How To Pick a Proper Coconut.

So I went to the dentist yesterday so he could check the progress and healing of my wisdom teeth surgery. I got one of those cool little syringe things to irrigate the area too. Since I'm so obsessive about keeping my teeth clean, I am very likely to overuse it, if that's possible...

The swelling has gone down considerably and it no longer hurts the rest of my teeth to bite down with any sort of pressure (a skill necessary for mastication). I can still feel a bunch of strange, sore lumps when I run my fingers along my jaw though. Anyway, I wanted to celebrate the lack of significant pain while chewing by purchasing one of my favorite (and more difficult things to eat) snacks: COCONUTS!

Coconut is a staple in paleo dieting as it offers a great supply of natural plant fats, can be ground down into flour for cheater baking and it just tastes fantastic. Sure, you can buy unsweetened coconut flakes and coconut milk at any old store, but you can't beat the primal feeling you get when you crack and process your own coconut. Heck, I feel primal just holding a coconut. I really enjoy the process of preparing food with intensive, time-consuming steps. I like to work with my hands. Maybe you'd like to give it a shot too by processing your own coconut. (I can get a coconut done in 20 minutes, so it's certainly not an all-day thing.)
The very first step you need to accomplish is to pick out a good coconut.

I've been buying coconuts long before I got into the whole paleo thing, so I have quite a bit of experience and know what to look for when picking one out. A coconut is produce just like apples, carrots and broccoli. You wouldn't just grab the first one you see right on top of the pile and throw it in your cart, would you? (I always try to grab produce from the bottom and otherwise hard-to-reach areas of the display because I think less people will have fondled them.)

If you pick out a bad coconut, you'll have a disappointing experience. You can get one that's overripe (the meat will be slimy, have a reddish tint and smell and taste soapy), moldy (you'll actually see yellowy, grey, green mold on the meat) or underripe (it won't pry well from the shell and won't taste as coconutty as you'd expect--the water tastes good though).

While there is some guesswork when it comes to picking out produce, there are some guidelines to use to keep you from picking out a real dud of a coconut. This guideline is for brown coconuts, not the young, green ones. I've never purchased those before, but I tasted one in Hawaii once and didn't really like it.

*Pick them up and shake them. You should hear the coconut water sloshing around inside. If you don't hear any sloshing, it probably has a crack in it and lost all its water in transit. You don't want that one.
*Choose one that feels heavy for its size. Even if you really want that giant one in the heap but it feels lighter or the same weight as one a little smaller than itself, go with the smaller one. They're usually sold by the each rather than by the pound so you'll get more bang for your buck anyway.
*Examine the eyes of the coconut--those three little brown spots on the end. They should be dry and smooth. If they're wet or have mold growing on them, you don't want them. You can smell the eyes too. They shouldn't smell like much of anything. If they smell soapy or earthy--like musty dirt--you might want to set that one aside.
*Examine the outside shell of the coconut; it could have small cracks in it despite having liquid inside. Try not to get ones that are wet on one side.

That is how I pick out a coconut. I can mull over the pile of coconuts for a good while before finding a perfect one or just deciding that none of them are any good. If you do pick out a bad coconut (you know--moldy), just keep your receipt and return it. No shame in a little un-shopping. I made Weston do it once. :)

Now that you have the thing, just what are you supposed to do with it?

To start, you will need to drain the coconut water from it. It is not synonymous with "coconut milk". Coconut milk is made when you pulverize the whole flesh of the coconut (minus the bark) and strain it several times. You can make curries and desserts and such with the milk or just drink it plain. 
*Poke a hole in the largest and roundest hole. It's usually the one that would be the "nose" or the "mouth" of the coconut's face, if that's what you want to call it. Also, it'll be the one that pokes out the easiest. The other two are a little harder to pierce. To poke the hole, use a sharp, small knife and twirl it around in the hole. You need to be able to poke all the way through the coconut meat inside to reach the water. Sometimes, if the meat is thicker, I will poke a straw through the hole after piercing and digging out as much meat as I can with the knife.
Now, I know it's super tempting to just suck out the coconut water with the straw, and you certainly can try, but since the coconut is airtight, you wont be getting much liquid out before you create a vacuum. You could use a really narrow straw maybe. But, a more hands-free method of draining the coconut water is to tip the coconut upside-down over a tall glass.
*Set the coconut upside-down on top of a tall glass with the eyes pointing down into the cup.You'll need to tilt the coconut slightly so that you get some airflow through the hole. You can shake the coconut into the cup a few times to get it started draining.. or restarted. The coconut water can overflow the cup if there's a lot in there, so you should keep an eye on it.
The coconut water is quite tasty, assuming you have a good coconut. If the water tastes a little bitter and soapy, you might have picked a not-so-good one. You can drink the coconut water right then and there to replenish your electrolytes. Coconut water is just as good as any sport drink for replacing those glorified salts, and it's completely natural--save it for after a workout. Or use the coconut water in curries and other recipes. I tried to use coconut water as a chai base and it wasn't exactly my best experiment. You may have better luck with it.
Now comes the fun part--breaking it open. I use the concrete patio outside our front door. Wherever you have a really hard surface that you don't mind getting a little dirty.
*Drop the coconut from about a foot high, throwing down with gentle force. Careful! The coconut could bounce up and fly anywhere---like your foot or face or priceless antique china cupboard---especially if you throw it down really hard and from really high.
*Continue dropping the coconut gently until it cracks open. Break it into 3 or 4 pieces. It'll be easier to pry the meat out of a few larger pieces that a whole bunch of little ones. If you wanted to crack the coconut in such a way that you will have a complete bowl shape for making coconut bras or something, you're going to have a much more difficult time removing the meat. In other words, it's more difficult removing large, curvy portions of the coconut meat than smaller ones. But it does look cool when it breaks that way.

You'll get something like this.

Now comes the hard part: prying the coconut meat from the shell. You do need to be really careful with this part because the shell could have sharp pieces, and you may need to apply considerable force to get the meat out. I've been cut many times.
*Use a large spoon to slide between the coconut meat and the shell. Coconut meat will have a thin, brown "bark" on the outside. This stuff is fine; you can eat it. You will want to try to get your spoon underneath the bark in order to free the meat from the shell. The bark is part of the meat, so you'll never get it out in big, nice pieces if you dig at just the white part. If you have a good coconut, the bark will pop off from the shell fairly easily. Trust me, it's not going to just fall out; you will need to show a little muscle. Luckily, the spoon acts as a wedge and a lever to help you get the coconut out. (I hope you don't mind if your spoon gets a little bent...)You can run a butter knife between the bark and the shell too to help loosen the meat.

Just like so.

