(Over)due for an Update

The aquaponics system is absolutely flourishing.  Mostly.  We have a couple little sprouts that are hard to photograph that we think might be brussels sprouts, but I'm not convinced those are/will do well in the rock bed.  We'll see.  Worst case, they'll go outside in the backyard veggie garden (which will be well-fenced this year so we don't give the bunnies a brussels sprout buffet, sorry, bunnies).

The beans, though.  The green beans are happy.  Ecstatic, even.  Check this out.

See all those extra leaves and tendrils starting?  Happy, I tell you.  Meanwhile, in the foreground, those are some of the leafy greens.  Spinach & mesclun, I believe.  Look how tall they're getting!  And leafy!  In fact, in some spots they're starting to get the actual lettuce-type leaves, the serrated ones.

See 'em?

The cukes are doing well too.  Not as huge as the beans, but starting to get the secondary leaves.

They're budding there in the middle of the initial leaves.  These are pickling cukes, so it'll be fun once Eric takes up making pickles.  Once we have actual cucumbers, that is.

And just a quick overhead view of all the leafy greens and tomatoes, just to show how they've proliferated.

Salad in a bed of rocks!  Oh, and in case you're wondering about the fish, they're still doing well.  Holding at 4 fish, which are eating well and getting bigger by the day.  I wouldn't expect goldfish to get that big, but they're definitely bigger than when we got them.

My, How You've Grown

Just a quick update.  Day 7 and the tallest of the broccoli and mesclun and/or spinach sprouts are 1.25 to 2" high.

I measured.

Leaves! And a Grade School Science Experiment

Remember in grammar school when we were given birdseed, paper towels, and plastic bags?  We wet the paper towels, put the seeds between two layers of them, and sealed them in the bags... and sprouts grew.

We did the same thing here the same night as we scattered the other seeds in the aquaponics tub, only with green beans & cucumbers.  Today, we opened 'em up.

They grew a ton in just 6 days and rooted right into the paper towels, which was pretty funny.  So into the rock bed they went!

Meanwhile, we noticed yesterday... leaves!  Leaves on the shoots in five days!

And today, they're just going crazy!  A ton of growth.

And if you're wondering about the fish, we're down to five, as we lost three while the system stabilized, but those five are doing well.

My Handmade Holidays

I did a lot of creating this season.  A lot.  I'm tired, but still truckin' along.

I suppose I should start with Chanukah, which also happened to pretty much coincide with one nephew's birthday, so I include the birthday in this post too.

Both nephews, for Chanukah and Christmas, got these cute magnetic fishing games I made.

Eric helped too; he cut down the dowels for me to make the fishing poles!

And I knitted each one a fish like this one.

But not all the crafts were mine, and I really should back up.  First, there was one gift exchange with a group, and for my recipient, in addition to giving her my own candles, soap, and one of my washcloths, I gave her a beautiful bear ornament from Reflections, like this one.

And Kris, the shop owner, was so wonderful that she sent one for our tree too!

And no, we don't have a fake white tree, we get the real thing from the local EMS, generally.  It just doesn't show up as well on the dark green in a photo, so that's Kris' shop photo.  Here's how it looks in our house:

I also gave the same person this cool hot/cold pack in a racing fabric from Lil' Bit Sassy.  My recipient's favorite sport is NASCAR, after all.

Then in another exchange, in addition to one of our bath salts and one of our candles, I gave my recipient these incense sticks from Delightful Scents.

My office is also REALLY big on Christmas, so we had all sorts of gift exchanges.  For my boss, I got this terrific print of a watercolor painting, which I then framed for her.  It was from StartsArts.

It looks even more amazing in person, and Eric and I kind of want one for ourselves too.  The colors are so bright and vivid!

For the associate with whom I also work, I got this really pretty hanging tealight holder from Reflections.  Fall is her favorite season, so I thought it was perfect.

