I transplanted the parsley and oregano in bigger pots this afternoon. Boy, were they root bound. Anyway, they are in the back patio area now,there’s plenty of sun there now during the day. I’m going to try the shade cloth thing when the sun is stronger and the heat is here in the back patio.
The container herbs can just be out in the sun for some time each day during the heat and then be put in the shade against the house wall but the shade cloth makes more sense. I'll have to ask a couple of people how that might work.
I went to Safeway to check on produce prices, just out of curiosity. I really haven’t looked at much produce there since I joined the CSA. I have bought some apples and bananas the past 2 months though. All, I can see is that Safeway has slashed prices again or maybe temporarily on most everything especially lettuces. All the kinds of lettuce were like 10 bunches or pounds for $10.00! Everything else, including the sweet peppers, were pretty much the way they were 2-3 months ago.
I checked the jam/jelly aisle and the lentils and bean prices. The jam, at least this week, is lower than I bought the last time I was there. The lentils and beans seemed much the same.
We are fortunate in the Phoenix area to have a lot of competition among several grocery chains. We also have a number of farmer’s markets available valley wide every week almost all year round.
The last few months, Safeway and Basha’s in particular seem to be in some kind of price war. Or at least the Basha’s near me is in a lot of competition with the Safeway a mile away. The Safeway is much bigger and has a wider selection of food but the Basha’s is in very easy walking distance. Basha’s has also filed for Chapter 11 the past year.
I, then, walked around the corner to Whitfill nursery and checked out their herbs. No cilantro there today but I got some English thyme and a “Bronze Fennel.” The fennel is really quite pretty with that bronze color and the slender branches/shoots it sends out. I looked at the French thyme and decided I liked it a lot, too but that’s for another time. I looked at the rosemarys and the lavender, too.
yesterday was a beautiful day for Palm Sunday!
I attached and cleaned out the frige today. I tossed, scrubbed and cleaned out the whole things, crisper, middle and freezer part.
I had to throw out some greens leaves as they were at the end of their lifespan. But I chopped the rest of the chard, Chinese cabbage and spinach together, rinsed them and then decided to just use them as a salad with the rice and lentils that were in the global sun oven today. I mix the lentil dish and the greens together as a giant tossed salad with vinaigrette. Mine was an Italian type but I’m sure other kinds would work well, too.
It was a pleasure to chop all these greens with the new knife. The right tools DO make a lot of difference no matter what you’re doing in life.
Leftover greens get used tonight or tomorrow for a potato and greens dish. Or maybe I’ll just eat them as a salad dish with the leftover lentils.
Used the rosemary and tarragon that I had purchased at the grocery for dehydrating in the global oven. They were getting rid of a lot of packages of herbs at half price, so I figured the purchase was worth a try to dehydrate. Normally, the packages are like a little over $3.00.
peace, Shamba
Monday, March 29, 2010
Friday, March 26, 2010
Catching up this week.
March 26,
We had our association HOA board meeting last night. It’s been very quiet around the place. We’ve had no major repairs to make since we replaced the damaged rafter holding up the front porch roofs. We have a substantial amount in our bank accounts! The increase in fees is helping us by us putting the increase away to take care of property insurance, which is what it was intended to do. For the foreseeable future, we’ll have a positive cash flow. We have some HOA dues delinquencies but not too many. Here hoping we don’t have any really big unexpected things come up like we did the whole new water line thing about two years ago. :0 We made major broken line repairs over and over and then finally had to redo the fresh water lines, those old pipes just wouldn’t hold together anymore.
Our units are generally worth about $50,000-55,000 these days. That’s just about the 50% decline in prices for the Phoenix area during the last two-three years. A couple of units have sold in the past two years. Our property managers said they’re beginning to see some properties move a little more than they did 6 months ago. They’re hopeful it will get better and one of our board members said we have to wait another couple of years for things to get better. He’s hopeful too, that things will increase in value. I think he’d like to get out of being a landlord himself here although he is a good landlord and good for us to have on the board.
