State of the Union: van Sunder Land May 31, 2006
Posted by David in Family/Friends, Food/Wine, Garden/Pond, Nature, Technology.add a comment
Well, it’s time to give you a little state of the union for van Sunder Land.
The garden I promised you pictures of has not been planted, but the promised picture is posted. I created the new side garden to make some use of the huge piece of cement we have on the side of our house. I also wanted some extra space for us to grow more of our own vegetables. We have lots of tomato seedlings to plant and not enough space.
We still have not renamed our country. That process is stalled while other goals are accomplished.
The podcast has a website. It has a name. It has a purpose. The website, however, is still only 50% complete. I’m building a lot on the backend to support the podcasting process, as well as uploading and tracking. I also need to finish the structure of the website in order to finalize the navigation. So, at this point I don’t need (or want) any feedback on the website (I have no time for it yet). I don’t mean to be harsh, I just don’t want to waste anyone’s time. Feedback will come soon enough.
For anyone interested in the work in progress, you can look at Millionaire or Bust . It’s live, but not finished. Even the new slogan is not on the website, yet.
I have some work to do for Anne Darling Elementary, my mom’s school. Their website, as you can see if you click through the link, is atrocious. Their budget is thin, so I’ll just be fixing some broken pieces, cleaning up some code and updating, deleting and adding content. The website redesign will have to be put off until they have a budget for it. They need a complete overhaul, complete with multilingual access.
Talli’s cooking is progressing tremendously. She made some of the best banana, oatmeal, raisin cookies. They were great and extremely healthy, of course.
Hunter is definitely on top of guarding the house. He has the mail man quaking in his boots. The squirrels have been acting up though, so he’s been cracking down on them.
Robert, the da Silvian Ambassador is missing in action. Hopefully, he’ll resume contact some time soon. Until then, our prayers are with him in this tough time…
I have another pile of projects stacked up, but I haven’t gotten to them. That will have to come next week.
So, the state of the union is strong. We are strong. No one can break our resolve!
Red Dragonfly May 30, 2006
Posted by David in Garden/Pond, Nature.3 comments
Here’s a red dragonfly that was posing for me with her wings outstretched. I grabbed my camera and got really close. Once I got too close and she flew away, but she came back so that I could finish her photo shoot. She definitely loved the camera and posed with her wings outstretched the whole time.
Time to Propagate…Dracaenas That Is! May 29, 2006
Posted by David in Family/Friends, Food/Wine, Garden/Pond, Nature.1 comment so far
My grandparents came over this afternoon, so that my grandfather could help us propagate two of our Dracaena plants. The plants were a gift from my grandparents from when Talli and I started In Stride Physical Therapy. We had already replanted the plants into larger pots, but two of them were getting too tall and I decided that it was time for us to cut and propagate them into two of the original pots that I had kept.
Since this was the first time I had propagated Dracaenas, I thought it would be nice to get some help from my grandfather who could probably do it in his sleep. Since they only live a few blocks from us, getting them to come over wasn’t too hard.
Getting the plants taken care of took only a few minutes. In the rest of the time while we had them captive, we gave them a tour of what we’d been doing in the yard, got some planting advice and gave them tea and coffee. It was nice to have them over for a while so that we could all have a conversation. Talli and I really had a good time.
Now we have even more pots with plants. Who knows, maybe we’ll move some of them inside. We’ll just have to see what spot works out best for the new plants.
Current Mood: Tired May 28, 2006
Posted by David in Family/Friends, Food/Wine, Garden/Pond.2 comments
I spent a long time working in the yard today. I was building a small vegetable garden on the side of the house. To be more specific, I was moving and mixing soil in the vegetable garden I created on the side of the house about a week and a half ago. I was also preparing the tulip bed for our tomato plants that I will be planting in the next few days from the seedling tomato plants Talli started in pots. That process took hours. That’s why there isn’t a picture of what I did. I was just too tired.
Talli prepared a great lunch today with vegetables from our garden. It is what makes all the work I’ve been doing preparing the soil, worthwhile. For a look at the magnificent lunch, check Talli’s blog.
The pictures of the garden will follow after Talli and I plant the two areas I prepared today. So, you all have something to look forward to. For now though, I’m tired. I’ll talk to all of you…tomorrow. David out.
Avô’s Eden May 27, 2006
Posted by David in Family/Friends, Garden/Pond, Nature.4 comments
Think we’re in the tropics? Well, we’re not. We’re in my grandfather’s backyard. We were visiting with my family at my grandparents’ house, so we went out back to check out the yard and this is what we found. The Garden of Eden! It was magnificent.
My grandfather seems to be able to grow almost every single vegetable or fruit known to man in a back yard that is less than a tenth of an acre, including the patio and the sides of the house. To extend his growing area, he put a green house and many pots and trays on the patio. Let me list just a few of his edible plants.
Herbs we have: parsley, rosemary, bay leaf, mint, etc.
Fruits: orange, five types of apple, peach, pomegranate, loquat, lemon, lime, passion fruit, strawberry, blueberry, grape, etc.
Vegetables: green bean, swiss chard, beet, cucumber, tomato, carrot, green onion, etc.
