Anniversaries

This week marks two important anniversaries for me. First, Monday the 21st marked my one year anniversary of being in Massachusetts.

Here’s what I’ve learned:

Spring is quick, Summer is questionable, August is Fall, Fall is Winter and Winter is terrible (and long).

And that is Massachusetts in a nutshell.

Of course I’m only joking. Massachusetts is spectacular and I’m quite happy here, I’m just not feeling terribly sappy and, I don’t know…write-y right now, so lets just say it happened and yahoo.

Second, today is my Birthday! I’m twenty six years old, which means I REALLY need to update that little thing in the corner what says I’m twenty four. I’m lying on my blog! For my birthday, my parents came to visit! They are here right now and not going home till Monday. We’re having a lovely time- yesterday we drove up the Cape on what was possibly the most gorgeous drive of my entire life. We also saw one of the funniest signs I have ever seen, which was for a tutoring company:

It said:

“Hey, tell your mom you need a tutor!

Call: 1-888-Tutors-Is-Us!”

Idiots! Don’t they know the correct grammar is “tutors is we?”

Tonight we’re going out to dinner with Pete’s family and mine, the proverbial meeting o’ the families. I predict it will be a rousing success, but if it is a disaster, I’ll take notes and tell you all about it!

We had all these other lovely plans for the weekend, but it turns out Massachusetts is getting hit with a Hurricane! (W.T.F?) So we’re going to can green beans and play with the cat.

The cat, you say? Well, if you aren’t reading my other blog, then you’re missing out on all the latest news, namely Sophie.

This blog has reached a new zenith, apex, acme! Ladies and gents, I will now post pictures of my cat. (God help us all!)

Who’s a precious angel!?

Take note of the daggers coming out of her hands.  I fear to show you pictures of what my hands and wrists look like.  She would make a torturer working for the Spanish Inquisition right proud!

I was scratching the carpet to make her look at me, which makes her crazy.

And this is the “Oh, I’m gonna whip your ass!” face.

She did.

What Sarah Palin named me

Haven’t you been wondering what ridiculous name Sarah Palin would have given you if she was your mom?

Well, now you can find out! Hot Damn!

I’m sorry to say mom and dad, that my name of Taylor just simply isn’t small-town enough. You named me something pretentious and liberal that followed your San Francisco Values and not the small-town values of America. I guess you coulnd’t help it, since you chose to raise me in the bustling metropolis of Waverly, that has the staggering population of 180 people. Mom, Dad: why do you hate America?

So, on that vein, I’ve decided to throw off the yoke of your communo-facist name and adopt my God-Given Sarah Palin approved name. A name of AMERICA.

Ladies and Gentlemen, you can henforce call me:

GEESE WHALEBONE PALIN

So much better than Taylor Autumn. And I think Geeseopolis has a nice ring (honk?) to it, don’t you?

Seriously, this is funny. Go get ya a name!

And you MUST read the comments…that’s the best part.

Surviving Massachusetts

Guess what!?  I’ve started a new blog (hoo boy I can hear the groans from here)!  I know, I know.  I barely keep this one updated.  What in the hell is the matter with me.

Well, this is actually part of that.  One of the reasons I’ve been remiss over here is because the only thing I can think about and the only thing I’ve been interested in lately (except politics, natch.) is gardening and eating locally and sustainability.  And I really don’t want this to turn into a garden blog, because I know that will only interest some of you.

So I’ve gone and started a gardening/eating locally blog.  It’s called Surviving (on) Massachusetts.  (I think I’m so clever!)  It’s going to be part garden journal/part local agriculture adventures/part food.

The other reason is because I’ve started to read a whole mess of gardening/homesteading blogs and some of those people just don’t share my beliefs.  And that’s fine.  They don’t write much about politics on their blogs and I’d hate for them to slog through my rants and raves (correct as they may be! ) just to get to what they are interested in.

