jengod blog

noreply@blogger.com (jengod) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 08:29:00 +0000

Detroit Wildlife

My mother grew up outside Detroit and I have visited the city many times to see relatives. It is the poster city for American urban decay. This short film by a Frenchman explores the re-ruralization of the Detroit area and how the heyday city of the 1870s-1950s is slowly eroding away and returning to prairie. Haunting and beautiful. See also: the Fabulous Ruins of Detroit and Flint Expatriates.

Detroit Wildlife from florent tillon on Vimeo.

noreply@blogger.com (jengod) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 06:44:00 +0000

RIVER COTTAGE: Urban Smallholding, from Britain's Channel 4

Part 1: Beginnings

Part 2: Chickens

Part 3: Chickens

Part 4: First Harvest

Part 5: Pig Show

noreply@blogger.com (jengod) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 07:12:00 +0000

Does Being a Crazy Jackass Make Mike Voltaggio a Top Chef?

Is Mike Voltaggio a genius because he’s a temperamental diva, or is a temperamental diva because he’s a genius?

During this week’s Restaurant Wars episode of Top Chef, Mike Voltaggio succeeded in intimidating Robin, irritating his brother and organizing the best restaurant in the history of the show. We can’t help but think Tom Colicchio was right when he said the Blue Team failed for lack of leadership, and wonder if Mike V.’s General Patton-style bullying and snarking was what pushed the Red Team, aka “Robin-Eli-Volt = Revolt” over the edge to victory.

What do you think: Is it OK to be arrogant if you have the goods to back it up, or is Mike V. merely an overgrown child operating one notch above the walking personality disorder that is Mike I.?

Food Word of the Week: ''Pithivier'', as in Robin/Michael's pear pithivier, is basically fancy pop-tart, i.e. puff pastry with filling inside. Man, that looked just delicious. I'll be looking for the recipe on Bravo's site tomorrow when I hit Tom Colicchio's recap blog.

noreply@blogger.com (jengod) — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 02:51:00 +0000

The New York Times reports that the Obamas will be planting an organic vegetable garden--with two beehives no less!--on the South Lawn of the White House.

Kitchen Gardeners International reacts:

100,000 Applaud Announcement of a New White House Food Garden

Environment, Nation s Food System and People's Health Stand to Benefit

(Scarborough, Maine) 100,000 people signed a petition asking the Obamas to replant a Victory Garden at the White House, and recent news reports indicate that they are about to reap what they sowed.

For advocates of sustainable and healthy foods, this harvest of good news was as welcome as the summer s first red-ripe tomato. I m thrilled for the Obama family and for all who will be inspired by their example to grow gardens of their own this year, said Roger Doiron, founder of the nonprofit Kitchen Gardeners International and leader of the successful petition campaign, Eat the View.

Launched in February 2008, Eat the View proposed that the Obamas replant a White House Victory Garden while planting a few extra rows for the hungry. The campaign used viral videos and social networking technologies like Facebook to grow a large support base, attract international media attention and help inspire a larger grassroots effort. In January, 2009, Eat the View won the On Day One contest sponsored by the United Nations Foundation, beating out 4,000 other entries and resulting in thousands of messages being sent to the White House in support of its proposal.

Over the course of the past month, the Eat the View campaign has touted the economic benefits of home gardens as part of its pitch to White House staff members. As proof, Doiron and his wife spent nine months weighing and recording each vegetable they pulled from their 1,600-square-foot garden outside Portland, Maine. After counting the final winter leaves of salad, they found that they had saved about $2,150 by growing produce for their family of five instead of buying it. If you consider that there are millions of American families who could be making similar, home-grown savings, those are no small potatoes, Doiron said.

Although the White House garden campaign is now winding down, Doiron says the Eat the View campaign is just getting warmed up. Now that the Obamas are on board, we re going to be reaching out to other people and identifying other high-profile pieces of land that could be transformed into edible landscapes. Sprawling lawns around governors residences, schoolyards, vacant urban lots: those are all views that should be eaten.

History of Harvest at the White House

While the Obamas garden and the online technologies that campaigned for it might be new, the idea of an edible landscape at the White House is not. Throughout its history, the White House has been home to food gardens of different shapes and sizes and even to a lawn-mowing herd of sheep in 1918. The appeal of the White House garden project, Doiron asserts, is that it serves as a bridge between the country s past and its future. The last time food was grown on the White House lawn was in 1943, when the country was at war, the economy was struggling and people were looking to the First Family for leadership. It made sense before and it makes sense again as we try to live within our own means and those of the planet.

