berry a no-no

i'll say it: i don't like raspberries. i kind of thought i did, and forced myself to eat quite a few of the little balls of tart off the berry bush, and tried to chow down some of the jam i made, but nope. they're gross. they're sour and gritty and altogether relatively nasty. which isn't to say i'm not going to stop picking them and making "delicious" treats out of them.... the only bad thing is i can't really be a sound judge of whether or not the treats are actually yummy. because to me they all are bursting with unbearable, disgusting sourness that makes my toes grip the floor. i'm almost getting legitimately mad at the bushes in my backyard and they're unforgiving production of the sour nugs. every day there are so many goddamn berries. and the funny thing is, i definitely remember liking them when i was a kid... when my brothers and sisters and i would be having our he-man/she-ra adventures and andrea and erica would be forced to be witches and we would get our dad's hedge clippers and make elaborate tunnels in the underbrush of our fort and when we needed sustenance we would head to the huge patch of raspberry bushes behind our house and pound them. into our faces. and they seemed great. but we were also taking shits in the woods and using leaves as toilet paper because our mom would lock the doors to the house. SO...... hard to take any food-related decisions we made at that point seriously. we also ate cat food. and tried to make "paste" out of acorns like the native americans might do.... or at least that's what i thought they did. have i mentioned how the most intense daydream of my childhood was that i would be kidnapped/rescued by an indian warrior and we would wear deerskins and draw crazy blue lines on our faces and talk about how lame white people were? yep. raspberries.

care for cairns

if you've never seen a cairn terrier, do yourself a goddamn favor and go find one. they are unbelievably cute little bear dogs that are stocky and jumpy and closely resemble the norwich. i want one... or at least to always be near one. and according to our favorite book The Care and Handling of Dogs:

The Cairn Terrier is a spicy, wide-awake chap, most lovable to those who are his and equally distant to those who are not. In short, he is typically Scotch throughout.

hmmm... interesting comparison to the scots. in fact, this guy makes quite a few comparisons in these pages that makes me think he's not so fond of the undecipherable folks.

in other news, i'm going for the record of how many schools one can teach at at the same time. i'm at three thanks to an offer today to teach an anatomy and physiology class at the community college of vermont. THREE. two catholics and one not-so-much. i guess i need one more secular boy to balance things out.

beetlejuice on my face

and continuing on in the "trapped" series. on this particular shot you'll see proton howling in anger as i snap his poor mug. i also received a wonderful treat in the mail from dr. j.p.: a book entitled The Care and Handling of Dogs, copyrighted 1928. i'm going to be adding little nuggets from this book because it's teeming with amazing descriptions of dogs and the like. today's is a couple of sentences from the chapter "The Selection of a Dog" and is in regards to the Mexican jumping bean of the dog world, the chihuahua.

These wee mites are extremely rare in this country owing to the decidedly delicate natures and the great amount of precaution and care necessary to breed them. They are over-sensitive to cold and one good draught may be the finish of these tiny morsels of dog flesh. (p.13)

.... tiny morsels of dog flesh. amazing.

and on to the japanese beetles. i don't like them. and it's not necessarily because they are decimating my raspberry bushes. as i'm picking berries i can hear these dull thuds, and it's the beetles falling off of whatever leaf they were one and landing on the one just below it... and then the one below that one... and so on. what kind of bug falls off leaves? aren't bugs sort of trained to do that in the first place? isn't there some sort of selection for those individual critters that manage to STAY ON? in addition, any attempt at in-air maneuvering is something akin to drunk kamikazes. if not free-falling, they're freaking out at the sight of my little white hand a'coming to pick berries and give their best attempt at flying. these guys don't fly. they jump as hard as they can and try to flap whatever wings they have and end up running into me, my hand, my hair, the nearest other japanese beetle, a raspberry, anything. they're not smart and it's like trying to defend yourself against a drunk, heavy-set college boy at a german beer house. but i may be figured out why their behavior is what it is. upon closer examination of the photo i snapped earlier i found some conspicuous items placed around the copulating critters. i don't know how i didn't see them earlier. take a look. those are empty cups i see. explains a lot.