The only reason I don’t list more is that I’m limited by my memory and knowledge of what he has planted. My list doesn’t even include half of his edible plants. He also has numerous types of flowers that he cuts for the house.
My grandparents’ house has always been a happy place for me. They always do their best to please and the most important thing to me is that they are happy.
Luckily for us, they are going to come over to our house on Monday to take a look at our yard and help us to try to capture a small fraction of what they’ve got going in their yard, so that we can learn just a few of his wonderful secrets. It would be a shame for us to lose Eden once again, this time because we didn’t eat from the Tree of Knowledge.
Surfer David May 26, 2006
Posted by David in Business, Garden/Pond, Technology.add a comment
Here I am with the neighbor kids’ board. They threw it over the fence. Talli took the picture, then I threw it back. I promise!
I dedicated today to research. I’ve been on the internet a good part of the day. I’ve been reading and listening to everything that I can find on business. It’s been part brush up, part new information. I’ve found a lot of interest. I’ve even found some content for the podcast that Talli and I are creating.
The design and creation of the podcast is coming along well. Pretty soon the website will be finished and the first trial podcast episode will be created, so that we can work out the kinks. Will that one go online for you all to listen to? If it’s good enough. First episode announcement will be coming soon.
Pond update: 62 degrees
Fish Health: Looking good
Fish Growth: Growing steadily
Talli & Our New Oven May 25, 2006
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Here’s the new oven that I’ve been telling everyone about. It’s been great. It’s taking a little practice for me to keep the pans on the burners now that the whole surface is flat, but I’m adjusting.
It’s a high tech oven compared to what we had before. You can set the time you want the oven to turn on, the temperature and the time it will finish. The oven even tells you when it has been preheated to the temperature you set. I love it!
Today, I’ve been sifting through business opportunities. There are a lot out there. Some are risky, some aren’t. Some are a lot of money, other’s aren’t so much. Some are fun, some aren’t. I’m still searching for those that make the most possible money, with the least possible work. More importantly, I want the opportunity to be pursuable from anywhere in the country or even the world. I wish I could tell you all more, but I don’t have much to tell, yet.
Dinner With the Saraccos May 24, 2006
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Dinner With the Saraccos
Wednesday was centered around dinner. The early part of the day was preparation. The latter part was dinner and conversation. We invited Geno & Sue Saracco over for dinner. (An overdue invitation, I might add.)
We served appetizers on the back patio. We had shiitake mushrooms stuffed with cream cheese, onions and mushroom stems. We served that along with a Bianco del Granduca White from the Tuscany region of Italy that we picked up while we were in Rome. It went surprisingly well with the mushrooms.
Then we moved on to dinner. For dinner we had chicken with potatoes, onions and carrots in a red wine and tomato sauce. We also had broccoli with the chicken sauce. On the side, there was an organic sour batard from Trader Joe’s. With the main course, we had Nerello del Bastardo Vendemmia 1999 by Marchesi di Montecristo which is a Piedmontese Red Table Wine that we picked up while we were in Venice. I thought it complemented the chicken very nicely.
For dessert, we had Talli’s world famous harmony cake, topped with an organic chocolate sauce. To accompany it, we had Peruvian coffee that we picked up while we were in Peru and the Yalumba Museum Reserve Antique Tawny that I picked up at Cost Plus World Market and blogged about before. It was a nice Australian tawny with that woody, Madeira-like taste that is characteristic of them. I liked it a lot, but I still prefer a good Portuguese Tawny. It was definitely worth the price though and went well with dessert.
Now for the most important part of the evening, the company. The company made the meal. For that part, I have to thank Sue & Geno for making the dinner so much fun. Talli and I really enjoyed having them over and they are more then welcome to come over again, anytime. Thank you both very much for the great time and the wine (Benziger 2001 Sonoma County Reserve Merlot) and roses fresh from the yard! We’ll enjoy them both! We’d better wait a little while on the wine though after what we drank tonight…;)
Being Healthy with Talli May 23, 2006
Posted by David in Environment, Family/Friends, Nature, Technology.add a comment
My wife Talli made the leap to blogging this morning. You can find her blog, Being Healthy with Talli hosted by WordPress. Her blog will be primarily focused on health and the environment. Of course, Talli associates good food and gardening with health, so she’ll be covering those areas along with a a lot of other interesting subjects.
While the new blog was being born, our new oven was delivered today. It’s a new coilless flattop range. It’s nice to have it delivered because we have guests (Sue & Geno) tomorrow and I need it to prepare the dinner. So, I no longer have to worry about how I’m going to prepare the meal. Maybe I’ll get a picture of the new oven up on the site sometime in the near future. Then again, maybe not if there are more interesting things going on.
Leaf? No! Moth. May 22, 2006
Posted by David in Garden/Pond, Nature.add a comment
I don’t have a mutant today. What I do have is a moth with some great camouflage. At first, I thought I had a leaf stuck to one of my doors. When I got closer, I could see that it was definitely a moth. I’m not sure what kind, but it would be more successful avoiding predators if it didn’t rest on white surfaces.
No, I didn’t kill it. Hopefully it doesn’t lay eggs that devour my garden. If I become infested with caterpillars though, I will kill them whenever I find them. Until then, I’ll just hope that it finds greener places to eat than our yard.
