Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

I am currently reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle for our parish book club. (We have a choice between this and No Impact Man, but, since I suggested that one, I'd already read it.) The focus of this book is on eating locally, and the easiest way to do that is to grown one's own food.

I like the ideas in this book as well, and, as usual, they have made me think about how to make similar changes in my life. And this, understandable to those who know me and can join in, makes me laugh. First off, I don't like vegetables. I grew up a picky eater and am slowly attempting to try new foods. For instance, I turned 30 on March 21 this year, and today was my first taste (that I know of) of beets. (They are not quivering blobs of blood after all, but taste, unsurprisingly, like red tubers.) I even ate fish without turning a hair. (I only started admitting to the idea of liking fish less than three years ago, when we moved here and Presvytera Vasso made salmon for us.)

So I've made a rough plan of preparation for starting a vegetable garden (a long-term goal of mine).

Learn to:
• Eat vegetables.
• Cook vegetables.
• Store vegetables (freeze-dry, can, etc.).
• Harvest vegetables. (I don't actually know how to tell when things are *ready*, which is probably important.)
• Take care of plants (weeding, not killing from over-/under-watering, or bugs and disease, mulch, and plenty of things I'm sure I don't know yet).
• Plant things.

Oh, well, I've run out of thoughts and need to rush out to Bridegroom service tonight. Have a blessed and profitable Holy Week, y'all!

September 3

Today I managed to go to the family storytime at the library, even though we were late due to an unexpected poopy diaper.

I spent most of the afternoon on the computer working on presvyteres stuff. The article ("by Teddy") of the Atlanta Metropolis Clergy-Laity is still too large, so I will have to figure out how to reduce the filesize of each of the pictures, then resize them to what they currently are, and make sure everything works.

I decided not to go to the water aerobics thing tonight, but took about an hour to work in the yard some more. I didn't realize I was so long, since I started about an hour later than I usually do, and went until I couldn't tell dirt from leaves (and was trying not to think of bugs).

Still doing more cogitating than working on the presvyteres directory. I'm much better at looking things up than calling people I don't know. Oh, well. I'll see what I can do with a fresh start tomorrow.

Pruning

Centerpiece

Vassi gave me the advice that I should prune my plants, and that if I cut the basil close to the root, and put the stalk in a glass of water, it would put out roots and I could replant the stalk. So today I pruned and now have a pretty centerpiece for our table from the trimmings, and have attempted two re-rootings of the basil to use up some more vases.