+Heading back to Texas this week. Chris is switching with me, taking my place here while I go home to our cats. Looking forward to being home again and seeing my cats and the garden.
+I will miss the hills and beauty of the area. I won’t miss the cold, dreary weather we’ve been having here in PA. It definitely reminded me why I enjoyed Florida winters so much.
+Back in April I read on My Topography, Christina wrote about contributing to The 3six5 a blog collaboration. I was interested so I signed up for it. My day was yesterday. Go check it out! It was fun to remember signing up for this and not knowing where I would be. I remember choosing a weekend day so that I might actually be able to write it up—and here I was working in the field today anyway.
+Itching to do some crocheting. Finished one baby blanket and need to start another but am dying to get to work on some clothing pieces and also thinking about Christmas gifts, too.
+Deal & Steadee are bouncing through Georgia on their way to Springer. Should be done on Monday sometime! Exciting! I can imagine how they feel—excited, ready to be done but feeling bittersweet about the whole ordeal.
+If you like books, Elizabeth is doing a read a thon. I’m sure she will have some great reviews!
+That’s about it! Have a lot on my agenda when I get home.
+A weekend off. I feel like I’ve been going a million miles an hour for the last few weeks. Been very busy at work and then we had another project sprung on us at the last minute, or so it seemed, and now I am going to Pennsylvania for a month. I was thinking two weeks sounded nice but a month is pushing my limits. I’m becoming a homebody again. Apparently there’s this thing called snow that we’re racing against.
+I’m starting to like not checking FB often and only being on about once a week. The only downside is that it seems the only way to get any idea of what is going on with people is through FB because apparently email and phone calls are just impossible. I’m not the best at calling people but I do email folks. And while I am working on being better at returning emails or keeping an email going (unless it just doesn’t need to continue) I just wish that FB wasn’t the be all and end all on finding out how people are.
+We were walking into REI last night to pick up, well, we were just browsing because they were having extra sales on clearance items and such and I noted to Chris that everything but the bra I was wearing could have been bought at REI. In fact I think the only thing that wasn’t were my Keen flip-flops. REI—*love*. The problem now is that we just don’t need any gear so we mostly wander around and browse. I did instantly pick up Paddling the Wild Neches a few seconds after walking in because it was conveniently placed near the kayaking gear. I snagged it and we bought it with a 20% off coupon. Having spent so much time on and near the Neches this last spring and summer it has become very interesting to me. I’d love to paddle around it some time, that and the Trinity. There are lots of beautiful places in Texas that just don’t get the respect or use they deserve.
+Now that we are cooking and planning meals as well as starting preserve what we grow I’m becoming very interested in whole foods and eating more sustainably. Not that I wasn’t already but it feels nice to try to put it into use. I find eating out less interesting now, especially at mediocre restaurants that we could duplicate the meals at home. And since we are pickling our own cucumbers I pointed out to Chris how they use dye to color the jars at the store. And then he pointed out yesterday the tomatillo salsa I grabbed at Taco Cabana seemed suspiciously bright green.
+Summer is gone. Well, not officially, the autumnal equinox is still a week or so away. But, the lighting is different, it gets dark earlier and light later. I don’t like the light later thing, rather I don’t like either one. I’d prefer if it got light at about 5:30am daily and got dark at about 10pm. Year round. At the very least, in the winter it should get dark only at about 8pm, no earlier.
+Working on some posts for next week. I’ve got a list of adventure books that I’m writing about, plus I’ll have a post about a week of our pre-planned meals and how they work out. We’re going to do another long day hike this weekend so I’ll have a post on that I’m sure. Plus, I crocheted some baby hats for two coworkers that are having kids soon and so I had Leo model them for me. He’s good at that. Samson wouldn’t cooperate so Leo got the modeling duties.
