12 weeks 'til Hallowe'en :)

Yes, I am back again for a number of reasons:

1. I just got back a ton of time at work because I finally hired someone and she started and she's great and I'm not doing 2 jobs anymore!!!  Yay!!!
2. So much has happened.
3. I feel like writing again.
4. Hallowe'en is 12 weeks away and I'm planning on participating in CryptKeeper 2013 and if I don't get started writing now, I'll never build up to writing again on October 1.  

So here I am!!!

Catching up:

• Last September my in-laws moved into our house for 3 months. It was a difficult time. Let's leave it there. They moved out on New Year's Eve. 
• 2013 started very well and all has been going along swimmingly. About the first thing we did was get a dog. Her name is Mitzi Francesca Landsman, but I tend to call her Schmookieface. Michael calls her Mitzidoodle, the Wonder Poodle. She's AWESOME! I don't know how we found such a special dog, but I think she might be the best dog I've ever met.  Ever.
• I grew a billion cucumbers, tons of lettuce, a million tomatoes and 4 watermelons. I killed a ton of garlic and I have killed the dill again. I planted artichoke and while it produced chokes, I thought I'd give the plants some time to toughen up so I cut them off so the plants could grow. We'll see if that works. Also, I bought a fejoia tree and it is producing!!!
• I canned 200 pounds of loquats into every form I could think of.  Next year I'm going to ask for help. Also, I'm probably going to make some kind of liquor next year, because it seems everyone wanted loquat liquor. 
• I got two new chickens!!! Michael named one Marsala and my sister, Shannon, named one Super,
  
  after the cartoon.  I kept trying to tell her that SuperChicken was a rooster, but she didn't care.
• We went to Alaska for the last week in July and had a fabulous time. I went snorkeling. In Alaska. No, Michael didn't join me snorkeling because he's bok, bok, chicken!!! He stayed on the ship and napped. Wev.

I'm attending the Scare L.A. Hallowe'en Convention this weekend, August 10 and 11. I'll be spending a ton of time working the Southern California Valley Haunters booth, which I recently joined and LOVE. I can't believe I get to dress up for Hallowe'en in August.  I plan to take a billion photos.

BY THE WAY....Did you know that cameras can become obsolete because the batteries are no longer made and buying the special batteries online costs about 1/2 as much as a new camera?  Well, it's true.  And it sucks. So I need a new camera. Before Sunday...Grrrr.

So there it is folks.  My update for the past 10 months. Whew.  

First Hallowe'en post of the year

Boo!!!!

Courtesy of ExtremePumpkins.com

For those of you who know me, you know my...obsession? fascination? total preoccupation with Hallowe'en. For those of you who don't, well, there are 100 days until Hallowe'en and I've started the planning process.

Wednesday we received a box in the mail. It was about as heavy as a dead body, mostly because it was a dead body. Actually, to be more precise, it was a skeleton and it is now hanging about the house.  I left it in my place on the bed yesterday morning. I know the Mr. loved it! Just kidding, he didn't love it.  He thinks I'm kinda creepy, but he likes me just the same anyway.  I'm not sure what I'm going to call her. Cassandra perhaps...or Lizzy.  Not sure.  Lizzy has a certain ring to it.

So this year the preparations for Hallowe'en are starting a little early.  Usually I start getting frantic in mid-August realizing that Hallowe'en is right around the corner but I'm planning a little shindig this year and need to have all of my zombies in a row beforehand.  I've decided on an 80's theme for this year's festivities.  I'm not sure what exactly that will mean, but it will certainly involve glow-in-the dark paints and Oingo Boingo on the speakers.

This weekend I'm planning to work out some of the plans for the front yard as I have the back yard pretty well sketched out. I've been doing a graveyard for a couple of years in the front and would like to have some other plan for that as after 5 years of the Landsman Family Graveyard, I think it needs a bit of perking up. 

She looks sad... (courtesy of the brilliant and talented ShellHawk)

When we last spoke...

Well, actually, I skipped a bunch of stuff in that first post. I skipped how I rented a sod cutter, cut up all of my grass in preparation for a gorgeous new yard and our sewer line broke to the tune of all of the money we had saved up for the yard and then some.

Then I decided I would put in a new sprinkler system myself and dug trenches through the back yard. It took me a day of really sweaty work to dig one trench. But I kept going for another couple of days only to realize that I know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about sprinkler systems. (we looked on Google Earth yesterday and you can see the trenches from space...it looks like freaking half-finished alien crop grids. Awesome.)