Additional info:

Eat the View campaign website:

http://www.eattheview.org/

History the White House as an edible landscape from 1800 to the present:

http://www.eattheview.org/page/history-1

Eat the View artwork:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/42913695@N00/sets/72157608739986075/

Testimonials on behalf of the Eat the View campaign from noted national and international figures:

http://www.eattheview.org/page/testimonials-1

Eat the View campaign videos:

http://www.eattheview.org/videos

Bio and photos of Roger Doiron:

http://www.kitchengardeners.org/2005/10/about_roger_doiron.html

http://www.flickr.com/photos/42913695@N00/sets/72157608739762927/

noreply@blogger.com (jengod) — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 21:38:00 +0000

Greening the White House

Onsite compost, rainwater harvesting, vegetables, no more pesticides and herbicides.

noreply@blogger.com (jengod) — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 06:34:00 +0000

GARDENS FOR VICTORY

The Complete $2.50 Book

"A very practical book to help your garden, however modest, produce continuous supplies of nutritious food, properly selected, in the smallest space, in the shortest time, for the least cost."

Written by Jean-Marie Putnam & Lloyd C. Cosper

Illustrated by Lynette Arouni

U.S. Sales Company, by special agreement with Harcourt Brace & Co.
© 1942, Harcourt Brace
Second Printing, March 1942

How to get the most, in health, vitamins, and beauty, out of a small vegetable garden—this book provides one answer to the problem of better meals for less money. The war emergency calls for special attention to VICTORY GARDENS, and both the experienced gardener and the tyro who wants to put his patch of land to useful work will find this a valuable handbook. It is a complete guide to vegetable gardening, from planning and planting through cultivation and pest control to keeping and storing the vegetables raised. It stresses three points of special value: first, how to get the most in food values out of each square foot of soil; second, which vegetables are the most valuable because of their vitamin content or other properties; third, how to make a vegetable garden as decorative as a flower garden.

In addition to being a guide to ordinary gardening, GARDENS FOR VICTORY takes interesting side trips into such subjects as soilless gardening, herb gardens, and gardenets for children to learn in. It is copiously illustrated with lists and charts.

CHAPTER ONE: GARDENS FOR VICTORY

In poetry, tradition, and fact, gardens have long symbolized peace. But peace is no longer in the world, and if we are not to find ourselves astigmatized ostriches, with our heads buried deep in the sands of lost opportunity, our gardens must become for us more than mere green oases of escape.

Actually, our peaceful planting can contribute much toward national victory and post-war economic adjustments. It can arm our homes and our communities with the abundant health of fresh vitamin-giving foods. However bursting the granaries of the nation, fresh garden vegetables may come to be at a premium if their production is neglected.

In Britain's crowded islands, under the pressure of war, every spare foot of earth has been put to work. And not only every spare foot of English earth, but greenhouses too, where orchids have been grown for a hundred years, are now being devoted entirely to crop production. The erstwhile orchid specialists are digging for victory as manfully as is the rest of England. And by the way, many thousands of the expatriated orchids have become war refugees and have been brought to America.

A crisis equally acute has come to grip us, and a few million better, and even a trifle bigger, home gardens in America can increase our national food production enormously. And work wonders in a score of ways such as releasing labor for war activities and helping build up food surpluses for lands that need them today and will need them even more when world reconstruction starts.

Also, with food prices inevitably mounting, every few feet of new vegetable garden properly conducting can mean new dollars saved for the family exchequer. Those dollars can go into the bank account, or you may patriotically transform your beet, onion, and cabbage savings directly into Defense Bonds.

Health begins with the food we eat, and the exercise we take. Dooryard gardens for defense will give us both: recreational exercise and fresh food. Apartment window sills, too, may have their potted herbs; and window boxes will be just as decorative, but far more useful, planted to feathery-foliaged carrots, radishes, and vitamin-rich kale, instead of petunias and geraniums.

In the last few decades we have become a nation of garden enthusiasts—flower garden enthusiasts. Flowers and flowering plants mostly have been our hobby. In 1929 there were about ten million home gardens in America; many more now, but not all of these include vegetable plots.

In the final analysis, food usually wins wars, and writes the peace. And it is well to realize that much of this war's winning food may be grown by ourselves in our own dooryard gardens. Five million home vegetable plots is a reasonable goal for America.

A garden plot whose produce finds its way to the family dinner table is a delight to children and grown-ups alike. Planning and planting can be sort of a household game, and the pride of serving meals largely of home-grown foods is shared by all the family, peacetime or wartime.

