It's Farm Time!

So it's been a bit since my last post, however there have been many fabulous things occurring, mainly warm weather in New England!

As with each year, I always say that I will not grow as many tomatoes as I did last year.  And every year, I grow as many, if not more.  This year is no different.

There are a few differences in some of my garden tactics:

1) 7 ft deer fence.

Each year these bastards manage to get into my garden, hack into my little lovely plants, and set me back a few weeks. I hate them.  So this year I have MacGuyver rigged the most fantastical deer fence.  Or perhaps a deer trap.  We shall see what really happens.

I figure, if it can keep the God Dog out, it should be able to keep out dumb creatures who throw themselves in front of moving cars on say, a highway.

On a side note - check out my beets! And my purty radishes!!

The second difference?

2) AV input.

We watch a lot of Chopped on Food Network.  So, for any of you who may watch this glorious program, there are three secret ingredients that they need to use.  I'd say probably 3 times now, the secret ingredient has been patty pan squash.  AV decided we need to grow some.  Here's to seeing how it will turn out, or if it will be anything useful.

For your viewing enjoyment, the tomato maze.

And more...

Here's to looking forward to a summer full of tomatoes, and more than likely another batch of tomato wine!

I'm a tree farmer

Bessie is officially back in action with her beautiful mower deck back on and ready to mow.  Except there's one thing.  I've apparently become a maple tree farmer.

Over the last year I have managed to remove 14 trees that enveloped my house.  Nothing says awesome like having trees dropping left and right and watching those mammoth things being cut, lifted and craned out, OVER your home.

Example One: Dropping

Example Two:  Craning

And just to give you the full picture of how ridiculous the house was before, here's what it looked like, in the dead of winter, with these suckers.

Oh, and as an added bonus, the God Dog.

Nothing says winter entertainment like watching grown men hack up your yard with plows and backhoes, let me tell you.

But fast forward to this year.  There are three maple trees remaining in my front yard.  No big deal, they are pretty trees, grow relatively straight, and cause very few problems.  Up until now.  I'm looking at my lawn this year, thinking, "What the heck is going on?"  Apparently, unbeknownst to moi, I have become the host nation for maple tree seedlings.

Neat, right?

WRONG.

It would be neat if it were a small patch, not a big deal.  Except this is my entire front yard.

And notice the tire tracks?  Apparently AV must have killed some poor little seedlings while he was driving around the yard.  Let's have a moment for those we've lost.  Moment had, let's move on.

Long story short, those babies have been mowed!  I'll continue to update on my failing tree farm, as it better not become a success story!

MamaSlice

We find ourselves hysterical.  And brilliant!  Therefore it only makes sense that SistahSlice likes to entertain her wonderful mama with our stories of backyard golfing, PBR, TV jousting, and whatever nonsense we manage to find ourselves in.  From this day forward she shall be dubbed "MamaSlice."  Actually, she was dubbed that at the creation of this mahvalous blog.

So SistahSlice informed MamaSlice of this blog.  To be honest, I thought of informing my mother of this wonderful work of journalism, but I have a feeling she'd look at me like I had 4 heads, and probably worry for me and my safety, thanks to all of the great reindeer games that go on at Casa de Sledge. It would probably be the same look she gave me at my birthday party, when a bottle of Pinnacle Whipped was being passed around.  You know, that look she gave you when you were old enough to drink in front of her, but she still looked at you side eyed?  Yeah, THAT look.The whatthehellareyoudoingdidn'tIraiseyoubetter type of look. But she gave that to me when I turned 32.  Congrats Mom!  Great Job!  I can drink from a bottle and don't need to dirty a glass!

But back to MamaSlice.

MamaSlice has been our one true non-following follower.  Sure, we have two followers (hollllah!) but one of them doesn't really count since I swiped his Iphone and hacked into his gmail and followed our page on his behalf.  And the other is my girlfriend Cartz who I entertain on a fairly regular basis during our work day, via chat.  So introducing the blog to her was natural, and another way to dodge the work bullet.  But MamaSlice is the one person who we KNOW reads this blog on a regular basis. Every week!  And she claims to follow us.  But she doesn't. But we'll let her slide.


