Inside The Perimeter

On Friday I ate dinner and had beers with an old coworker who is in town from Miami for a few days. We ate at Fox Bros, one of my favorites and somewhere I’ve not eaten at in some time. While the food was still excellent, I am not sure the value for money is there. I ate combo meal of four chicken wings (two drumettes, two flats), one decent slice of brisket, fries, and Brunswick stew, for $26. The meal was filling but it will be some time before I again pony up that sort of money for a meal like that.

On my walk back from UFO Saturday morning I stopped at a garage sale and met someone whose taste in movies and books is very similar to mine. At the sale I scored “High Fidelity” on Blu-Ray, and one of my white whales — “Stop Making Sense” — on DVD. It was $5 well spent. I told the guy that I would have purchased a lot more from him, had I not already owned them.

This weekend I made my first attempt at saving lettuce seeds. I previously learned that one has to wait for the plant to go past the flower state to a puffball state, because the seeds are attached to the puffs. It’s more labor intensive than other seeds I’ve harvested, and I will be interested to see what my seeds produce later this year. I also had to contend with tiny spiders (spider mites?) who were living within the plants, something no one mentioned. I’m sure there’s a way to automate this process, but I now have more respect for lettuce seed farmers.

Wordle: four, my starter was REPLY

After my Trees Atlanta shift I came home, ate lunch, and shut down for the rest of the day.

At some point during the Germany v Ecuador game I realized that I could be doing other things, so I started my summer of reading. Yesterday I started that well known page turner “Mini-Forest Revolution: Using the Miyazaki Method to Rapidly Rewild the World” by Hanna Lewis.

For dinner I made a huge batch of spaghetti, but instead of boiling the pasta in a large pot of water, I used the “cook in sauce” method as described here. I added meatballs, chopped salami, an onion, garlic, and a yellow bell pepper to the dish, which turned out well. I ate like a king.

Wordle: four, my starter was STEAL

My productive morning yesterday was satisfying. My knee hurting again yesterday afternoon was disheartening.

Last night I baked another zucchini bread, this one being a savory zucchini bread. Yes, it still has some sugar, but unlike the one I baked last week, this one has many more eggs and far less sugar.

I’m not sure who at Amazon thinks it is a good idea, but all of the items I ordered a few days ago were delivered last night, a day ahead of the delivery date I chose. Were it a normal Wednesday evening I would have been at Betsy’s for dinner when it was delivered to my house. That being said, the spare tubes are in, the new seat bag is in, the water bottle cages are in, and all are installed. Now, I just need my body to return to a condition that will allow me to ride without pain. Also in my Amazon delivery was a remote control for my secondhand Blu-Ray player, thankfully it seems to work.

I was going to ride the newly-opened Beltline to Trees Atlanta this morning, but of course I can’t. I will drive there and hope that my knee doesn’t hurt while volunteering.

Wordle: three, my starter was DAIRY

My buddy Hank has flown home, which is good for my productivity and my desire to lose weight. On Monday I tweaked my left knee (again) which is terrible for my productivity and my desire to lose weight. The pain, as well as the fact that it still exists two days later, is frighteningly reminiscent of when I tore a meniscus and required surgery in 2020. Not only do I not want to repeat that my health insurance is far worse when that occurred…

I’m in possession of my new old bicycle, heretofore named “Retrostein”, thanks to Allan. I was able to get the pedals off my original Trek 2300 (the “Red Rocket”) even after fourteen years of sitting in my basement. I will put the pedals on today, and once my knee(s) stop hurting will take Retrostein out for a ride.

Betsy is indisposed tonight, so I have a rare Wednesday free. What to do? Oh that’s right, nothing, since I am injured.

I’ve checked Amazon to see if any of my “must haves” are on sale today, they are not. This is good for my wallet.

Wordle: five, my starter was SCAPE. Four consecutive days of fives. Ugh

Another day of carousing yesterday. I met Hank and Chip for lunch at Lewis BBQ, where I had a massive order of anchors which were great. We headed to North Highland Pub afterward, where I had a few beers before heading home.

Those of you living north of the perimeter may be confused to read that I ad to run my sprinklers this morning because my small plants are dying. While I have a lot of water saved, I don’t have the time today to hand water all of Wee Little Farm.

This morning I am taking a few things over to CHaRM and then will be stopping at WLF@UFO to check on its progress, well, hopeful progress.

It appears that Hank is flying home tonight, instead of tomorrow. Our (probable) last gathering will at Schoolhouse, because BOGO. Barb, I can swing by and get the bicycle out of the Garage Mahal if you wish. I will settle my debts with a dinner sometime when it’s convenient for you.

