Gardening in a Kilt (Buzz Kidder Canvas)

[CactusJack]

Ted I understand where you're going now but I personally think lemon zest with you chicken breasts would work fine, I have done that many times myself
Enjoy.

[Bugbear]

Ted I understand where you're going now but I personally think lemon zest with you chicken breasts would work fine, I have done that many times myself
Enjoy.

Thanks, I think the zest would go quite well with the chicken. Chicken is a whole different beast from the beef, though, LOL!

It's usually about finding the right balance of flavors, and I am trying to keep it as simple as I can. I'll start working on it tomorrow.

[CactusJack]

Thanks, I think the zest would go quite well with the chicken. Chicken is a whole different beast from the beef, though, LOL!

It's usually about finding the right balance of flavors, and I am trying to keep it as simple as I can. I'll start working on it tomorrow.

Good luck at let me know how it turns out.

[Bugbear]

I will report on the chicken and zest experiment then.

I just found out exactly what is going on with the machine down there. The ground was very saturated with natural gas from the leak, so they have some kind of giant vacuum thing that they have over two large trenches getting the gas out of the ground. I get the impression that the gas line had been leaking for a long time. It is kind of scary...

They evacuated the people from that end of the block, I'm the second house in from the other end of the block, and that's what the deal is... All my neighbors are starting to kind of think that a lot of things are starting to add up... I'm starting to think that too. We're probably lucky nothing went kaboom!

* I don't know how long they will be vacuuming the gass out of the ground, but it's been over fourty-eight hours now. We're just kind of starting to realize how bad the situation was. I do know that there have been a lot of trees and so on that have died down in that area, but we all thought that it was because they wern't being cared forr in the summer. That's usually a sighn that there is a gas leak... Guess there's some things I need to check into on this subject.

[Bugbear]

Today, I put fig tree cuttings in a planting bed that I had removed a few small citrus trees from. It is a round bed, and has a rose bush in the middle. I put the fig cuttings around the south and west edge of the circle. Hopefully some of them will root and grow, then shade the rosebush. There's already a fig growing on the east side of the rosebush, but he has been cut back almost to the ground; he's becoming a bonsai. That's also where I've been getting all the fig cuttings. There is a car port that shades the roses after three or four in the afternoon, but really roses seem to do better out here with light shade all day.. Like under a mesquite tree or something.

I guess I should point out that I am sometimes also wearing the BK canvas while cooking . That doesn't seem to be a big deal for some reason... Anyway, I have a full knee length apron with pockets about waist level that I cook in. The apron is a canvas like material and has hamburgers, pickles, fries, and so on printed on it. I would say that cooking while wearing a kilt is about the same as eating while wearing a kilt; however, if I were using the oven, I would not wear an acrylic kilt. The canvas wouldn't be a problem around the oven; the wool probably wouldn't be a problem; I don't know about the PV, but it would probably be fine. If I were to start making bread again, I would say either a canvas just for the cooking, or a PV kilt because of the flower mess. I'm not a messy cooker, so I'm not too worried about my kilt getting stuff on it. It didn't seem that important, and I'm not putting on a kilt specifically to cook in like with the gardening. That being said, gardening and cooking are very much linked in my lifestyle, so the kilt goes with both. Oh and bla bla bla.

I do sometimes wear a blanket around in the house during the winter, but I don't like to cook while wrapped in a blanket... I'm not sure that a belted plaid would cause the same problems, but I don't have any of mine right now to try it out. That's probably not a good comparison anyway...

They are still working on the ground from the gas leak. I don't know how long that will go on. It's kind of been a big disturbing distraction... I think there are lots of things that this gas leak has been causing that have been blamed on other things, but I can't be sure.

Tomorrow, I hope to finnish moving those citrus trees. I need to do some more weeding too.

[Bugbear]

They shut the machines down a while ago; it's nice to have a little quiet. I'm not sure if they are done, so I guess I'll just enjoy the quiet. It turns out that the gas leak problem was a bit closer than I thought. They have been working in front of the house two down from mine, and those people had been evacuated, also.

And they just started up one of the machines again, so I guess this isn't over yet. I'll probably be starting on the chicken and rice before too long.

[Bugbear]

The first round of orange peal chicken and rice came out pretty good. I didn't chop up the chicken breast to cook it, and I left the orange peal in quarters. This was to keep the flavors from mixing too much while cooking; I chopped the peal and the chicken up after cooking it. To clarify, I wanted to be able to think about the different flavors as I was eating, so I didn't want the chicken too infused with the salt and orange flavors.

Here is what I noticed: The chicken goes well with the flavor of the orange peal. I chopped half the peal up into different sizes to get an idea of what worked. I would say you can probably have a little larger pieces than with the beef. I think throwing part of the orange in there would be really good and plan to try that next time.

