Back to School

Even though it's still 85 degrees outside, summer is officially over for me. Classes started last week and I am already feeling the squeeze of not having enough hours in the day to get everything done. Perhaps having such a relaxing summer was not actually in my best interest, because it has made it that much harder to get back into the swing of things. I guess I'll just have to suck it up and be thankful that I even got into grad school in the first place or else I would have spent my summer under a fluorescent light working for a modern day slave-driver :)

Over my final 2 weeks of "freedom" I finally got around to canning a batch of salsa (with the generous help of my friend and school-mate Christina). My cayenne peppers and Roma tomatoes were slow to ripen this year, probably because we were able to supply them with water on a regular basis this year with the irrigation system, so I wasn't able to make the salsa until much later in the season as compared to last year. I also canned some pepper jelly, but not without a major kitchen catastrophe in the midst of the whole process. I didn't turn the heat down fast enough after bringing the jelly mixture to a boil and ended up with a boil over of molten sugar/pepper lava all over the stove. This quickly turned into black sugar char that is now a permanent feature of my stovetop, fan-friggin-tastic! Oh well, I've been telling Shawn we need a gas stove anyway, I hate those stupid electric ranges (although that particular disaster could have turned into a serious fire had there been flame involved). Here's a shot of my lovely peppers before they got turned into jelly:
As for more recent news, over the past two days we have had very intense rain and there has been significant flooding in our area. Since we live alongside the Haw River, I was curious to see how high it was after the rains had stopped. Shawn and I rode down to the river on the 4-wheeler last night and we were in awe of what we saw:

This field is normally used to grow oats or corn, but luckily it had already been harvested or there would have been a complete loss. And as you can see, our garden rain gauge runneth over (I guess we won't need to water for awhile!) Also, our corn has tasseled out, so hopefully we'll have about 600 ears of fresh silver queen corn in a few weeks!

Hot and spicy!

The dog days of summer are here, and the past couple weeks have been scorchers, which it makes it absolutely miserable to be out in the garden weeding (unless you get out there by 6 am, which is not so much an option for someone who is most definitely NOT a morning person). So I guess it is my own self imposed torture to do my weeding in the 95 degree heat. Sweating is supposed to be good for you, right? I have even managed to avoid getting a sunburn for the most part by being vigilant with the sunscreen, but I did get one of the worst burns I have had in a long time in one of the most unlikely places... lets just say that I need to start applying sunscreen to my backside because apparently when I spend hours bent over weeding, there is a sliver of exposed skin in the space between the bottom of my shirt and the top of my shorts. Not a fun place to have a sunburn! Anyway, the garden is producing veggies faster then I can pick them (I swear if I sat and watched a cucumber for a couple hours I could see it grow!). I planted a patch of "late" corn the first week of July and it has done so much better than out first batch of corn, I think being able to water whenever we need to has made all the difference. Look at how much it has grown just over the past 3 weeks...

I also discovered that we had a few "volunteer" squash plants that randomly showed up in the field beside the garden. It's funny because we lost almost all of our squash plants to insects this year, but these guys seem to be doing great! I call them my "squash surprise" :)


I have already canned my first batch of tomatoes, and would have been doing more of the same this week if it hadn't been for a particularly bad thunderstorm that knocked over many of our tomato plants.The plants themselves seem to have survived, but many of the tomatoes that were on the vine were knocked off, which is very frustrating. We have already devised a better design for tomato cages that should prevent this problem, but obviously we'll have to wait until next year to implement it. This week I also tried a new recipe recommended by Krista's mom called Summer Tomato Pie...I swear it's one of the most delicious things you'll ever put in your mouth! The peppers are loving this hot weather (see photo below), and I had enough jalapeno and banana peppers to make pickled peppers earlier this week(my favorite pizza topping!). Once my cayenne peppers ripen then I can start on the salsa and pepper jelly too, yum!

Adventures with Mom!