I didn’t mention anything about the further deterioration of housing and any other market. We didn’t have time for those kinds of discussions and needed to get a lot of business done in our time allotted. One member had worked 12 days in a row and looked really kind of tired. He works for an airline, counter agent. Our property managers are good but they work regular hours and attend some board meetings during the week so they were ready to go home and forget work.
March 22,
Interesting, to say the least, point from Jim Puplava at www.financialsense.com this past Saturday, March 20, 2010. He has a weekly show that is available to listening on the website in a variety of formats. The topics and guests for each hour are listed at the website. I don’t listen to everything every week, but this past week I listened to the MP3 version of Hour 2 on the topic: “Turning Point: Change Ahead for Markets and Economy.” This part of the program was about 1 hour and 15 minutes. About 35-40 minutes into the program at the end of this Turning Point Segment Puplava says and I paraphrase I’m not direct quoting. As matter of fact I think he’s quoting a guest from the hour 1 of this date.
Everybody known a major financial crisis bigger than we’ve ever seen before is coming. What nobody knows, what nobody is smart enough to know, whether it’s 3 months, 6 months, 1 year or 2 years. Big money is preparing for this because everyone knows it is coming.
: (
Cheers,
We had our association HOA board meeting last night. It’s been very quiet around the place. We’ve had no major repairs to make since we replaced the damaged rafter holding up the front porch roofs. We have a substantial amount in our bank accounts! The increase in fees is helping us by us putting the increase away to take care of property insurance, which is what it was intended to do. For the foreseeable future, we’ll have a positive cash flow. We have some HOA dues delinquencies but not too many. Here hoping we don’t have any really big unexpected things come up like we did the whole new water line thing about two years ago. :0 We made major broken line repairs over and over and then finally had to redo the fresh water lines, those old pipes just wouldn’t hold together anymore.
Our units are generally worth about $50,000-55,000 these days. That’s just about the 50% decline in prices for the Phoenix area during the last two-three years. A couple of units have sold in the past two years. Our property managers said they’re beginning to see some properties move a little more than they did 6 months ago. They’re hopeful it will get better and one of our board members said we have to wait another couple of years for things to get better. He’s hopeful too, that things will increase in value. I think he’d like to get out of being a landlord himself here although he is a good landlord and good for us to have on the board.
I didn’t mention anything about the further deterioration of housing and any other market. We didn’t have time for those kinds of discussions and needed to get a lot of business done in our time allotted. One member had worked 12 days in a row and looked really kind of tired. He works for an airline, counter agent. Our property managers are good but they work regular hours and attend some board meetings during the week so they were ready to go home and forget work.
March 22,
Interesting, to say the least, point from Jim Puplava at www.financialsense.com this past Saturday, March 20, 2010. He has a weekly show that is available to listening on the website in a variety of formats. The topics and guests for each hour are listed at the website. I don’t listen to everything every week, but this past week I listened to the MP3 version of Hour 2 on the topic: “Turning Point: Change Ahead for Markets and Economy.” This part of the program was about 1 hour and 15 minutes. About 35-40 minutes into the program at the end of this Turning Point Segment Puplava says and I paraphrase I’m not direct quoting. As matter of fact I think he’s quoting a guest from the hour 1 of this date.
Everybody known a major financial crisis bigger than we’ve ever seen before is coming. What nobody knows, what nobody is smart enough to know, whether it’s 3 months, 6 months, 1 year or 2 years. Big money is preparing for this because everyone knows it is coming.
: (
Cheers,
Friday, March 19, 2010
herb cooking class ...
I attended my cooking with herbs class Thursday morning. This was certainly well worth doing! there were 15 of us in the class and a knowledgeable and happy instructor. Apparently, the business is doing very well these days.
I am thinking a Yeast Bread Primer might be fun and useful to go to in May and the Indian Cooking class they’re offering.
In any case:
1. Harvested some parsley and basil and dehydrated them! Herbs are still really growing.
2. Huge pot of beef barley soup plus various veggies. Only I threw in some well cooked wheat berries instead of the barley.
