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!