*Gently rock and pry the spoon under the meat. You want to try to get the meat out in as big a piece as possible. It's much more satisfying. And easier too. If the meat breaks when you're prying it out, you'll need to try to dig underneath the bark again so you can get your spoon under it to get the rest of the meat out. You will probably need to brace the coconut against your stomach to better control it.
Fair warning: it is possible to get a coconut that just refuses to be pried from the shell. The bark will stick to the shell and you'll pull out little chunks of white. This is very frustrating. I've been there. What you'll need to do is break the coconut into smaller pieces, then take a sharp knife and cut just the white part off. It still tastes good, don't worry.
*Once you've removed the coconut meat from the shell, give it a rinse in some water to get the little fibers and bits of shell off the white. Break a little piece off and enjoy. It's filling, full of fiber and delicious! You can store the chunks of coconut in the refrigerator in a zip-lock bag for several days. They may get a little slimy after storing them for a while. You can rinse off the slime and still enjoy them if the meat hasn't turned soapy. (Trust me, you'll know what I mean by 'soapy' if you happen upon it.)

Fantastic stack of coconut meat. See the brown bark on it?

I have not used the coconut for any recipes before, nor have I dried it or flaked it or milked it. I just eat it as a quick snack. It really doesn't take much to fill you up, and it's good for you too! On another note, I purchased an organic coconut this last time to see if it made any difference. I did have to pay twice as much for it and it really tastes about the same. I noticed the meat was softer in the organic one and it pried out really easily since it had that extra flex. And it's easier on my tender teeth. Some coconuts you get, you really have to chew. This organic one is nice, but I don't know if it is worth double the cost.
Since I don't know what type of pesticides, fungicides or fertilizers necessary for coconut farms, I'm not sure if the coconuts can be affected adversely. The coconut itself is nestled inside a much larger, thick and fibrous hull that is removed before it's transported for sale in stores. Any pesticides or fungicides sprayed on the developing hull probably wouldn't have much of an effect on the coconut inside. Also, inorganic fertilizers will need to be transported through the system of an entire tree trunk before nourishing the coconut. Therefore coconut water inside may or may not be cause for concern. I'll have to do a little more research. But all-in-all you shouldn't think that organic is the end-all of produce anyway. Organic farmers use pesticides and fungicides as well--organic ones that can be and have been recalled and should still be under scrutiny.

In the mean time, I will enjoy my coconuts and will probably keep buying the regular type. Enjoy your primal coconut experience!

Here's my sweet little Baby bird enjoying some coconut too!

Paleo Fail-e-o.

 THE PALEO:


As some of you may know, I have been researching eating a more natural diet. By that I mean: more-natural-based-on-the-evolution-of-humans-diet. There are several paleo-type diets to choose from including Perfect Health Diet, The Primal Blueprint, Neanderthin, The Paleo Diet.
Each diet has its own rules to follow (mostly along the lines of "don't eat" foods) but they all uphold the same overarching ideals which are: eat natural, unprocessed, nontoxic foods to achieve the health and vitality that allowed humans to become the dominant species before the Neolithic (shall we say, "age of agriculture") era. This means you should avoid all things that weren't around before agriculture...especially grains. I call them "devil grains". There are differing ideologies, perhaps "sects", to paleo dieting where some followers will strictly avoid anything that lines up with agriculture, which means avoiding all forms of dairy. The cavemen probably wouldn't milk a mammoth, you know. Some will allow dairy, if you can enjoy dairy without getting any adverse effects.
What everyone should understand though, before they start settling into a diet, is that there is not a one-size-fits-all approach to dieting. What works best is to incorporate little snippets from all the paleo-type diets to reach the best balance for yourself.
I like to follow the Primal Blueprint (a good starting place) mixed with The Perfect Health Diet (which allows dairy and nontoxic starches like potatoes and rice).
I would recommend a Paleolithic-type diet to anyone. You feel great when you eat it! And you can use it to lose weight (yes, despite all the pure fat you eat).

The Faileo:

After the above brief introduction, I want to get to the real reason behind this post. I got my wisdom teeth out last Thursday. All four of them. My face is still puffy and my teeth are still sore today. Needless to say, I'm having a hard time chewing.
When I was sitting in the chair before they put me under they told me to get myself an ice cream when I'm done and not to go eat a big old steak or anything. Now, to someone who tries to eat paleo, this is kind of heartbreaking to hear. Oh well. I supposed I could take a little break from paleo while my mouth healed.
On a side note: I have never been "put under" before but found the experience rather pleasant. I don't remember much after I came out of it, but I did manage to draw a more or less anatomically-correct diagram of a wisdom tooth in the "memo" section of check I wrote them. 
After my teeth were out and I was awarded a nice ice cream cone from my dad, my well-meaning mom took the opportunity to baby me and take care of her poor, puffy, drooling Kadie. On came the carb-fest. I enjoyed mashed potates, applesauce, tiny Hagen daz ice cream cups, more mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese for several days. Granted, I love being doted on (thanks, mommy, it was lovely) but I pretty much ate nothing but carbs the entire time. Here's a warning: if you're eating a low-carb to moderately low-carb diet, then all of a sudden start eating nothing but carbs, expect a little slingshot effect in your weight. I gained about 4 pounds since Thursday. :p

Today, I'm going to try to reset my system. Then I'll try to eat paleo again. Since I don't think I'll find anyone who'll chew my food for me (or the stomach to actually partake in the offering), I'll need to find other ways of getting in my delicious animal proteins without swallowing too much whole. *ouch* After eating a piece of roast beef, goat style, with only my front teeth the other day, I realized I will have to try to make it a little easier on myself. And Steak Shakes really don't sound too appealing. Maybe I'll plan a nice melt-in-your mouth pot roast, or a bone broth soup.

For now, though, I'm doing a nice ketogenic fast to reset my system. Intermittent fasting is an important part of paleo dieting as the human body evolved through periods of plenty and periods of famine. The body is designed to work well on this system. Also the ketogens produced from fasting are very nutritious for your brain. Their smaller molecule passes through the membranes of your brain more easily than glucose which is part of the reason ketogenic diets are so therapeutic and recommended for brain-related diseases like epilepsy, Alzheimer's, etc.
Another good reason for ketogenic fasting is that it retrains your body to use fat as fuel rather than glucose (read:carbs). When the body burns fat as its fuel source, expect to have a lean, fit body devoid of excess fat.