In addition to the self-reliance they develop, family-tended gardens can make real contributions to the national economy. They release labor for vital defense industries; relieve food transportation problems; improve family, and therefore national, health and morale; reduce living costs while maintaining a high living standard. Then too, the dollar value of your property is enhanced by a food-producing garden, while your purchasing budget is reduced.

All of us who garden and cherish our American design for living as free men and women may learn from the tragic experience of others abroad. Families with home gardens need not depend on ration cards; and for them rising food prices need not wreak havoc with the household budget, nor mean an empty larder. Fresh fruits and vegetables are sure to become scarcer in many communities because of transportation problems, army demands, farm-labor shortages; a garden at your kitchen door is independent of such considerations.

Our friend Dr. F. W. Went, the distinguished plant physiologist, tells of a recent letter from his mother who lives in Holland near The Hague. She wrote that she was getting all that she wanted to eat only because she had planted a vegetable garden. Not only did it supply her needs through the growing season, but enough surplus was "put up" to carry her through the winter.

Your present flower beds, or parts of them, may easily be converted into food-producers: dinner gardens, salad gardens; herb and berry plots. Actually even a tiny "two by twice" gardenet, or one with flowers, is not too small for growing some food crops.

Even vegetable gardens for victory need not lack charm and attraction. The color schemes and combinations of vegetables and other food plants in garden borders are rich with potential beauty as well as vitamins and utility.

We recall that in the background of our own perennial border tall stalks of corn grew quite by chance one spring. They were allowed to remain not merely for the fresh corn on the ear they might produce, but because of the intrinsic beauty of the plants themselves. And perhaps they made us a little homesick for the whispering cornfields of Iowa. And it should be added that our flower-bed-grown corn tasted very good indeed.

Interplanting vegetables with flowers is a makeshift, of course, and cannot be relied on for comprehensive supplies. Vegetables are easier to plant, care for, and harvest in orderly plots by themselves. But even these utilitarian areas need not be undecorative, any more than the established flower beds must remain exclusively ornamental.

Landscape architects, garden clubs, home garden enthusiasts, nurserymen—all of us whose business or pleasure it is to work with green growing things, may find ourselves unsatisfied with frivolous flowers alone; we may want to eat our pretty plants. Like the young heroin in Edna Ferber's So Big! we may say, "Yes, cabbages are beautiful. Like jade and Burgundy, chrysoprase and porphyry."

And so they are.

Fruit trees, too, may be planted now for the future. The dwarf and espaliered varieties have several advantages for small home owners: they bear at an earlier age, they take up less space, and espaliered fruits grown against a sunny southern wall are almost certain to be particularly delicious, juicy, and flavorful. Aspects of creating the maximum vertical production, so to speak, from the minimum of horizontal space, are treated in Chapter Four on Space-Savers.

Your children, too, may well have garden plots of their own. When we were youngsters we had special "gardenets" which were our responsibility; they were three feed wide and twelve feed long and we selected our own plant material.

Our choice as we recall ran to onions grown from sets: the seeds took too long for young impatience. Also, radishes were included because they came up so quickly that almost always, within four weeks after sowing the seed, we could produce a gay red harvest for the dinner table. Carrots were chosen for their pretty feathery foliage, though we were not enthusiastic about the root after it had been diced and cooked and set before us. Tomatoes grew on the fence behind our particular childhood plot, and never since have we seen "love apples" of such brilliance, or tasted such juicy delicacies!

A very few square feet indeed can support creditable junior gardens. And with a little parental guidance they can be really practical producers of food, too. Actually, a five-by-six-foot plot will give a child enough space for three rows, two inches wide, a food and a half apart—which is just right for carrots in the first, radishes in the second, and perhaps chives and chervil alternated in the third row. Specific suggestions for juniors about easy-to-make and easy-to-keep little gardenets are found in Chapter Twelve, together with some lists and charts.

The hobby or art of flower-arranging has become vastly popular in the last few years. However, many of the loveliest flower arrangements we can recall were made of fruits and vegetables! When Constance Spry, the beloved English garden authority, first used edibles in her delightful arrangements she was considerably laughed at in America; but Mrs. Spry felt, as we do, that provided the plant is beautiful, there is no reason why it should not be used for decoration, just because it can also be eaten. On our own Thanksgiving dinner table each year a cornucopia is arranged, spilling out its harvest of delicious fruits and vegetables. That has always seemed to us one of the most satisfactory of interior decorations—before and after taking, so to speak.

