The City Mouse in the Country

Hi. As the writer of the post and feel that I need to clarify something. I do not advocate the planting of invasive species. The point that I'm trying to make, and clearly didn't, is that perhaps we should be thinking about an invasive species in a different light. Apples, figs and other crops are clearly non native to America and Europe but are widely cultivated because they have use to humans as a food source, animal feed, etc. Kudzu is an edible plant and although it is clearly harmful can it be used someway by humans? It's a food source, it's been used as a cloth and is showing some use as a building material. All I'm trying to do is to create discussion on how we can use invasive plants in new ways.   It's mid April here in Western Pennsylvania and so far it's been warm and wet.  The buzz of lawnmowers fill the air as I gallivant through my back yard collecting dandelions to make some tea and bread with them.  I had always known that they w...

Without getting into much detail, I was sitting in a doctor's office  recently waiting on my appointment browsing through "Bon Appetit" magazine.  There was a recipe that caught my eye, which at the time of this writing; I have not tried.   I'll be sure to include the recipe for Tomato Roasted Onions with Paprika on the recipe links page of this blog.  What caught my attention was not only were they using onion as the main dish, but the ease and simplicity of it as well.  It also feeds into something that I've been thinking about recently (pun intended).  That is the very real threat of food scarcity in the near future due to climate change. We are only a super storm or a drought away from disaster and a few years ago some food and other items disappeared off the shelves due to COVID.  Costs for other foods skyrocketed and came down slowly over time.   This food scarcity issue was mostly a temporary one, but it did serve as a wake up call f...

I feel like an old man as I watch the blustery snow swirl outside my window.  I'm wrapped in a warm sweater, drinking an aromatic herbal tea and I am at peace.  " All I am missing, " I think to myself, " is a pipe and my cranky old man persona would be complete. "  Winter gives me time to think.    I hate the winter, the cold and the dark of it.  I hate the short days, the snow and the cold rain.  I hate the very thought of dealing with it. It was winter that drove me south all those years ago. We have yet to have a harsh winter since moving back to Western Pennsylvania.  We have had cold snaps and snow of course, but the snaps haven't settled in for months and the snow - while heavy at times - has generally melted away quickly.  This has made the winter bearable for me. Winter gives me a break, a moment to stop and catch my breath before the busy seasons begin again.  Lately I've been thinking about work and what I have to do come ...

If you have been following this blog for some time then you know that 2023 has not been a great year for us.   We have dealt with death, failure, job changes (which I realize was a mistake) and more negatives than positives. That's life.  It was the hand that we were dealt. Now that Thanksgiving day is upon us (and at the time of publication, past us), it occurs to me that we do have some things to be thankful for.  We do have good friends and a strong family.  We do have money in the bank and jobs that we are successful at. We have our health. We can change some things and work on making our lives better.   We also have, perhaps overly ambitious plans, for the winter and next spring.  We plan on painting this winter, which has been on the agenda for sometime but still has not been accomplished.  If we manage to get one room done then I'll consider it to have been a success.  Then in the spring, I think I'll put off planting anything like a t...

 I'm the first one to admit that I'm pretty useless when it comes to any thing what I have to build or assemble.  For example it took me three days to assemble a closet from Ikea for our previous home in Florida. Although to be honest the instructions were not that clear about what part to begin with, although once we did start it came together pretty quickly and, to the best of my knowledge, still stands today.  My comfort zone has moved somewhat since I've moved out to the country.   I'm not afraid to take on a project knowing that I'll learn from it in some way. We started planning our garden in the last days of fall, although it appears that both Sue and I didn't communicate enough.  I was thinking that we would do a container garden and grow some some simple things like Basil, Brussel Sprouts, Carrots, Cilantro, Cucumbers, Garlic, Onions, Parsley, Parsnip, Peppers, Radish, Strawberries, and Tomatoes.  For a family of 2, we would need...

Suddenly it's spring!!!  Actually, it's not but with temperatures in the high 40's (7 t0 9 C) it's certainly feeling like it.  We even hit a few days were it was 68 and 70 degrees (20 - 21 C).  The grass is starting to change from its winter brown to a lush and vibrant green; a few trees are even stating signs of early budding.   However as anyone that has ever lived in Western Pennsylvania knows old man winter has at least one more trick up his sleeve and snow as late as April is a real possibility.  We can't count out the old man just yet. If I am serious about wanting to plant a garden and work towards making this yard an edible oasis, then sometime this weekend I need to start planting seeds indoors.  That's the goal.  While we may not a proper garden this year, we have been prepping since last fall.   It's not pretty but it's something. Last year I think we waited too long to plant and didn't have much in the way of cross pollinatio...