The Perfect Health Diet offers a good system for ketogenic dieting:

*Eat lots of fat throughout the day, but no other macronutirent (protein, carbs).
*Enjoy vegetables (not the starchy kind) to curb hunger. According to Perfect Health Diet, vegetables are considered a fat because the fiber from vegetables is broken down in your gut into fatty acids. Vegetables don't offer much else when it comes to the other macronutrients (Perfect Health Diet is wonderful when it comes to explaining the science of why this diet is ideal. Expect to read about chemical reactions, molecular break-downs and evolutionary, comparative studies)
*Enjoy butter, heavy cream, and most of all, coconut oil.
*You can have coffee or tea with cream stirred in

So, what I plan on doing for my ketogenic fasting day is to make a creamy broccoli soup to eat when I get hungry. I haven't looked up a recipe but will probably just mix my ingredients to taste and puree the whole thing.
I'll probably just steam some broccoli to soften it up (and improve flavor) stir in a couple tablespoons of coconut oil, butter and cream, and add some pepper and other seasonings. Then heat it over the stove. Easy peasy and safe for my sore teeth.

I'll post some of the squishy things I'll make for later this week too.  I'm getting back on the band wagon!

Rosehip Jelly.

Whenever Fall finally begins to show itself, I get so domestic. I just want to cook and bake and try new seasonal recipes (and old seasonal recipes of course---apple pie, anyone?). I just love to see the foliage change colors and fruits ripen. Who doesn't? Fall is wonderful!

Since I work outside all summer, I get to keep a pretty good eye on the plants as they change. There were some particularly nice-looking rose bushes at the Whitefish property we tend (although these rose bushes fall into the "nasty plants that hit you in the face while you're trimming and mowing around them" category). As summer progressed, the delicate flowers gave way to little green orbs. Then those little green orbs filled and began to change to a beautiful, crimson color.

A lot of times rosehips go unnoticed, or are prevented from forming by gardeners nipping the spent flower heads to tidy up the bush. But rosehips are a treasure trove of nutrients and deserve a little respect!

Whenever you research rosehips you always read about their vitamin C content which is higher than that in citrus fruits (if you prepare them properly, though...).

Rugosa variety. Image from http://tryonfarm.org/share/node/368

You may be wondering what rosehips taste like. The answer: it varies. All varieties of rose produce edible hips (make sure they aren't sprayed, treated or along a busy highway...) but the fruit tastes different from plant to plant. The best tasting rosehips come from the Rugosa rose variety. The shrub is quite robust. The leaves are almost waxy-looking and sometimes crinkly. The hip produced is pretty large, globular and deep red to reddish-orange. The flavor of the hip is sort of like a "citrusy-plummy-apple", I'd say. The flesh on rosehips from rugosa varieties is thicker than on others. This is a good thing; you'll get more out of them. You can't eat the seeds of rosehips. They are covered in stiff, silky hairs that would simply wreak havoc on your intestines. They'd gag you going in and be itchy-scritchy going out.

You can certainly scratch the seeds out if you wanted to use the hips to make jam or pies (that'd be a whole lot of work!) but feel free to leave them in to make syrup or jelly--you strain out the seeds and pulp and just keep the juice. You can also dry the rosehips, seeds and all, to make vitamin-packed tea.


I managed to gather enough to make two batches of rosehip jelly.
I went for a nice jelly recipe and did my research. I found the best recipe from SimplyRecipes.com. I advise you to absolutely check out the post here for more detailed instructions as well as some wonderful photos. (I had taken photos of my process, but I lost the usb for my camera... hasn't turned up yet! Her photos are certainly better than mine anyway.)     http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/rose_hip_jelly_and_jam/

ROSEHIP JELLY

*2 quarts (8cups) washed rosehips--stems and flower ends trimmed off (***Note*** if you don't have enough rosehips, you can add enough chopped apple (use a sweet variety) to make 8 cups of material)

*1.5quarts (6 cups) water

*1/2 cup lemon juice

*1 package of SureJell pectin (Use the one that says No Sugar Needed)

*1/4 TEASPOON butter

*3.5 cups sugar

*6 sterilized 8oz canning jars and lids

-Place prepared rosehips and water in large pot (I read that aluminum pots strip out the Vitamin C though..)

-Bring to boil. Reduce heat. Cover and simmer until hips are soft enough to mash up (1 hr). It smells like raspberry syrup when it's cooking!

-Mash with potato masher then place the mash in a jelly bag drain juices for an hour.

****NOTE**** I used new, rinsed nylons as my strainer. I filled the foot of the nylons with my mash (careful, it's hot!) then set it in a colander on top of a bowl. Works like a charm. You can also use a tea rag or a clean, old T-shirt and set it up in the colander.

-You want to get 3 cups of juice. You can squeeze the bag a little to release more or pour a little water through the bag.

-Put the 3 cups of juice in a large, wide pot. Add in lemon juice and pectin.

-Bring to a boil, dissolving the pectin---add the sugar. Dissolve. Then add the butter.

-Bring to a hard boil and boil for 1 minute (you could ruin the pectin)

****NOTE**** to test the jelly and see if you like the thickness, have a spoon sitting in a glass of ice water. Remove the spoon and place a little of the jelly mixture on the cold spoon. If it doesn't set up to your ideal gel, add in a little more pectin. 

-Don't forget to start simmering the lids!

-Pour the jelly mixture into the sterilized (run them through the dishwasher or boil them 10 minutes) jars leaving 1/4 inch space. Wipe the rims of the jars, place the lids, then screw on the rings. 

-Process the jars in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

Taa-Daaaaaa! There's your jam!

However. As much as I'd have liked for my jelly to turn out perfectly the first time... it didn't. My jelly didn't set properly and was more like a syrup. (Those little *NOTE*s are from my subsequent research and my round 2). You can leave the jelly as a syrup. It's perfectly swell for pancakes and waffles and ice cream---and even taking a spoonful for a vitamin C boost.

I wanted jelly though. So I looked up how to fix runny jelly...

Here ya go! Check out the website for detailed instructions and different variations... and a German lesson:

*http://www.pickyourown.org/how_to_fix_runny_jam.htm

HOW TO FIX RUNNY JELLY

You need:

*Jars of jelly to be fixed

*No Sugar Needed Pectin (I use powdered)

*Lemon juice

*Sugar (yes, more...)

This recipe is for fixing one QUART of jam. You can math it up to adjust ratios.

-Mix 1/4 cup sugar, 1/4 cup water (or better yet, more rosehip juice if you have it), 2T lemon juice and 4 teaspoons powdered pectin in a large pot.

-Bring to boil and stir. Add the jelly that needs fixing and bring to a boil again over high heat, stirring constantly.

-Boil hard for 45 -60 seconds (test jelly with cold spoon)

-Remove from heat and fill sterilized jars. Place NEW lids (the old ones wont work anymore) and screw on rings.

-Process 10 minutes in boiling water.

My jelly did turn out this time after fixing it. And the second batch I made was perfecto! No fixing needed.

Rosehip jelly is just delicious and makes a great gift too. So I decided I'd like to dress them up a little bit and give them away. That is the best part of cooking after all! 

I got to use my brother's camera for these photos.

