Finally, some actual travel on the horizon

"Actual" meaning "not a long weekend," "not related to moving," and "not involving family obligations in any way."

In late July, as I've mentioned, we'll spend a week at my sister's on the Gulf Coast, with several days in New Orleans. So, okay, some family obligations there, but note that the days in New Orleans will be in a hotel, on our own, eating/drinking/sightseeing to our heart's content. So more vacation than family.

But! Also! We'll be going to Costa Rica in November!

How awesome is that?

Even more awesome is that we cashed in a bunch of miles, so the airfare was essentially free.

That will be a) the first time my husband has ever been out of North America, b) the first time I'll have been out of North America since my trip to Buenos Aires, and c) a blessed return to the "travel internationally for Thanksgiving" tradition I started some years ago.

And as you also know, I've long had a pipe dream of cashing it all in and going to live in a container house in Costa Rica and raising chickens or something. Our vacation there will be like research.

Another snake

I saw another garter snake the other day, alongside the garage. He slithered away before I could chop him with my snake-killing hoe.

But I also saw the first little green tomatoes on my tomato plants. So that was pretty exciting.

We're taking our first major vacation next month. ("Major" being defined as "more than a long weekend.") Granted, it does involve family, and a place I've been to many times--but hey, it'll be ten days. We're driving down to New Orleans for my niece's first birthday. We'll spend some of that time with family at my sister's house (my parents are coming down, too); and some of the time in an actual hotel room, exploring New Orleans.

I love the Big Easy, but my husband's never been. So I'm excited to take him around to my favorite spots. I've got a whole list of restaurants and bars I want to hit while we're there. We'll also stock up on all the Gulf Coast specialities I can't get in Boston (gator sausage, grits, Abita beer, Zapp's potato chips, and so on).

Maybe I'll have harvested some actual tomatoes by then.

Gardening lessons

Check out my guest post on gardening at Get Rich Slowly!

Here's a slightly different version of the same post (basically, more pictures and different captions):

Gardening equipment is expensive.

But gardening itself doesn’t have to be.

This is my first attempt at full-scale gardening. This is the first year I’ve lived in a house, with a yard; previous gardening efforts were limited to containers of herbs, and the odd tomato plant, on windowsills or apartment patios. To complicate matters, it’s my first year living in New England, so the climate is new (and frightening). We had an intensely bitter winter, in which my backyard was buried under five feet of snow from January through the end of March; and then an intensely rainy and chilly spring.




The container garden tradition continues...



So I knew this first year would be an experiment, and I approached it as such. In February, I began collecting seeds (heirloom and/or organic when possible), with the idea to plant one or two of everything and see what took. Here’s what I bought:

Tomatoes (several different kinds, including Jubilee, Amish Paste, Cherokee, and cherry)
Peppers (habanero, jalapeno, Thai, cayenne, Serrano, and bell: green, yellow and purple)
Cucumbers
Green beans
Zucchini
Butternut squash
Pie pumpkins
Cauliflower
Peas
Watermelon
Corn
Kale
Arugula
Spinach
Swiss chard
Sorrel
Beets (regular and striped)
Mache
Carrots
Brussels sprouts
Leeks
Onions

(Some of these I won’t plant until late summer/early fall, like the beets and Brussels sprouts.)

And herbs:
Rosemary
Parsley
Cilantro
Sage
Tarragon
Oregano
Marjoram
Thyme
Borage
Nasturtiums
Dill
Basil (regular, purple, Thai)
Lavender
Mint
Chives
Catgrass
Chervil
Hyssop
Strawberries

Ambitious, I know.

The seeds cost around $100 total, although I got quite a few tomato seeds from my sister. I had a lot of one-time start-up costs; I had to buy a hoe, a rake, a shovel, a pitchfork (for the compost pile), a hose, and four florescent shop lights to start the seeds indoors. I also needed quite a lot of potting soil and seed-starting mix. I still had all the plastic containers from my various container gardens, which I used to start the herbs.

But I also learned what I didn’t need to spend money on.