+Trying this yoga thing about more. I got a really good book at the library, so good I renewed it. Right now I am working on mastering some poses before I start working on a series of poses. I am out of shape. Yes, hiking all those miles in the last year was good cardiovascularly but my stretching ability is almost nonexistant. I can still touch my toes but my days of doing splits and other gymnastic tricks are long gone. I always drool at the really cool yoga poses like scorpion pose, but I know I have to work my way up. Right now I am focusing on headstand, which I’ve been able to get up in and stay for several seconds, but my goal is to get to a minute in the nearer future. Was mostly inspired by Katie’s post on it. Yesterday I was up for a few seconds and came down early because I noticed ants walking across the floor. They looked very large and much darker upside down!
+Part good news on my hard drive problem, I found some tiff files without my signature on the files of all of my photos that are on our website. Bummer news it that other files besides that are still on the hard drive. So, I can print ‘good’ photos but other photos I don’t know about. I’m also going to be eliminating some photos from the portfolio; I decided there are several that aren’t strong enough. Frankly I do not like a lot of my landscapes, I’m just not that strong at them.
+Chris and I are getting two large canvases of our photos printed. See, I’m pretty easy going on agreeing to a photo but Chris usually doesn’t like what I like. So, we’ve had to debate on what photos of mine to print. It is very frustrating! Anyway, the one of mine we decided to print isn’t on the website but hopefully in the next few weeks it will be. I’m going to be reworking them all and then getting much more serious about selling stuff. Still up in the air about portrait photography. Really want to do it but not sure how to go about finding clients, especially in a new area. Hrm.
+Just finished a book that I will be chronicling on the adventure book post, but I’m about to delve into teen novels with The Hunger Games. I actually don’t know much about it, kind of how I was with Twilight. My basic premise for reading them is to read the books before the movie comes out, much like I did with Twilight. I read it literally days before it came out in theaters. I come late to the game most of the time. I was going to lament that one of my favorite recent YA series A Great and Terrible Beauty should be made into a movie and what does Google get me?….a movie! in 2013. Sweet! Well, crap. More digging has given me this movie canceled from the author herself. Damn!
+I guess that’s about it. I need to spend some time doing some creative things in the next week…getting some projects rolling more.
Yesterday we were all ready to go to DFW for the weekend, it was about 2:30 pm. We were heading into town to return a RedBox before heading out and as we approached town we’d noticed that the fires were flaring up. It had been a peaceful morning with no smoke and we’d decided that it was probably ok to venture out. However, once we arrived in town, it was chaos with everyone standing at the intersections, in the gas station and grocery store parking lots, some with chairs, many with smart phone or cameras to take videos. Several fire engines from around the state arrived within minutes, probably moving from other areas of the fire to attack the flare up. We stood around for a bit in the gas station parking lot then went across to McDonald’s to see what was being posted on the Fire Marshal’s page. We’d opened the laptops briefly when Chris saw that they’d posted that the main road to our area was being closed. We rushed home to see what was going on only to find out a bit later that they were a bit early on closing our street.
Deciding to cancel our trip to DFW, we went back into town to get back on the internet and find dinner for the night at the store. We’d been home a few minutes and I was talking to my mom on the phone when Chris told me to come outside. We could hear the constables driving down the main road in our area telling everyone to evacuate. Great.
We’d had everything by the door for several days after various possible threats but we still had to scramble for a bit and made several sweeps throughout the house. The cops drove down the road twice telling everyone to get out and then they never came back. We could hear the neighbors gathering their horses, cows and the stubborn donkey to trailer away. Our landlord had been out to his mom’s house and had to convince the cops to let him back into the neighborhood. We ended up staying for about two hours after the evacuation orders because the fire had slowly, at least seemingly, been dying down a bit. This allowed us to gather more of our stuff and let the cats relax a bit before we shoved them in their cages later.
There are at least five smaller planes and several helicopters tackling the fire and a DC-10 flew in from California to help tackle the blaze. At one point they were flying right over our house. That is the video of the DC-10 below.