And for our office white elephant exchange, I got this awesome mug from River Rock Arts, and gave it with some homemade chocolates and a Dunkin Donuts gift card.

That mug is called "oversized" in the description, but believe me when I tell you it's HUGE and gorgeous, and I will own some at some point!

And to everyone in the office, I gave handmade snowman lollipops.  With 14 people in the office and three pops per person, 42 pops took me quite a while to do.  I admire chocolatiers, for sure.  But at the end, everyone got one dark chocolate, one milk chocolate, and one white chocolate pop.

For each other, Eric got me some amazing teas and other stuff, and I got him a dehydrator and some books and things.  It was a great Chanukah and Christmas all around!

Shared with:

We Weathered the Storm

So... if you haven't been living under a rock, I suppose you heard about our not-so-friendly friend, Sandy.  Yeah, that wench took our power from October 30 at 7:30 p.m. to November 3 at 1:59 p.m.  I'd never been without power for more than a few hours before, so this was a new one for me.  I'd like to never do it again.

Thankfully, unlike my friends along the shore who had tons of damage to their homes and belongings, ours was minimal.  We live on a mountain amongst lakes and forest, so I was worried about trees of course, but we got really lucky.  The one big tree that came down on our property was at the very edge of the woodsy part of the backyard and didn't even make it to the flat part.

I only noticed it because when we went to walk Meg, I saw the new breakage there at the top.  Like I said, we were lucky, and I'm not kidding.  That was a tall tree, and had it been at the close end of the woods rather than the far end, we might be roofless.

Another tree snapped partway up and is now resting on two other trees.

Mostly, though, we just were given a big raking job.

And as you see, we emptied the yard of everything.  The grill and whatever furniture would fit went into the garage.  The rest went down the basement.  And the garbage cans are on the steps right below those cellar doors you see on the left.  The only thing that we couldn't get inside was Eric's garden box, but we took care of that.

And then we got inside and stayed inside.  We lost power Monday night at 7:30, which didn't disturb much... until the 3rd day or so.  Neither one of us had ever been without power for more than a couple hours before.  It's a good thing we make candles!  It's also a good thing we have a fireplace.  Without heat, we'd have been cooked.  Or anti-cooked, as the case may be.  For a total of 5 days, we showered at a friend's house, closed off our extraneous rooms and dragged a mattress into the living room in front of the fireplace.  And did lots of this.

It could have been worse.  We could have had this in our yard.

Or this at the end of our street.

So yeah, lucky.  Also, I knitted.  Very glad knitting doesn't require power.  Started a sweater for myself and worked on a nephew's fish.

A nephew's fish? you ask.

One like this.

The one pictured above is actually available in the shop.  I'm also making one for each nephew for Chanukah/Christmas too.

And I cut out all the parts for 16 cows.  Sounds weird, I know.  But I'm in another show, Cinderella Confidential, and I've been double-cast.  I'm one of the stepsisters (fun!) and also Flossie the Cow.  How awesome is that?  Flossie is a silent part, but she's kind of a running joke throughout the show.  Because she's such a staple in the production, they've started calling me Flossie instead of Larissa.

And it's a theater tradition, at last in community theater, to give everyone a card and/or small gift on opening night.  So remember when I won that fat quarter of black and white fabric?  I'd never used it.  Yeah, I know.  But it was sitting there... and it hit me:  Cows!

(No, I was not actually hit by cows.  That would hurt.  Silly people.)

So... I started cutting.  And cutting.  And cutting.  Sixteen cows mean a lot of parts when each body takes two, each face takes two, then there are ears, hooves, horns, and snouts to cut from felt.  Floss for nostrils and buttons for eyes.  But how cute are they?!  As soon as we got power back, I got to sewing.  And sewing.  And sewing.

I've earmarked ten of them for my cast & crew, one for a friend, and three for the shop.

If you're on the east coast, how'd you make it through?  Everything OK?