While better gardening for more and better home-grown food is a necessity in a time when wars may be won or lost through abundance of food or lack of it, at all times it is good common sense. And with the spur of patriotic need focusing on such effort, right now is a wise time to plan for permanence in your gardening for food. It's a pleasant habit to contract, and likely to become perennial. And, too, it is as fine an investment as you, your family, your school, and your community can make. Besides some measure of direct and oblique financial reward, the dividends include more health, and that peculiar happiness that comes from raising with your own hands good food from the good earth.

If we never need what we grow, we lose nothing; if we never grow what we need, we lose everything.

Many of us, perhaps, have gardened for fun so long that we may have forgotten how to garden for food. This is a little book to help you remember: so that your garden, however modest, will produce the most nutritious food in the least space in the shortest time.

Chapter Two: "V" Stands for Vitamins: "It is sense to know, and to grow, those foods which will do us the most good."

Chapter Three: Eat Your Beauty and Have It Too: The practical art of supplementing frivolous flowers with ornamental edibles.

Chapter Four: Space-Savers: Garden vertically; use up-and-down space (which is free) while conserving ground space (which isn't).

Chapter Five: How to Plan: "The most successful gardens, defense or otherwise, start on paper. Plan before you plant."

Chapter Six: Preparing to Plant

Chapter Seven: Planting and Maintenance: Selecting, pre-treating and sowing the seed; using glass; transplanting.

Chapter Eight: Witchery with Glass: How to prolong the growing season at both ends. The miniature greenhouse.

Chapter Nine: Vegetables Without Soil: "An inviting challenge to gardeners interested in experimenting."

Chapter Ten: Culinary Herbs for Carefree Gardens

Chapter Eleven: Salad Gardens: A tiny plot, well prepared and cared for, can fill the salad bowl.

Chapter Twelve: Kinder Gardens and Junior Gardenets: "Gardening is a habit-forming hobby...started when young it's apt to last through life."

Chapter Thirteen: Cultural Notes for Each Edible Plant: Exactly how to sow and grow all your garden favorites.

Chapter Fourteen: Combating Diseases and Pests: Specific directions for keeping your garden healthy.

Chapter Fifteen: Malnutrition Symptoms of Growing Plants: Plants, like children, must have a well-balanced diet.

Chapter Sixteen: Keeping, Storing and Cooking: What to do with garden food after you've raised it.

noreply@blogger.com (jengod) — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 05:24:00 +0000

HOLY ****. OBAMA IS GOING TO BE PRESIDENT.

Best part of the whole night? Malia and Sasha get a puppy! WIN!

noreply@blogger.com (jengod) — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 05:51:00 +0000

Permaculture - 1989 Australian-made documentary - 50 minutes of awesome

noreply@blogger.com (jengod) — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 23:31:00 +0000

Originally uploaded by a.long

noreply@blogger.com (jengod) — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 17:35:00 +0000

This Lawn Is Your Lawn

Plant the White House's south lawn with a food garden. There are 18 acres around the White House! You could grow an absurd amount of food, not to mention raise livestock on that land. I hope the new prez considers it.

noreply@blogger.com (jengod) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 18:29:00 +0000

I love celebrities.

Register to vote!

noreply@blogger.com (jengod) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 20:09:00 +0000

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog!

Doing my part to spread the good word about Joss Whedon's (and NPH and Nathan Fillion's) latest project. Check it out!

Teaser from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog on Vimeo.

noreply@blogger.com (jengod) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 02:45:00 +0000

The Minimalist Victory Garden

Mark Bittman linked to the Simple Dollar's Seven Ideas for Preparing Food at Home Cheaply with Minimal Space and Resources. He requested comments, and with all my edible gardening efforts I found I was droning on at some length so I decided to post here instead.

THE LEAST YOU NEED TO KNOW

To save money by cooking at home with minimal resources, do all the usual grocery tricks and then grow your own herbs, alliums (onions, shallots, garlic, leeks), salad greens and lemons. Having these items on hand--for free!--will exponentially increase the flavor and quality of your dishes, while they themselves require truly minimal (I swear) upkeep and overhead.

Container-Friendly: All of the above can be grown in containers, if you have no yard. In fact, even if you do have a yard, your soil is probably a death trap for anything that's not a lawn, so plant them in containers to start anyway.

Inexpensive: With the possible exception of the lemon tree, the "raw" materials for each are dirt (ha!) cheap.

$3 for Wilting Herbs in Plastic, or $3 for a Living, Ever-Giving Plant? Herb plant starts are a few dollars at most and having fresh herbs available at home will save you a fortune at (not to mention a trip to) the grocery store.