puddin num num

i am rediscovering my love of pudding. not that that love ever necessarily left, but i am having a great time refamiliarizing myself with the delights of the warm, tasty treat. and i'm not talking about bullshit bill cosby jell-o nonsense... this is yummy, from scratch, buying the tapioca pearls and stirring for 30 minutes intense pudding making. i am even deviating from my normal chocolate-laden diet to delve into some of the forgotten favorites. butterscotch pudding made my tuesday night dinner and wednesday morning breakfast unforgettable. who knew the delicious butterscotchiness came from brown sugar and butter? not this pudding-slamming fool. it's like when i discovered that cumin is the key to chili. MINDBLOWING.

this evening: tapioca. i still remember the first time i had tapioca pudding in high school. i believe it was my sophomore year and i was absolutely devastated that it took fifteen years for that lumpy, bumpy, scrumptious delight to skip across my palate. turns out that the cooking process for tapioca pudding is a bit more arduous than you might think. i prepared myself for tonight's pudding feast by purchasing tapioca yesterday, but made the grievous and unforgivable mistake of buying the "quick cook" tapioca. I obviously had to fix that mistake by buying the for-real pearls today. after soaking the little pearls for 60 minutes in yummy soy milk, they were barely boiled up with vanilla and sugar and so much stirring over 30 minutes and indeed. i've got myself some homemade tapioca pudding. the caviar of gelatinous treats. every little ball of tappy goo an explosion of happy-time yummy flavor in my mouth. AND IT'S WARM. unbelievable.

swimming lessons

proton apparently doesn't like swimming. we went to the reservoir today with some friends and, since it was warm enough to actually venture into the water, i took the opportunity to get proton's little paws wet. he's been much better lately about getting into streams and creeks and such, so i was curious to see what he would do in the larger sized body of water. i heard a little splash and YAY! there was proton, swimming like a proper dog and everything. however, i think this splash wasn't due to any sort of jump by proton, but more accurately a slip and "oh nuts." i say this because he swam as fast as he could to the rocks on the shore and hooked his little paws into the crevices to hoist himself up, all panting and looking a little bit terrified. and the next few times i brought him down to the water he plopped his butt down super hard and refused to budge. so, i being the former lifeguard, gently picked him up and dropped his scrawny dog legs into the water and had him practice his doggy paddle. however, his paddling was super frantic and he was struggling the whole time to get away and i just kept saying "good job! good job!" and laughing super hard... and then the last time i dropped him into the water and he swam again... i was so excited for him!... but he was not pleased, all wet rat-like looking and breathing heavy.

but i think he and madison are starting to be friends. she even let him wear her milk bottle cap as a hat.

what the!? get the! how the!.. ugh....

this morning whilst raspberry picking i happened to notice something peculiar in the garden. oddly-shaped, deep indentations seemed to be everywhere. hmmm... it almost looks like someone has been digging up stuff... upon closer examination i realized that no, these are not the remnant holes of some wandering garden saboteur, but DEER TRACKS (see evidence at right). mother fucking deer tracks. not only am i now fighting the japanese beetles for the sweet raspberry gems, i'm fighting bambi, although i like to think of the deer as less like bambi and more like dirty, rabid destructor of garden joy (see rabid deer). and what is a deer going to do with raspberries? not make a delicious decadent raspberry sauce, i'll tell you that much. give it to thumper or whatever that craze-footed rabbit's name is? but this apparently makes proton a little less insane than i thought. he likes to bark at night at nothing in particular at all. well, turns out he may be barking at the predatory deer creatures lurking with their hooked hooves outside our windows, leering at our innocent snuggled-up bodies. i don't think there's something like a deer trap that's marketed, but i could perhaps rig up some sort of hammock-meets-spring loaded net trap.

and yes... proton found himself trapped in a new location today. wrapped around another poor bush. i can't help but think of him as the r. kelly of dogs. instead of being "trapped in the closet" he's "trapped around the nearest plant or post." and instead of getting peed ON, proton likes to be the one doing the peeing. proton likes hip hop, used to wear his hair in cornrows, and has an ongoing beef with Jay-Z. trapped in the garden.