I started by hand-painting little tags to tie to the jars. They look a little like this picture (not tag-sized). I wanted to get kind of a vintage look to the painting and used gouache, ink and graphite on a cream-colored heavier, but smooth paper. I was going to scan in the tags to put on this post but I got too excited and tied them all onto the jars right away!

I tied them to the jars with a thin hemp cording that I like to use to make bracelets and stuff. 

The camera doesn't do the tag justice... and pardon our awful, yellow lighting.

After tying on the tags, my brother suggested that they would look nicer if they had a little fabric top or something to make them look more put-together. Good idea! I remembered that I have a whole bunch of neat calico fabric from when I attempted to make a braided rug last fall (I never did finish that... oops.). I have it in blue, cream and brown.

I went with the brown. It has a nice fall-like feel... I used an empty yogurt container to draw out my circles on the back side and the size was pretty much perfect! Special thanks to my wonderful daddy who helped me get the fabric circles screwed neatly (and evenly) into the rings. I am no good at that precise positioning and measuring stuff.
Place the fabric circle onto the sealed lid. Carefully screw the ring onto the jar. The fabric will pull an pucker as you tighten the ring. Make sure you keep the fabric tight on the top to keep it looking neat.

I ended up with a little something like this!

There you have it! It was wonderfully fun! I would love to have orchards upon orchards of roses so I can make lots more of these to share. But for those of you who do have a few rose bushes, do try out this lovely recipe!

Lovely Doodles.

Just a quick little post so I can put up some little doodles I did. I'm still sitting on a post about pickled beets but I'll get to it soon.

When I'm at The House hanging out with Pappy, he likes to sit and watch me draw. I offered him a lot of drawing entertainment these last couple of days! :)

I am just crazy for early and mid Cenozoic mammals (you know, the weird ones with all the horns and tusks and fangs). It's just so neat to know that those weird-looking things actually lived. I drew a few pictures of the ones I like best and/or actually remember what they look like.

So, I drew them all from memory (the names I recalled from memory too). I wanted the pictures to be big enough to see on the page... so now they don't fit nicely... let's just go with it. :)

Just a mishmash of different mammals (from all different epochs too; I don't remember all those.)

Arctodus aka "short-faced bear", Thylacosmilus (a saber-toothed marsupial), Diatryma aka "Terror bird"

Oreodonts (Fast food of the Oligocene-Miocene epoch)

Paraceratherium.... the largest mammal to ever walk the Earth. Awesome! :)

Vichyssoise.

This was the first time I had a word pop into my head that I didn't even know how to pronounce. Vichyssoise.

Turns out it is a cold soup of sorts. Apparently, my subconscious wants me to make this!

From Wikipedia:
Vichyssoise (pronounced /ˌvɪʃiːˈswɑːz/ US dict: vi·shē·swäz′) is a thick soup made of puréed leeks, onions, potatoes, cream, and chicken stock. It is traditionally served cold, but can also be eaten hot.

So I pulled up a recipe from Allrecipes.com. (I tend to like using this recipe site. Also foodnetwork.com--I love Alton Brown recipes and Ina Garten recipes!)

*http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/vichyssoise/detail.aspx

*http://www.foodnetwork.com/videos/leek-potato-soup/44627.html  ---This link is to an Alton Brown video. It shows the process and I used a mixture of his recipe and the one from Allrecipes.

Ingredients I used:

*4 leeks (they were pretty thin) (see the Alton Brown link for the chopping process)
*Yukon Gold potatoes (I used a little over a pound but I think it may have been too much)
*3 Tbsp butter
*4 cups chicken broth (or veggie broth)
*1 cup cream
*1 cup half and half
*salt and pepper

-Sweat leeks with salt in 4qt pot on medium low heat 15 mins. Every recipe I found stressed the importance of NOT letting them brown.
-Add chopped potatoes and chicken broth
-Bring to boil then quickly reduce heat to a simmer
-Simmer 30 mins or until potatoes are soft
-Pour into a blender and puree until smooth
-Stir in cream and half and half.
-Serve cold or hot

I dug up some fresh Yukon gold potatoes from my Grandma Zimmerman's garden what we helped plant earlier this summer. They are delicious! Smooth and buttery. Great for vichyssoise.

I also served the soup with some slices of bratwurst made locally (Redneck brand) to make it a heartier meal.

The general consensus was that my vichyssoise was a hit! Everyone liked it. But then again, that was all they would  get for dinner... so they had to eat it. :)

I, however, was conflicted. I would recommend eating it warm because the soup got kind of a 'skin' as it cooled.

I used too much potato and tipped the balance of flavors. It should have had a more developed leek flavor.

Either way, I just love the process. Enjoy your vichyssoise!

That Illustration Thing/ The Slumpy Summer.

I write this post mainly because it is helping me procrastinate its namesake.

I was commissioned to illustrate a children's book last November. And I have indeed been steadily plugging away at it. I managed to do preliminary sketches of every page, redo those sketches and make a few color roughs all while I was still in school. But with the coming of summer, I had found little to no time to work on it. I wonder why I seemed to have more free time while in school...

In the summer, I work. Usually a lot. But since my grandma died in March, my family has become swamped with even more responsibilities. My grandpa has been descending, agonizingly slowly, into more advanced Alzheimer's. He hasn't said my name in years, but I must still be a familiar presence to him. It had been Gramma's job to take care of him. It may be part of the reason she fell ill. There is constant mental strain involved in caring for him. We should know. It's our job now.
We don't want to move him from his house just yet. He's comfortable there and he knows when he's not at home. My mom has been living at The House (grandpa's house) the entire summer to take care of him. It is in Columbia Falls and is a half hour drive from our house. My siblings, Dad and I visit when we are done with work nearly every night. We stay till 10:30 or 11:00. Then we go home. Then do it again.

I was envious of Facebook posts saying someone got to go to the lake, or go camping, hang out with friends, have their own life. I saw the days float past my eyes. Metronome ticks. Suffocated. Stagnant. Suspended.
Alone in this together.

I am mindful enough to know that I am not the only one who feels this way. Each member of my family has put in our share and more to help the situation. However, it doesn't make it less difficult.

Grandpa is a wonderfully polite, sweet man (although everyone has an off day) and we never wanted him to feel like a burden. It's so hard to hear him ask over and over where his Frankie Lou has gone. We haven't healed from her loss and must relive it as often as he asks. Should a man, who was once so strong and independent, be treated like a child?

There is likely more I need to say about this situation, but I have lost my train of thought and have detached from the emotion. Some other time, eh?