The Gift That Keeps on Giving: Thyme, rosemary, sage, chives, mint and oregano are perennial and will last for years. (Basil is annual, not perennial, sadly, but the value proposition may be even stronger for fresh homegrown basil than for the woodier herbs.)

Garlic In Perpetuity: One store-bought garlic or shallot can be divided into many plantable cloves. The clove will grow into a new head, which can then be divided and perpetuated again. For that matter, you can just use cut the greens off most alliums and use those to flavor your dishes, and leave the original bulb in the ground (the greens will regrow), thus extending the value of just one plant for years on end.

They're Pretty, Too: Lemon trees are the hardiest of all the citrus trees, and they can withstand an astonishing amount of abuse (too much shade, not enough water, you name it) and still produce a large quantity of fruit.

Lemon Tree How-To:
* Buy a dwarf or semi-dwarf variety and keep it in a pot inside during the winter if you are one of those poor fools who don't live in USDA climate zone 9 (like me). And yes, I am gloating.
* If you do live in a temperate area, buy a full-size tree, find a sunny-ish spot near your kitchen door, dig a hole, and stick it in the ground.
* Try to remember to water it sometimes.
* Voila: Fresh whole lemons!

Greensleeves: Salad greens will sprout from the seeds you plant before you finish wiping the dirt off your hands. (OK, that's a slight exaggeration, but as a rule greens germinate very quickly, much faster than, say, beets or carrots. It's almost like instant gratification.)

Fast and Dirty: The most complicated/high-maintenance plants of the above listed are the salad greens because when exposed to too much heat or sun, some types will "bolt," meaning they'll send up flowers in an effort to eventually throw out seeds and perpetuate themselves. They usually become either bitter or woody when this happens, but again, worst case scenario, they all bolt, you rip them out, you plant new seeds, and five minutes later (or, OK, three weeks) you have new baby greens growing...

REFERENCES, RESOURCES, INSPIRATION

Bible for Beginners: If you're a novice gardener (or even if you're not), check out Square-Foot Gardening, which I consider especially appropriate for a salad-greens garden. The short version of the system is: Build a square raised bed, fill it with good soil, divide it up into a grid, plant a small number of seeds close together in the squares (instead of in rows), water, wait, harvest, and then immediately fill in the gap with a new planting.

Understand the Whole System: Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home Scale Permaculture explains the concept of permaculture and will instantly change your perception of your personal environment. Bird poo will never look the same again. Seriously.

Organic without Agony: Great Garden Companions, which explains how interplanting, companion planting and beneficial insects combine to protect and enhance the health of your garden. Long story short: Plant a lot of things from the daisy (zinnias, marigolds, sunflowers, etc.) and carrot (dill, coriander, Queen Anne's lace) plant families along with your veggies.

Where It All Begins: Teaming with Microbes: A Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web, not only explains all of the relevant/essential living creatures/creepy-crawlies resident in healthy garden soil, but is a well-drawn primer of the compost/vermicompost/mulch/aerated compost tea/etc basics.

Leaders by Example: Check out Path to Freedom, the website of the Dervaes family of Pasadena, Calif., a foursome who last year grew 6,000 pounds of edibles on a regular-size city lot. Their pictures alone should inspire you to plant something.

MISCELLANEOUS EDIBLE GARDENING ADVICE

Worm Food: Steer manure (.92 per bag at the garden center) plus espresso grounds from your local coffee house (free for the asking) equals excellent soil (rich, friable and absolutely teaming with worms).

Think Rain Forest, Not Prairie: Most American landscapes are radically underplanted; the biomass that your small lot can support would astound you. Plants want and will fight to live, so don't be afraid to jam them all in there together. Don't assume that they'll die of overcrowding or overgrowing each other. Believe me, plants are built to find sun and water, and they will if it's at all possible.

Table of Elements: The same way that cooking has a million possible gadgets and gizmos but it really comes down to a good knife, a wooden spoon and a hefty pot, gardening really just requires a sturdy spade, pruning shears and good gloves.

Avoid Aggravation: Don't grow sweet corn your first year out; it's a resource-sucking pain in the booty.

Enjoy Reward: Do grow radishes, zucchini and chives your first year out; they are effortless and fool-proof. You'll appreciate the positive feedback.

Someday You'll Believe Me: Indeterminate cherry tomatoes are the devil's fruit. (They will grow endlessly, everywhere, all over the place, forever. Save yourself!)

It All Leads Back to Compost: When and if you want to become a compost nut, read the millions of websites on the topic, stop by the GardenWeb Soil Forum and read The Rodale Book of Composting. That trash bowl you started using in the kitchen because of Rachel Ray will suddenly become your treasure bowl as the leavings of one meal become the makings of a future garden-fresh treat.