We made dinner and ended up staying until just about dusk when we decided to walk up the road and peek down our main road to see if the road was blocked. We’d decided if it was blocked we’d leave because we wouldn’t be able to keep a good eye on the fire if we were sleeping and since it was dark outside we couldn’t see anything. So, we loaded the cats up, went to the library for one last check of the update and then drove to my coworker’s house in Spring.
We’re hoping we can get back into our house today, because the cats aren’t happy and I just want to be back in my big king bed! That and fires are much more stressful than dealing with hurricanes.
I intended to do a photo of the plane as it flew by but I’d had my camera set to video so it is a quick and dirty video and a bit dark. I have a video of the fire from the gas station but it is taking awhile to upload so I’ll have to do it later.
Hope we get home soon.
Edited 6:41pm:
This was about 3pm on Friday afternoon from 1488 and 1774.
Posted by mlittle on September 10, 2011 at 11:55 am under Thoughts. 1 Comment.
+It’s the end of a weird week. Started off with a holiday on Monday, which was wonderful and we got a 13+ mile hike in at the Sam Houston National Forest. Tuesday was busy at work and then yesterday I was in the field and had a very long day, not returning home until well after 8pm. Then the smoke from the nearby fires lingered in the air causing our office to let everyone work from home on Thursday if they had something to work on. Feeling a little disjointed after having some semblance of routine.
+Excited to see the family this weekend as we go up to get the last remaining bits of things we have up in DFW. It might be a few months before we get back up there because we have various things planned in the coming months but I know some of them might come down to see us.
+Had an interesting conversation with a fellow at McDonald’s the other day when I went up to check email and write blogs. Well, interesting because the guy bordered on annoying. Here I was moving to a new, small town by choice and this guy had lived here his whole life and wanted to get out. Financial and personal situations aside, if you want to move, move. The guy then went on to complain about the police and just had random thoughts that I kindly tried to listen while also paying more attention to my laptop, hoping he’d get the hint. Just made me think about how easy it is to think we’re stuck in a situation permanently, when most of the time it is only a choice to stay stuck.
+We had a brief encounter with fall the other day. Beautiful temperatures, crispness in the air, of course this was also the day the fire started. Chris crushed my dreams of the coming Autumnal Equinox by saying that the highs would be back in the high 90s later this week. *bummer*
+Crops are coming in good at the garden. Might be battling some sort of fungus on our zucchini but aren’t sure yet. Did some spraying of milk on the leaves and picked a few of the worst ones off, but I’m still not convinced yet. Normally I don’t really worry about plants having problems, mostly because in Florida anything in the curcurbit family would just keel over in days because of bugs. I gave up and stuck with tomatoes and things that wouldn’t be eaten by vine boring bugs.
+Planning our meals out has become so fun that I almost don’t want to eat out when it is our eat out night. Chris begs to differ because he wants a night off from cooking, but I like eating at home and having good meals. It has really shown us how much we do and don’t eat and how much we forget what we have even though our fridge and cabinets are not as stocked to the brim as they were at our house in Florida.
+Working on an Adventure Reading blog post to come next week, I think. I’m hoping to finish Between a Rock and a Hard Place, aka: the 127 Hours movie, before I write it up. Saw the movie a few weeks ago and then got the book at the library. So far it is much more detailed the movie, more about his life in adventure prior to that fateful day in the desert canyon. Good reading so far!
+Want to try to move forward on photography soon, but might have to be redoing my portfolio because I pretty much broke my backup hard drive with the important files on it. Chris has been working on it but has been unsuccessful so far and the hard drive company said that it would cost between $700 to $2000 for them to fix. So, Chris is going to be attempting more fixes for awhile. I basically broke the USB connection that goes to the hard drive and while Chris can get some sort of connection he can’t access the folders. Anyone tech-minded know of a solution?
+It’s my dad’s birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
+What is going on with you?