So, this blog isn’t going anywhere, you just won’t see much about my agricultural side anymore.  If you care atall, please visit (And bookmark!  And comment! And tell your friends!) me at Surviving (On) Massachusetts.

Sarah Palin is a liar

Sarah Palin is a liar.

Well, maybe she isn’t a liar, but she allows Republican speech-writers to fill her mouth with lies.

Hmmm…I think that may actually be worse.

September the third

Hi everyone!  Today is a very special anniversary in American History.  Did you know that?

On September 3, 1783, the United States and Great Britian signed the treaty that officially ended the Revolutionary War.  Of course, the war had basically ended back in 1781 with the battle of Yorktown, but there were still a lot of very unhappy Continental soldiers sitting in camp waiting to go home and a hell of a lot more unhappy British soldiers waiting to go to Canada who were probably thrilled as all get-out to finally be done with it.   So, happy real Independence day, everyone! 

And especially a happy Independence Day to Sarah Palin, who thinks that the founding fathers said “…One nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all.”  Side note to Sarah Palin:  that “under god” bit wasn’t added to the Pledge of Allegiance until 1954, and the whole caboodle wasn’t written until the 19th century.  Even so, had it been written in their time, most of our founding fathers would have been horrified by the inclusion of that short phrase into the Pledge.  When they said separation of church and state, they actually meant it.  But seeing that you don’t seem to understand the constitution and why we need it, I guess I can let it slide.  But here’s a tip for ya:  brush up on your damn US history.  I know you don’t want it to be, but Alaska is actually part of the United States.

Labor Day? How apt.

Well, there was no resting on our laurels this weekend.  We were busy little bees, what with the glorious delivery of our brand-spankin’ new chest freezer on Sunday afternoon.  (And it’s quite big, too!  14.8 cubic feet, I believe.  Pete wanted to get the larger one, but I insisted on the slightly smaller version, because, as I put it “Hell no!  It would be far too easy for you to murder me and hide me in the big one!”  The lady standing beside us didn’t think that was as funny as we did.) 

 So what do you do when faced with a completely empty and giant freezer?  You fill it!

 I had, in a moment of impulsiveness, ordered an extra bushel of corn from our CSA.  It may be true that I didn’t quite know how much a bushel was.  Let’s just say it’s a lot.  So much that I couldn’t lift the bag on my own.  I initially thought that it was overkill, but after we froze 18 whole ears,  about 30 cups of kernels, 1 giant bag of what I called “chowder corn” that was all mashed up and milky, and then left 8 more ears unfrozen and in our refrigerator, I felt a nice sense of success and preparation.  It will be wonderful to be able to pull out a bag of fresh sweet corn in the middle of January,  if it lasts that long.  We eat a lot of corn.  So much that I’ve been thinking to myself all day “hmmm…I wonder if we could get more.”  I think if I said that out loud, Pete would go ahead and stuff me in that freezer, even if I wouldn’t fit comfortably. 

 But hoo boy that is not all we did!  We also froze 3 pounds of green beans, made two pints of dilly beans (green bean pickles!) a pint of regular pickles, enough dough for four loaves of bread (which I’m going to finish tonight when I get home), a gallon of corn broth, three pounds of butter, 4 pints of fresh heirloom tomato sauce, homemade pizza (for dinner last night- with fresh tomatoes and eggplant), and a pound of homemade mozzarella cheese.  Brace yourself, for you are in the presence of a domestic goddess.  (Just please ignore the mountain of laundry, the horrifying kitchen, the weeds choking my flowers, and the bathroom that may be harboring a newly formed species.)

 I would also like to point out that my weekend included three hours of working on the farm, a trip to the farmer’s market, and the acquisition of a big, well-made pine table for our laundry room from a yard sale down the road from the farm (honestly, we only stopped because they have a lovely garden that I’ve been admiring, and I figured I could get closer to it if they thought we were going to buy something), and watching the majority of The Sound of Music. 

 I am exhausted, to say the least.  But I certainly don’t feel like I wasted my weekend.  What did y’all do?