Wisdom of the (S)ages: "Feed the soil to feed the plant to feed the people."

OK, that's all for now. Got questions? Got any suggestions of your own? Post in the comments!

noreply@blogger.com (jengod) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 20:54:00 +0000

Where the Wild Things Are

A monarch butterfly was "puddling" (drinking water and minerals) in the backyard early Saturday morning. Hopefully she found the scarlet milkweed next to the brush pile and laid a few eggs before going on her way.

There was a gray bird grasshopper—Southern California's largest native insect at four inches long—in the front yard. I disturbed it by accident and it flew across the yard but I found it again hiding out under the doorknob to the back gate.

The side yard has been colonized by at least five adorable woolly bear caterpillars that will turn into garden tiger moths before too long. They are chomping away at the weeds so they are more than welcome to stay as long as they want. (Not that I wouldn't welcome them if they were eating all the veggies too.)

I let two of the broccoli heads bolt and the female Valley carpenter bees are absolutely in love with the yellow flowers.

Found a little green katydid living in the weed I call horseradish that may or may not be horseradish.

Some kind of orb weaver spider was spinning her web in the blackberries the other day, and lots of spiders that make hammock-looking webs also seem to have made a good home there.

A couple of weeks ago a beautiful brown dragonfly took a little time out of his day to do some sunbathing on a sycamore twig; there were several other dragons buzzing about over the weekend. I believe it's about dragon season...

I believe I saw a male lesser goldfinch mixing it up with the house finches and house sparrows the other day. He was perched on the top branch of the sycamore. Even if it is dying (and I maintain it's just napping), the sycamore is a wonderful bird perch.

The neighbor's bougainvillea continues to attract exquisite yellow swallowtails.

I saw my first green fruit beetle of the season this weekend. In fact, he was quite enthusiastic about spending time with me. He flew into the car and was quite adamant about wanting a ride, but I finally coaxed him out. Love these guys: Iridescent green and always rumbling loud like B-29 bombers.

In addition to all of the above, a slew of the usual suspects: honeybees, hummingbirds, spiders, crickets, hoverflies, European paper wasps, ground beetles, ladybugs, squirrels, finches, doves, scrub jays and more.

Stumbled across a Southern alligator lizard the other day. I suspect he stops by to snap up crickets when he can. There's a water dish in the herb garden that's pretty well-shielded and I like to think he lives under the herbs and drinks there when I'm not looking.

I believe that the wildlife web I'm trying to foster will only get richer by the year. Every season that the creatures have water, food, shelter and nesting resources available to them is another season that a new species can arrive and set up housekeeping. Larva are placed into the soil one year, they hatch the following, and then they themselves become prey perhaps of another species. I'm also adding new food plants and microclimates every month, so who knows who might be attracted next. I hope and expect that next summer will be have even more species vacationing or making a home in the gardens around our house.

noreply@blogger.com (jengod) — Tue, 27 May 2008 00:12:00 +0000

Wildlife update: Put up a bird feeder for the finches (those things know how to sing!) and got some kind of small bird of prey as well. I think it was a peregrine falcon (common in the city) but my brother swears there's no chance. Also, earlier this week while I was watering, I flushed out an alligator lizard friend! Missing a tail, this one was, and I think he might have been the one who was around last year, although I could have sworn I found that one's skeleton under the sage last winter. Maybe it this is that one's interdimensional twin, who has traveled back through time and space? Suffice to say, delighted to have him, vendetta and all...

noreply@blogger.com (jengod) — Tue, 27 May 2008 00:10:00 +0000

Garden photos! Took advantage of today's beautiful weather to snap a few digital-camera shots of the garden and posted my very first Flickr stream. Check it out!

noreply@blogger.com (jengod) — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 03:04:00 +0000

You know what I'm doing right now? I am FREAKING out. Why?! I found a salamander in my yard. EEEEEEEeeee! This is coolest thing since the mouse and the lizard before that. I really do have to start marking these things down. Googling reveals it is a garden slender salamander, and it probably likes the brush pile and all this rain we're having, not to mention my many slugs. I am so happy. Sigh. This is such a wonderful reinforcement of all the stuff you read in books about how if you don't eff with the environment too much it will balance itself out. I've been reading about natural slug control lately, and I keep sighing deeply when I get to the part where it says if you don't run them off "lizards and salamanders and frogs" will eat them. And I'm always like, "Where am I going to get a frog?!" Whoda thunk I could find a salamander in Culver City. Anyway, this is making me so damn excited. Off to kill more slugs now, but not too many. Gotta leave some for my new friend Rusty...