Last week my Mom was here to visit and since she is thinking about moving down here in the next couple of years, I think it was a good thing for her to come in mid-July to see just how much she still liked North Carolina when it is 95 degrees and humid every day. She has always hated the cold and weighs in at a whopping 95 pounds (which amounts to zero insulation), so needless to say the heat didn't bother her in the least. We had a great time together and

Preview

crammed a ton of activities into the week she was here. The first night we took her to Ace Speedway which is just a couple miles from our house (you can hear the cars from our back deck on Friday nights, so cool!) and spent half the time watching the race and the other half watching the people... both were very entertaining!
Saturday we went to Reidsville to pick up some canning supplies at Saunders Hardware, which is a fun place to go because they actually still have appliances from the 70's that are still brand new in the box (but with updated prices!) Picture a harvest yellow waffle maker and the original Osterizer blender, brand new...crazy!!

On Sunday we invited Melissa and Ronnie over to shoot skeet...we all had a great time and it was nice to know I can still shoot pretty well after several years without practice. Neither Melissa or Ronnie had ever shot skeet before, and if you've never done it you'll quickly realize it's a lot tougher to hit a moving target than a stationary one, but they were quick learners and busted up a few skeet before the day was over. Then we celebrated our victory over the clay pigeons with some margaritas and steaks on the grill (and turkey brats for me), it was a perfect day :)
Later in the week Mom and I visited the local winery and were quite impressed with their wines! Who'd have thought NC had any decent wines? I am proud to admit that I am finally starting to acquire a taste for red wine (although the full-bodied ones are still bit too much for me). I feel all grown up and semi-sophisticated now...ok not really I know I'm still mostly a redneck...but I can pretend! :) Mom also helped me make garlic-dill pickles with our over-abundance of cucumbers, I can't wait to try them! Right now the tomatoes are only producing a couple of ripe ones each day, but there are a ton of green ones on the vine, so I'll bet next week it will be time to start canning and making salsa, who hoo!!

Who needs rain anyway....?

It is nearing that time of year where I become overloaded with veggies and subsequently give half of them away because I can't keep up with all the canning. Last year we were inundated with squash and zucchini, this year we seem to have too many cukes. Sadly there seems to be a lot fewer options for fun ways to eat cucumbers compared to squash and zucchini...anyone have any suggestions? Actually, I have eaten so many of them that I feel like I am in a perpetual state of "cucumber bloat"... maybe I ought to lay off the cukes for a few days :) Anyway! So here is what my garden looked like on the 5th of June (the day I left for Maine)...


And here it is 2 and a half weeks later on the day after I came home from Maine (many many thanks to Shawn for weeding while I was gone!!) What you can see in the picture is that things are growing fast (especially the tomatoes and corn!), what you can't see is almost all of my peas and many of my green beans either died from the 100+ degree heat wave or got eaten by rabbits, bummer! It's embarrassing to say I have had to plant my green beans three times this year, but I will have fresh green beans dammit!! Also we have had a major infestation of Colorado potato beetles which nearly was the demise for our potatoes, but thankfully we have it under control now with the help of Sevin Dust (not the band).

We have also found an effective solution to the heat/lack of rain problem...it was a bit on the pricey side, but is a one time investment that we will reap the benefits of for years to come. We purchased a large amount of used irrigation equipment from Shawn's grandfather, and now we are able to keep the garden alive no matter how hot or dry it gets without draining our well, yay! We are very lucky to have a farm pond on our property that is currently only being used for fishing, so this makes it possible for us to have a nearly unlimited (and renewable, since it is spring fed) source of water. Since we don't have quite enough pipe to reach all the way from the garden to the pond, instead we fill up a 1000 gallon tank and haul it up to the garden where we hook it to the pump and wala! We have water! The first time we ran it we discovered we can put down 1000 gal of water in about 40 minutes, incredible! I was so excited I was dancing in the "rain" (along with the dog) :) Check it out:


And as for our rabbit problem, well that solved itself once the wheat got cut, now they have no where to hide from their predators, so they seem to be staying closer to the woods these days. And that is fine with me! Here is a shot of the combine harvesting the wheat from our back deck:

The month in pictures

Wow, it's been over a month since I have blogged, which is really awful since I don't even have school as an excuse right now...BUT, even without being in school I have managed to stay pretty busy and so I thought I'd cover what I've been up to over the past month with a photo blog....