      At the age of 56, it occurs to me that I have roughly 30 years left in my life give or take a few.  I've (sadly) never had kids.  So in some ways my newly found environmentalism might be my way of leaving some sort of lasting legacy?     I honestly don't know.   I'm no dummy, I know that what ever I do is spitting into the ocean.  However I also feel that not doing anything is morally bankrupt.  You can make a difference in one persons life, even though you may never see that outcome.       For whatever reason I've been coming across a lot of info on No Mow May - which is a simple idea to let your lawn grow wild during the month of May, allowing bees and other pollinators to do their thing and help re-establish a needed but diminishing species.  I let part of my yard "go wild" last year and I'm planning on letting the same parcel go wild this year.      Only I'm pla...

        Pennsylvania never changes; and this has given me anxiety.  I have a variety of wild flower and grass seed that I want to plant along the front of the porch.   I've containers ready for the few tomato's, peppers, zucchini herbs and strawberries that I am planning on growing.       I have two dogwood trees and a few flowers that I planted this past weekend.   I've never planted a tree in my life.   They are in the ground now and all I could think was " Well, it's in God's hands now."     Part of this stress and the anxiety that I feel is because of a typical Pennsylvania spring can consist of highs of 80 only to be followed by snow on the ground, often in the same day.   So if I plant to early, I risk killing the very things that I want to grow.   If I plant to late, then I worry that I won't have much of a harvest at all.        Where I...

          Recently I went out to eat with friends and I order a vegetarian option.   After getting playfully teased about eating rabbit food, the conversation turned to eating healthy, and the expenses of trying to maintain a healthy diet.     We also talked about gardening, canning, and the fact that they felt things were going to get much, much worse with the American economy.     While I am far from being a survivalist, I can honestly say that one of the reasons I want to learn to garden, to forage and store my own food is because I don't like where we as a country and as a planet are going.   No, this isn't a political blog, my concerns are more food availability and environmentally based then they are political.        If the pandemic showed us anything, it's that the supply chain can be interrupted and supplies can become diminished rather quickly.   Plus when co...

      I've been wondering of late if I should put this blog to rest.       It's been over a year and I'm nowhere near the audience that I've had in the past with other blogs.  Of course, those were a bit more focused.   In the past I wrote about Second and Third Tier soccer in the states, during a time when information about that level of play was hard to come by.   I wrote about communities in virtual reality pioneer Second Life and I wrote about my adventures on a motorcycle .     Myself and my Mom on back All of those blogs had a few thousand readers, and one of the greatest joys in my life was when I was recognized in a bar for my work with the now defunct and fan driven A-league.com ( USL soccer ) website.   I'm lucky if I break a few hundred hits here on any one piece.      Of course, this blog is unfocused.  I'm trying to cover a lot of ground here...and there is a...

    Over the past few days the temperature has been on a roller coaster ride as we hit peak highs and small dips that remind us that this is Western Pennsylvania and winter may not be over till April.  However the days are getting warmer and spring - once a faraway dream - seems to be sneaking in.        I was even able to open the windows a few days ago and the last of the snow; dating back to mid December, has finally melted away.        The other night I watch as a family of deer grazed outside my front window nibbling on the first green sprigs of grass, our youngest cat looking on in fascination.  Spring is coming.  The days are getting longer and I think about planting some flowers and seedlings obtained through the Mercer Country Conservation website .      I'm thinking that the native wild flowers and grasses will make a nice addition to the home.     ...

           Although no one asked for it, I thought it might be fun to do another food review (my blog, my rules).  I figure that eventually we American's are going to have to adapt to a more plant based diet and if I do nothing more than convince two people to try something new...then they can convince two people to try something new...I've done my job as concerned and decent human being.    In some ways we are already moving that way as the sale of plant based food items recently reached a peak.   I think it has dipped currently due to a lot of different reasons, but the market will only rebound in the future.       So yesterday I decided that it was a good day to try and go meatless for the entire day.  I've been trying to incorporate a few more meals per week into my "Meatless regime" and thought I would make some Tasty Bite Bombay Potatoes as a quick late lunch/early dinner.    ...

       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...