3. Lantana plant in front is growing bigger every single day. It’s in the 80 the past few days and everything that can do so is putting forth blooms of one kind or another. Citrus blossoms will pop open any day on the two trees we have in our area in the back of the townhouse complex. Also, the pomegranate tree will bloom in the next month.
4. Tomorrow it’s roasting veggies to catch up with CSA veggies.
Peace, shamba
I am thinking a Yeast Bread Primer might be fun and useful to go to in May and the Indian Cooking class they’re offering.
In any case:
1. Harvested some parsley and basil and dehydrated them! Herbs are still really growing.
2. Huge pot of beef barley soup plus various veggies. Only I threw in some well cooked wheat berries instead of the barley.
3. Lantana plant in front is growing bigger every single day. It’s in the 80 the past few days and everything that can do so is putting forth blooms of one kind or another. Citrus blossoms will pop open any day on the two trees we have in our area in the back of the townhouse complex. Also, the pomegranate tree will bloom in the next month.
4. Tomorrow it’s roasting veggies to catch up with CSA veggies.
Peace, shamba
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
I wonder these things ....
I wonder … but I don’t expect anyone to really have the answers, I just wonder these things from time to time and they’ve been piling up in my head so here they are.
I wonder when or if we’ll start hearing the “D”epression word instead of the “R”ecession word or the “G”reater “R”ecession words …?
I wonder when we’ll have to watch all the local gas stations for which ones have gas to buy rather than watching which one has the best prices …
When will car dealerships, or any auto repair place, not have regular deliveries of the parts and stuff they need to repair cars?
Will they just say, “Come back tomorrow or a few days, we might/may have it then?”
I wonder when nail polish and nail polish remover won’t be so easily available …. I like polish and use it but I don’t have a clue what it’s made of, but something in it must be related to petroleum …
What about the elements of hair coloring and highlights that I get done by a good friend who has a local business …
When will there be fewer ball point pens—surely, their plastic and ink related to petroleum?
Will there ever be fewer kinds of cell phones to choose from?
Digital cameras come in all shapes and sizes of Mega Pixels? When will we see fewer of those available in stores?
And how long will film keep existing and will they stop developing/processing it? There are still people using film out there and I’m one of them although I have a small digital camera as well.
What about flatscreens used for tvs and computer display screens?
When do all the elements that go into electronics start becoming scarcer? Recycling of electronic parts, that’ll be a bigger business than it is now . ..
Will the city of Phoenix ever tell residents they’ll HAVE to conserve water?
Not just “encouraging” conservation but really having to learn to handle water differently to conserve it …
When or will local governments in the USA encourage residents to use rain water and rain barrels to help provide water for themselves? This assumes that governments/utilities will still have a part in delivering water to communities … .
How long will professional sports teams keep traveling around the US when there’s a crunch on gasoline/jet fuel? (I’m thinking of the US here but other countries have the professional sports, too.)
Will the PGA, WPGA, NFL, NHL and NBA (I’m probably leaving some sport league out of this that I don’t know about) just have smaller geographic groupings of competing teams? Maybe individual sport franchises in certain cities will just fold and not exist?
University and college sports teams and their various tiers of competition? Will they just wither away over time?
Will all kinds of tv get less over time, whether it’s cable/satellite/broadcast? Time and energy will be too expensive or available for these to exist the way they do now? Just paid tv/internet for those who can afford it?
Will grocery stores or farmer's markets have signs in places where certain foods used to be like "Bananas/Certain meats sold out and no more expected for a month or so." Or "No more Pomegranates/Apples/Pears/Almonds/Walnuts, etc. until next year." Meaning, next year's harvest, our allotment of seasonal food is gone for the year.
it's hard to push thoughts like these away anymore in the last couple of years, on this blustery, squally day with bursts of moderate rains. Another storm!
Shamba
I wonder when or if we’ll start hearing the “D”epression word instead of the “R”ecession word or the “G”reater “R”ecession words …?
I wonder when we’ll have to watch all the local gas stations for which ones have gas to buy rather than watching which one has the best prices …
When will car dealerships, or any auto repair place, not have regular deliveries of the parts and stuff they need to repair cars?