routine interrupted

that's right. my rigorous routine has been interrupted by the arrival of the raspberries. now, i'm up in the morning, make my coffee, GATHER RASPBERRIES, then am free to continue on with my reading and painting and such. and i've been doing a lot of both lately. good books i've finished lately: The Bell Jar and Silent Spring. and i'm currently reading The Moor's Last Sigh, which has been a fantastic read. i'm also painting the house from the terrible tan it was to a dark, dark, almost black charcoal, grey, white, and some red. you'll see pictures of that soon enough.

i may have mentioned my dog's ability to get wrapped up around anything and everything in the yard, and here is photo documentation of just that. image to the left would be incident 1: trapped around the laundry line post. he sort of resigned himself to the fact that he was trapped and stayed there quietly until i came and released him from his prison of string. then... three minutes later.... incident 2: trapped in the chair. this photo expose will no doubt be continued.

i also saw some awesome bugs on the raspberry bush.... little monsters. i think they are taking turns giving each other rides.

white rocks and the alien invasion

i don't mess around with dog safety, so proton gets strapped in just like everybody else. please avert your eyes from the larson chin.

today some friends took me to White Rocks, a scenic overlook a 15 minute drive from Rutland. as most scenery in vermont, it was pretty outstanding. a short hike up and all of a sudden you're looking out over an insane view of trees and mountains and wow. i'm already super excited to see the view in the fall.

slightly more interesting would be the thousands of alien pods we saw on the hike down. i'm not sure how i missed them on the way up. probably some sort of alien mind trickery. my friend brandi chose to take the she-ra route down, which meant my falling and tripping numerous times, but those close calls also brought me face-to-face with the pulsating alien embryos disguising themselves as common moss. i dared not touch them with my bare human hands, but i did manage to capture their existence on film. no telling how long exactly they have been laying dormant. or when they will hatch. from my calculations, i'm guessing they'll hatch somewhere around october 14.... around 3:15 p.m. how might i know that? i'll tell you.

upon closer inspection of the photo i took, i noticed a peculiar organism peaking out from behind one of the pods. obviously, it's difficult to
determine whether the pod the creature is next to is the one it hatched from using a photograph, but visiting the site again may lend some light on the issue. regardless, based on the size of the organism in the photo, previous data gathered on the organism (see Aliens), the ratio of living creatures: unhatched, the unseasonal amount of rain Vermont has been receiving, and the chlorophyll content of surrounding conifers, it's obvious to any junior scientist that the pods will hatch october 14. and 3:15 p.m. is right when kids get out of school, giving the newly hatched alien empire plenty to nibble on.

your yeast

reason i love the co-op here: because i can scoop out my own flour, sugar, granola, and BAKER'S YEAST. amazing.... reminds me of back when i was a kid and we would go to the amish grocery store to get delicious treats. today i was on the hunt for yeast to make bread with and i couldn't find it, so i head to the front of the store and ask the girl at the register "um.. so i was wondering if you had yeast." (obviously that was met with a blank stare, matched by the stare of the man at the other checkout). "i mean.. yeast to bake with. like if i wanted to make bread." yep. they've got it. in a big jar in the fridge next to the huge tub of maple syrup. now i needs to get big vats to get my syrup and honey on.

TCM

couple of things: 1- the raspberries are here!, 2- check out major lazer's album "guns don't kill people, lazers do," 3- the cows are violated every morning. my new plan is to record the sounds on garage band.

yesterday proton and i watched The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. the original. the one with the guy in the freaking wheelchair who gets chainsawed to death. wow. wow. wow. has to be one of the few horror movies i have seen in recent months that did not disappoint. don't even get me started on Bloody Murder. apparently TCM came out the same year as The Exorcist and people were losing their minds. no doubt. inbreds with skin on their faces and dead grandpas sucking fingers? GA-ROSS. i, of course, was engrossed in the film, but proton was curled up rather contentedly on my chest, little dog paws curled into the air in the pose of complete relaxation. and i must say, one of the best things in the whole world has to be cuddling with your favorite dog and feeling their little dog breath on your neck. even when you're watching idiot texas getting their heads split by axe-weilding inbreds.