For starters, I have been working as a TA for an online course called "Principles and Methods of Applied Infectious Disease Epidemiology" (a mouthful I know!) It's actually a course I took a couple years ago as part of the Certificate in Field Epidemiology program, so it's nice that I am already familiar with the material. I don't have a photo for this one, but who wants to see me sitting behind my laptop in my pajamas anyway? :) To make up for the lack of a photo, here is a fun outbreak investigation game that I find very entertaining, so if you're bored here is something to keep you occupied for 10 or 15 minutes (after you finish reading my blog of course!) http://www.mclph.umn.edu/watersedge/

I also got to spend almost 3 weeks in Maine visiting my family and attending weddings, we lucked out and got some great weather (almost 90 degrees in early June, wow!) so that meant my sisters, Dad, and I got to do a lot of fishing at his camp in Belgrade... and I was even brave enough to take a dip in the lake (I think the ice had only gone out about 6 weeks prior!)


On our last day at camp my Dad and I were fortunate enough to get to see both of the bald eagles that live on the lake, it was an incredible experience! Gotta love the magic of camp!

Allison, a childhood friend and the daughter of friends of my parents who I have known since I was 5, got married in Biddeford on June 7th...her dress was lilac colored...I am so jealous!!

EJ, a friend from college who was also dubbed as an unoffical third roommate our freshman year at UMaine, got married in Windham on June 21st. I also got to see Emily, my "official" roommate freshman and sophmore year, and her husband Ryan at the wedding. I can't wait to meet their new baby Lizzie next time I visit!

During my visit I also got the chance to visit with one of my closest friends Barbie and her husband Sean and also two of my friends from elementary school Jessica and Lisa (I hadn't seen Lisa in over 14 years!!). My Mom and I picked out my wedding dress while I was in Maine too, but I can't show you those pictures, it's bad luck!

What's that smell?....oh... it's me

As I was making a futile attempt to clean out the grime from under my fingernails, I realized that my black fingernails were a symbol of my favorite kind of day, a day spent getting completely and utterly filthy :) Here is my recipe for the perfect day: start out with sunscreen (on such a perfect spring day I knew I would spend every last second outside), then add a lot of dirt and sweat from weeding the garden (holy crap where did all these weeds come from all of sudden?), then add gear oil (time to find the source of the leak in the rear axle), and top it all off with some DEET and fish slime (we only caught a couple brim, but it was still a blast). And as a added bonus, tonight is the NASCAR all-star race...what more could a girl want?? :)

Seeds of wisdom

One of my favorite things about gardening is watching my carefully sown seeds start to sprout. It never fails to amaze me how you can stick a tiny dry little seed into the dirt and a week or 2 later there is a beautiful little plant growing in it's place. I understand the science behind it, but for some reason, even after our very successful garden last year, I still feel that I don't really know what I am doing and that there is no way all the seeds I planted will actually sprout. This year, when 90% of the green beans I planted didn't come up, I knew it was my fault for somehow not planting them right and that I was a failure as a farmer. Shawn told me that it was becuase we had so much rain in the week after we planted that some of the seeds may have drowned, but I was skeptical...how come the corn he planted on the same day came up just fine then?? So on Tuesday I decided to swallow my pride and try to replant all the green beans. As I dug up the dirt in the row, I discovered that Shawn had in fact been right, I found many of the seeds I had planted, and they had sprouted and even had some tiny leaves, but they were yellow looking and they had never breached the surface becuase they got stuck under the hard crust of clay that builds up after hard rains, and so they drowned...poor little things. Sad as it was that there was a mass drowning in the garden, I still felt happy becuase I knew that it wasn't directly my fault, it was just the damn weather, again! And I also realized that the reason the corn didn't drown was becuase it had already come up before the several days of downpours came. OK, so maybe I'm not a failure after all... but won't be sure until I see my new set of green beans come up, keep your fingers crossed!

A time for celebration

Even though this week was finals week for me, it was one of the best I've had in a while. To start, my college roommate Emily and her husband Ryan were able to bring home their new baby after many months on the adoption waitlist, I am so thrilled for them both and can't wait to meet Elizabeth Marie when I'm in Maine in June (check out their blog "Brinkley Parker"). I also found out that my sister Sarah got a management job for Aramark that she was hoping for, you rock girl! Shawn has completed his third week in his new planner position at Miller and is exceeding all expectations already (I knew he would), I am so proud of him. :) As for myself, I have successfully completed my first year of the PhD program (who hoo!), and I also have a meeting with the state public health veterinarian and the state pest management director to discuss a collaboration on a potential dissertation project on tick-borne disease in NC (probably Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever) I am so psyched!

