I've got some good news and some great news. The good news is that WE"RE OFFICIALLY FARMERS! Yessir, we've moved to good ole Middle, GA onto 55 acres of family farm. Holy Moly. 

Wintry Hiatus...

Photo by Ali Sabin

Holla...

I grew these from seeds. holy crap.

Yes, things are happenin.

Ahahah, so, since the last post from winter, we have had an upsurgence (is that a real word) of flora and fauna (seriously, one of our fish survived the winter...in the pond. We thought they had all passed but missed this little, i mean big, guy. He/she is El Gigante now. The grandest 18¢ feeder fish to walk/swim the lands. His/her best friend is a lil green lizard that flirts with me when i drink coffee beside the pond. He bobs his head up and down and then reveals his majestic neck-sack. He wants to have my babies.) Our flowers have sprung up too alongside many many fruitful new veggie plants. So far we've enjoyed kale and shard (that also lasted all winter. Seriously, after the zombie apocalypse, the only survivors will be roaches, my kale and shard, and El Gigante, the 18¢ feeder fish.) cucumbers, red leaf lettuce, arugula, purple pole beans, giant green tomatoes, beets, savoy cabbage, and onions. Images soon...

Winterized Kale and Such

Not Cool, Mother Nature, Not Cool

"What are these images?" you ask...they are my pond, frozen. Yep, its freakin cold. Painfully, dreadfully, cold. On the brighter side though, its great refrigeration for my kale, chard, arugula and beets that are hanging on for dear life. They may be dead, i don't know, but they're definitely preserved; like a woolly-mammoth in the Arctic.

WhhoooHoo, come to our MARKET!!!

HOwdy there, Im pleased to announce that IPullPrints (me) will be in the Railroad Arts District Holiday Market with some super rad artists including but not limited to:

Lou Kregel 

Chris Purcell

LyLouDesign

Kristen Bach

And a whole handful of others. Its gonna be awesome so come on down! 

Hot Pepper Jelly Burns Your Fingers.

Prologue:

I've never made jelly or canned anything so Im entering this venture wary of burns and botulism.

Ingredients:
Fresh anaheim peppers from my garden (red/green)
Liquid Pectin
Sugar
A Jar
A new lid

At the height of my veg preserving ambition, I made hot pepper jelly and found a few things to be useful bits of knowledge:

1) Wear Freakin Gloves! The pepper juice doesn't really burn at first but you will notice remnants when you wash your face later and splash peppery acid in your eyes. Though I washed my hands, it hung on like "an Alabama tick" and re-emerged at a very inopportune time.

2) Don't forget that cans pop. After sealing the jar, I nessled into my Tom Robbins novel, ignoring the rest of the world and was startled by a loud POP! hours later.

3) Try smaller jars. I was super pissed that after 48 hours of undisturbed setting time, my jelly was still syrupy. It wasn't until I poured off the top inch of solution that I found actual jelly. My anger subsided.

4) Cooking fresh peppers makes pepper spray! No really, I was all choked up and crying and laughing b/c, as I hovered over my boiling ingredients, the fumes gave me a punch. It was fascinating and hysterical at the same time.

5) I think that's about it. Oh, except, if you do happen to over cook the solution and the jelly doesnt coalgulate, don't forget that you can still use the mixture as a sauce. I used that ole syrupy inch in a stir fry and it was rad (see previous entry about MuscleMan).

Garden Veggies Entice MuscleMan to Eat Tofu!

I've been cooking a lot lately and my brother has been rad enough to be my guinea pig. He's a trainer/fighting person/nutritional guru and has been super supportive of my growing efforts. This dish is a super spicy tofu/veggie stir fry sauced-up with a hot-pepper jelly mixture I made from the over abundance of peppers yielded. He's never tried tofu and was a bit taken-aback by the texture but ate it nonetheless.

He looks happy. Great Success.

More Unchartered Territory

So, I have this vegetation, lots of vegetation. Naturally, the next step will be preserving the veg. Following suit with this entire journey, I have absolutely zero experience in preserving foodstuffs. Thank freakin goodness that there's a guerrilla army of homesteaders out there that also like to digitally publish their efforts. According to these die-hards, if I impale these anaheim peppers with needle and thread and hang them for a bit, I'll have a bushel of dried spicy treats for the winter. We'll see how they fare.

Meet Our Newest Member

Meet my new homey, Maple Syrup Sabin. She was a foster that I simply couldn't release so, we now have three pups. She's a Boxer Jack and is extremely clumbsy. Her interests include socks, kale and my underwear.

Another point of interest: she has no belly hair. Its painfully cute.

Welcome, Miss Maple, to our team!

Yes, this is real.

Here a little treat that we saw sprouting out of our water garden.  Im so excited!

I've been a'Rooten!

Here is my very first underground harvest.  I uncovered a freakin a** ton o'taters.  (and one onion).  My Pop came into town and we made home fries and they were super! (following suite, we ate them with Lambic mixed Hoegarrden, delicous).  I have some on my front stoop if anyone would like some. Nevermind the pups barking, they're in da house.

YAYYYYY!!! Babies!

No, not my babies.  I don't particularly care for babies.  I'm refering to buddies' babies.  Some friends of ours are having one and we were invited for a pre-baby party (  shower) and it was awesome!  Everyone there was soooooooo nice and their house was like a museum of great new-fangled art.  We brought them a basket full of yard veggies to bring on the birth...They were extremely gracious and thankful hosts.  I like them.

We're in Apartment Therapy!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH YEAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!! We're in Apartment Therapy! Please pleeease pleeeeeeeease go and leave a comment and I might win an Apartment Therapy book and I'll invite you over to look at the book and I'll feed you veggies!!!!!! Please...ps, here's our corn plants.

Fooooooooooddddddddd!

Yeah! I made okra from the garden last night and it was awesome, nutritious and virtually free.....yummmmmmm, free is delicious!

The Sweet Sweet Harvest...

YYYYEEEEAAAHHH!  So, this morning, I collected my first multi-veggie harvest!  Let's see what we got right chere...Kale, anaheim peppers, okra and tomatoes.  Yes, a bountiful smorgazborg. (Is that how you spell smorgazborg?)

Elephants need you....

Join PETA in the fight against animal abuse! Go to PETA.org, print out this sign, hold it up to yo face, snap a picture, upload it to PETA.org and they will, add you to their Flickr photos, print out your picture, put it in a book and give it to Ringling when they open their show at Coney Island. DO IT!

Ok, now im really just bragging.

So, I've been a touch under the weather so my pop came into town to visit.  I rarely see him so it was pretty rad annnnndddd... to top it off, he left a bottle of Lambic in my fridge as a surprise.  Its excellent with kale.

I got ya where I want cha, now Im gonna eat cha.

My Okra's here!!!!!!!! YYYYYYYYEEEEEHAWWWWW!