President's Day Weekend - Saturday

Let's just say that Kristin and I are both pretty tired. We arrived at the house (the 'project?') at 8am, and we just arrived home about 20 minutes ago. We made some serious headway today, though!

So much happened, in fact, that it is hard to remember it all, and in fact, we forgot to take photos of every part of it.

Loaded the truck with all the baseboard trim and some of the carpet that we ripped off the stairs the day before, as well as the ceiling fans, (the Habitat for Humanity RE-Store didn't want any more ceiling fans, and we don't need them...) and went to the landfill. There is no carpet recycling place in Atascadero apparently - though the carpet installers we were referred to by Green Goods added "carpet recycling" on his estimate. Someone correct me if I am wrong?

The landfill is pretty cool, it is out in the countryside, among some almond orchards, and we saw our friend Kathleen, whom we know from The Park Restaurant in SLO, she used to manage events for Maegan & Jeff there. She is a professionally trained chef in her own right, and I think that she is a director, or at least a very active part of the local Slow Food Convivium. Anyway, the landfill uses longhorn cattle to graze the hillsides and keep the fire hazard to a minimum, it is really scenic, and we could just about see our house on the drive back, from the banks of the Salinas River, which is actually above ground right now, which is a rare occurance.

We also went to pretty much all of the hardware and lighting stores in town, getting the lay of the land. Kristin really liked Miner's Hardware, and said "I'm never going back to Home Depot again!" We will see how that plays out, but we found some good tools and supplies that we needed, and got a sense of what is available.

Then we went back, pruned some rose bushes, had our washer and dryer delivered and installed, had the refrigerator delivered, plugged into the outlet in the garage, and now we will have cold beer and sodas available! I ripped out carpeting on the stairs to the garage, Kristin removed all of the contact paper in the kitchen cabinets, which was no small task. The oven and dishwasher were hauled away by the guys from Idler's, so we ripped out the rest of the vinyl flooring. Then we took down all of the cabinet pulls and drawers, removed all of the doors to the garage for refinishing.

We tried to make it to Green Goods to finalize the order for carpet before they closed, but it turns out that they close early on Saturdays, so we missed it. We went looking for a salad, or something healthy for dinner. There are a TON of Mexican restaurants in Atascadero, and they look to be better than most of the options in SLO, but we had breakfast burritos for breakfast (and lunch) so we ended up at Hoover's cafe 101, which has its own brewery as well. KLC had fish & chips, I had prime rib. We earned it today! The beer was good too.

After dinner, just for good measure, we ripped out ALL OF THE CARPETING FROM THE ENTIRE DOWNSTAIRS!! It looks great, we really feel like we accomplished something, and the truck is loaded and ready for another trip to the landfill tomorrow!

Time for sleeping now...

Holiday Arugula?

The nights have been quite chilly lately, even though the short days have been warming regularly into the high 60F degree range, even hitting 70F occasionally. The ground must still have some warmth, as my arugula has started to emerge from the recently prepared garden bed with tiny green shoots emerging quite uniformly from the soil in a tidy row. I planted just two weeks ago, taking out a disused bed of Santa Barbara Daisies, digging in some homemade compost, and trenching some seed starter soil into a few shallow rows, where I tucked the seeds in.

I planted a few other wintertime foods, including beets, (I used a cultivar that is primarily used for its greens,) as well as cillantro and two short rows of edible pod peas. Not a peep yet from those rows; but I have faith that the peas will emerge, judging from my sucess last year in Oregon's icy winter.

Cilantro fresh from the garden is a wonderful way to dress winter soups, salads, and homemade Mexican foods. Even in San Luis Obispo's moderate climate, the summertime sun seems to send it to seed almost as soon as it gains its first few leaves. But growing it over the winter provides an extravagance of the pungent leaves; and when it finally does bolt, we will let the seed pods mature, finally collecting the coriander for further kitchen use. In the past, we have even dedicated a pepper grinder to exclusive use for the purpose of grinding the flavorful, almost orange-like floral spice of coriander over eggs, curries, tuna, and other dishes. In my opinion, this is one spice that you must grow; I've never been as satisfied with purchased corriander as with my own home grown produce.

Perhaps I will have some fresh, spicy arugula greens in time for a Christmas salad?