Now that the semester is over I am planning to spend most of the summer working in the garden and catching up on some non-epidemiology reading. Any book suggestions would be welcomed! I will also be a TA for an online course for the Field Epi Certificate program, which is really nice since I won't have to commute into Chapel Hill except for maybe once a week. Of course, we'll also continue working on the mud truck over the summer (Shawn installed a new stereo and speakers today, now we can crank up that country music!), the next project is replacing the brakes.

As for the garden, we planted the tomatoes, green beans, peas, corn, cukes, squash and potatoes on Monday, the rest will go in tomorrow (no rain in the forecast, finally!) I also planted a bunch of gladiola bulbs in the front yard, but the bulbs were from Lowe's so I'm not sure if they'll actually come up or not, we'll have to just wait and see....

Usually I love thunderstorms....

...but not this week! Once again my planting plans were foiled by the weather, as we had numerous thunderstorms over the weekend which reduced our lovely garden plot to a muddy mess. We did get a chance to make up the rows and fertilize the garden before the storms hit, which was good. From the photos (below) you'd never know that we were about to get dumped on, but I guess that's the way it goes with thunderstorms this time of year, they sneak up on you real quick! Anyway, we made 4 rows (about 150 feet long) and the other half of the garden (which is not cut into rows) will be for the corn, which you plant in flat ground. The fertilizer we are using is triple-17, which is actually pretty heavy duty stuff (usually used for tobacco), but Shawn's grandfather swears by it and as long as you put it deep enough in the rows it shouldn't burn the plants (also, a little goes a long way!). Maybe someday I'll have enough time to do the composting thing so my garden is a little more earth-friendly, but for now this will have to do.

We also made a trip to a local greenhouse to pick up some seedling plants, hopefully they'll be OK under the carport for a few more days until it dries out. We had planned to scale back on tomatoes this year (we had 48 last year, waaaay too many), but somehow we still ended up with 42 plants when we got home...I have no idea how that could have happened, but I think it starts with a "S" and ends with a "N".... :) Anyway, we also picked up our pepper plants and this is where I may have gone a little overboard myself...4 jalapeno, 4 cayenne, 4 green bell, 4 yellow bell, 4 red bell, and 4 banana peppers....can you tell I like spicy food? I plan to can a few batches of salsa and jalapeno jelly, and I may even try pickling my own jalapenos this year. But for right now, I should probably get back to studying for my finals...

Springtime in the south

As usual, I haven't posted in months, but now that it is springtime and the semester is almost over (2 more weeks, yay!) I have been inspired to use my blog as a garden journal since that topic is something that's actually fun to write about (as opposed to school, which is just torturous and no one wants to hear me complain all the time anyway). This past weekend was supposed to be the best weekend for planting according to the farmers almanac (which was independently confirmed by Shawn's grandfather, who is a walking farmers almanac). My plans were thwarted due to the heavy rains last week, which made the ground too wet to make up the rows with the tractor (although it would have been fun to play with the tractor in the mud, but Shawn was not enthused with that idea, dang it!) So hopefully I can plant this weekend, although it's been getting down to the low 30s at night, so we'll have to keep an eye on the weather forecast. It sure seems like spring has been playing hide and seek this year, we even got a freak snow shower a few weeks back and it had been in the 70s the week before, very strange! Many of the trees are in full bloom right now (as well as the azaleas) and I thought I'd share this picture I took Sunday (it's actually the view from my kitchen window, pretty sweet huh?)

Boogity Boogity Boogity...

