Knitting Obsession

The Most Important Nutrition Book(s) You'll Ever Read

2011-06-02T06:33:00.000-07:00

I've been annoying my friends and acquaintances lately by pushing the books "Why We Get Fat: And What To Do About It" and "Good Calories, Bad Calories", both by Gary Taubes. (WWGF is a shorter version of GCBC.)

Why? Because reading these books made me mad.

I'm mad because the people who set nutrition policy (and agricultural policy) keep pushing a dogma (if you're fat, it's because you're lazy) that is not supported by science, and have ignored or ostracized scientists from related fields such as endocrinology who actually do have an answer for those of us who have trouble with our weight.

Anyone who has struggled with weight issues knows how difficult it is to lose weight, despite trying to eat less / exercise more as we've been told. We eat what we're told are healthy diets, we get moving -- and either the scale doesn't budge or we actually gain weight. And then we're told it's our fault and that the reason we're fat is that we have a moral defect, i.e. laziness.

Meanwhile, we all know people who stay thin effortlessly despite eating more than we do.

Science has actually had the answer for more than 50 years, but because the received dogma is that the reason for overweight was sloth, nobody was listening. In truth, we are fat because we're insulin resistant, and we've been told to eat the wrong things (remember Snackwells?) which only exacerbated the problem by raising our blood sugar and causing other health problems. It's no coincidence that the obesity epidemic is coinciding with a diabetes epidemic. Oh, and diabetics are also told they're diabetic because they're fat. No, they're fat because their insulin metabolism isn't working. How's that for blaming the victim?

Gary Taubes is a science journalist who has studied the history of the science of fat metabolism. He lays out exactly where the science went wrong and how we can get back on track.

I've had enough of the "blame the victim" game from nutritionists. If you're tired of being bludgeoned, read these books.

Back from Rhinebeck! ... and Roadbug

2010-10-17T17:16:00.000-07:00

Back from the Rhinebeck Sheep & Wool Festival -- great trip! (Rice flour) pancakes for dinner, since it was the easiest & quickest thing to make. Friday it took us FIVE hours to get from DC to Delaware, due to construction, accidents, construction, tolls, and, oh, construction. Came back on 83 through York, PA and had a much less frustrating, if longer, drive.

I brought less than a pound of fiber, and only one book -- I have more than enough wool already, and didn't see any must-have books aside from the one I meant to buy. The big purchase for this trip was a Roadbug spinning wheel from Merlin Tree. which is absolutely cute. One of the women in my local spinning & weaving guild has a Hitchhiker (the slightly taller version), and can spin with it while riding in the passenger seat of her truck. It will not, unfortunately, fit in the foot well on the passenger side of our 1999 Ford Explorer, since the glove compartment comes down too far. It does, sort-of, fit in the passenger footwell of the Focus, though it's a little cramped and I'm not sure I can spin without having knee problems -- will have to give it a try. Regardless, the Roadbug will be a lot easier to take to demos, knitting night, and road trips. I might actually make a dent in the fiber stash! ... Presuming, of course, that I don't buy any more fleeces.

Brought Kevin a Whoopie Pie (New England dessert), maple sugar candy, and maple cotton candy (!).

The general consensus was that the things Rhinebeck has over the Md Sheep & Wool Festival are: the buildings are better, the weather wasn't as beastly hot as MSW can sometimes be, and there is MUCH better food. I hope that MSW gets better food as the Maryland wine & other local food industries get going. Might drop them a suggestion...

Met some great folks, had a lovely time, very happy to be home. Think I'll go have a long soak in the tub, pet the dogs, & go to bed.

Do It Gorgeously -- No, Don't.

2010-05-17T08:03:00.001-07:00

I picked up a copy of Do It Gorgeously: How to Make Less Toxic, Less Expensive, and More Beautiful Products by Sophie Uliano from the slush pile at work last week.

It's ok... nothing to write home about, for those of us who have been doing the mend-and-make-do thing from childhood. But one part just made me stop short: the section on natural dyeing, which is a subject I know something about.

On pp. 169-170, she recommends dyeing with a number of things, such as turmeric and pomegranates for orange (the first does give a brilliant yellow, but is very fugitive, meaning the color will fade over time; the second gives yellows and tans, in my experience), strawberries, cherries, raspberries and plums for pink... I'll stop there, because none of these dyes gives a permanent pink. They might stain clothes a little, but don't yield a lasting, permanent dye. She goes on to list a number of other supposed dyes, few of which will actually yield the promised colors.

