, the porch and a few other small projects occupied my mind.  My mother's untimely death in mid October also gave me time to focus on that, putting aside future plans to concentrate on the here and now.       Now that the major work has been completed and...

 First off, I'm a fan of history and food.  So when I found Tasting History on YouTube I was a fan right off the bat. In fact, I tried this dish below.  Although I was disappointed in it at the end of the day.  I didn't have two of the ingredients; lovage and caraway seeds (which Sue swore she had), so I ended up replacing them with celery leaf and cumin.  The chicken ended up being very moist and peppery but there was no "wow" flavor.  Nothing that unusual about it, even though it used several ingredients that I was unfamiliar with.  I don't mind being pushed out of my comfort zone in the name of good food. It did bring up an interesting question for me however.  If I'm serious about learning how to garden, preserving my food and other things...would I be willing to try and raise "forgotten" foods? This interest actually goes all the way back to collage, when I learned that Spirulina was used by the Aztecs in a type of dried cake.   ...