The illustration thing, now, is something for which I have some emotion. I promised my client that I would have the whole series of illustrations completed by the first day of Fall and will deliver them that weekend. It's almost pathetic how long it has taken me to finish this work and I am growing more resentful about it. That isn't fair to my client. But I must have greatly underestimated the amount of work I'd need to put into this project.
Another issue I'm facing with this project is what I call my "background dilemma". I was one of those kids who, when coloring in my coloring books, would never pay any attention to the background. I was a no-nonsense subject matter kind of gal. Besides, who wants to spend too much time filling the "sky" with one or more shades of blue when it takes up 2/3 of your page space?? Besides, the spastic strokes never ended up looking nice. The rest of my artistic career consisted of nebulous backgrounds and floaty subject matter (and I likely wont be changing that).
My client specifically requested backgrounds that contain a lot of detail. And it isn't such an issue when you're just doing one painting, although I don't tend to put much detail in my backgrounds normally. This is up to 20 paintings.
Despite my aversion to painting backgrounds and my lack of time to work on it, I am making progress on this project.  I will be able to deliver it and be done with it and I can call it a learning experience. What I've learned is this:
*The artist should completely understand the amount of labor required to pull off the project before accepting the task (and compensation).
*The artist should agree with the client that the style of artwork is to be decided by the artist and not altered too much to fit the author's vision. Artists have a tough time deviating from their chosen style. And let me remind you: An illustrator doesn't win a Caldecott  Award for artwork that only has "cute" going for it. Interesting, intriguing art is what draws children to a book.
*You're not doing favors by not giving your artist deadlines. A short leash is helpful to keep one on track. If the artist absolutely needs an emergency extension, they will contact you.

Here are some pics of the work in progress.

It's A Trap.

No, seriously. It's a trap. If you had known it'd be another lawn care post, I probably couldn't get you here to read this. I lured you here with a memetastic title and opened with jovial language so you'll probably at least skim my post. Ahhhh. Kadie wants pageviews.

I came up with this post topic yesterday at work while cleaning up a month's (or more) worth of shoddy, negligent string trimming on the part of my coworkers. I'm talking about long, shaggy grass on the edges of the lawns. Granted, you'll save yourself a little time while grooming your lawn, but honestly, you aren't doing your lawn any favors by not trimming it....every time.

I also recommend you trim your lawn wherever the grass ends. It could be on a walkway, patio, bark, installed edging....gravel....busy highway.... When you trim a swell bevel cut around your whole lawn, you'll not only make it look like a delightfully verdant pillow, but the trim is absolutely required to complete the look. Even a not-so-verdant lawn looks more classy with a beveled perimeter (assuming there's grass there to trim...). A bevel is almost always popped into your lawn by the professional grass groomer, and offers a clean, manicured look to your little patch of green.

You may notice that after not trimming your grass for a while, the trim will be all yellowy and sparse. It's because your grass isn't trained to be short. Yes, grass can be trained to be green and short at the same time. After training your grass to keep a shorter crop, it will be less unruly between mows and not leave a Yellow Brick Road perimeter when you trim again. Yikes.

Heee! I made a comic.

Grass training... Haaa. But really. Let's delve into a delightful bit of history... the evolution of grass!
 Briefly... Grasslands as we know them evolved alongside grazing mammals in an evolutionary arms race. Browsing animals began to develop hypsodont teeth (continuously growing teeth...that's why horses need their teeth filed down sometimes) in response to the development of phytoliths (tiny silica spikes on the leaves of grass...the reason you get grass cuts. They also cause the teeth of grazing animals to be worn down) in response to the animals eating the plant. Isn't evolution great? Anyway, what this means is that grass evolved to be mowed. The root systems even support constant grazing. Lawn mowers these days serve as "artificial grazers", keeping your grass healthy and living up to its evolutionary worth.

Since grass supports being "grazed", your lawn will continue to thrive even when cropped shorter--like when you bevel your trims... Again, you aren't doing it any favors when you neglect to mow and trim.

There are, however, exceptions to the "trim it every time" thing I do at work.
*When the grass is too dry to grow, let alone be green, feel free to give it a break... and some water.
*When you are just starting to train your grass (though this isn't a great time of year to try to train your grass), it'll be sparse and yellowy. Trim it every other week to allow it time to recuperate and put out runners from its rhizomes. This will thicken up the trim and allow it to be green when short (think: more grass than dirt).

When starting to train your grass, give it plenty of water and if you haven't fertilized lately, use a mild, balanced summer mix to your lawn (we used 19-19-19 as a summer ratio). I would certainly recommend starting to train your grass much earlier in the summer/late spring when it's not so gosh darn hot.

Enjoy your pro-style lawn. Trap ya later. :)

Princess Pantsless.

This will be one of those "The Mower You Know" posts but I will spare the practical landscape advice (although I could go to town on string trimmers). This is a little anecdote from today.

My boss, Flo, is one of the most amazing people ever. Spunky, strong and kind. She's the type who will let you have the day off early but still pay you for an 8 hour day just because. Or buy the whole crew lunch. Or let you borrow any of her equipment, including the dump trucks and Walkers, so your lawn can look nice too.

She has to deal with a lot of people every day....homeowners and property managers and such. Some are nice. Some are not so much. It takes a lot out of you to deal with the not-so-nice people. Kudos to Flo. She's tougher than a lot of people.

Flo always says that everyone should have to work landscape maintenance at some point in their life. I totally agree. You learn the best way to lay out your landscaping so you can get lawn mowers through (seriously, someone has randomly spaced boulders in their grass and you can't even get a push mower through...you gotta string trim the whole thing!), which trees will overpopulate your yard with suckers and runners, what kind of plants the deer will just decimate... and just how hard landscape maintenance can be.

Then there are the complainers. I can handle them to a point, especially if they're nice about it. But some of the complainers are just plain nasty. Obviously, they have never worked a day of their life in the dirt. Perhaps they don't realize that when we're mowing and trimming a line of housing units, each one more identical than the last, we need to divvy up our energy along a half-mile stretch of units. Most people compliment our work and tell us we're pretty and make us the most amazing blueberry pancakes I've ever tasted. And then to some people, we can never be good enough.

That brings me to the case of Princess Pantsless. She lives in an $800,000 condo right near the middle of the aforementioned half-mile stretch of identical units. Princess Pantsless is a 50-something-year-old woman who always wears the big bug-eyed sunglasses. Her newly inflated boobs obviously loft her ego to another level. She cornered my sister and I earlier this summer and half-heartedly apologized for "not being dressed". Indeed, she was wearing just a shirt that barely reached mid-thigh and must believe bras are for squares. She wanted to inform us that her shrubs "looked crappy". I apologized and let her know that there had been sort of a pandemic through the development of the sand cherries going belly-up. Our crew had been replacing them all week. She wanted hers done now. Also, she had torn out a bunch of lilacs and wanted us to lay sod where she had done that. We don't lay sod...but I told her we could reseed it... She sure used the word "crappy" a lot.