Due to the climate, I knew I would have to start most everything indoors. (Because of the very rainy/chilly spring, I didn’t get the last tomato seedling in the ground until June 4.) I have a sunroom attached to the back of the house, walled almost entirely in sliding glass doors. It’s lovely in the summer, but bitter cold in the winter. I closed off the heating vents and kept it unheated through the entire winter. It was the perfect place to start seedlings (lots of light, out of the way), except for the cold—at least twenty-five degrees colder than the rest of the house, far too cold for delicate seedlings. I put a space heater in there for the seed-starting project—which promptly doubled my electric bill.

DOUBLED it.

So next year I’ll wait a few more weeks, until things warm up slightly, and skip the space heater.

I kept the florescent lights set on stacks of bricks, just above the seedlings, so I didn’t need to install shelving.



Note the variety of containers the seedlings are in...



And the repurposed silver dinner tray.


The bricks were free—the house came with two random piles of bricks in the yard. I bought special seed-starting kits, but quickly figured out that I had plenty of things around the house that I could re-purpose for seed starting. All of these things can easily be used, most of which you probably already have, all of which I used at some point:

Yogurt/sour cream containers
Egg cartons
Grapefruit and orange halves (eat the fruit first)
Bottoms of milk jugs
Paper cups (these actually worked the best of anything)
Toilet paper tubes (fold the bottom under to make a little cup)
Paper towel tubes, cut in half (see above)
Cleaned out food and coffee cans (any size)
Cleaned out soda cans, cut in half
Those plastic tubs mushrooms and lettuce come in
Plastic take-out containers
I even repurposed some random, lidless Tupperware.

(Just make sure you cut/punch holes in the bottom of everything, for drainage.)

Instead of drainage trays, I used box tops. Instead of row markers, I used a Sharpie and extra bricks. Instead of purchasing nine zillion tomato cages, I used sticks and twine. (All those winter storms brought down a lot of big tree branches; I simply went to the piles of deadwood in the back of the yard and stripped out large branches which I stuck in the ground, one for each tomato plant. Ditto for pea trellises.)



Exceedingly high-tech stick method; but the tomato plant seems to like it.

The previous occupants had left a small garden in one corner of the yard, maybe six feet by six feet. Obviously too small for everything I wanted to plant! But renting a tiller to plow up a section of the yard would have been far more expensive than I thought it would be. So I didn’t.

Instead, I took a hoe to the lawn and chopped out additional rows. For the tomatoes, I chopped out one hole at a time, in various locations around the yard. I filled in the vacant flower beds with herbs. I planted edible flowers around the mailbox. Every square inch of usable yard real estate was reappropriated for gardening; and when I’d filled in the edges, I chopped out grass and planted everything else in the lawn.



If I had my way, I'd plow up the entire lawn and turn it into a giant vegetable garden. Less grass to mow.


Now, maybe this method will work against me. Maybe lawn grass growing between the rows will end up stunting the growth of my plants. But so far, everything is growing really well. And the grass will grow back, if it turns out this method doesn’t work.

One note: it’s far easier to chop up the top layer of grass with a hoe, and use a trowel to dig up the dirt, than it is to try to dig an actual hole with a shovel. Grass is tough to dig through, but surprisingly easy to pull up.

The only other costs have been Miracle-Gro and rabbit repellent. My yard backs into a nature preserve, so it’s like Wild Kingdom out there. I’ve seen rabbits, raccoons, skunks, snakes, groundhogs, foxes, turtles, deer, and any number of birds in the yard. It also appears that I have an entire chipmunk colony tunneling under the yard. I can't shoot them (I live in the 'burbs) and I can't trap them (too many). So I have to coexist, somewhat uneasily, and hope they don't eat my garden. The homemade repellents (typically a mixture of cayenne pepper or hot sauce sprayed directly on the plants) didn’t prevent my cauliflower and corn from being nibbled. So I’ve been spraying commercial rabbit and deer repellent around the yard, and so far, so good.

Not including the $100 for seeds, I’ve spent around $600 on gardening so far this year. But of that, I think I can safely budget no more than $200 total for next year, for seeds and potting soil (and possibly more rabbit repellent). I won’t need to buy a hoe, shovel, pitchfork or hose again, and I know I can start my seeds without special seed trays and equipment. I also have a lot of seeds left over, which I can save in the back of the refrigerator for next year, cutting next year’s seeds costs down to probably $60 or so. (And frankly, I won't be planting all of that stuff again next year; only what's most successful this year.)