i scream, you scream.... apparently cows scream

i don't know what is going on at the ol' cow farm , but i can tell you what it sounds like: cows getting raped. huh. maybe those animal rights protestors were right: meat is murder, milk is rape. maybe what i heard was cows getting milked. no. i don't think so. but the squealy/honk-ish/alarmingly loud cow hollers were absolutely bizarre and continued for quite a long time. proton and i were on our morning walk when all of a sudden one holler ripped through the morning air. we both stopped dead in our tracks and turned around to see what was going on. we saw nothing except one of the folks from the cow farm in overalls standing by the gate, kind of kicking the ground, pretending that they didn't hear some cow getting their butt poked in the barn. god it was loud. i grew up next to a cow farm and never heard sounds like this. maybe it's a vermont thing. maybe it's cow meditation. maybe they're recording for a CD of sexy cow sounds. i'm concerned for proton's little ears and his innocent sensibility.

right now i'm watching Robot Holocaust. was this someone's thesis project? did someone honestly fund this? i just watched naked people dance like phish fans in smoke outside of a chamber (the pleasure machine for those who serve the "dark one" faithfully) that housed a topless girl also dancing like a new england hippie. outrageous.

floating bookshelves

it's like i'm living in my own little summer camp. wake up, make coffee, eat cookies for breakfast, go outside and read and watch the dog get tangled around plants and poles, come inside, shower, eat breakfast, do some crafts and gardening, check the mail, run to town, come back home to continue with the crafting, gardening, and reading, take a nap.... it's pretty lovely. i'm also trying to balance all of this returning to mother nature bullshit with academic stuff = preparing my syllabi, doing curriculum mapping, etc. i met the new technology guy at the high school i'm going to be teaching at and i think we are going to be a tag-team of technology. the school is kind of living in 1974 as far as computers and technology goes, and our principal is absolutely adamant about us shaking stuff up. pretty exciting to walk into a place where you're expected to and encouraged to make huge changes to the way things have been. even if i can't show my tats. i also asked if it would be ok to show horror movies in class and the principal (also a priest..... crazy) was very much excited about that. what kind of catholic school is this? technology? making changes? outrageous! i also met another new teacher = guy in his early 20s who is also a priest. kind of weird to meet a person younger than you who's wearing the whole priest get-up and is all into the big JC. and he was shaking all nervous-like during the whole conversation..... apparently he was a chemistry major in college, but then changed to the god stuff. but, as he stared at the floor and tried to avoid eye contact with me, he stuttered out that he was really happy with the choice he made and that he had started out wanting to go to grad school for chemistry but then ... you know... this came up. i had to fucking pretend my lips were glued together to not say "yeah... i was really hoping to be a catholic priest, but then that whole doctorate of biochemistry path kind of threw itself in front of me." he also mentioned something about doing team teaching. um.... no. no. no. no. i don't do group projects and i sure as shit don't do team teaching. especially with a man of the cloth. i appreciate the dedication to black, but no.

my craft of the day: the floating bookshelf. easy to make and looks pretty rad.

DDT not for me

I am currently reading Silent Spring and want a home DDT test. Like you squeeze the life juice out of a plant and midstream place the plastic applicator underneath it and - means "yes... safe again." + means "oops. you've got a lethal chlorinated hydrocarbon in there." It is also making me that much more determined to grow as much food as I possibly can in my backyard, make good use of any plant products possible, and never ever ever use any sort of chemical pesticide. And my image of the 50s is really getting bizarre.... lots of smarty-dressed housewives smoking cigarettes, wacked out on benzos spraying their azaleas with liquid poison. Yum.

I have successfully dried and stored my first batch of lemon thyme and am aiming to get a bunch more before the season is out. I'm also drying out peppermint leaves and plan on using those as a yummy tea or nice addition to facial steams. It was really easy to do: I just pulled off the mint leaves, washed them, and am drying them on the countertop. My next goal is to figure out what the hells I can do with my licorice plant.