MamaSlice - once we become millionaires, after we get real followers, and a book deal, and a movie, then we'll give you a real award.  But for now, this one will have to do.

Lumbah Jack Action

Let it first be known that I make no secret about my love affair with Alcyde, the hot hunk of man character from True Blood, who roams around naked and usually in some sort of lumber jack inspired button down/flannel-esque shirt.  Oh, and he's like 6'5 and ripped. And naked. And beautiful.   A whole lot of hotness right there....but I digress.

But you know what's better than flannel?

NO FLANNEL!

Ok, back to bid-nass.  Trees.  And nakedness.....and TREES!

SO.  It's spring time.  No, I haven't bottled my wine yet, don't ask.  Maybe this weekend.  But, you know what IS happening this weekend?!  Wood cutting party!!  Last week I brought the pros in to cut down one of the last few remaining trees around my house that I wouldn't let AV take down for fear of not returning to a home, or having my septic tank crushed.  Either way, safety first!

See the beautiful specimen, on it's last days.

Then in came the pros!  Holllllah!

And it's a pretty good thing that I paid to have this suckah taken down, since, when it was on the ground, it was a whole lotta tree.

That could have been YOUR backyard, lol!

Good thing AV bought a new saw, that he's super excited about, some 24 inch, thrash your jugular off, kind of bad ass Stihl, since he's going to have a lot of tree to use that on.

Here's to slapping on some flannel (and maybe having a boyfriend who turns into a werewolf)!

It's wiiiiine time!

Last year I took on the project of making my own wine.  I had an over abundance of tomatoes, that weren't going to ripen in any sort of timely fashion, so the only rational thing to do was make wine!

I traveled down to the local wine and beer making shop and invested in the tools. When I say investment, I mean "If I only make one batch of wine this will be the dumbest thing I ever spent my money on" type of investment.  But I was committed, even when the owner told me that he hadn't heard of anyone making wine out of green tomatoes in years.  Bring on the challenge!

So the wining (whining?) commenced.

A million pounds of tomatoes, 2 lbs of sugar, some mashing, some stirring, some Mr. Wizard science shiznit, and off we went!  After 5 days of letting my witches brew sit, I bottled it. Excuse me, they are called carboys.  I like to refer to them as "Those jugs that look like Poland Spring water bubbler containers."  The wine store gurus don't seem to like my analogies.  Regardless, it looked like barf.

Every three months I had to transfer the wine from one jug to another, as the pros like myself call 'racking' (yes, I'm now a pro), and the sediment falls to the bottom of jug.  How does one go about transferring the wine?  Well, you siphon it like you ran out of gas and are stealing it from the car next to you, that's how!  I impressed myself with my skills and I was lucky enough to accidentally taste my fine brew.  I'm lucky I lived.

Long story short, we fast forward 12 months.  I'm on the last leg of the wine tour and what is supposed to be a nice white wine looks like an amber beer.

Oh well.

So I return to my new hangout spot to buy corks.  Afterall, I'd been drinking a ton of wine in preparation of bottling, so that my cheap ass wouldn't have to buy wine bottles from this place.  This girl ---->ME<-----is always thinking!  The man helping me was asking me a million questions, which of course I couldn't answer (What's the alcohol content? Green tomatoes huh?  Have you tried it? Did you follow a recipe? - No wineguy, I just threw a bunch of things in a bucket and let it stew for 12 months for the hell of it.  And I hope it has a high alcohol content so that every glass after the first tastes better and better, like my fine wine should!).  More Mr. Wizard purchases, a bag of corks, and a corker, and I was ready to wine!

And yes, my fancy wine corker was $30.

Steps to bottle wine.  Soak wine bottles in some sort of magical chemical to peel of the labels (and in case you are wondering, if you are fancy, you too can have your own personal wine labels - mine has been dubbed Vineyard de Sledge).

Bottles soak for 24 hours and with some elbow grease, the labels do come off.  A little glue residue never hurt anyone, right?