For the rest of this summer, the only reoccurring costs will be the Miracle-Gro (which I can eliminate next year, as my new compost pile will be producing compost by then) and more rabbit repellent (stupid rabbits).

Will the garden turn out to be more cost-effective than my CSA? ($475 for weekly boxes, May – November) That remains to be seen, but it’s looking good right now. If the rabbits don’t eat everything, and we don’t get a freak tornado or hailstorm, I should have a bumper crop of tomatoes and peppers. The green beans are shooting up, the squash is coming along nicely, and the container herbs are getting close to the point where they can be harvested regularly. I’ll be sure to report back at the end of the summer.

That old Boston standby, Legal Seafoods

It rained all last weekend, so I couldn't get any yardwork/gardening done. Having no other plans, I was a little stir-crazy, so eventually my husband and I decided to go out.

Normally, "going out" is an event, budgeted and planned ahead. This is perhaps the first time in our marriage when we've had the money to even consider "going out" as an option when bored, and not as a special occasion.

We went to a new, upscale outdoor mall near where I work. There's a Whole Foods, several upscale restaurants, lots of upper-end shopping (Aldo, Williams Sonoma, J. Crew), and a big movie theater. We started at The Yardhouse, which featured a gazillion different kinds of beer. Between us, we sampled Dead Guy Rogue Ale, Arrogant Bastard, and Delirium Tremens. Clear winner: Arrogant Bastard.

For dinner, we went to Legal C Bar, which is the upscale bar version of Legal Seafoods, a Boston-area stalwart. We had some cocktails, and discovered Absolut Brooklyn. What does Brooklyn-flavored vodka taste like, you ask? (Not like asphalt and hipsters, which was my first guess.) Red apple and ginger, actually.

Then we had the raw seafood tower (oysters, clams, shrimp, crab legs). Of those, the oysters were, and always will be, the clear winner. I like raw oysters far better than I like raw clams, the crab legs were messy, and the shrimp--despite the waitstaff's assurances that the shrimp were fresh--were previously frozen and in fact were so cold they may as well have been still frozen. So now you know: when eating raw seafood, save your money for oysters, sushi, and ceviche. Skip the rest.

We wrapped up the evening with The Hangover II at the multiplex. (Not nearly as good as the original; but then, sequels never are.) A couple of weeks ago we saw Bridesmaids at that same multiplex; that's two movies in a month, and prior to Bridesmaids, I don't think I'd seen a movie in the theatre since...my road trip in 2009? Frankly, the experience doesn't do anything for me. It's $22 just to get in the door for the two of us (plus popcorn, since apparently my husband is physically incapable of watching a movie without popcorn); I'd much rather just wait for Netflix and watch at home for practically free.

But hey, the point is that $22 + popcorn is not the huge budget-buster it once was. Nor is a day of "going out," which, happily, was less expensive than I'd feared. Largely because I was mentally pricing beers and cocktails at New York prices ($14 each) instead of at suburban MA prices ($6-8 each). Even the tower of seafood for two was a reasonably priced $47, and not the $80+ it would have been in NY.

I guess there are some advantages to the 'burbs, after all.

OMG, I killed a snake

I killed a snake.

See picture above. You can't even tell it's chopped in half.
I went outside to check on the garden after I got home from work yesterday afternoon, and I let the cats out to play while I did. One was terribly interested in a particular bush, he kept smelling it and dancing all around it, and I ignored it for the first few minutes. But he kept smelling and prancing, this from a cat who normally bounds all over the yard, and finally I went over there to see what all the fuss was about.

About that time a snake slithered out of the bush.

It wasn't big, or poisonous. A little black-and-yellow garter snake of some variety, I imagine. It would have been hard-pressed to swallow anything bigger than a cough drop. Nevertheless, I certainly didn't want it getting inside the house. And, you know, it was a SNAKE. So I scooped up the cats, deposited them inside, and came back with the hoe. And chopped the snake in two.

