The City Mouse in the Country

      In some ways our first garden was successful.  We did manage to grow a few tomatoes, some wonderfully sweet strawberries.  Fresh basil, rosemary and thyme are used in a more than a few fresh dishes (see our recipe page for a couple of wonderful dishes ).  Although they were small, we even managed a few cucumbers.     Sadly both insects and deer got to my Brussel sprouts.  Although our zucchini flowered like crazy, for some reason we were robbed of this wonderful fruit .  We also failed to produce a single pepper despite our plants growing strong all year.     It's easy to blame this on a lot of things.  Not having the plants watered enough or the right container or 1001 other things that could have gone wrong.   I'm concentrating on the positive.   My lovely wife Susan loves to make and eat simple tomato sandwiches.  Sadly raw tomato does horrors to my digestive tract, but I can eat them after they have been cooked in some way.     I proved to myself that I could grow som

    Generally speaking about Six PM every night it's my job to feed our cats.  Officially we have three.  Unofficially we have seven or eight.       Even though we don't have a barn...we have barn cats.   Our neighbor has horses and he encourages the barn cats because they do a great job of preventing mice and other rodents from getting into the feed.       When we moved into this home some two odd years ago, we were frankly asked if we wanted the previous owners two cats trapped.   "No," my Susan said, "they were there before us."        Since then we had one of the original two outdoor cats pass, while the other one is a semi permanent fixture on our back porch.  She sneaks in sometimes and once I woke up from a nap only to find her at my feet purring away contently.  Our youngest cat, Bobble (so named because his head was bigger than his body when he was a kitten), was meant to be leashed trained because of future plans of traveling the country in an RV,

  I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. - Thomas Jefferson            I sit outside on our front porch, a tall cool glass of home brewed iced tea in my hand.   I'm looking over our "front 40" - basically a few raised garden beds and containers holding our strawberries, cucumbers, tomato's, peppers, Brussels spouts and zucchini.  There is not much I can do for them now, just let them grow and hope that we get a harvest of something soon.   I'm actually a bit anxious about the garden, I want to have something...anything for the effort.     You can plant a seed and try to take care of it as much as possible, but so much is out of your control.     Although to be honest, for the most part I am actually very content, and I can't help but think of an opening line of a poem I once read.  Sadly the rest of the poem has slipped from memory.  The opening line was simply.  "

     Over the last couple of weeks, I've had a lot on my mind.  I've been given the opportunity to pursue two different, yet very similar jobs through my current company.  Both would pay me more and both offer me more, yet oddly similar responsibilities.  Although there is a great difference in how I would carry them out.        One of these positions would allow me to continue to work from home, where I can  continue to save money by not having to commute and work four - ten hour days in a week, having an extra day off in the middle.        The other position is in the city of Pittsburgh.  It's roughly  75 minutes away by car and that means additional expenses like parking and gas, in addition to my adding anywhere from eight to ten hours in commute time each week.  However it's a little more in line with my long term goals and, despite my bitching about it earlier, I do miss people.        Frankly I have already made up my mind - if offered the job in Pittsburgh I be

      To be honest I'm not sure how many containers we have growing with various fruits and vegetables growing in them.  I never really did a count, all I know is that my strawberry bushes have little red strawberries on them, that my zucchini is blooming and my tomato plants will soon need to be surround by cages.        I'm hesitant to say that my first garden is successful, but I feel pretty confident that we will soon have green peppers and sprouts on our plates.    I have fresh thyme, basil and parsley just outside our back door; along with cucumbers that are ready to vine up a vertically standing pallet.       Technically this is not my first garden, as my ex-wife Teri and myself planted a more "traditional" tilled garden years ago and produced much the same foodstuffs as I'm growing in containers,  Growing in a container however is a bit easier to manage and certainly makes weeding easier.       Even the dogwood trees I planted seem to be doing well.      

     I broke my own unwritten rule the other day.  Within the last year or so I decided that I was going to embrace a plant based diet because of health reasons.   Heart disease and high blood pressure runs in my family and, roughly two years ago, swelling in one of my legs put the fear of God into me.       As it happened it ended up being nothing but it did concern me.        So I gave up the sugary drinks for the most part and made other changes that I thought were needed, and that lead to my current semi plant based diet..  One of those changes was a pact that I made with myself.  If a restaurant offered a vegan or vegetarian option then I would order it.           Not only would I be doing something that (hopefully) was healthier but I would also be supporting the bottom line for those options.  We live in a world where the bottom line is king and if a vegan/vegetarian option makes a profit; then it's more likely to stay on the menu.            A funny thing happene

      Last week I got a great comment via Reddit concerning this blog and why I do it.  "Leaving a legacy to future ancestors through climate awareness - a smashing idea."       I was just happy that someone was reading what I wrote, and I appreciated it.  To make things even better, he's a professional writer and I highly recommend his blog .  I'm grateful for any feedback and this simple comment made me feel like I was on the right path.        So when I sat down this week, electronic pen in my virtual hand, I had a lot of thoughts bouncing around in my head.   My small container garden is growing, my dogwood trees (with edible fruit) haven't died and I got to spend some time with my 90 year old father; who seemed to fall in love with the goldfinches at my bird feeders.  Susan noticed the number of bees and hummingbirds that have been attracted to our yard, and laughingly told me not to mow till August.    Photo by Birds Unlimited     I've noticed something