After the labels come off then you must sanitze.  You swill this white magic powder around, with some water, and your bottles are ready to be filled.  But first they must air dry.  Of course, I'm sure I could have spent a million dollars on a fancy wine bottle dryer, but I figured I'd do-it-yourself first.

Attempt 1:

Fail.  Bottles won't dry.

Attempt 2:

Semi Success!  Thank goodness for a raffle prize win at a bachelor party, thanks AV!  But, sadly, all the bottles don't fit.

Attempt 2 1/2:

Success!  Take THAT Pinterest!

Now I'm ready to bottle.  Once I find the motivation.  And get over the fear that this wine will taste disgusting.  Stay tuned!

Spring!

So Sistah Sledge has been carrying the weight of this blog for the past month and a half. I am long overdue on an update – as you are all aware she has pursued this 30 day cleanse. Which I think is insane, but props to her for being disciplined and finding a way to make meatballs from nuts and ground chicken. I decided to give up chocolate for lent. Not so much for religious purposes, but more because bikini season is quickly approaching and I’m always jonesin for anything chocolate (there have been some days where I considered shaking out my keyboard at work to see if there was anything in there – disgusting, I know). Once Easter rolls around the baking begins – and I’m slathering anything and everything in Nutella.

The house search has continued and I actually put an offer on a house that was cute and could easily house the chickens I’ve been wanting. But of course I’m an idiot magnet and the guy who owns the house was a jerkface so we’re back to square one. Putting an offer on a house is really an interesting experience – you sit there and scheme up a number, decide if you need certain inspections (bring on the lead paint!), put it all in a long winded contract then bam! Offer is submitted and you sit and wait, and then check your phone religiously until the realtor calls. I decided that I should be seeking the help of the crazies on Extreme Couponing, and do a little spin off – Extreme Lowballing. I want to see if these women can get a house dirt cheap, or hell – even for free!

In addition to the abode search continuing – spring has presented the opportunity to enjoy one of my favorite past times – gardening! I am not a horticulture expert like Sistah Sledge – however with her sensei wisdom and my googling skills, I think this year’s garden is off to a good start. I went to a new place, Comstock Ferre, that has heirloom seeds – basically it’s like Hogwarts. Found some really awesome plants (pretty much a slew of tomatoes and other exotic vegetables I’ve never heard of) and sowed! Hopefully these plants will be planted in my own yard this year – time will tell!

Onward and upward!

Day 3 = FAILURE!  But whatever.  So I had a little wine.  It was at least red wine.  Full of antioxidants and very good for you, riiiight??  I say so.

Anyways, I decided to put my failures behind me and look at my future successes, my garden!  I bought seeds this year from a new place, Hudson Valley Seed Library.  It's a neat organization where you can send in your seeds from the season and continue the growth of heirloom seeds.  They best be good or I'm going back to my CT based seed company!

So here's Day 1 of something I am completely passionate about!  Looking forward to weeding in my bikini, and growing some greens!  Farmers unite!

Day 1

I want chocolate.
I want chocolate.
I want chocolate.
I want chocolate.

Oh, sorry.

It's Day 1 of this cleanse.  So far, I think I have complained to anyone who will listen about how hungry I am.  It's only Day 1.  And I seriously have been eating non stop - fruits, chicken, salad, hard boiled eggs, 18 lbs of pistachios (ok, perhaps that's an exaggeration, but still, my fingers hurt from the salt - that's probably  not allowed on this cleanse either, whoops!), 4 bacon wrapped scallops, cauliflower mash.....I know, this all sounds gloriously filling, doesn't it?  IT'S NOT!  I'm lying on the floor dying ovah here!

Perhaps I'm playing this up a little over dramatically, but this is apparently a lesson in the fact that I have ZERO will power.  And guess what - I don't need it since I come from good stock, and good genes!  But yet, here I am, cleansing the soul.

If no one hears from me, please send chocolate, and lots of it!  Here's to Day 2!  And no chocolate, fingers crossed.

It's time to cleanse!

I've decided.  I'm doing a 30 day cleanse, The Whole30, to be exact.  My friend Cartzy convinced me to give it a whirl, with a strong twist of my Gumby arm.  Basically, it's no dairy, no pasta, no bread, no carbs, nothing delicious....oh sorry, I digress.  Oh, and no ALCOHOL!  How shall I live without my wine for 30 days???  I'll figure it out, damnit!