Posted by mlittle on September 9, 2011 at 6:22 am under Thoughts. 2 Comments.
Yesterday, Labor Day here in the U.S., we had stopped in at the McDonald’s in our town to get some recipes so we could go grocery shopping for the week. When we left to drive across the street to the store we noticed a fire to our north west that had just started within thirty minutes. By the time we left the store thirty minutes later it was flaring up even more.
We didn’t think anything of it, not that it would get bad or even come closer to our house which would be several miles away by now. We went home and I took a nap and while we were having dinner Chris noticed it was getting further south. In fact at about 7pm when I left to go get a RedBox at the McDonald’s and attempt to come up here and blog the fire was due west of us. These are the photos from our backyard at that time.
It continued to get worse but we didn’t think anything of it because the wind was blowing the fire and smoke the other way.
Chris’ mom was calling very frequently and for some reason my phone doesn’t want to ring with incoming calls so I had no idea my parents had called twice. That paired with a decrease in cell service due to the massive volume of emergency services going around we didn’t get as many calls as we thought.
As we went to bed it was getting cooler out and the wind died down and by 10pm there was a reddish glow in the distance but thirty minutes later it was gone. This morning it seemed to be under control and for most of the day at work, only four miles from my house, I barely heard any sirens. Then after lunch the wind picked up and the sirens returned. We were allowed to leave early because the wind switched to blow to the south and east and to alleviate breathing difficulties the workers could go home. It didn’t matter to me, I was planning to stay because what was home versus work only four miles away? Then Chris called and said that I should probably come home because ashes were falling around the house and the smoke was coming closer but you really couldn’t tell if the fire was closer or if it was just the smoke. We don’t have internet or tv so we’re getting information via phone or our neighbor.
So I went home early. We gathered stuff up at the door and now it has died down yet again. So. We wait. Hopefully that will be it and things will get under control.
It is our first full weekend here in our new town. The first weekend we went back home, last weekend we went to the beach to visit with friends and this weekend while we are doing some things in various greater Houston areas, we are sticking to local.
This morning we got up at our normal work-week time and went over to the Kleb Woods Nature Center. Chris purchased a book 60 Hikes within 60 Miles of Houston and it was listed in there as one of the places to go, plus it is relatively close to our house. We weren’t sure what we would see or if it would be worth our while but we really enjoyed it.
I did take my camera and was initially going to do photos for a Nature in the City post but my sleepy brain took a long time to wake up and instead I enjoyed the crisper Fall-like air (it was like 78* instead of 90*) and the woods were bustling with a bit of activity.
The Nature Center itself is lined with many hummingbird feeders and they were zipping around from feeder to feeder, tree to tree and zooming through the air. It was a sight to see! The outside windows have feeders attached to them and at one point one sat to drink for a few seconds at only about four feet away! It was pretty spectacular! Chris is planning on going back tomorrow morning to try to get photos. I hope he succeeds!
The area is mostly pine and yaupon with a few open areas such as along a fence line. The property used to be a farm and I’m sure the website details it more, but the owner didn’t pay taxes for years and years so they worked out a deal that the city of Houston would pay the back taxes and seize the property but allow the owner to live there until he died. He died in the late 90s. The homestead is still up and is normally open to view, but we were there a bit too early. A rusted windmill is being overtaken by yaupon and vines, but you can take a side trail back to check it out. They’ve even let his old ‘trash’ and farm equipment, now covered in pine needles and being swallowed by the yaupon.
In front of his house is something very cool, the old garden. It is mostly weeded over but vegetables still come up. We decided, whether true or not, that perhaps they just left whatever was growing come back year after year, and a watermelon was taking up a huge portion of the garden. This garden was quite large, reminiscent of my grandparent’s garden. Chris said he wanted double that size. I told him he was going to have to be a farmer to take care of it all! Tomatoes, okra, squash and some other vegetables were still poking through the weeds.