When we informed Flo of the 'requests' she asked if it was from the lady who never wears pants. Yes it was. Apparently, she's always drawing attention to the fact that she's not wearing them. 'Pardon my nudity. I'm so rich I don't need to wear pants...' We did her bidding and figured she'd be happy. Not so.

Just today, she attacked Kasidy, again, not wearing pants, to let her know that she and her husband thought their lawn looked "disgustingly crappy" and went on to complain about the grass wasn't cut to the exact height they wanted, etc., etc. When Flo went to discuss the altercation with them, they told her to "get the f*** off their property". Gladly. They are the only people who have told us they thought we were doing a terrible job. They're going to get an earful from the head of the homeowner's association. He's on our side. :) We're gonna skip their lawn from here on out.

My point is: be nice to your landscape maintenance worker (make us some blueberry pancakes?) and we will go out of our way to make sure your lawn is extra well-cared for. Even if you're a random unit in a half-mile stretch. Be a nasty, and we'll skip your lawn.

Plus, Kasidy has a thing about making therapeutic pinata effigies to destroy... Princess Pantsless is next on the list. Flo wants in on the action too.

But Flo always says that in heaven, it'll be those nasty people who'll be mowing her lawn while she sips a rum and coke on the patio. Doesn't that just sound heavenly?

Fat Phobia.

If I don't put myself on a structured eating plan, I tend to eat badly. In "dieting" I'm actually allowing myself to be more mindful of what I'm eating rather than going on a food free-for-all. Since graduating college, I have put on a few pounds. Nothing outrageous, mind you, but just enough to make me realize that I'm probably better off following a plan, and preferably one I could stick to for a long time. I didn't want any fad or crash diets aiming to knock off a ton of weight. I wanted something that would be healthy and enjoyable. So I started doing some research.

($24.95 on Amazon)

That's when I came across a diet called the "Perfect Health Diet". It was written by Paul and Shou-Ching Jaminet, a husband and wife team of Ph.D scientists. They claim that their diet plan will "renew health", including curing many diseases, and offer those who follow it a long and ultimately ideal life. They make these claims because, after researching and implementing the diet since 2005, it is working for them!

Their book is extensively researched and includes references to current, peer-reviewed articles from scientific journals and is peer-reviewed itself. I did my research and looked into reviews of the diet and could find few hits against them. I figured I'd give it a try. Besides, I just love sciencey things. :)

The primary focus of the diet is to reduce the amount of toxins you ingest. Makes sense; who wants to eat toxic stuff? The diet is considered 'low carb' but not low enough that I would miss having carbs. It is reminiscent of a Paleo diet (which are actually quite popular now) in which you eat foods that your body has evolved with but it is much lower in protein. Perhaps the most striking thing about this diet is that it requires that about 65% of your daily calories come from fat! Saturated plant and animal fats at that.
The macronutirent ratios for this diet by calories is 20% carbs, 65% fat, and 15% protein.
The only snag-up I had with this diet is, of course, fat phobia.

 Fat phobia, they claim, is very misplaced and they offer many scientifically-supported reasons why humans should be receiving the majority of their calories from fat (and why the other ratios are the way they are). (From pages 8-10 of the PHD book).

Why the heck are these nutrient ratios ideal for "perfect health"??

*Evidence of nutrient breakdowns of ancestral hunter-gatherers-humans evolved on macronutrient ratios such as the one offered by the Perfect Health Diet. The authors take into consideration the fact that ratios were different based on latitude and placed their ratio in the middle of the spectrum.

*The nutrient ratio in human breast milk (as well as the milk of other mammals) is ideal for babies- therefore, it must also be (with slight adjustment) ideal for adult humans. They're just larger babies you know. The breakdown in breast milk is 39% carbs, 52% fat and 19% protein. The higher percentage of carbs in breast milk is to fuel the baby's growing brain. The consumption of carbs by the adult brain is less than half that of infants.

*You are what you eat- The lean human body (when you exclude water and minerals) is made up of 74% fat and 26% protein by calories. Food should be eaten in a similar ratio to support this breakdown.

*Omnivorous animals instinctively eat low-carb, high-fat diets-Instinct is the best reference for what your body needs. When you crave certain foods, it is your body's way of telling you that you're deficient in specific nutrients.

The types of fat you eat are very important though!

(From pages 46-91 of PHD book)

There are 4 types of fats you should know about: Saturated (SaFA), Monounsaturated (MUFA), Omega-6 and Omega-3 (both are Polyunsaturated--PUFA).

*Saturated and monounsaturated fats are long-chain fats and are the ideal source of fat on this diet. You can eat them in high quantities because your body can always use them.
 -"They are the core structural fats of the human body, making up 75-80% of the fatty acids in most cells"(p.76)
-"They are the primary energy source for most of the body and a healthier form of energy than glucose" (p.76)

*As their chains are burned by your body, there are no toxic byproducts. Only carbon dioxide and water are left; the chains are chemically stable.

Why are saturated and monounsaturated fats healthier for you than carbs? The authors do not support a zero-carb diet because the glucose derived from carbs are very important to the function of the brain. Your body could also have a glucose deprivation from too much restriction (p. 32).
The reason SaFAs and MUFAs are healthier is because:

*In quantities over 600 calories of carbs per day (the maximum level needed by your body), your body will just slowly convert those calories into fat anyway with an increase in blood glucose levels (p.43-4).
*Glucose toxicity is possible on a high-carb diet, and the body does not have any healthy ways to dispose of excess glucose (p. 44).
*As your body converts glucose to fat, it creates toxic byproducts--not an issue with saturated fats
*Glucose feeds bacteria that can run rampant

Don't be afraid of fat--
"Summer [food abundance] is not meant to make people fat; it is meant to make people strong" (p. 80).

*Your muscles are the preferred storage for excess SaFA and MUFA. Your muscles alone store tens of thousands of calories from these fats; adipose cells will store further amounts (p.78). You can see increased muscle mass from high fat diets. In times of food scarcity, your body eats away at your muscles to obtain its macronutrient ratios of 74% fat and 26% protien (glucose can be synthesized from protein). Adipose tissues (the 'flab') stores little protein and is an unbalanced way to obtain nutrients in times of starvation--you wouldn't survive long on your fat stores alone (p. 80).

But what about all that cholesterol??

*Saturated fats improve lipid profiles: (p.79)

-They increase levels of 'good' HDL cholesterol (lots of references to studies and journal articles cited in book)

-"Makes 'bad' LDL particles larger and more buoyant, protecting them from glycation and oxidation...the healthful pattern of LDL cholesterol-carrying particles" (p.79).

What you really want to avoid are Omega-6 fats! 

These fats are found in processed seed oils like canola, safflower, soybean, corn etc. These are the bad guys. You should avoid them at all costs (especially soy...) Sadly, these fats are found in almost all processed food.

