Of Winds and Water

24 April 2015

Bus Stuff

My interest in writing a blog post right now is roughly nil. However, we have yet to keep a good record of what we're doing to the bus, so I'm going to throw a bunch of information here and you can read it if you want. This is coming from someone who spent her last lunch hour mowing the lawn...in dress pants. This post might be unintelligible. I apologize in advance.

Right after we got the engine put back together, and then figured out how to solve our vacuum leak problems, we still had one lingering issue that we could NOT figure out.

The rest of the story...

10 April 2015

Fried Fish Sandwiches

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03 April 2015

More Spring Everywhere

From eating lunch on the porch to taking walks around the neighborhood at night, I'm spending WAY more time outdoors these days, and it is the best. There was a huge influx of pollen in March but I didn't have much trouble with allergies, which pleases me greatly. In the past couple days alone, I've noticed that visibility is getting reduced because the leaves on the trees are getting bigger - soon there won't be any afternoon sunshine on the garden.

March goals were pretty straightforward:

We attended the French Quarter Art Walk the first week of March. It was great. Such an awesome event, maybe I'll even get to go again tonight.
My parents were here visiting! It was a short and sweet visit with my family, and they brought soooo many goodies from MI.
Start eating greens from our garden. I can hardly get anything to sprout, much less grow. The soil we got does not seem to be a friendly environment to seeds.
Bottle the chardonnay. Done. I didn't start anything else because I had to empty the elderberry back into the carboy - after popping two corks and one bottle (!) it was pretty clear that the elderberry was refermenting.
Catch up on online classes. I tried. I failed.
Prep the bus for the interior build. Well, the paint is stripped but that's about as far as we got.

And as far as April goals go, it's pretty much the same stuff - visitors for spring break (yay!), do garden, make wine, fix bus. It's also festival season here so obviously, attend ALL THE FESTIVALS!

On to March in photos.

The parental visit started with the Art Walk, where we explored our favorite galleries.

We also found a rooftop bar where we found a giant version of a pin point impression toy. It's harder than it looks when the pins are this big!

We took the fam to the beach, of course, and also a festival on one of the islands.

I also cajoled them into helping me move a pile of dirt into the raised beds. Yay dirt! Thanks, parents.

We made some progress on bus work after that, finally got the odometer working but the gas gage is still being obstinate. Of course, you know what they say about all work and no play...so we attended the St. Patty's Day block party and it was awesome.

After that, we worked on paint until Kyle got crazy eyes. He's been a total champ, after the easy ceiling paint was off, he's been slaving away at the more difficult wall paint, using a combination of oven cleaner, razor blades, and sweat to remove the crappy latex paint in the bus (and a wee bit of the original paint underneath).

As far as the garden goes, here's the latest in $10 cat deterrents. Works like a charm. I'm still having a lot of trouble getting things to sprout, so maybe my seeds got too hot last summer or something happened in one of the moves or something. But also the dirt is pretty bland - probably need to get some nutrients in there (compost, N/P/K, etc).

Okay, what else. We went to the Flowertown Festival, but on our way there we got distracted by a special cask tapping / anniversary breakfast, and just like that I was drinking a beer at 10am on a Sunday (and it was delicious).

Flowertown was an okay time, but I'm not a big spender and there wasn't really anything that caught my eye there, except for the gorgeous azaleas!

I did manage to grow some greens this month, and we did eat them in a very delicious salad, but I'm pretty disappointed by the garden so far.

Last but not least, here's the wine we got bottled. After I get that elderberry straightened out, I'll move on to a nice red.

It didn't seem like such a big month until I wrote it all out! However, I think we kept a pretty good balance of work and play, so hopefully we can keep this pace up through April. There's a lot going on!

27 March 2015

College Throwback Home Fries

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20 March 2015

Happy Spring!

This has been one of the easiest winters I've ever had, weather-wise, but I'm still looking forward to the first day of spring! With sun shining and plants sprouting, I can't wait for fresh fruits and colorful veggies. What better way to acknowledge the changing of seasons than to make a list of my favorite spring/summer recipes?

Fresh fruits:

Rustic Blueberry-Plum Galette
I love love LOVED this galette. It was so tempting to eat the whole thing in one sitting. Blueberry season just feels like the pinnacle of summer, and there's no better way to eat them than in a pie.

Blackcap Cheesecake Pie
If you prefer cheesecake over pie, then maybe you can find some middle ground with a cheesecake pie! Blackcaps or black raspberries were my urban foraging adventure in Michigan. Who knows what I'll find this year down in South Carolina!

Black Raspberry Gin Fizz
There's nothing like getting your serving of fruit in cold, refreshing beverage form while sitting out on the porch enjoying the last rays of sunlight. This gin fizz tasted like a gourmet soda with a touch of gin - fancy and satisfying, all in one.

Colorful Veggies:

Veggie Spring Rolls with Spicy Peanut Dipping Sauce
I had to put spring rolls on the list, for obvious reasons. But just look at that rainbow of colors! Spring rolls are a great appetizer - and they're easy to put together! I made them for Easter last year and they were a total hit.

Paleo Taco Boats
These taco boats are a lighter, gluten-free / Paleo version of their tortilla counterparts. All the deliciousness of a taco, delivered in an endive wrap. Because tacos. But also bikini season.

Crunchy Black Bean Chicken Salad
This dish is as delicious as it is gorgeous, combining grilled chicken and a cilantro-lime dressing with a veggie-rich black bean salad. Grilled chicken, people! Dig that grill out and remind yourself how great it is to be able to grill outside.

Lime Basil Juice + Margarita
As long as we're on the subject of colorful, delicious things, let's pretend for a second that basil is a vegetable and add lime-basil juice to the list! With or without the margarita, this juice was one of the most interesting things I've made. Highly recommended!

And if we're still chatting about tropical-flavors-that-don't-really-meet-the-designated-category, I'm going to go ahead and throw this one in too, because fresh ginger and tuna steaks just sound like a something that should be a spring tradition (especially after watching everyone on my entire Facebook take a Caribbean vacation this winter).
Spicy Grilled Caribbean Tuna
If it makes you feel better, you can grill up some kabob veggies to go with it.