She completely skips the subject of mordanting (you need a metal like alum, iron or copper to prepare the fabric for dyeing, with tannin also needed for dyeing cotton and linen), recommending salt and vinegar as "fixatives".

The author says she's dyed several articles of clothing with berries, but I find that hard to believe. I've attempted to dye samples with beet juice and pokeberries, and the results were disappointing. The beets left a vague tan color behind. Pokeberries will yield pretty, but very temporary, pink/purplish colors.

You can find this sort of misinformation repeated in various books and websites, but, as a friend's mother used to say, "paper will sit still for anyone." It makes me wonder whether the other recipes (cosmetics, etc.) in her book have been tested, or whether she's just passing along information she's read without seeing whether it works.

Wild Hare sign

2010-04-13T04:45:00.001-07:00

It's so hard to find camps at the Ft. Frederick Market Fair -- all that white canvas looks alike! -- that I thought I'd make a sign for our camp/"inn" (up to about 15 people camping/eating together). One side has the night sky, the other the day. It's not quite done -- bunny's eye pupils need to be painted in, and I have a few other touch-ups to do. The frame will be oxide red.

Mmm, chewy!

2010-02-18T05:08:00.000-08:00

So should I take this as Ruby's indictment of my (lack of) dog training skills? I just had to laugh when I saw this.

I went out and bought more toys for her and straightened up the house to remove any other tempting non-approved chewable items.

Oh, I so think we need a couple of these.

2010-01-25T17:23:00.000-08:00

Bones, bones, bones

2010-01-25T17:03:00.001-08:00

New dog Ruby (the name that stuck) has been going around collecting all of the rawhide chews and bones that Caden has forgotten. Tonight she found one upstairs and went tiptoeing out of the room with it, as if not quite sure that it was ok for her to have it. She went into her crate with the bone, which means she remembers last night's lesson (i.e., that the crate is the safe place for her to bring her chew toys).

The tiptoe act was very funny. I know, easily amused, here...

New dog - name TBD

2010-01-24T11:34:00.000-08:00

We picked our new dog up today from the rescue -- her name was Sapphire, but I'm not wild about that name. We haven't decided on a new name yet. She's very thin -- needs to put on a little weight. I think she might have whelped recently. We'll need to take her to the vet to have some stitches removed soon. She looks like a little fox -- reddish coloring, lighter underneath, with a white patch on her chest. She's still a bit timid but keeps putting her paw out for more petting and is beginning to relax a bit.

Buttoned Up - Early Silver Cufflinks - The Three Graces

2010-01-21T06:21:00.000-08:00

Buttoned Up - Early Silver Cufflinks - The Three Graces

Solstice Vest

2009-12-21T16:32:00.001-08:00

I knitted this vest while I was on vacation in Maine in October. It's a great vest -- very warm & comfortable. I dyed the yarn (factory spun) with indigo* (the blue, natch) and wild coreopsis (the orange) and coreopsis/goldenrod (the yellow).

I'm really happy with the way it came out. The stranded colorwork was a bit of a pain, since it has to be worked back and forth instead of in the round and doing colorwork while purling is awkward. But there's not a lot of it, so it's worth the trouble.

I might write this up and publish the pattern, so this post and pics are © 2009 by Mara Riley.

*Ok, my friend Antonia dyed this for me, since she had a vat going at the time for a scout troop activity.

Snow day: finished the Interminable Dishtowels

2009-12-20T14:50:00.000-08:00

These dishtowels (aka the Damned Dishcloths) have been cluttering up my loom for months now, so it's good to have them finally done! The pattern is ok, but they're in that category of Deadly Boring that kept me from wanting to work on them. Something either needs to be so simple I can work on it without thinking about it, or complicated enough to hold my attention. Stuff in the grey zone between those two doesn't get finished.

Now I can move on to the next project! I'm either going to a) warp up a shawl to use up some of the laceweight yarn in my stash, or b) weave a sample tartan scarf, prior to starting a larger tartan shawl (aridaid) that I've been thinking about weavingfor a few years.

"A Green Gown" - Symbolism vs Real Life

2009-11-09T10:31:00.000-08:00

At dinner in Williamsburg on Saturday, one of my friends overheard part of a conversation about a green gown being considered inappropriate "because green had such a naughty reputation in the 18th century." (There were at least two of us there who either were or had been wearing green during the course of the day, so I'm not sure who this was directed at.)

This business about nobody wearing green in the 18th century is complete and utter horse-shit.