At some point in all of this, I realized that the tree in the front yard wasn't a chestnut tree, which seemed sentimental in a Currier and Ives way but is totally useless to me as I don't eat nuts. It was a loquat tree. Lemme tell you, that shit is good.  Loquats are lovely, apricot-like fruit, but they don't really last more than a day off the tree, which is why you never see loquats at the market. So, if I was going to pick the loquats, I was going to have to do something with them.  I bought a ladder. I bought a fruit picker. I flung loquats jai alai-style into every neighbors yard within a block of me.  I eventually PUT. DOWN. THE. FRUIT PICKER.  I started canning.

Throughout it all, the Mr. was, for the most part, exceptionally supportive of my efforts. If he minded the sugar-encrusted walls in the kitchen and the awe-inspiring chasms in the yard, he didn't say so (much). He was also very supportive when I started picking up drills and saws and shovels and hoes (he he), as long as he didn't need to take me to the hospital. Toward which, I might add, I have a propensity. 

Now I have a beautifully planted side yard with 4 gorgeous raised beds producing snap peas, tomatoes, zucchini, strawberries and Kentucky beans. The fifth bed is in the main section of the yard where the entertaining patio will eventually live. It accommodates a sizable herb garden with oregano, sage, dill, rosemary, thyme, and basil. Separately, I have 4 pots of mint, each one a different kind, I think it's grapefruit mint, chocolate mint, peppermint and pineapple mint.  I'm going to experi-mint...ha ha.  Finally, there are pomegranate, peach, lemon and lime trees.The lemon and lime are doing poorly.  I can't quite figure out what I'm doing wrong with these, but that's another post.

Sounds good so far; but the farm is FAR from complete. I have that 60' x 24' patch of weed that was once the lawn, which I am turning into the core of the farm. The plans are drawn up, now I just need to start. It all begins with water. I can't really have a farm without it. So we're back to the sprinklers; which, I believe I might actually have to pay someone to install. It just seems like it's too important a job for me to screw up (I'm sorry, use as a learning experience).

I read. I love to read. When I find something I love to do, I read about it. I go to the library and check out books, I find magazines, I spend hours perusing Amazon for the best reviewed books. I started reading and doing, more reading, more doing.  Pros and cons. Horror stories and success stories. I read them all. It started with just a few books and a few raised beds. Then a composter. And another bed. Then a worm bin. Then another composter.  Eventually, I found my way to The Urban Homestead by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen. It's a good book. Funny. Clever. Well-written. They encourage getting backyard chickens.......

More tomorrow. :)

First farm post

Well, here I am again, back on the "blog wagon".  It's been a few years and I've made a bunch of life changes. One of which is that I found out how much I enjoy my little 0.14 acres of land in Burbank.

When the Mr. and I moved to Burbank in 2006, there was a pile of junk on the side of our new garage that was about a foot and a half high. When I cleared it out, it turns out there were these adorable little garden plots. Of course, it wasn't as easy as sinking some seeds and starting to grow.  The soil was compressed beyond comprehension.  I could barely get a shovel into it at all and I finally managed to plant a few things that promptly up and died on me.

Plan B.  I decided I would need to learn a new way of gardening so I went out and bought Square Foot Gardening (Mel doesn't know me and I don't know him, I just really like his book).  I read and read, and then I went to the hardware store and had lumber cut and shoved into my PT Cruiser.  I got out the drill and started drilling things together and the next thing I knew, I had two 8x3 raised beds.  I filled them with Mel's mix and planted some pumpkins and zucchini.  Lo and behold, I got pumpkins and zucchini!  Woo!

With some success on my side, I waited a few months and built another raised bed.  And then another raised bed.  I planted tomatoes.  I got slugs.  I ringed the beds in copper tape. I cut the hell out of my hands with it. I learned to use gloves.  I got tomatoes. I forgot to water.  I killed everything.

Another winter passed and while riding my silly trike through the alley behind our house, I saw an old, broken bookcase.  It looked like a raised bed to me. I persuaded the Mr. to help me drag it home.  He is very afraid when I drag stuff home. But, that very weekend I put on a 4th side and filled it with Mel's mix and planted strawberries.  Hence, begins the story of Bluestocking Farm.

I am really looking forward to writing this story and hope you enjoy it as well.  More tomorrow.