Wordle: five, my starter was STRUM

Oh hey, it’s Monday! I woke up thinking that it was Sunday…

Wordle: five, my starter was SPADE

I’ve been casually watching World Cup games with the sound off. I am glad that I am ambivalent to almost all sports these days and that my mood changes little based on the outcome of a sporting event.

I think in reaction to my poor pepper plant performance (try saying that fast) this year I’ve turned my attention to beans. I have been planting a lot of beans, and I have many more to plant, in hopes of eating some fresh as well as drying some for future consumption.

Yesterday’s Faux Homestead (Fauxstead?) accomplishment was to make a couple jars of bread & butter pickles from WLF cucumbers, as well as one purchased from a grocery store; which should be ready to eat in a week or so.

After a couple of false starts, dinner was a bastardized version of chicken stroganoff. On hand I had egg noodles, pre-cooked chicken meatballs, a jar of beef gravy, some mild German cheese, and sour cream. The meal was surprisingly satisfying.

I welcome the rain which fell yesterday and overnight. Thankfully no apparent damage was done to Wee Little Farm nor the ITP Estate. This rain, as well as any that falls over the next week will help me store about as much water as I’ve gathered from the HVAC condenser. I’m sure you Cobb county residents are tired of rain by now…

My buddy Hank is coming into town tomorrow, so naturally I will doing some beer consumption over the next handful of days.

Wordle: four, my starter was USAGE

Fun and annoying fact about yesterday’s Wordle solution: According to my stats I previously used ENTRY as a starter sixteen times! Motherfu…..

Other than walking over to WLF@UFO to plant some bush bean seeds, which in all likelihood will get dug up by something, I didn’t do a heck of a lot yesterday. It was nice to get to meet another fellow UFO gardener.

Yesterday I learned that the Spanish speaking world calls England Inglaterra. I said it before, I will say it again, even though they now the call their country Türkiye, I still call it “Turkey”. After all we don’t call Germany Deutschland, do we?

Today is new bike day! This morning I will be driving up to Smyrna to pick up my new bike. I have a little regret that I am no longer in a financial position where I could have sprung for a higher-end model, like many of my fellow riders have done recently, but that’s a “me” issue. What I am picking up today is generationally better than the bike I took to BRAG, so there’s that. And, when Allan is done putting all of my old components on the new frame I will be a four-bike man! Then I will owe both Allan and Steve meals for their generosity. I knew BRAG would be expensive, I never realized how expensive… I’ll have bout a month for getting used to riding the new bike before I take it to Brevard for NC Mountain Ride this year.

Wordle: three, my starter was COUPE.

Good day yesterday, some rain fell upon Wee Little Farm.

Later Allan was able to extract my Excalibur pedal from Steve’s crank, so I rewarded his efforts with beer at Schoolhouse Brewing. We were joined by ITP-Reader Sal, and my buddy Chip.

I am considering crashing Trees Atlanta’s volunteer day today. The signup says that it’s full this week, and next, so I might show up and see if they turn me away. If I don’t, I will wander over to WLF@UFO and see how that raised bed is doing.

I may be picking up my new, as yet unnamed, bicycle tomorrow.

Though it won’t renew for another month, I’ve run out of Audible credits. Since I have enough audiobooks to last me until my demise, I decided to cancel my account and save the $150/year cost.

Wordle: five, my starter was CLAIM

Jenka, if my data is correct today is your birthday? If so, Happy Birthday!

Last night’s dinner was zucchini meatloaf. The zucchini was from Wee Little Farm. I intended to eat meatloaf with WLF potatoes, harvested from grow bags, but I forgot to prep them while the meatloaf baked, so I pivoted and cooked up a can of green beans instead.

Here are some things that should have made it into yesterday’s post:

On Friday Kroger didn’t have and pork ribs, but what they did have were pork shoulders at a significant discount, so I bought the smallest one, which was 8.5 pounds! On Sunday I cut that chunk of meat in half and plopped one half into a slow cooker to make shredded pork. It was (and still is) amazingly delicious.

Over the weekend I also started a batch of fermented cucumbers (to turn into pickles) using WLF cucumbers. Additionally, I made a batch of pimento cheese, for which none of the ingredients were from WLF.

Since inheriting it, I finally used my mother’s tabletop oven for the first time. I used the oven to make a zucchini bread. It took much longer to bake throughout resulting in a burnt top. I’m not sure this oven is the best thing for such a task, but I will try again with something else in the future. This oven’s biggest asset is that it’s in the basement and won’t heat the house the way my kitchen oven does.

Allan found an acceptable Trek bike frame, ironically the same model as the bike (Red Rocket) which was replaced by the one that broke on BRAG (Black Beauty). I have removed my components from Steve’s frame and will deliver the, to Allan at Schoolhouse Brewing today (shocker, since is is a BOGO day for me).

Wordle: six, my starter was CABIN