noreply@blogger.com (jengod) — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 06:56:00 +0000

Today I realized that Jack from Lost is actually Duck Dodgers in the 24-1/2th century.

noreply@blogger.com (jengod) — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 07:23:00 +0000

The cops love my corner of the universe. We live at the intersection of the 405 and the 90, so I'm always hearing cops on their loudspeakers telling speeders to pull onto the shoulder. There's something about that turn onto the 90 West that makes it a great speed trap. And slightly more alarmingly, about once every two months, one of those police helicopters, equipped with a blinding NightSun (30 million candlepower) floodlight, circles my neighborhood for about half an hour. I'm never sure why. Maybe we need keeping an eye on, maybe it's because the only "projects" in West L.A. are down the street, who knows, but it's always at half-past midnight and it's always noisy as hell. I like cops on general principle, but could they please keep it down?!

noreply@blogger.com (jengod) — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 02:01:00 +0000

TO: United States Postal Service
RE: Columbus Day

Some Spanish dude's violation of the Prime Directive is not a good enough reason for me to not get my magazines.

Thanks.

Love,
~j

noreply@blogger.com (jengod) — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 01:25:00 +0000

I have one of these beauties living on my parsley right now. I'm as proud as if I gave birth to her myself! She's a Black Swallowtail and she's going to be beautiful when she grows up!

noreply@blogger.com (jengod) — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 19:43:00 +0000

Two excitements in the garden today: A yellow swallowtail, which Wikipedia tells me is one of the largest butterflies on Earth (fo sho), and, of all things, a peregrine falcon! Got up for breakfast (okay, it was noon, bear with me) and it was just sitting on the lawn next to the melon patch. Spotted me instantly and flew away a second after that (smarter than your average sparrow apparently), but almost as astonishing as finding a bobcat in the backyard. No idea what it was doing there. I half expected to see a partially gnawed prey carcass left behind, but there was nothing. I've seen the neighborhood and cheered them on--they upset the crows terribly, but this was an unexpected gift.

noreply@blogger.com (jengod) — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 06:02:00 +0000

Completely kick-ass thing I did today:

Climbed a chain link fence (slight setback when almost ripped my finger off when my rings got caught on the top of the fence, but unhitched myself in time and escaped with just a few scrapes) and gathered wild (technically feral, but let's say wild) peachy-looking apricots from a tree that grows in one of those miserable public-managed nooks by the side of the road. This one is immediately to the south of the 90 freeway as it comes off of the 405. And let's just split the difference and call them peachcots, as they seem a bit small for peaches and they tasted particularly apricoty, but I'm getting ahead of myself...

The fruit were absolutely filthy from growing up down by the roadside, with no one to spray them down and with cars driving by all the time, but the tree was laden with lovely yellow...peachcots, and it seemed a terrible shame to leave them all there just looking pretty. So, I collected a bag full of them, and then felt silly when I discovered all that cool fence-jumping was unnecessary, as there's a hill and concrete wall that offer a much safer path for entrance and egress. Jumping up there next time will be the only (small) challenge--might need a stepstool, but 100 times easier than fence climbing.

Took home my bag of fruit, scrubbed them all fiercely with soap, water and love, cut the sketchy parts off of the more suspect peachcots and chopped up the rest. Then put them all in my beloved Griswold cast-iron skillet (.99 at Salvation Army thank you very much), combined the fruit with melted butter, white sugar and brown sugar, covered it up with a quick cobbler topping from Mark Bittman's invaluable How to Cook Everything, put it in the oven for 30 minutes with a final five under the broiler for browning, and actually convinced my very finicky, cobbler-hating husband to eat fruit I found by the side of the road and declare the whole thing "really good!"

Anyway, yay. The Fallen Fruit folks have another satisfied customer.

Damn. Hungry again. Off to cobble...

noreply@blogger.com (jengod) — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 07:32:00 +0000

