Back on the Wagon

Wow. Random. I suddenly had a bunch of blog views on my post about dog breeding…which unfortunately never happened! Not with Shera at least. We’re hoping that if Brees turns out to be as great as we think he will be, we will breed him. But seeing as he’s a male, we wouldn’t have a whole litter, we’d prolly just get pick of the litter…but I’d be fine with that :-)

kisses for mumma!

On to other things now. I haven’t really been trying much of anything lately…which is maybe why I haven’t blogged much lately. I’ve decided, however, that today I am going to start a herb garden. Yup. AND, I’m going to get my composter back up and running (oops, did I not mention that I’ve been neglecting it the last couple weeks months? teehee) Now that our horrible, evil housekeeper “H” no longer works for us, it shouldn’t be as difficult to maintain. I swear I told her on a daily basis, no grapefruit, no banana peels, etc. And yet, they ended up jamming my poor composter EVERY DAY! Ugh! Seriously though! To the point that it actually broke, and I had to email NatureMill for them to send me new parts! And believe me, it’s no fun installing those new parts into the dirty stinky composter! Yeck!

Also, I discovered this cool new blog today called Herban Lifestyle! (so clever hey?) That’s actually what inspired me to start my herb garden tonight. But anyway, the point I was getting at was that she posted a recipe for Mulberry Pie! How cool is that?! If you’ve ever read my blog, you may recall that I have several mulberry trees in my yard! So I’m uber excited to try this new form of mulberry goodness!

My prospective list of herbs…and some non-herbs: (provided that the nursery has them in stock)

• Rosemary
• Thyme
• Basil
• Oregano
• Parsley (flat-leaf/Italian)
• Bay Leaf
• Mint
• Neem
• Lavender
• Garlic
• Arugula

SO. Do we think it’s a bit over ambitious? I’m not sure…

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Not trying much

For those of you who may have noticed I’m not really “trying” much lately…I have a good reason.

As far as my exercising goes, well, I have 2 excuses…

#1 is I’ve had this stubborn chest cough for 2 weeks now!!! I feel mostly fine, and I’m not congested or achy or anything, but just have this horrible, gross cough! I dunno what the deal is.

#2 is kind of embarrassing. Actually, I was really embarrassed. The other day, when I was leaving work, I was pulling out of my parking space (keep in mind that I drive a scooter) and when I turned the throttle to give it some gas, I’m not sure if I gave it too much, or the throttle jammed or what, but me & the scooter took off, and I lost control, almost crashed into a parked car, and eventually fell over and hit the pavement. *tear*

I ripped up my good work trousers, & scratched and bruised up both knees and the top of my left foot. Lucky for me (this is sarcasm) a bunch of people were around to witness my wipe out, and ran over in a flurry of concern. I’m grateful they were there in case I really had been hurt, and their concern was very nice. But really, I was more or less fine, just felt really stupid.

A day later, once all the bruises had set in real good, I realised I must have hit the handlebars with my right shoulder, cuz it’s killing! Soooo, I have been unable to run and/or wear tennis shoes with my various injuries.

With regard to my composting/gardening activities. Well, one day, I opened up the bottom tray to dump the compost, to find 2 shiny metal pieces laying on top. I subsequently photographed and emailed the pix to NatureMill, telling them my latch wouldn’t close either. They replied right away saying it was a problem that has been noted and they’d mail me an upgrade latch right away, free of charge. Which they did. Actually, they sent two. I hope that doesn’t mean their ‘upgrade’ is bound to fail as well…

I finally got around to installing the new latch yesterday afternoon. It was a stinky, messy, tricky job. First of all, the instructions were kind of vague, and second of all, the composter handles waste. So, inherently, it kind of stinks. Although it’s not like rotten garbage smell, it’s some kind of smell. Anyhow, it got done. Thank goodness. I guess that’s another thing I should be thankful for.

I’m also thankful it’s almost CHRISTMAS!!! Ahhhhhh! I gonna get my tree & decorations this weekend! Yayz for dayz!

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Step 3: JUICE!

You may have guessed by now that all that growing and sprouting was leading to something…JUICING! :) (well…eating too)

not sure why it’s so frothy…

The last penultimate piece of gadgetry (is that a word…I say yes) is our fancy Juicer, the Green Star 2000. Awesome.

Ultimately, we’re hoping to be able to sprout, grow and juice all our own fruit…but in the interim, we just juice whatever decent produce the store has.

Here she is in action with some Granny Smith Apples!

nom nom nom

The advantage of this type of juicer  (“twin gear”) which crushes the produce much as your own teeth would, as opposed many of the others on the market which basically pulverise the produce and then send it through a centrifuge to remove the juice, is that it retains much more of the nutrition (supposedly). Another great synergistic benefit of this juicer is all the great pulp it churns out! It’s super dry-so you really know you’re getting all the juice out of the produce, and well…that pulps all ends up in Step 4! Read on folks (the suspense is killing you, I know…)

precious pulp!!

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