Today's farmers market haul:
1 bunch celery (who grows celery in central Illinois? My friend Lisa the Biker. It's v strong, will be good for stock)
3 baskets cherry tomatoes of all shapes and colors
8# apples (Granny Smith and Pink Lady)
2# walnuts (I used to hate walnuts!)
3 bulbs garlic
1# salad greens
2 heads broccoli
1 bunch gorgeous flowers
2 pastured chickens
2# pastured ground turkey
1# grassfed ground beef
I've had too much coffee already today.
Is there a friend who you owe a phonecall or email? What's stopping you?
I owe so much correspondence, it's embarassing.
The sheer amount of it is daunting.
I'm going to try and get to some of it today.
Catchy stuff from a Swedish band called You Are My Everything, spawned from Reverend Big O. All their music is free for the downloading at that website, BTW.
The album or EP or whatever it's called is named Factory of New Consent, which I find quite funny given the era it reminds me of.
Um, yeah. Jim and I gave up the radio show and are looking into podcasting. I can podcast from my bed, fulfilling a long-dreamed dream of being able to "broadcast remotely". Podcasting isn't exactly that... it's better. Because I can do it from my bed.
I'm getting old.
That'd be Ken Andrews' voice.
If you want something dark and heavy but powerful and honest and filled with guitars and strange chord changes, I recommend every last song Failure ever wrote. Damn, they were excellent.
Ken Andrews also sang and played guitar with a "supergroup" of sorts (read: no one's ever heard of them) called the Replicants. They played covers only. I think a guy from Tool was also in this band:
Dude is awesome.
I met him about 4 years ago at a show in CHGO and went just the wee-est bit fangirl.
[I mean, Failure were a total, SPECTACULAR failure in terms of living up to expectations and were infamous in the crowds I hung with back in what I fondly refer to as The Day. They had such incredible talent, but a penchant for creativity-and-soul-sucking extracurricular activities coupled with lots and lots of bad luck made sure Failure went nowhere. Man!]
Anyway, he tolerated me because I was one of his new bandmate's friends. We chatted here and there about a few people we had in common, and I'm sure I stuck my foot in my mouth more than once.
When he stood up to go, I was totally shocked to see he was a few inches shorter than me. I was so prepared for him to be 6'3" or something.
I stick now to just listening.
What albums are in heavy rotation for you right now?
Johnossi, Self-titled
Fleetwood Mac, Rumours
Replicants, Self-titled
Smashing Pumpkins, Gish
Talk Talk, It's My Life
Elope, 3WD and The No Name Record
Audionom, Retrospektiv
Montys Loco, Man Overboard
I'm just smitten with the fact that every tomato and pepper from my
garden this year hails from a plant I started from seeds in my basement
in February after returning from our vacation in FL.
Every time I get back from FL, I'm all, WTF, people? Winter is over! Let's get this garden party started right!,
but then I have to wait for at least a month before I can even plant
potatoes. This year, after a much-needed but somehow slightly
unsatisfying vacation, I babied these seeds under lights for eight
weeks until they were cute little plants and then I babied them some
more until it was time to plant.
Sweet peppers, hot peppers, leeks, potatoes, tomatoes, and herbs all
look so fantastic in the August sunlight, filtered through cumulus
clouds and late summer greenery. Summer's leaving. Oh, I know. It's
going to get hot at least once more, and bring it!* But the angle of
the sunlight betrays the temperature, and I can smell it in the air -
certain foliage falls and dies this time of year, and certain flowers
start to bloom. The goldenrod is blooming, and at night the Big Dipper
occupies a different corner of the sky than it did at Solstice.
Even if it's not yet time to break out the sweaters, it can't be a bad idea to at least locate them...
*that's for my friend J's husband J, who will mock me eternally for wishing hot weather upon the midwest last summer

I LOVE this song. read more
on We Live Inside A Balloon