We did a few errands after that and then went by our garden plot to check on it. The seeds Chris has planted are doing spectacular. The golden zucchini is looking like it might start flowering soon! I’m excited about that! Maybe this week I’ll get some new photos up of the plot. Last night we picked some peppers that were in the community plots and Chris threw them in the stew he made. We’re in a stew/soup making mode and now have enough to get us through a week or two of lunches. I also picked some fresh mint and boiled it to make tea. It is very good! There’s a sprawling rosemary bush waiting for me to come up with a good use for it and Chris is thinking of harvesting a bunch of basil and making pesto for the winter.
We certainly have food on our mind! I just remember being on the AT and dreaming up all sorts of recipes and foods that I wanted to eat. And now, I can do it! Jennifer Pharr Davis wrote a post on grattitude and how much the trail shows her each summer to be thankful for all of the conveniences we have in modern life. Food is definitely one of them to be thankful for!
The rest of our weekend is going to be spent with friends and doing some more hiking on Monday. Hopefully I can wade through some more photos and get a few blogs up for this week!
Happy long weekend if you have one!
Posted by mlittle on September 3, 2011 at 2:41 pm under Thoughts. 1 Comment.
When we moved in Chris and I decided we’d start planning our weekly meals out in an effort to safe money and not to waste food. So far we have done well and I’ve enjoyed doing what we’ve planned. Our one night out to eat is on Wednesdays and we look forward to that. I’m sure we will be a little more hectic once Chris finds a job and we both have to come home tired from work, but right now I have house-husband so I normally have a meal ready or nearly ready to eat when I get home from work. Yes, it is nice! He did tell me that I had to cook something this week so I’ve got to come up with a something good to eat on Friday.
At the library I checked out a bunch of vegetarian cookbooks and Chris picked out some canning and preserving books. He found this pizza recipe in one of those books. Honestly I was a bit skeptical when he told me what was on it but when I saw it out of the oven and then tasted it—oh it was good! The crust is very thin and tastes wonderful, the sauce is pesto, mozzarella and goat cheese on top with some green olives too. He meant to put some garlic on top but forgot until after the pizza was cooked. Next time! You could add meat to it if you wanted, but I think it tastes fine without.
Yesterday we made Drunken Beans, a meatless Mexican recipe I found in another cookbook. It’s ‘drunken’ because it requires a bottle of Dos Equis, but Chris substituted Corona. Can’t taste any beer in the beans, but they did come out with a sort of Ranch Style Beans taste to them. We’re using leftovers to make taco salad tonight. One ingredient it called for was a Mexican style brown sugar called piloncillo. We weren’t too sure we’d find it and while rummaging through the produce section we came across it piled up with the chili peppers. Score!
Despite not having curb side recycling we bought a second trash can that is solely dedicated to recycling. We’ve been reducing our trash a considerable amount because of that. The recycling center is right next to the community garden so it will make it easy to take things when we are going that direction. We’re also starting to collect food scraps in a cut out milk jug under the kitchen sink for taking to the compost pile at the garden. I’ve always wanted to do that but in the past haven’t had a compost pile to take it to. I’m hoping we develop some rich dirt to grow our fall crops in!
Still without internet at the house so I’m doing my blogging and scheduling from Mickey D’s. Will try to get some other posts up for next week—hopefully this situation will be resolved soon so that I can do some research for the project I’m working on!
Leo and Samson came home with us last weekend. They’d been at my parents’ house for a year and a half, far longer than I’d initially imagined. Since then they’d eased into life with my folks, and had been a good fill in for when Red, my parents’ cat, lost his sister Yoda last year. I think it helped ease the loneliness.
And Leo, the most rascally of the two cats, came to not whack my parents unless especially spooked or ready to rough house. He also learned to give them head butts, something we are mostly able to do on command with him by making kissing noises at him. He’s a goofy cat! Anyway, he’s fitting in well at the new place, Samson too. Though the first morning they were there Leo woke up an extra two hours before we did and made a noisy, whiny racket.
