Auntie Maggie's Birthday...

That's a line from the show Red Dwarf.  It seems Arnold Rimmer and I keep journals about the same.  Oh but not this time, I'm catching up, Arnie, roll a 5 and a 2 al you want.  So every year I start at least part of a garden journal, it becomes sort of a record of that year's gardening season.  Last year I was pretty shitty about it, but I will mention that our first frost of 2008 (fall frost) was on October 6th!  That was a record late frost for us, and gave us oodles of tomatoes.  

This year, we're taking a slightly different approach to tomatoes.  They're going in Large containers on the balcony.  This seemed the easiest way to get the theremal yum yums of the house.  Warm nights ought to do it, and also let us rock through that first early frost.  

Cold frames are on the list.  Part of growing up as a gardener (and maybe part of destroying that hopeful childlike gardener within us) is learning what you can grow well and what you can't.  We're in a canyon with limited light, and cold nights.  Our tomatoes suck.  We do, however, get chard, spinach, lettuce and other leaf crops right through the summer.  The hot days of July usually fade into the nice rainy days of August, and most of our leaf crops don't bolt.  

Asparagus is on the list this year.  A 20 crop.  There's something I should have planted 10 years ago.  Oh well, next best time is now, right mom?  

Trendy plants have no place in my garden any more.  Nuts and Bolts!  

Happy Holidays... food, skiing, and monkies

I'd like to extend happy holiday wishes to everyone out there...  We ate a bunch of really good food including our 7 fish dinner on Christmas eve... I think actually we made it through 6 fish and had to give up on the 7th.  Oysters on the halfshell, shrimp cocktail, littleneck clams, smoked salmon, spicy mussels with chorizo, tuna tartare and scallop curry all made it in, but the final course, including asparagus, garlic mashers, and breaded orange roughy had to wait till 2 nights later because we all got stuffed.  Lisa made a ginerbread cheesecake and a pumpkin cake.  She put in a lot of work on these cakes, missing a day of skiing on Sunday.  She was kind of annoyed when our lovely cat jumped off the microwave landing in the pumpkin cake.   Good thing we didn't have kitty tartare after that little debacle.  I did some voice over work for my french buddies who used to run Live Mix Radio and now are members of the tecno sensation AlienHearts.  They made a TV show in Second Life, the online social networking game.  I decided to download the program and give it a shot.  3 days and 2 all nighters later I can say I have barely scratched the surface... good stuff it seems.  

Check out my radio station

So i've got a shoutcast radio station, you need itunes to listen...

check it www.stealthismusic.com

I like Coda, buy my cd

For the last few weeks I've been trying out a web development application called Coda from Panic Software. It pretty much kicks ass. Tomorrow I think I'll get 3 copies for the office. In other news, my band, aftergrass, just released a cd, you should visit us on the web and buy one. We practiced tonight, running over this bitchin cover of ween's "woman and man" which will hopefully tear the roof off the place.

wow... making bread is easy!

So it worked out just great. The bread tasted like bread. Amazing. I used a recipe from my girl Marth's magazine for french bread and it turned out frenchy. I wanted to do more of a baguette, but sadly my baking stone is not big enough so we made breadbowl style loaves. I'd recommend it, the process is pretty damn easy. It is also easy to farm muskrats. Aftergrass is in high gear preparing for the New Year's Eve celebration. I'm busy as all hell with work, and it is ski season which frankly means... work doesn't get done. It's one of those picture yourself on your deathbed saying "I wish I'd worked more" instead of "I wish I skied and partied with my friends more" so basically... work schmirk. In case anyone is reading this and doesn't know me at all, my name is Eric, i'm a web developer and I play in a band called "Aftergrass." I'm married to this valkrie warrior maiden norwegian runway model sex bomb called Lisa. She's cool. I hate blogs in public but here I am just blah blahing, so i'm probably a hypocrite.

Making Bread and Making Blogs...

How did it happen? Having made fun of blogs for years for being narcissistic rantings of delusional people who think anyone gives a damn... Here's my *new* blog. I had a blog years ago but it was before the age of blogs and I called it a garden journal... I blog on the http://www.aftergrass.com but that's strictly band related... This one is mine, pure unadulterated shameless narcissism. ME ME ME. I took a dump.. wanna comment?

So I decided to make bread today. Actually I decided this last night, which is fortunate or else I'd have to let a starter start for 12-15 hours. The starter is started and has a few hours to go. I'm kind of excited. Bread is one of those mundane items that sort of goes unnoticed. The funny part is we've got one of the best bakeries on earth right here in Durango, Colorado. It is aptly named "Bread" and makes ridiculously good bread. Why would I make bread knowing full well that a 5 minute car ride would put me in baguette heaven? Well for one, because I've never done it. Yep that's about it. The process gives new meaning to the word tedious. You make this starter, let it sit for 15 hours, then make the dough, let sit 20 mins, then reshape, let sit for 75 mins, then do a little dance, let it sit some more, and then finally bake it. Smoothly oiled sheets of plastic wrap and well floured linens are involved somewhere too... I better double check with Martha (Stewart that is... don't you say anything bad about the woman I love). I suppose I could use a breadmaker, but that's just back to the whole driving to the bakery thing... This is going to be hand crafted bread damnit.