In the garden this week:
* A yellow crab spider lying in wait on one of the blanket flowers. Apparently crab spiders can change color to blend in with their surroundings--all the better to surprise prey with, my dear. Crab spiders are so called because hold their four front legs (two on each side) apart so they look just like crabs.
* Two tiny bees, also on the blanket flower. I think they may be alfalfa bees, but I've come to doubt that identification a little. I usually only see one at a time so I was proud to have gathered two.
* My first halictid bee--they have lovely iridescent green backs. Speaking of iridescent green, I'm truly in love with green fruit beetles. They're huge, they're slow, they sound like B-12 bombers. They're about the size of my thumb, if not bigger, and they're always a pleasure to see or hear. Apparently they're attracted to rotting fruit (their food source), so they're common around compost piles.
* The regular bees have been doing good work pollinating the watermelon vines. Closed up shop on most of the other vegetables, just because everything was so overgrown and messy. Will get raised beds going soon and restart.
* The comfrey I planted was mowed down in today's sprinkler-related garden cleanup. We'll see if it's really as sturdy as it's said to be or if it dies back.
* Have to remember to order another raspberry vine. Realized I've had the blackberry vines going for almost a year, so we're coming up upon the year of fruit. Very exciting. The raspberries have been a rousing success; eat them out of hand just standing there in the yard--a great pleasure.
* Going to plant fruit trees in the front yard, and maybe an orange tree in the backyard. I love the motto of SurviveLA...if it needs water, you better be able to eat it. The wildflowers I've planted are all pretty water-wise, and everything else is more or less edible, so I'm feeling good about the garden.
* Crazy front yard plan of the moment is to turn the whole thing into a lavender field (plus fruit trees) (and maybe sage). Again, I just worry about the spot under the damn carob tree. Hmmm...I wonder if I good landscape architect could figure out what to do with that. Maybe it just needs to be a fountain or a sitting area or something...
* We need new side gates. Aiming for wood in hopes that it's tasteful, more opaque and less ghetto fabulous than our current metal monstrosities.
* Bought three all-purpose five-gallon buckets at Home Depot. If I have time I will drop them off at the local Peet's Coffee to collect their leftover grounds. Among other things, lifting five gallon buckets of coffee grounds is a good resistance training exercise. Also, lots of compostable material resulted from today's cleanup, and the coffee grounds always get the earthworms doing their part. Might actually need more browns for once...
* For honey bees, African blue basil flowers appear to be the functional equivalent of crack.

noreply@blogger.com (jengod) — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 00:34:00 +0000

POST #1

> Okay ladies...I am looking for a rockstar AGENT ASSISTANT/TRAINEE for
> an opening at our company in MP Talent Dept. The catch? I need a
> GUY, or a girl who literally acts like one. I know, right?
>
> Seriously...if you know of a GUY at another agency or management
> firm, or currently looking for an assistant position, please refer
> him to me after they've reviewed the following job responsibilities:
>
> College Degree Required
> Long Hours
> Willing to perform minimal Personal Errands
> LOTS of Scheduling
> Skilled Microsoft Office, Outlook, Adobe, Final Draft, Windows
> EXCELLENT Communication, Grammar, and Writing Abilities (NO ROOM FOR
> ERROR)
> MUST be discrete and confidential
> Ability to perform WELL shadowing & under pressure
> Wants & has what it takes to become an Agent
>
> ***AND MOST IMPORTANT***
> This is not for the career-assistant; it is NOT about completing a
> series of daily tasks. The right person needs to be able to
> understand the BIGGER PICTURE of representation.
>
> I NEED RESUMES ASAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
>
> Thanks for your help!
> ~Kristen
>

POST #2

That certainly promotes female leadership within the entertainment industry.
(What does "literally act like a guy" mean? Piss standing up?)

I know you're following a specific mandate, but it's a fascinating
specification, especially for a network of ladies working hard to make
their gender a non-issue.

POST #3 (me)

Memo from the Desk of Agent Bob:

To be my assistant you must be a guy because...

1. You must never, ever cry when I screech at you hysterically.

2. You must not blink at my coarse language, and chicks blink sometimes, and I like to say stuff like "If you think I'm going to bend over and let you fuck me up the ass with a two-by-four, you're wrong (asshole)." It makes me feel like I'm a barbarian, and barbarians are universally understood to be strong and in control.

3. You must not have any pre-existing self-esteem issues, because I manipulate your self-doubt and insecurities to get what I want from you and others. If you're already half-gone on self-regard and you come work for me, you're gonna be suicidal inside a week, and assistants throwing themselves off the roof is bad for business. When in distress, chicks hurt themselves, guys hurt others. I only understand the latter.
You must know to never exhibit empathy, sympathy or compassion, because those are all terrible weaknesses in this, our business of telling stories about the human condition.

4. You must not be built like Jessica Rabbit, Jennifer Lopez or even Jill in business affairs, because I can't afford another sexual-harassment settlement. Hot chicks make my dick come out of my boxers all by itself. What can I say, I can't help it...

5. You must remind me of me. (Chicks remind me of my three ex-wives and my mother, none of whom like me very much.)

Pathologically yours,
Bobby