So tomorrow marks Day 1.  It will start out with no sugar or milk in my coffee, replaced with coconut milk.  Doesn't that sound delish?  (sarcasm, sarcasm, sarcasm...)  AV is doing this with me, but he could live on bland chicken and boring steamed vegetables for 30 years, let alone 30 days.  I've been trying to convince SistahSlice to play along, but so far, she's not having it.  I have a feeling I'm going to grow really tired of sweet potato and cauliflower, and may offer up my first born child for some chocolate or some wine.  Or vodka!   The next few posts may turn into total whine sessions (wine-sessions??) about my withdrawals, but I'm starting my seeds soon for Farm de Sledge, so hopefully that will be a distraction.

Here's to 30 more days!  I should get a coin if I finish this successfully!

Come out come out where ever you are!

We know you are out there! We know you're reading this fantabulous blog.  Follow US!

It's about to get feisty up in here!

Bessie is BACK!

Annnnnnnnd, she's BACK!  Bessie had a glorious visit at the local Agway, and after a relaxing week at the Spa, she's back and ready to rock the yard.

Now the next question is, what project to start on first??

Sunday Funday

We hunkered down Sunday night for what has been turning into our Sunday Funday.  PBR!

No, I'm not talking about Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, I'm talking about Professional Bull Riding!  But tonight there was an added bonus.  Jousting!

For weeks, during the PBR, they have been promoting this new show on the History channel, Full Metal Jousting.  My first thought?  Medieval Times here we come.  Sure, everyone's probably been on vacation someplace, enjoyed a lovely meal of a big, honkin' Turkey leg and some other form of food you have to eat with your hands, watch the grease drip down your forearm, and vote for your favorite knight.  It's wonderful dinner theater, really.

But apparently, Full Metal Jousting is different!  This is real joust to joust contact. Riding on a horse, trying to impale your fellow knight with an 11 foot long pole, made of one piece of Douglas Pine Fir.  THIS is entertainment!  What other show do you hear "Take my helmet off, I'm going to throw up?"  Not the Real Housewives of Orange County, that's for sure!  Are they trained for combat riding a horse while having their coach smack them in the shoulder with an aluminum baseball bat?  I think not.

Although the competition is early on, I'm eagerly anticipating the blood and warfare that's going to ensue, once these maniacs actually learn how to wield their jousts and control their horses!  And the best part?  Once eliminated, the contestant who got the boot has the opportunity to stick around and train, so that 'in the case' that a fellow contestant can no longer compete, he can swing back in and take his place.  You know that's going to happen!!  Bring it on Sir Lancelot!

And bonus event?  While we were watching this magnificent game show, MamaSlice was enjoying the competition with SistahSlice as well!  That's family bonding at it's best!

Until next Sunday's Funday...

It's a Golfer's Paradise

Slice and I have taken to golfing; in my backyard.  Now, while I certainly do not have a driving range back there (but did you know that there are plenty of websites out there that will eagerly help you create your very own driving range, putting green, and miniature golf hookup?) I do have plenty of land to do stupid things with. Golfers unite!

A friend of Slice's offered her his old clubs after having not a single bite on Craigslist.  I told her to come on over and we could hack balls in my Back 40.  I figured this would be a one time deal.  Naaaah!  Golf Whack Monday has commenced and we eagerly spent the evening hucking balls into the woodline.  My boyfriend, AV (short for Avalanche, for the mean truck he drives), came home to find this debauchery and brought up a very good question:

How do you plan on retrieving the balls?

Radio Silence.......

For a while it worked out in our favor as God Dog was all too eager to try to choke himself with a golf ball while running it back and forth to us.  But all good things must come to an end and he soon found no fun in this chore.

But then the rocket scientist in us both came out, and the idea of some sort of attachment for Bessie was born.  Now, who knows what will come of this idea, or if she will ever return from her Spa Adventure, but this may definitely be on the list of things to look into, after all, range fees at Casa de Sledge are significantly less than any other range around.

