Rupa and the April Fishes

One of the most important things my dad taught me was to always try something once. Growing up, we rarely went to the same place twice, the exception being if we were visiting friends and family. This weekend, while visiting family in NYC, I tagged along with my step brother to see a band I had never heard of called, Rupa and the April Fishes, and I was in love about ten seconds into the first song.
These guys are from San Francisco and are absolutely amazing! First off, they sing in several languages, including; Hindi, French, Spanish, and English. Second their music is a beautiful blend of several different styles, the closest thing I can come up with is Klezmer, or Gypsy music. Third, you really have to TRY to stay seated through the show. Fourth, the songs aren't your typical top 40 dribble, sure there are songs about love and loss, but much of the music is profound aches and longings, as well as moving on and improving the world. Lastly, the lead singer's other job is being a profesor of internal medicine. Anyone else feel like a slacker?

Video from: http://vimeo.com/5441250

Currently these guys are doing a six month world tour called Build after their latest album. Farmer Ben is running their merch booth, and is doing a seed exchange. He will trade seeds with you or, if you don't have seeds, talk to him, and he'll be happy to share some with you. This guy knows tons about the seeds he has, and is more than happy to talk with you about them, as well as share his knowledge of farming, or share some information about how to save seeds. I  got a few Popping Buckwheat seeds from SC, that I will be trying to grow in a container later on this year. Hopefully I'll actually be able to get seeds from the plants.
Also, their current album "BUILD" is available in CD, or digital format. For $5, you can buy a download code, which is printed on a small card that is full of wild flower seeds! So, once you have safely downloaded the album, you can plant the card, and add a little beauty to this world.
Check out Rupa and the April Fishes' website for tour info, more music, and just general awesomeness: http://theaprilfishes.com/

Last night, I had my first experience with a pressure canner . The good news is, it didn't explode. Due to the previous statement, there is no bad news.

Lessons learned:
* When using a dishwasher to sanitize jars, start sanitizing before doing anything else, to avoid having to sit and stare at the dishwasher for an hour after the items to be canned are ready to be jarred.
* Read the pressure canner instructions BEFORE you start trying to can.
* When making a giant pot of stock, it is not necessary to cut all of your veggies into tinny pieces.
* Add herbs to your stock at the same time as the water, not while you're sweating the veggies, especially when the herbs include red pepper flakes. (I accidentally maced the kitchen when the red pepper reconstituted and released capsaicin into the air.)

Not a bad evening, even if it did take a couple hours longer than anticipated!

Curse you cookie gun! I will not be outsmarted by the likes of you!

The cats are fired.

So yesterday, I decided I was going to do a little bit of kitchen clean up, I opened up the cabinet where I keep the excess of my dry goods, and was greeted by a small cascade of rice. Strange. Upon closer inspection I found that the bag in which the rice had lived, had been dutifully chewed into non-existence. Oh joy of joys.
Assuming that the mouse got in through the gap around the pipe for the sink drain, I grabbed some steel wool, and a can of expandable foam, and got down to fill the gap.... and proceeded to scream like a little girl. Apparently the little guy had decided to lie in wait, until I was under the sink before springing forth squeaking and running for his fuzzy life. I'm not afraid of chipmunks, I've kept hamsters for pets, I find NYC subway rats entertaining, but a little tan mouse under my sink? TERRIFYING.
Slamming the cabinets shut, I presented Will with a frying pan, and insisted that since I was cleaning up after the rodent, I was leaving the vanquishing duties to him. After much back and forth (he loves animals and really hated the idea of killing the little guy), we found the cupboard empty. I filled the hole, and put out one trap out by where I thought the entry point was. Hopefully, the mouse moved on to fuller cupboards and won't be making another appearance in our apartment, or in the mouse trap.

SOUP

On one hand, I love summer. You get all the yummy veggies and fruit at the farm stand, the birds are chirping, swimming is an option....

On the flip side of the coin, I hate the summer. It's muggy, hot, the bugs are out in force, and being in a city you feel like you're trapped in a sauna after someone sprayed you down with oil and dust. Ew.
The worst part about summer is that soup, is pretty much out of the question. Being a bit of a wuss about the heat, I'm not too eager to boil anything for dinner, and I am yet to find a cold soup recipe I actually like.
However, with summer drawing to a close and the evening temperatures dipping lower and lower, it's finally getting to be time when I can make some soup!
My favorite recipe in the last year has been a potato and kale soup, the recipe is redicoulosly simple, and can be made out of 4 ingredients.