First, it's contradicted by inventories and surviving artifacts. The Smithsonian has a lovely pair of stays covered in green wool, and Mark Hutter, the staymaker at Williamsburg, says that green is one of the most common colors for stays (possibly because it's easy on the eyes of the staymaker while sewing). I've seen several lovely green damask gowns at costume exhibits, and there are at least two (I wasn't counting) green quilted petticoats at the current Williamsburg exhibit on quilted clothing. (There's also a fragment of a red quilted petticoat, fwiw.)

Second, it's the result of confusion between allegory and real life. The origin of the idea, I think, is the poetic trope of "giving a maid a green gown" -- i.e., getting grass stains on one's clothing from making whoopee out in a grassy field. As anyone with children knows, it's possible to get grass stains on the knees of pants of many colors. So it's the grass stains that are a very tangible sign of "naughtiness", not the overall color of the gown itself.

Allegory is NOT real life. Yes, green has lots of symbolism in artwork and song. However, that did not stop perfectly respectable women from wearing green in the 18th century, any more than it stops women today from wearing a red dress, sweater, blazer, etc.

(And why is it women who get subjected to these idiocies? I guess men encounter problems when they wear the gender-prohibited colors of pink or purple. Speaking of which, the DeWitt had a picture of a man wearing a mauve waistcoat and a dark purple coat with black breeches. Lovely. But I digress.)

Speaking of red, let's think back to medieval artwork -- you can see the Virgin Mary wearing a red gown, and in a different painting the king's mistress is wearing a very similar red gown. Does that mean the artist was saying something bad about the Virgin Mary? No, it does not. It means that there is a completely different symbolic meaning for the color red in that context.

Back to real life -- context is everything. Sometimes clothing does carry symbolic meaning in real life. But sometimes, as the apocryphal saying goes, a cigar is just a cigar, not a symbol. Sometimes a green dress is just a green dress.

/rant

Potatoes and soap, and gardening

2009-03-22T15:38:00.000-07:00

Tried two new things this weekend, neither of which will be particularly exciting to those who've already tried them -- growing potatoes, and making soap. The potatoes are being grown in a trash can (with holes drained in the bottom). Got them planted on Saturday, so nothing exciting to see there yet. I've wanted to try this for a few years, though, just for fun; the idea amuses me, for some reason. Guess I'm easily amused.

Second thing: soapmaking, another thing I've wanted to try for a few years. Some friends from my local knitting group, one of whom had done this before, came over and we had a good time hanging out, knitting, and mixing stuff. I may or may not make soap again, but at least now I can say I've done it. It was NOT hard. I've made soups that were more challenging. We were very careful with the lye -- one person poured the lye while the other stirred, and we did the lye mixing outside, but, having taken adequate precautions, everything went smoothly. We made two batches, one of a plain unscented olive oil (with a bit of coconut and palm oil in it, for harder bars) and a second of a scented shampoo soap. I like shampoo bars, because you can take them on the road or camping and not worry about liquid shampoo spilling in your luggage.

We didn't get around to making any shaving soap, but I'd like to try that eventually. I bought DH some shaving soap, a mug, and a badger brush for his birthday, and he loves it; says the soap gives him a better shave than shaving lotion from a can. The shaving soap recipes I've seen all require about two tablespoons of clay per batch, which apparently gives the razor better slip or something.

Also got a bunch of gardening done, including moving a pretty big rosemary bush to its new spot next to the (regular) trash bins. I'm moving the herbs into the former flower beds behind the house, having moved the flowers to the side yard where the blueberries and strawberries were. The former herb bed will have tomatoes this year, since that's a great, sunny spot. But first I need to add more organic matter. This is one of the beds that I didn't add organic matter to when I filled it, so the topsoil gets rock hard during summer dry periods and has very few worms -- a sign that the soil really needs help. The herbs did ok in this bed (herbs seem to thrive in rough hot, dry conditions), but if I'm going to start raising veggies there, the soil needs some serious help. Will be picking up some composted manure from a friend as soon as we can figure out a good time for me to come over and get it. Oh, boy, more shoveling sh*t... Well, it's a good workout. (Ouch.) The beds to which I added sheep manure and grass clippings last year are doing very well, though -- lots of fat, happy worms.

Garden Pics -- Major Snowstorm, and Cold Frames Update

2009-03-15T15:50:00.000-07:00

We had a snowstorm on March 1/2 -- got about 7 1/2 inches at my house. It's been a few years since we got this much snow. I was able to work from home that day, and enjoyed watching the birds at the feeder, including three different kinds of woodpecker: downy, redheaded, and hairy. I think I've seen a pileated woodpecker in the woods, but haven't seen one at our feeder yet.
Anyway...