Will they just say, “Come back tomorrow or a few days, we might/may have it then?”
I wonder when nail polish and nail polish remover won’t be so easily available …. I like polish and use it but I don’t have a clue what it’s made of, but something in it must be related to petroleum …
What about the elements of hair coloring and highlights that I get done by a good friend who has a local business …
When will there be fewer ball point pens—surely, their plastic and ink related to petroleum?
Will there ever be fewer kinds of cell phones to choose from?
Digital cameras come in all shapes and sizes of Mega Pixels? When will we see fewer of those available in stores?
And how long will film keep existing and will they stop developing/processing it? There are still people using film out there and I’m one of them although I have a small digital camera as well.
What about flatscreens used for tvs and computer display screens?
When do all the elements that go into electronics start becoming scarcer? Recycling of electronic parts, that’ll be a bigger business than it is now . ..
Will the city of Phoenix ever tell residents they’ll HAVE to conserve water?
Not just “encouraging” conservation but really having to learn to handle water differently to conserve it …
When or will local governments in the USA encourage residents to use rain water and rain barrels to help provide water for themselves? This assumes that governments/utilities will still have a part in delivering water to communities … .
How long will professional sports teams keep traveling around the US when there’s a crunch on gasoline/jet fuel? (I’m thinking of the US here but other countries have the professional sports, too.)
Will the PGA, WPGA, NFL, NHL and NBA (I’m probably leaving some sport league out of this that I don’t know about) just have smaller geographic groupings of competing teams? Maybe individual sport franchises in certain cities will just fold and not exist?
University and college sports teams and their various tiers of competition? Will they just wither away over time?
Will all kinds of tv get less over time, whether it’s cable/satellite/broadcast? Time and energy will be too expensive or available for these to exist the way they do now? Just paid tv/internet for those who can afford it?
Will grocery stores or farmer's markets have signs in places where certain foods used to be like "Bananas/Certain meats sold out and no more expected for a month or so." Or "No more Pomegranates/Apples/Pears/Almonds/Walnuts, etc. until next year." Meaning, next year's harvest, our allotment of seasonal food is gone for the year.
it's hard to push thoughts like these away anymore in the last couple of years, on this blustery, squally day with bursts of moderate rains. Another storm!
Shamba
Monday, March 8, 2010
one more storm
March 7th, Another Sunday of rain, moderate to heavy rain at times all day long. It was lovely, really. And we’re not going to have the clear sunny weather until Wednesday morning because something else is passing through Arizona tonight and tomorrow. Honest to god I could have used a rain barrel this winter!
The desert parks in town are all green, green, green. March is here and I haven’t made it out to the desert to drive around and see the green growth plus some flowers that are out there. I just need to get up some morning, take the camera and take off in the car.
We’re only 6-8 weeks from May, too. The temps will go from just around 70 to 80 and then suddenly to 100 in those weeks since we usually break 100 sometime in early May.
That’s all for now, Shamba
The desert parks in town are all green, green, green. March is here and I haven’t made it out to the desert to drive around and see the green growth plus some flowers that are out there. I just need to get up some morning, take the camera and take off in the car.
We’re only 6-8 weeks from May, too. The temps will go from just around 70 to 80 and then suddenly to 100 in those weeks since we usually break 100 sometime in early May.
That’s all for now, Shamba
Thursday, March 4, 2010
What a beautiful day!
Cool breeze but our usual sunny skies with some white clouds! the citrus buds are about to pop open but haven't yet. The pomegrante tree is all leafed out. It only take 3 weeks once it gets a very few leaves open.
I put rice out in the Tulsi oven for cooking in the back patio. It's the first solar cooking dish of the year. :)
March 4th Veggies Are –
Carrots Sweet Potatoes
Citrus Mustard Green
Swiss Chard Lettuce Heads
Dill Turnips
Oranges! And the Chard is gorgeous and lettuce heads HOORAY! Things look very familiar to eat this week. That means just the reading of the names makes me want to eat them. :)
All, i mean ALL of my grains were gone after 2 months of using what I had on hand, I've very fond of cooked cereal for breakfast and that's where most of the grains go. So, I trundled off to Sprouts to fill out my grains list. Picked up some bell peppers for very inexpensive eac. I'm going to dehydrate them in the next few days.