They must be balanced by Omega-3's but both of these PUFAs can be toxic in high quantities

*Omega-6 causes obesity in rodents and humans, impairs immune function, causes allergies and increases likelihood of intracellular infections and diseases associated with aging (p. 59).

Short Chain Saturated Fats 

These are our friends. 

*Coconut oil is highly touted in this diet and is 54% short chain fat. (2 tablespoons is recommended per day). Short chain fats "strongly promote weight loss" (p. 90).

*Butter is another source of short-chain fat

*Short chain fats produce ketones which protect neurons, improve mitochondrial function, protect against cancer. Ketogenic diets are therapeutic for disorders caused by neurological glucose deprivation.

This is just a little ditty to help take another look at fat phobia. Granted, you can't increase the amount of (healthy) fat and still keep to your old eating habits... Perhaps this could be enough to help you think about trying out this diet.

Here's a few resources to help you get started:

Reviews on the Jaminet's blog, positive and negative, see if you're convinced!

*http://perfecthealthdiet.com/?p=1742

The Perfect Health Diet blog--includes recipes, advice and new scientific articles relevant to the diet:

*http://perfecthealthdiet.com/

A helpful summary of the eating guidelines:

*http://samsnyder.com/2011/07/20/perfect-health-diet-blog/

Now, I've done quite a bit of research (and math) and have started compiling a "cheat sheet" of snacks, carbs, protein, fats and recipes with their macronutrient ratios. The trouble with the diet is that they don't have an eating plan or recipe book so it can feel kind of overwhelming to get started. It gets easier as you go though! I'll post my research/eating plans later.

Telo-"Mirror" on the Wall...

 Telomeres and aging:

When I get the chance, I like to do a little Stumbling (via stumbleupon.com). My favorite things to happen upon are physics games, rage comics and, of course, scientific articles. I recently Stumbled upon an article from Scientific American about telomeres.

Now, this article details the relationship between the length of telomeres in your DNA and your biological age, including how telomere length might be linked to age-related illnesses and perhaps even their role in aging itself.

First things first. Telomeres are made up of  repeating sequences of  the bases TTAGGG and are found at the ends of DNA. They are nonsensical sequences and therefore do not code for an amino acid or contain any pertinent information. Their purpose is to serve as a buffer or cushion for the delicate genetic sequences as your DNA replicates and divides, keeping the important genes from being jumbled.

As your DNA divides, a process that occurs constantly throughout your entire life, the length of your telomeres shortens slightly. When telomeres get too short, the cell dies. Or the cell can be damaged from lack of its protective telomere buffer and can become cancerous.

In short, you don't want short. Telomeres that is.

People with shorter telomeres may be predisposed to aging faster than those with longer telomeres. You could even look 6 to 8 years older than you are if your telomeres are short. And there is a positive correlation between having longer telomeres and having a longer life span!

Telomere length varies between people but studies suggest that they are controlled by genetics. And here's hoping! The Zimmerman side of my family is in such great health. My aunt is in her mid-fifties (you'd never guess) and has wonderfully beautiful skin. My grandpa is in his late-eighties and goes for long walks every day and still works on the farm. I'm hoping long telomeres run in the family.  :)

There are ways to help hang on to your telomeres, and keep yourself from aging too quickly.

*keep yourself healthy and boost your immune system--viruses can shorten your telomeres
 ---This includes eating nontoxic, nonreactive food; exercising; reducing stress
*avoid getting sunburned! and while you're at it, avoid all types of mutagens including smoking. It is stressful for your cells to compensate for the inflicted damages. Cells in overdrive run your telomeres down!

Take a peek at a few of the interesting articles I found on telomeres for a more in-depth understanding. Information from this post came from both of these articles (although I researched a lot more than these two).

*http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=aging-telomere -----(a well-written, interesting article, not dry at all!)

*http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/begin/traits/telomeres/

Word of the Day.

I'd like to share with you something about me that's perhaps a little strange. Every once in a while, completely at random, a word will pop into my head. Maybe it's a word I've heard before but never really knew the meaning. This word will plague me for several days until I finally get around to looking it up. Then I'm free of it until another random word comes to mind.

I think the first word that ever popped into my head was pseudopod. It literally means "fake foot" and refers to the way amoebas and white blood cells move.
Apparently, the random words that come to my mind aren't in the least bit useful for everyday conversation. :p

Recently, I had the word salubrious pop into my head. So here's the definition of that: "healthy; life-giving; pleasant".

My latest word visitor was esoteric. From http://www.merriam-webster.com:  "limited to a small circle; of special, rare, or unusual  interest; designed for or understood by the specially initiated alone".

So, there you have it: random words that you are likely never going to use in daily conversation. But I will still post them whenever they come to me. Might as well put some use to them in the form of random vocabulary lessons. :)

Baby Birdy.

Mostly just wanted to post some pictures I doodled of my birdy. Even as I type this he's asking me what it is I am "doing over there". So sweet. :)

Bed Savvy.

Thought I would do another quick post with a landscape maintenance tip. Mostly because I just made a shoddily Photoshopped logo for my "The Mower You Know" sections. :)

Chickweed

If you have flowerbeds or gardens, they will probably need to be weeded... a lot. Bigger weeds with single stems are easier to pull but chances are, you'll experience a lot of tiny weeds spread around, or icky ground cover weeds like chickweed. Pulling weeds like this is futile, unless you have all day and meticulous fingers. You will always leave behind little stems and roots which will just grow again with a new lease on life.

You could consider using a tool to till up the dirt (assuming your garden isn't mulched, barked or covered with rocks...). A standard garden hoe is likely the first and most traditional choice. However, perhaps you should consider using a cousin of the hoe that you probably haven't even heard of: the Hula Hoe! Hula hoes are my favorite tool for weeding the flowerbeds and prepping them for planting. (Believe me when I say that my younger sister, who is also my coworker, and I have all sorts of "hoe-er" and "working the beds" jokes)

A hula hoe has a stirrup-shaped head which you can push and pull through the dirt. It will dig up the roots of weeds and fluff up the dirt. Everyone likes fluffy dirt in their flowerbeds. A traditional hoe will pull the dirt with each stroke, leave large clumps of dirt and trenches. The hula hoe channels dirt through the hoop. Weeds can then be picked out of the fluffy dirt, easy peasy.

No garden shed is complete without a hula hoe: perfect for prepping your flower beds for annuals and cleaning up around perennials and vegetable gardens. Your soil will be light, fluffy and manageable. How enviable. :)

Dry Brushing: What the heck, Why the heck?

Summer time is that wonderful three months of the Montana year to get some sun (although this year, we've had to deal with less). The trouble with all that skin exposure is that you need to cover it up again...with no less than SPF 30 sunscreen!