The cold frames are a mixed success. The artichokes rotted out, but the leeks, onions, beets, cabbage, spinach, and lettuce I planted in the fall survived pretty well. The lettuce, chard, and beets I planted in an unprotected bed didn't fare as well.
I've started more artichoke seedlings. The plan for this winter is to keep a few in the cold frames in pots with a sandy soil mix for drainage, to see if they do better; I'll keep a couple outside covered with mulch for comparison.

Also got my cabbage, pepper, eggplant, broccoli, leek and onion seeds started inside under the grow lamps. I need to get the spinach and peas planted out, but it started raining yesterday and I didn't have time, since we were framing in the basement's utility room. The soil now needs to dry a bit before I can plant any seeds.

FO: Provincial Vest, from Interweave Knits

2009-03-15T15:19:00.000-07:00

Finished this back in Feb. Fun to wear, but in the 35" version, the cables don't line up above the waist ribbing in the back. I figured out a way to make them work, but that was annoying.

Updates

2009-02-15T05:38:00.000-08:00

We had a moderately cool but not windy morning yesterday (Valentine's Day), so I spent the morning pruning my apple and pear trees. I can't claim to know much about this, but I reviewed my books for tips on pruning and gave it my best shot. I particularly wanted to reduce the height of the Red Anjou pear tree and the Jonathan apple tree, which I let get big enough that it's hard to get any fruit out of them. But you can't take more than 1/3 of a tree without harming it, so I had to try to eyeball that to make sure I wasn't pruning too much. Also pruned the small trees I planted last spring off so I don't need to do major surgery on them in a few years.

Bad news re the artichokes: January's cold snap seems to have killed them. Drat. The crowns are rotted out entirely... I'll have to try again this year. I have some more artichoke seeds, and will start them soon.

I got some eggplant and pepper seeds planted -- some in "official" peat pot seed starting kits, some in egg cartons (hey, those plastic egg crates have to be good for something!)

K. bought a new finch feeder, since my old, cheap one broke when I refilled it yesterday morning. The new one is much better -- polycarbonate and metal, and the finches have already discovered it and are happily feasting away. The other new bird feeder I bought a week or so ago is also getting lots of visitors -- it's supposed to be squirrel-proof, and so far the squirrels haven't managed to empty it. I like feeding the birds, but damned if I'm gonna feed the fuzzy-tailed rats too.

The Post-Holiday Recrimination Season

2009-01-12T08:35:00.000-08:00

I am SO ready for the family sturm-und-drang to be over with.

Short version: Mom buys everyone presents that have little or nothing to do with their current interests or taste. Last year, it was a dreadful sweater plus a few decorative objects from her favorite thrift store. This year, a lovely-but-not-her-taste sweater for my youngest sister. We both made the appropriately appreciative noises, and trundled the objects off to the thrift shop after we got home.

This year, Mom made the mistake of calling my sister and badgering her on whether she really liked the sweater.

My sis is not one to tell a lie. She'd already said it was a lovely sweater when she received it (it was, just not her style). But if you put her in a corner and press her, she will tell the truth.

So Mom's nose is out of joint, sis is grumpy, and I'm getting to listen to it from both sides. (I'm more sympathetic to sis, given that I've been on the receiving end of Mom's not-very-thoughtful gifts.

I'm going to try to suggest that we just not do gifts this coming year -- we should just donate the money to charity and get together for tea to wish each other a happy holiday. That's also controversial, because this year we didn't nail down exactly whether the charity gift we did was to count spouses or just immediate family, which matters (in a very minor way) for tax purposes. But if we spell it all out in advance, it might work.

Sigh... Family. Holidays. Sheesh.

Update, 1/13/09: Called my other sis. One of the gifts Mom sent up for her boys was a hat with large purple flowers on it (i.e., bully bait). Just goes even further to illustrate that her gifts are purely opportunistic, and that no thought goes into them whatsoever.

Michael Pollan's 12 Food Rules

2008-12-20T12:50:00.000-08:00

I've just been watching a couple of lectures by food writer Michael Pollan on food. Good stuff. Here are his 12 rules for healthy eating:

Pollan 12 Food Rules:

1. Don’t eat anything your grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.
2. Avoid foods containing ingredients you can’t pronounce.
3. Don’t eat anything that wouldn’t eventually rot.
4. Avoid food products that carry health claims.
5. Shop the peripheries of the supermarket; stay out of the middle.
6. Better yet, buy food somewhere else: the farmer’s market or CSA.
7. Pay more, eat less.
8. Eat a wide diversity of species.
9. Eat food from animals that eat grass.
10. Cook and, if you can, grow some of your own food.
11. Eat meals and eat them only at tables.
12. Eat deliberately, with other people whenever possible, and always with pleasure.