Between work and getting things settled in we made it to the library. Or, I should say I made it to the library. Chris had already been there, just about every day since we moved in. We are having a doozy of a time finding someone to service internet to our house so he is using the library to search for jobs. Finally on Monday I was able to go because they are open late that night and we got library cards. I was in my realm then. I checked out the book above, which is really good so far, and picked out a few vegetarian cook books and one book on plant bulbs. I spied a zillion other books I want to read, including Between a Rock and Hard Place, aka: the 127 Hours movie. We recently rented the movie at RedBox and so now I want to read the book. Normally I do it the other way around—I’m currently seeking The Help, but the library has a wait list of 200+ and the used book store didn’t even have it. Anyone out there have a copy they’ve read and want to send it to me media mail? I’ll return it if you want, or I’ll put it back in circulation at the used book store.
The best part about settling in was getting our king bed. Since we have been married we’ve slept on a full sized hand-me-down bed. Because we’d rented for so long we’ve put off buying grown up furniture for years. When we moved we got rid of most of our furniture, including our bed, and so that forced us to break down and get a good bed. Oh, why did we wait 9 years?! This bed is the best!
We haven’t had much of a chance to explore the area yet, but hopefully soon. We’ve got a few creeks and parks we want to check out, though. I’ve got a project up my sleeve—something I’m not willing to debut yet because, well, it’s going to be a very long and intensive project. No, NOT a baby—but it could be likened to that. It is something I have not really taken seriously until now and I’m finding it more difficult than I’d even imagined. Hopefully I can make some decent head way with it and get to a point that I’ll write about it.
I traveled to the Texas Panhandle late last week for work, so I’ll have a post up about that later on this week!
Posted by mlittle on August 28, 2011 at 6:12 am under Thoughts. 2 Comments.
Last weekend we moved to our new house in far-far-far Northwest Houston. So far out we’re not even in Harris county, but we’re close enough to all of the far suburbs that it is easier to call it Houston. Except we’re in the ‘country’. There are more country-ish places out there, but this is pretty much the most country place we’ve ever lived except the hotel we stayed at in San Augustine, Tx last fall for work. *That* was country.
We were out in the nearest big town to us, Tomball, checking on various things like furniture and getting the various sundry items to fill up the house so it is livable. We’d stopped in at an antique store looking for desk chairs and bookshelves when we poked in one of the vendors stands and saw fresh eggs from the owner’s own chickens. They were $2.50 for 18 eggs, which I thought was a bargain for locally grown (who knows if it was organic…) eggs. We had other errands to run so we swung back by on the way home to pick up eggs.
The eggs are still on the small side; he said the chickens were in their first rounds of eggs so they were expecting to lay bigger ones in the coming weeks. I thought that 18 eggs would last us at least two weeks, but we only have four left! We’ve made two loaves of bread and eaten several eggs a few mornings last week, using them on English muffins or making our own breakfast burritos.
The town we’re in also has a farmers market twice a month. We were excited about this, hoping to score some local produce. We were disappointed to see that not much on the produce side was there, however we did see other local vendors. Texas has a Go Texan emblem and site that promotes buying Texas made items. All of these items are from Texas! Well, I’m not sure how much of all the ingredients in the bbq sauce is, but it was assembled here. And the goat cheese was from Texas goats (haven’t tried it yet, we’d just bought some at the grocery store the night before so we ate that first) and the olive oil was from olive trees on the Olivero Farms property. The olive guy had olive oil soaps and lotion, so when we run out of what we have from the store I think I would love to try their items out.
The other nice thing about the country is that deer come into our yard in the mornings and evenings. It is nice to see some wildlife! We’ve also had a few rabbits and I saw a hawk fly over one morning. I’m sure we’ll see more wildlife in the coming months!