Then I ran back inside and called my husband to come home and remove the corpse.

I'm about equal parts proud of myself and grossed out. I also feel a little hillbilly for chopping a snake in two with a hoe. (My dad had a good laugh at that one.) Nevertheless, I feel like I've earned my Wildlife Badge.

So, let's recap. So far my backyard has hosted chipmunks, squirrels, groundhogs, rabbits, foxes, mice, a raccoon, a turtle, deer, about 900,000 different kinds of birds, and now a snake. I've even heard owls. We've seen every kind of wildlife present in the eastern half of the US with the possible exception of bobcats and bear. I wonder if my neighbors are seeing this much action or if it's just me.

If I have to kill another snake any time soon, I may hyperventilate.

The final plants are in the ground!

Which means the gardening prep work is done. All I have to do now is water, weed, and watch everything grow (I hope). It took longer than I thought to get everything transplanted, but hopefully next year a) it won't be so rainy, and b) I won't need to create new rows/gardening space from scratch like I did this year.

We're in the process of firming up vacation plans (which should include a week in New Orleans/Gulf Coast next month) and possibly a trip somewhere fun over Thanksgiving.

But these days, going into my backyard after work, looking at my garden, and having a nice cold drink on a hot day is enough of a vacation for me. ANY nice weather after the last nine months or so is like a vacation.

Neptune Oyster

While roaming through Boston last weekend, we happened upon Neptune Oyster and decided to give it a shot, based on the recommendation from a guy working a high-end wine shop in the North End. (When in doubt, wine and cheese shop employees will almost invariably have good restaurant recommendations.)

It didn't disappoint.

We gorged ourselves on fresh seafood, starting with a round of Wellfleet oysters. I also discovered the Kusshi oysters, from British Columbia, and Summerside from Prince Edward Island; the Kusshi were very meaty, and the Summersides were almost lemony. The Wellfleets were terrifically briny, as always, but I may like the Canadian ones better. We paired with a LaCryma Cristi Dei Feudi 2009 from Campagna, which was delightful--it had an almost salty aftertaste, which went perfectly with the seafood.

Next came a hamachi ceviche with a jalapeno pesto. I could have eaten a huge plate of that--it was really good. (I had to explain the concept of ceviche to my husband--raw fish or seafood which is marinated in citrus juice, so that the texture changes and becomes similar to the texture of cooked fish/seafood, even though it's still raw. Very light and refreshing. Yum.)

I moved on to P.E.I. mussels in a Thai curry sauce (which I sopped up with a side of fries, moules frites-style); my visiting friend had seared scallops with a black bean-corn thing, and my husband had the lobster roll.

One of the things I missed most in Southern California was good, fresh seafood. You'd think Southern California would have good seafood, but you'd be wrong. That was one of the (few) saving graces of moving from there to Boston--I knew I could finally get good seafood again. Restaurants like this are perfect for scratching that itch--super-fresh seafood, small, inviting ambience, good wine list. We'll definitely go back.

Summer's finally arrived

I think we had three Marches in a row, skipped April and May entirely, and went straight into June. After weeks of rain and more rain, it's been sunny, mostly clear, and in the 80s for the last week or two. We got a picnic table and citronella torches so that we can eat outside, and I'm scurrying to try to get the last of the seedlings planted (all tomatoes and peppers, at this point). Everything that's already in the ground is growing wildly; I swear I can sit and watch the green beans grow, they've shot up three inches in the last three days. I hope this means a really hot summer, and a bumper crop of vegetables.

Memorial Day weekend was very nice. An old friend from college came up to visit. The last time I saw her was at the wedding, and the last time I'd seen her before that was probably my college graduation, lo these many years ago. We had a great time catching up. Saturday night I had a dinner party with a bunch of people, Sunday we went into Boston and had a great meal (separate blog post on that later), and Monday we recuperated. I didn't get as much gardening in as I would have liked, due to hanging out with my visitor, but at least I managed to get the knee-high grass cut before she showed up.

I also got a credit card paid off. It was just a little one, but I finally feel like we're making progress with debt repayment. I cancelled it right away.