--------------------
Apparently there are some folks out there who are decrying Pollan as "new-agey" etc. because he's advocating eating less processed foods and more fresh vegetables. That's pathetic.

For anyone who doesn't know me, I have a raft of food allergies -- probably because of a) a genetic predisposition (grandparents on both sides with food allergies); b) being a preemie -- I had food allergies as an infant; and c) being exposed to defoliants when I was in grade school and living near crops that had these used on them (cotton and soybeans). I'm allergic to corn, soy, wheat, citrus, some nuts, and a few other odds and ends like mangos and bananas. The first three items -- corn, soy, and wheat -- mean that I have to read the labels on everything I eat. This means that I'm very aware of how much of this stuff, as well as other chemicals and non-food ingredients, go into our food. So I don't eat a lot of processed food, as you can imagine.

This also makes it an iffy proposition to eat on the road. Take a meal at a chain restaurant. Has the meat been marinated / injected with something containing corn syrup or soybean oil to make a cheap meat cut appear more flavorful? That salad dressing -- it almost certainly has either corn syrup or soybean oil or both in it. Never mind the croutons, which are obvious*. Steamed veggies are usually fine... I can have a baked potato -- but is that real butter, or margerine? Forget about dessert! Well, maybe the creme brulee, but that's more high-end than most restaurants go. (*We won't go into a full-scale rant here about the waitress who didn't know that pasta is made from wheat.)

This isn't a pity party, btw -- this is just part of my routine, and I handle it pretty well; I provide for myself and don't make a fuss, usually bringing food with me if I'm not certain where I'm going to eat. It did, however, make a recent business trip to NYC, well, interesting -- the lunch provided at the meeting was something like sandwiches and pasta salad. I was able to duck out and get something else to eat, fortunately.

I'm glad that Michael Pollan isn't a "food Nazi" -- he doesn't tell people to cut out the processed foods completely; people should relax and eat their friends' cookies/treats at parties, etc. He tells his audience to be more aware of them, though, and to cut back on the overall amount of that stuff they eat.

I am hoping, however, that this emphasis on fewer processed foods and more "real foods" -- unprocessed, whole ingredients -- results in a better world for people like me, as people demand less adulterated food. Even a salad dressing made from simple herbs, olive oil and vinegar, with no soybean oil or corn syrup in it, would be a huge improvement! (Why do they have to add that stuff, anyhow?)

Desktop Trebuchet

2008-11-28T16:48:00.001-08:00

Just what every cubicle needs...

Basket weave vest finished!

2008-11-23T17:17:00.000-08:00

Just finished a vest for myself. I'd been thinking of making a vest or two, since my office is a bit chilly but I don't usually feel like wearing a sweater. This yarn is from Cobin Creek Farm; I got it at Millicent's Yarns in Cumberland, Maryland.

I was going by the dimensions in The Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns, with the following modifications: I decreased the vest to the waist, then increased up to just below the bustline (where it switches from ribbing to basket weave); and I had to rip back about 1.5" at the shoulder because the armscye was just too big, and the fit was more flattering when I took it in.

I literally had inches of yarn left over at the end and was worried I'd have to call the yarn store and buy a whole extra skein just to bind off. But it's done, has been washed and is drying on a rack in the hall bathroom.

Here are a couple more pics of the vest prior to blocking. I tried it on, and it should be pretty cozy to wear.

Ancient Spindle with Runes Found in Reykjavik

2008-11-17T17:22:00.000-08:00

Here

Neat!

Do you know where your towel is?

2008-07-22T07:09:00.001-07:00

(with apologies to the late Doug Adams)

I've been trying, with mixed success, to use more reusable shopping bags. The problems I've encountered are a) remembering to take them into the store with me; and b) getting the baggers to use them. My solution for this will be to get some string bags that I can put in my purse; these ought to fit more easily over the handles the baggers use for plastic bags, so ought to solve both problems with one stone.