Stay tuned for Summer!

Wanted: A Nest of my Own

As a kind forewarning, many of the adventures you will read about will or have taken place at SistahSledge’s homestead. As previously mentioned she inhabits approximately 4 acres of this earth. It’s a great set up – some house and some land which fosters our antics. Unlike SistahSledge I have yet to plant my stakes.

The pursuit began about a year ago, visited my favorite realtor (and only realtor I know) and we set up listings. So within minutes I get barraged with emails that say all these things in this special realtor language I don’t understand. For example - you would think 1.5 bathrooms means one and a half bathrooms. False! In special realtor speak that means one full bathroom and five half baths (1.5 isn’t common, you see 1.1, 2.0 etc. – I’m waiting for the day I get 0.0, I feel it’s close). So the listings are set up, I have decided of a few towns that I think will provide some good options and I’m off.

About six months later, after I deciphered realtor language, went to some open houses, and spent countless hours driving/riding my bike around to look at houses – I decided it was time to re engage my realtor and actual start to schedule appointments and look at these potential homes. Why I didn’t do this sooner – good question. Looking at homes provides hours of endless entertainment and makes you realize your “messy” living conditions are far cleaner and less repulsive than you could’ve imagined.

In the heaping handful of structures I’ve looked at – I’ve seen some quirky things. The first house I ever looked at was this putrid mustardy yellow. I walk through the kitchen (where the counters weren’t attached to the walls) and was interrupting dinner of the elderly woman and her son who apparently lived there. Awkward party of 4!

That initial experience left me hungry for more. So accordingly the showings continued. One house had a dog the size of a grizzly bear, who I considered adopting without the homeowners permission (more affectionately known as stealing). That house actually had U shaped floors due to some terrible Tim Allen home renovations. Another house had so much oil leaking out of the furnace I considered siphoning it up and dumping it back in their tank. That house had a clothes line that went from their front window to the tree in the front yard. Because nothing says “Welcome!” like some underbrithces hanging out front.

In short – the quest continues. It’s a challenging equation – find something within my price range with a good (relatively dry) chunk of land and a house that won’t fall over or blow up. Eventually I'll find something, and in the mean time am provided with cheap entertainment with my saint of a real estate agent.

Spaaaaa Daaaaay!

Ok, so sure, I wish that I was writing about MY spa day.  But I'm not.  It's about my tractor's spa day.  Yes, that's right, my tractor's.

Now sure, I know, normal girls may send themselves to the spa, or their beloved dog, but not this chick.  Nope, Bessie is going in!

Good ol' Bessie has seen her better days since the Blizzard of October.  That stinkin' blizzard where trees came down, yards were destroyed, and lucky for me, I had a tractah!  Just up until a few weeks before the snow storm came through I was having a conversation, talking about how I was thinking of bringing Bessie out to pasture.  She's a bit excessive, kind of clunky to mow the lawn with, and an overall expense I could really live without.  But Bessie is like an old boyfriend that keeps coming back.  Just when you think you are over him, he does something that makes you all doe eyed and dumb and BAM! He's back in your pants.  That's how I feel about my tractor, and that's exactly what happened with this snow storm.

For 5 days straight Bessie was a champ.  I was bribing people with beer, food, tractor rides,bucket rides, and chain saw fun (not necessarily in that order) to help me clean up the yard that looked like it was destroyed by an army of beefy Spartan soldiers (anyone see 300? anyone??).  Sure, Bessie almost flipped herself down the hill in the backyard, but she moved wood and debris around like it was no big deal.  I honestly don't know what I would have done without her (and my two legged helpers who also came to help).

Fast forward to February when I'm trying to use her to move wood and she runs like garbage.  Slow on the start, won't go up hills, break is sticky, so I call up my favorite Agway where she hatched from and asked them to come out and service her, like the way a lady should be serviced. As the kid from Agway said as he went to start her up,  "Alright, let's get this girl going," I thought to myself, "Wow, he knows it's a she!"  Silly I know, but I was secretly pleased he wasn't looking at me like I knew nothing about my tractor. I think I impressed him when he asked if it was hydrostatic and I answered "Yes" and knew what I was talking about. Either that, or he was impressed that she looked like she just came out the winner in a girl-on-girl mud wrestling match.