I just ate the other two quarters of the peal by themselves. It was interesting that there was no flavor to the ouside of the white of the orange peal, I guess boild out, and all the flavor was in the core of the peal. I grow rosemary bushes, and plan on throwing rosemary in there at some point. I also grow chives and will use those. Guess we'll see what happens.

They're still vacuuming the ground at the gas leak... It's coming up on three days that they have been doing that.

* And we've passed the three day mark on the gas leak. I didn't get much done to day other than the chicken. Guess just a slow lazy day.

[Bugbear]

Here's a picture of me because I just realized I could copy the address into my posts, Click on it to go to the larger view.
Picture removed and can now be seen in gallery with gardening pictures.

This is not the kilt I garden in, but who cares at this point.

[Bugbear]

Picture of Mrs. Marmalade and I can be seen in the gallery, so this picture has been removed.

[Bugbear]

Here's an update on the drama, Oh the Drama!

First, Mrs. Marmalade, has the flu bug and has been in the hospital. Earlier this week, Marmalade's friend, The Sewing Lady, went to the hospital because, Sewing Lady's, husband had to have open heart surgery. Mrs. Marmalade went with Sewing Lady for support and so on. While at the hospital, Marmalade caught the flu bug. She didn't know for sure that it was the flu, it was really bad, so went to the hospital just to make sure.

All this was going on around the same time that the work on the gas leak is taking place. I keep sending Marmalade Emails, but get no response. This heightens the drama as I begin to realize that the gas leak has been going on for quite a while before they discovered it.

Finally, Marmalade responds to my Email. She is still feeling ill, but is out of the hospital. I sent her an Email containing a hug and a spoonful of magical honey made by magical bees to help her get to feeling better because bunny rabbits have the power to do that. The machines still work on the gas leak mess...

Meanwhile, I have also been trying to get ahold of my step mother and my sister back in New Mexico all this week. My sister has had to move her wedding date up to next month suddenly, and I wasn't sure that I would be able to get out there. That was OK because the wedding was now going to be a small, short ceremony in someone's backyard, then grub. They weren't sure on the exact date, so I was waiting for them to get back to me on that. I've been having to figure out if I need to move for a while because of the gas leak, so decided to just kind of pass on the trip and all. I had heard from everyone, except my sister and step mother, that my sister was... pregnant..., and I was hoping my sister would tell me herself. This morning, my step mother called, I told her I really didn't think I could make it to the suddenly-much-earlier wedding date, and my step mother finally told me that my sister would be having a baby some time in October. So now we know... And that is why the sudden change in wedding plans and so on.

And now you know, "The Rest of the Story."

In other news, I completed my rice dish experiment for the day. This time I put half an orange peal, half the navel orange fruit (they're quite sweet), a chicken breast, and a few sprigs of rosemary off my bush in to the rice. I also added a dab of honey after cooking it.

I think this would make a very good stuffing with the addition of sage, but isn't what I was trying to make. I chopped the orange fruit up into pieces about the size of the chicken pieces. Most of the flavor was dispersed out of the orange pieces. I think adding them after the cooking would be more what I was looking to create. Also, I think there should be some red chili powder added during the cooking, and crumbled red chilly and seeds added after cooking.

I'm trying to achieve chunks of whole flavors in this dish; something that recombines differently in each bite... I also think the texture of the raw pieces of orange will add to the dish.

BTW, it's been about four days now, and they are still vacuming the natural gass out of the soil... It goes on and on and on and on...

I finnished moving those little citrus trees to the new growing bed. I also put several fig tree cuttings along the West side of the bed. To finnish it off, I did a load of laundry to water them all in. I'm not sure if I will do any grafting this year, but I have rootstocks... that's partly what is in the growing bed now. Last year, I did graft a navel orange onto a clone of the sour orange that the navel orange is grafted on to... In other words I made a copy of my sweet navel orange. This was for Mrs. Marmalade because those are her favorite oranges. That copy of the tree is now in the new growing bed so he can fatten up a bit before I give him to Mrs. Marmalade.

They have shut down the machines for a little while. They do sound like giant vacuum cleaners... Guess that's a day in the life of a garden bunny. I do have a bunch of weeding to do out there because of all the rain this year.

And yes, I do have a brown, bunny fur sporan, but I don't wear it while gardening.

Finally, I still haven't thought of a good idea for a new thread. Guess I'll keep thinking about it.

* Well the quiet was nice while it lasted. The funny thing is that a couple of blocks over, they built a stretch of freeway last year. At night you can hear people drag racing and the howl of their engens. I guess they take off the muffler and all the pipes and stuf, someone called it streight heading or something, and that makes the cars very loud. It was almost comforting to here the drag racing going on over there. Sadly, they have started the giant vacuum cleaner again...