Feeling better than I have for about a week.
cheers,
shamba
I put rice out in the Tulsi oven for cooking in the back patio. It's the first solar cooking dish of the year. :)
March 4th Veggies Are –
Carrots Sweet Potatoes
Citrus Mustard Green
Swiss Chard Lettuce Heads
Dill Turnips
Oranges! And the Chard is gorgeous and lettuce heads HOORAY! Things look very familiar to eat this week. That means just the reading of the names makes me want to eat them. :)
All, i mean ALL of my grains were gone after 2 months of using what I had on hand, I've very fond of cooked cereal for breakfast and that's where most of the grains go. So, I trundled off to Sprouts to fill out my grains list. Picked up some bell peppers for very inexpensive eac. I'm going to dehydrate them in the next few days.
Feeling better than I have for about a week.
cheers,
shamba
Update march 1st
Monday
I have a list of preps and I just keep working on going down the list. However, it seems like the past month I feel an urgency to get more done but at the same time I feel like a deer looking at the oncoming headlights of some big thing! It kind of saps the energy,too. and makes my neck and shoulder muscles tighten up after reading about this stuff lately. Need to do my shoulder stretches more or stop reading so much stuff lately.
I think this: "Well, look, there is that big Thing/collapse/market crash/outcry against city budget and it's coming and omy, it's as big and terrifying as the doomer blogs said it would be!"
More people of my circles are willing to talk about things aren't really going to get better for a long time. I'm not sure that's good or not except it might be a sign that more people are recognizing it's not going to be recovery by spring.
There's a small nursery that advertises "Vegetable Tube" gardening. I'm going to stop by there later this week and find out what that's about. Anyone here know anything?
Sunday
A nice rainy day again! I like the idea of being inside on these cold wet days we’ve had but on the other hand, I’d like a week or so inbetween them so things could dry out a little more. My plants love the water from the sky though. My parsley has lost it’s mind (!) and has a couple of really thick tall stalks on it. After this clears out today, we should have a clear week at least so far.
Ran out of any kind of bread so to have some available I did a quick bread today, caught up with the turnips and roasted them and other root veggies. I realized I could use the oven for both at the same time. Used up the last of the dehydrated vegetable broth to drink while I was cooking. Last two pieces of pizza are for dinner. Plenty of green stuff for salads.
That’s all for now,
shamba
I have a list of preps and I just keep working on going down the list. However, it seems like the past month I feel an urgency to get more done but at the same time I feel like a deer looking at the oncoming headlights of some big thing! It kind of saps the energy,too. and makes my neck and shoulder muscles tighten up after reading about this stuff lately. Need to do my shoulder stretches more or stop reading so much stuff lately.
I think this: "Well, look, there is that big Thing/collapse/market crash/outcry against city budget and it's coming and omy, it's as big and terrifying as the doomer blogs said it would be!"
More people of my circles are willing to talk about things aren't really going to get better for a long time. I'm not sure that's good or not except it might be a sign that more people are recognizing it's not going to be recovery by spring.
There's a small nursery that advertises "Vegetable Tube" gardening. I'm going to stop by there later this week and find out what that's about. Anyone here know anything?
Sunday
A nice rainy day again! I like the idea of being inside on these cold wet days we’ve had but on the other hand, I’d like a week or so inbetween them so things could dry out a little more. My plants love the water from the sky though. My parsley has lost it’s mind (!) and has a couple of really thick tall stalks on it. After this clears out today, we should have a clear week at least so far.
Ran out of any kind of bread so to have some available I did a quick bread today, caught up with the turnips and roasted them and other root veggies. I realized I could use the oven for both at the same time. Used up the last of the dehydrated vegetable broth to drink while I was cooking. Last two pieces of pizza are for dinner. Plenty of green stuff for salads.
That’s all for now,
shamba
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