Let's go racin boys!!
So for you non-NASCAR fans the previous quote is the hallmark of the start of NASCAR season from none other than the lengend himself Darrrel Waltrip. Last Sunday was the Daytona 500 and it was really great to see all those Toyotas running up front, they have come a long way since they entered the series last year! I was also really excited to see my favorite driver, Elliott Sadler, finish in the top 10, it seems like its been a long time since he finished a race at all without some kind of wreck, so I was very proud. I hope that I will get a chance to see a race live this year, but I'm finding it kind of a hard sell to convince any of my friends to go....I just don't understand why a bunch of epidemiologists who crunch statistics all day don't love NASCAR, I mean, that is what racing is all about, the numbers! Maybe they are just scared of the toxic exhaust fumes that are a potential risk factor for asthma and lung cancer...but hey, a few short exposures can't be that bad right? Sorry, that was a pathetic attempt at epidemiology humor...I swear, my nerdiness gets worse every day.
Anyway, on to other news... I found out I was not selected to receive the internship in New Zealand this summer :( But, it was somewhat expected since I am only a first year with no research experience in epidemiology to speak of, I'll try again next year. We did receive some great news this week, Shawn interviewed for a Maintenance Planner position at Miller Brewing (which is a HUGE step up from his current position as a Mechanic there) and he got the job! :) So now he will be working on day shift instead of 2nd shift, which means that I will now get to see him for more than 10 minutes a day on weekdays, yay!

Return of the missing blogger

Well it's been almost 2 months since I posted anything, so probably most of you have written me off at this point (and I don't blame you, I was on the verge of abandoning the blog myself), but one of my good friends Melissa told me I need to update it, so I guess there is still at least one person who is still reading this :)

So here's the update (there's actually a lot that has happened since the end of last semester!)
-First off, the biggest piece of news: Shawn and I got engaged over Christmas break while we were in Maine, who hooo! It happened on Christmas day with my parents and sisters there, and it was very sweet, I wasn't really expecting it so it was a fun surprise too (I knew we were getting engaged, but I thought it was going to be sometime this spring). It definitely meant a lot for my family to be there with us for that moment. So the wedding plans include getting married on the beach in Saint Lucia over Thanksgiving break, I am soooo excited! I'm not sure which day we will tie the knot yet, but I'm guessing the 26th or the 27th based on the marriage laws for non-residents. We are staying (and having the wedding) at a resort called Rendezvous, which is an adults-only, couples-only resort that looks to be very romantic with a very relaxed atmosphere. We have invited family and friends to come celebrate with us, but the cost of airfare is pretty steep, so at this point it looks like my parents and sisters as well as Shawn's mom and brothers are the only ones who can make it. They will be staying at a different resort of course (I mean it is our honeymoon!), but it is just up the road so we can still hang out and explore the island together. We have also made plans to do a day of deep sea fishing, so cool!!

The other big news is that Shawn and I have purchased a '79 Ford truck that is our new project, and all I can say is this thing is HUGE! The headlights are over my head and I can't get in it without a push from behind, which Shawn seems to enjoy thouroughly, :). It really is made for mud and I can't wait to take it around the farm and make a big mess! Our plans are to race it in the mud bog, but that won't be until next summer since it really needs a bigger motor in order to be competitive. Right now we are working fixing some of the safety issues it has, like replacing the entire braking system and putting in some racing seats and 5-point restraints. Once we get all the parts we need to build the motor we will start on that part of the project. We also have yet to come up for a name for it (I got shot down when I tried to name it MissBetty2) I guess he doesn't want to drive around town in a giant truck with a girly name...I can't imagine why!! So if y'all think of any ideas let me know! You are probably wondering what happened to the original MissBetty, and sadly the deal with getting this truck was that I had to sell MissBetty, which makes sense, but was very sad for me. Fortunately, the friend we bought the Ford from actually wanted to buy MissBetty, so at least I still get to see her (and she will run again with his automotive expertise!) but I'm pretty sure he won't be calling her by her proper name...silly boys, I just don't understand why they don't want such a cool name for their truck!

So let's see, what other things have happened....
Well I went skiing for a weekend with some friends from the epi dept and that was an experience! I can't say I've ever been skiing before when it was 65 degrees in January....crazy! Also I managed to get a ticket to the Carolina/Duke game last night, which was really fun until the 2nd half when Carolina totally blew it, but experiencing first-hand one of the biggest college rivalries ever was truly awesome, it's a day I'll never forget. Other than that I have basically been completely inundated with school, but I'm still enjoying it and looking forward to getting through some of this coursework so I can get back into the research world again. I am teaching again this semester to pay my tuition, but I have applied for a summer research internship in New Zealand and should be hearing back any day now, so keep your fingers crossed for me!