Potato and Kale Soup
6 cups of stock your favorite stock
1 package of spicy sausage
4-5 pealed potatoes cut into quarters
4 shredded kale leaves

Bring the potatoes, and stock to a boil, reduce heat and allow to simmer until the potatoes are tender. Mash the potatoes a few times, you don't want to over mash them, since you want a some chunks of potato in the soup. In the mean time, over a medium heat cook your sausages (I lied, you're going to need a 5th ingredient, oil for the pan). Once the sausages are cooked, cut them up into bite sized pieces, and add them to the potatoes and stock. Bring back up to a boil, and add the shredded kale. Allow mixture to simmer for about 2-3 minutes, until the kale is tender. Serve!

Being Russian, I like to add sour cream to my soup. (Okay, fine 6 ingredients).

My friends rock.

So last night I had a small faux girl's night. We were going to make Will wear a skirt, but between the chocolate, Apple Smash, and venison burgers we forgot. That's right, there were venison burgers courtesy of a very dear friend of mine. Best of all? She brought me extras, so now I have ground venison in my freezer! Yummy experimentation soon to come!

... pooooo

They say farming is all about poo management. Well, it is if you don't buy chemical fertilizer and have the livestock on hand to generate the necessary amount of manure. Being relegated to window sill farming, the amount of manure I deal with is relatively low. Or so I thought. This morning I was woken up to, "hey honey, I cleaned up the spill from the worm bin, but how do I turn the spout on?"
The worm bin decided that in the spirit of hurricane season, it would continue to flood. Apparently the little spout at the end of the bin got thoroughly clogged, and wouldn't drain off any more liquid. Needless to say, I woke up to another brown puddle on my kitchen floor. Again.
Nothing like mucking out your kitchen first thing in the morning....

I'm a bad worm colony overlord...

As you may already know, I have a small colony of worms. I say small because the worm bin that they live in is small enough for me to be able to lift; there is grunting and huffing involved. These little guys have been around for over 2 years through all of my neglect and abuse. I mean really, I'm waiting to wake up to a Gulliver's  Travels moment where they revolt,  tie me down, and demand timely feedings, roughage additions and poo harvesting.
I started with this colony, after taking a vermiculture workshop at my local CSA. I had been promised worms, however apparently the guy who supplied them had had a catastrophic boiler explosion in his basement, which had cooked all of his worms.Granted you can buy "red wigglers" pretty easily, go to a bait and tackle shop, or heck, just look online, however, I'm a product of the instant gratification generation and kept putting off putting in an order. Luckily for me a friend, lets call her Lena, had just inherited the colony from her next door neighbor. So... one fine Memorial Day weekend, I came home with a small Tupperware container of dirt, half eaten newspaper, and a fistful of worms.
I really didn't think these guys were going to survive. For one thing, I left them in the container for several days. Second, I transplanted them into a homemade contraption with included 2 plastic containers stacked together, (the interior container had a bunch of air holed drilled in for drainage and air flow), which lived under the kitchen sink. These plastic boxes were probably about 4"x8", I swear I was going to transplant them into a bigger box, but the one I had built was wooden, and I just didn't trust it not to get messed with on my front lawn. Fortunately for me, my wedding was about 3 months away, and my family screamed for a wedding registry. Being slightly twisted, I put a worm bin on my wedding registry; and got one!
The tiny colony of worms was soon transplanted into a massive 12"x12" box, which I filled with shredded news paper, dirt and food scraps. At the time I had a landing I could use for storage, where I kept the bin, however when I moved into my new place, these little guys had to come indoors.
Several days ago, when I originally started writing this post, I had just fed my little colony the remnants of a watermelon. This morning I woke up to a mini flood of brown liquid seeping out over the top lip of the bottom section of the bin. Apparently the watermelon raised the moisture level to some horrifying extremes. I sopped up the mess with some paper towels and threw them back into the bin, andadded a bunch more shredded newspaper. I also opened up the draining spout at the bottom of the bin to let the remaining liquid drain out into a jar. Here's hoping the watermelon flood of 2012 does not actually do any lasting damage to these little guys...

Junking

So Will and I went to a junk yard last Sunday. Largely it was a date. Now most people would be horrified, you went to a WHAT on a WHAT? But really, it was rather nice, the birds were chirping, it wasn't hot, or raining, and it was a beautiful way to spend the first couple of hours of the morning! We spend about an hour wandering around marveling at all the different ways the cars were stored dismembered.
Being slightly morbid, I found myself rather fascinated by some of the wrecked cars. Nothing like seeing the end results of a car fire, or a massive collision to put your life in perspective.

Pictures clockwise from the top left:
* My Dr Martin boot. New boots are good, slightly worn and scuffed are better!

* The front end of a car that had been raised and put on tires, bellow is zoomed out picture, where you can see the engine block in a jumble on the ground. To me it looked like the car had chewed it up and spat it out.

*The front end of a car that had been salvaged after a fire. Notice all the melted aluminum? That was the radiator once.

*An engine with the top removed. I just thought all the parts were pretty.