Guildy as charged

I've been working on a few drawings of potential guilds; this is a scan of the first one. I thought it might be fun to print out and color from the ink drawing. If you feel so inclined, you can download the picture here. If you color it, snap a picture, I want to see! And though I think it goes without saying, if you share the image with others, please link back or credit back to me in some way.

From Wikipedia's entry on Permaculture, the definition of guild:

A guild is any group of species that exploit the same resources, often in related ways. Guilds are groups of plants, animals, insects, etc. that work well together. Some plants may be grown for food production, some to attract beneficial insects, and others to repel harmful insects. When grouped together these plants form a guild.

Bits at a time

Ahhh, the porch. Remember that old beast? Here's the progress as we stand now. Lucky you, getting to see the progress in nearly real time. No staging here, you get to see all of the ugly, in-process details, folks.

On the Fourth we got a little farther, then progress halted again. We have to do these projects as time dictates, and sometimes that means taking the weekend off to be a family and do fun things together.  For us, that meant a quick trip to the family lake house to see my aunts and uncles and remind Mabel of the adventures to be had on the lake. Fishing, swimming, playing, experiencing the essence of adventurous summers.

Let it be known, Mabel is now familiar with the sludge sucking creature known as catfish.

Temptation and a Coconut Averted

A mid week vacation day deserves a little celebrating, especially when the temperatures are sticking to the low 100s. Hi-C seemed to think so this past Tuesday and came home fully prepared for a coconutty blowout, armed with pina colada mix, fresh pineapple and rum. Since I'm back on the weight loss wagon, a calorie packed frozen drink was tempting, but out of the question. Instead, I made my own lighter, tasty treat, one I dubbed Rhuby Pome.

Are you familiar with Izze sparkling juice? They're fruit juice sweetened, no corn syrup, no artificial colors or dyes; effervescent and delicious, albeit a bit more expensive than your typical cola. We don't usually have sodas in the house, but I bought a 4 pack of the Pomegranate Fortified* a week or so ago and stowed it away in the back corner of the fridge, knowing some form of temptation would arise and I needed to be prepared. 


The recipe? Fill your glass with ice, pour 8 oz Izze Pomegranate and 2 oz Rhuby (this translates into 4 parts Izze, 1 part Rhuby). Also, it's imperative you let the glass sweat so your perspiration soaked shirt won't be lonely.

For a finishing touch? Make the drink super fancy looking by raiding the party supplies from your toddler's 2nd birthday: stripey straws make everything taste better. 

Take a picture, it'll last way longer than your Rhuby Pome will.

*I should add I generally find "fortified" products to be a marketing scheme, as they usually add little to no nutritional value to daily intake. I think these are probably a way to make Pepsi's Izze competitive with Coke's Vitamin Water and I bought them because I like Izze, not because I wanted extra nutrients. Sugary foods, even fruit juice sweetened, should be the occasional treat, and nothing can replace the way our bodies rely on whole and wholesome fresh foods for proper nutrition.

Action vs In Action

I'm full of questions these days with not much content for blog writing. In November I hurt my shoulder when I switched to 3 days of strength training a week. The shoulder pain lasted for well over a month, and in that month plus I became workout lazy.

Well 8 months later, I'm kicking myself in the pants and getting back to it. All of that work before? Down the drain and my weight is just shy of where I was before. In all honesty I thought blogging about this aspect of life would help me maintain personal accountability. I don't really think it did, but I have had great conversations about health with readers, conversations that wouldn't have happened had I said nothing.

So here's the deal: I'm back on Weight Watchers and I'm going to the local Y. Here's the question: Is this content you're interested in or something that makes your eyes glaze over? If it's interesting, how much information is interesting and how much is too much?

Want to read recipes and talk about food? Would you rather laugh at my pain (I went to Zumba yesterday, there's a lot of fodder for laughing there) or should I just stick to gardening and art?

Do you feel my pain or feel painfully bored when this topic comes up? Want to join in the fun and make the process a group effort? Want the whole issue to just go away? Spill the beans, people!

Grower's Update: Watering

We have a group of teenage volunteers coming out to Little Sugar Creek today, so I've got the day off from the paying job to go boss 'em around for a couple hours.

On the home front, we've got summer toys all over the yard, so when M isn't interested in finding worms and helping me with garden projects she's got plenty of distractions so I can get my work done! Unfortunately Charlie isn't fully convinced the livestock tank is a good idea, so I bought him (read: actually for Mabel) a $30 inflatable pool that's pretty big. We fill it with water, play in the water a couple of days and then use a basement pump and garden hose to empty it, watering the gardens with the old pool water.

It's actually a kind of brilliant solution (I can call it that because it was Hi-C's idea) because it allows the water to de-gas before it goes to the veggie bed. I might be over-thinking it, but have been mulling over the complexity of bacteria in the soil and how it mimics the flora of our own gut. With the popularity of probiotics in food, we're all becoming more aware of replacing the beneficial bacteria in our gut, something depleted by what many suspect is the chlorine in water, used to treat stray bacteria from our drinking water. (See how this is all connected?) The chlorine is meant to kill off bacteria that can harm us, but it doesn't discriminate so it takes out all the bacteria...in our guts and in the soil. All of that blabbering is to say I'm interested in seeing if there's any difference in the garden with this new watering method.

Any hypothesis out there?