All I know is that she better come back running like a dream, seeing as just this ride to and from alone is costing a pretty $180. That's $180 I could be using towards my own spa day......

For the inner Alpaca farmer in all of us

Who doesn't love a freshly shorn Alpaca?

The story of how it all began

The day started out like any ordinary Thursday. Drag myself into work, start my regular email routine, and talk about how I want to leave early.  But what made this Thursday different from any other Thursday was that I WAS going to leave early.  And I was dragging my pal SistahSlice with me!

Here's the deal with Slice and I.  We are two fiercely independent women, who would rather sulk and do things on our own, before we legitimately asked for help.  Last winter I stubbornly, and probably stupidly,  shoveled my roof, albeit, I was crying, but I was doing it on my own.  But then Slice wrangled some troops and helped me with the rest (effff yooooooou Winter in New England!).  That previous fall I also did my leaves solo, which is no small task when you have nearly 4 acres of land.  Of course, I wound up crying in a leaf pile then as well, when I thought I lost my stupid dog collar transmitter for my mutt of a dog, who shall from this day forward be referred to as 'God Dog'. Tarps, Backpack blowers, and a stupid dog dragging sticks.  Good times.  But the tasks are all completed, through blood sweat and tears!  But I digress.  Back to Thirsty Thursday afternoon in the 'field.

So the plan was, leave work at 3:30, head to my humble abode, and do work!  What is work, you may ask?  Ask away.  Work involves playing lumber jack and dragging in wood from my backyard, into my basement.  Gotta feed the wood burning furnace!  But, dragging wood means utilizing the man tool of my Mahindra tractor, the tractor that brings all the boys to my yard.  If you ever need to figure out a way to coerce grown men into helping a damsel in distress, the way to their heart is through power tools.  Well, food and power tools.  It's debatable at times which one pulls ahead in the race to win.  But a big honkin' farm like tractor will definitely help.  And pretending to be cute and helpless, that helps too.  I mean, we pretend at being helpless, cute goes without saying!

Anyways, Slice and I started haulin' wood and quickly settled into our routine.  I drive back and forth from the dump with the wood, she stacks in the basement, God Dog runs around the backyard, generally like a jerkoff, trying to get run over by the tractor and test his boundaries by running through the electrical boundary of the yard.  It's a well oiled machine! 

We finish woodlympics, Slice puts away her gloves that she has been referring to all afternoon as her OJ Gloves, and we stumble on a trusty friend, one who has been known to follow us into battle, and trouble - Mr. Boston.  Blackberry Brandy.  Riot Punch, as Slice affectionately refers to him as.  Whatever you call it, it's nasty.  But yet delicious at the same time.  What accompanies Mr. Boston?  Golf ball whacking in the back yard of course!

Picture this.  Two slobs - Slice and I - with a can of Bud Light in one hand, Blackberry Brandy on the ground, Slice covered in dirt with her UConn hoody on, and I in this grubby lumberjack inspired flannel shirt, teeing up to do some damage in the backyard.  Simply awesome right?  It was.  Especially when God Dog was nearly hit with a line drive by Slice with her one in a million not-so-sliced drives!

This brings us to step 2 of the evening.  Sledge and Slice Movers Inc!  We had arranged to go and check out this armoire on Craigslist, and with a BF who can't lift, bend or twist for 6 weeks, female lifters united!  However it was like a scene straight out of the Twilight Zone.  First we are almost sidelined by an offensive driver who apparently would rather t-bone us in the street instead of waiting for us to back into the driveway, then, the seller of the armoire was clearly more impressed with our slop tart appearance and actual motivation to move this thing then he was in even contemplating helping us.  He kept talking about his blown ACL and why he couldn't ride that trusty steed of a dirtbike he had parked in his garage.  How about shut up and get out of our way!  As we're standing in the bed of the truck, I look at Slice and say "We should blog about this stuff!  I think it's pretty humorous!"

And so here we are.  The story of two chicks who do dude like things.  Jump on, hold on tight and prepare for the ride!