I've had a lot more success with cutting down on the use of paper towels and napkins around the house and at the office. A few months ago I bought a bunch of cloth towels and, instead of napkins, colored waffle-weave dishcloths (more absorbent than plainweave fabric). We keep the dishtowels in a drawer in the sideboard with a couple hung on the oven door handle. The cloth napkins are in a basket on the sideboard, where we previously kept the paper napkins. There's a basket on the washing machine specifically for towels and napkins, and, since the washing machine is in a closet in the kitchen, it's easy to toss a dirty towel into that basket and grab another one. When we do a load of laundry, we can toss the napkins or towels in the wash with the other clothes, so they don't add significantly to the amount of laundry we're doing.

We still use paper towels for messes where cross-contamination is an issue, but we've gone from using several rolls of paper towels per week to one (at most), and have completely eliminated paper napkins.

I also take cloth towels and napkins to work with me (I usually bring my lunch, due to food allergies).

I'm not saying this to put myself out as "greener than thou". I haven't cut out paper use entirely. The secret for changing my habits, though, seems to be to make things easy and convenient.

Now if I could just remember to take those damned bags into the store with me!

On the to-do list: make some more fabric bags (I certainly have enough fabric in the fabric stash, and this would be a good way to get rid of some of it); and weave some more dishtowels (again, I have the yarn in my stash and should use it; never mind that the loom needs to be used more).

Beet / Chard Salad

2008-07-17T18:48:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I had dinner at a restaurant that featured a lot of locally grown foods, vegetables, and other neat stuff. One of the surprising dishes they served was a beet and watercress salad. I don't normally like beets much, aside from pickled with eggs, but this was pretty good.

I didn't use precise measurements, but my version of the salad has:

3 beets, cooked (boiled about 45 min, then peeled -- the skins just rub off)
about a handful of watercress, chopped parsley and/or cilantro, depending on what I have on hand
about 1/4 cup of chopped walnuts or pine nuts
Feta cheese or blue cheese -- a couple of slices, crumbled
Large dash of vinegar, to taste
A couple of slices of beef (optional -- the original didn't have this, but if I want to make a dinner out of it and have some leftover beef on hand, I'll put it in)

I've also made this with sauteed chard, and it's pretty good, but a bit more beet-greeny. Pics of that soon.

Oh, Poop (or, what good manure will do for you)

2008-07-17T18:20:00.001-07:00

I was out in the garden training the cucumbers up their trellis strings when I noticed a distinct difference between plants at one end of the bed and the other. I think, though I'm not 100% certain, that the area with the healthy, green cucumbers is where I dug in some manure this spring when I moved the old trash bin shed to its new location; the less healthy plants are further up in the bed where I didn't mix in manure, since I already had plants growing there and wasn't sure the manure was composted enough not to burn them. (Guess I should take better notes, but that's my best recollection.) Interesting, eh? I'm going to have to get some composted manure and treat the rest of the bed to see if I can get the smaller plants caught up to their larger companions. My other garden beds also could use some help. The ones where I had the peas did get some manure when I pulled out the peas and prepared them for beans and squash, but the others didn't get any, and seem to be suffering by comparison.

It's not that I don't enrich the soil -- I dug in compost from my compost bins last Fall. It's just that the compost is not nearly as good as manure, apparently.

New garden bed started

2008-07-14T17:30:00.000-07:00

I'm putting a new garden bed in this year -- it's going to be 9' x 10', and I was initially going to make it 12" high (2 6" boards) but decided for three tiers of 6" boards instead, for a deeper bed that would be good for growing stuff like parsnips and carrots.

The second picture here shows the dirt I'm dealing with in my back yard. It's heavy clay (ignore the gravel for the moment, that was pea stone we added), with spud-sized rocks interspersed throughout. When it's hard you can barely get a pickaxe into it -- believe me, I know this from experience -- and when you do, you hit a rock, which jars your whole arm.

I've read that clay can actually be pretty rich in minerals, and if you put humus into it you can get great garden soil, but I really don't know where to start aside from just randomly adding peat moss, compost and sand. I happened to remember seeing a book among the ones we picked up from K's late dad's collection on the subject. Rummaged around a bit and found the book; it's called "The Gardener's Guide to Better Soil", and it's by one of my favorite garden writers, Gene Logsdon! I'm also reading "The Contrary Farmer's Invitation to Gardening" at the moment, which is pretty inspirational, even if I can't implement some of his ideas (like keeping chickens) in my little patch of suburbia. Hopefully I'll get a better grasp on what amendments the soil needs here, rather than just randomly throwing stuff into the dirt and hoping it works. It's clear that some of my veggie beds are doing better than others; going about this more systematically would be a good idea.