I'm usually Miss Sun Safety Sally, especially since I work outside. In my opinion, a good day at work is one in which I can wear my coat all day... For the most part though, it is necessary for me to coat myself, rather, with sunscreen in the morning and halfway through the day. When you're mowing lawns all day, that sunscreen makes you an adhesive for blowing grass. Walking flypaper. Needless to say, I feel pretty grubby at the end of the day. My skin takes a beating in the summertime with all the heat, wind, sunscreen and itchy grass--an extra one-two to my skin lies in the fact that I dehydrate easily without realizing it. The good thing is that I rarely burn enough for my skin to peel. Skin peeling after a burn is just horrendous when you realize that it's essentially your skin committing suicide because the DNA is too damaged to replicate properly. Yeesh. So with all the sunscreen, bugspray and dehydration, I'm sure everyone's skin is feeling a little stressed.

Anyway, the point of this post was to share a little something I recently happened upon in a Women's Health magazine. It is called dry brushing and is full body exfoliation with a natural bristle brush before you shower. Naturally, before I try anything myself, I do a good amount of research. Dry brushing can offer a lot of health benefits including, obviously, aiding in cell turnover and therefore improving the resiliency and texture of skin. I did come across other claims that dry brushing can help detoxify your body, improve circulation, reduce cellulite and the like. These claims haven't been extensively studied and every person can experience a different result. However, I felt that the de-grubbifying offered by dry brushing was enough for me to want to give it a shot.

I ordered a natural bristle brush with a long handle from Amazon.com and just received it yesterday. I didn't spend too much on it: about $12 with shipping. I was super excited to try it out. It is recommended that you dry brush your skin in the morning before a shower to help you wake up and improve circulation. I shower at night in the summer and figured I'd just chance having an invigorated circulatory system before bed.

Here is a website that offers some really good tips for dry brushing; I recommend giving it a read: http://epicureantable.com/articles/adrybrush.htm

*You should stand in the shower (with the water off, of course) before dry brushing. You'd be surprised how much dry skin will come off. Plus you've heard of the statistic that like 80% (or more even--I'm just pulling that number from memory) of the dust in your house is made up of dead skin cells... Imagine the dust you'd make standing in one place, doing a full body exfoliation. (I hate to make a reference to clapping erasers....) By standing in the shower, you will contain that dust and be able to wash it down the drain.

*Dry brushing technique suggests that you make long strokes with the brush, always pulling it or pushing it toward your heart.

*You should brush hard enough for your skin to redden a bit--not hard enough to break your skin though!

*Don't forget to brush the bottoms of your feet and your hands.

*Perhaps consider getting a separate, smaller brush for use on just your face.

*Rinse off well in the shower, avoiding really hot water, which dries you out.

All in all, the dry skin brushing felt really good! And it did improve the smoothness of my skin after just one use. Areas like my shins, which are pretty dinked up from debris thrown from my string trimmer were evened out. People with a propensity for ingrown hairs or those with mild cases of those little KP bumps on the backs of their arms could also benefit from this ritual. I imagine that dry brushing daily will ultimately keep my skin clearer--my back and shoulders tend to break out in the summer from the sunscreen, dirt and sweat. I will certainly recommend that people give dry brushing a shot!

Under Construction.

Work was canceled on account of rain... and hail. One of the nice things about landscaping is that you can get yourself a three-day weekend if the weather is potentially harmful. :) The hail is bouncing three feet off the deck! I suppose I'd take a tree to the face over being cold, wet and hailed-on while mucking around in slurpy flower beds pulling weeds.

I can use this time to figure out how to make my blog a little personal. I did a little doodle of a chimerical mascot to add to the header of the page, but haven't yet figured out how to get it where I want it. So for now, it'll have to be mascot-less.

Also, I plan to put up a gallery of my artwork as soon as possible.

The Awful Truth About Blue Spruce.

You can bet your boots that somewhere in the world, everyday, a landscape maintenance worker is getting hit in the head or face by a tree branch. I bring up this totally plausible, though not extensively-researched assertion because, today, I was that landscape maintenance worker. I have been working for Blooming Flowers and Grass for the past 4 summers, so you could pretty much say I'm a pro. But, despite my experience and walking-backward skills, I will get hit in the head or face with a tree branch at least once per day. OR get hit in the head or face enough in one day to fill up two weeks worth of daily tree-bashings (that also includes bashings from large shrubs...like dogwoods).

Although grass doesn't particularly enjoy growing underneath trees (especially pine for some reason), it grows just enough to be really long, patchy, and scraggly. This wimpy patch of lawn is usually found beneath trees and shrubs that have low branches and cannot be reached by a lawn mower (Walkers for life!). Therefore, it must be cleaned up with a string trimmer. It is necessary to push your way through the branches to reach the highly-visible, scraggly grass near the base of the tree.

The trouble with trees is that they are pokey, covered with sap, unyielding and did I mention pokey? The most prickley of trees that I have encountered (besides Russian olive, but more on those later) is the blue spruce. It is a lovely tree that is very Christmassy, nice smelling and is a neat color to boot. The needles however, are short, stiff and very, very sharp! Blue spruce are apparently very popular on the properties we tend... Needless to say, I've had some unpleasant, pokey-branch-to-the-face encounters in my day.

If you were to take any practical knowledge from a seasoned landscape maintenance worker it would be this:
Don't plant blue spruce in such a location that you will have grass underneath it!

This has been... "The 'Mower' You Know"

Etymology.

I suppose I have been thinking about starting up a blog for awhile. Perhaps to help me sort out the mish-mash of my life after college. After having only known school for the past 17 years of my life (Kindergarten does count!), I'm faced with a whole new set of routines. No more 3-month-long summer jobs, no more Christmas Break or Spring Break, nor homework even! I will have to learn to redefine myself, rediscover myself and understand the importance of the things I've learned throughout those years.

What I have always known about myself is that I have always been interested in several things at once. I had so many potential career dreams when I was little. Paleontologist, artist, cartoonist, author, actress, paleontologist again, orthodontist... respectively. I have so many interests to realize and address, all of which define me.

I had pondered the title of my blog for awhile before deciding on "Para Chimera".  The Chimera is a monster from Greek mythology with the body of a lion, a snake for a tail and a random goat coming out of her back (weird). But the term has come to mean any animal made up of the parts of others. One thing made of many other things.
The Latin word para means "near, beside, like" = "similar to" (my favorite dinosaur is the Parasaurolophus, by the way!).

Essentially, this blog is something made up of many parts; this isn't a blog just about the joys of raising orchids or just about home improvement. This is a blog about art, health, diet, recipes, family, relationships, practical advice regarding landscaping, wedding planning (I have my very own coming up!), science and basically anything that defines myself as a chimera.

Join me, chimeras!