Beetle Betsy

Normally I look forward to the summer months as I am an avid insect watcher/lover/photographer.  But this summer, which has been incredibly rainy and then was incredibly hot, seems to have been favorable for a particular species of beetle called an Oriental Beetle.  Not to be confused with the Japanese Beetle, this insect does not seem to harm foliage at all in its adult stage, but the larvae (white grubs) that it produces will chew the crap out of the roots of your grass, garden vegetables and ornamental flowers.

Japanese Beetle

Oriental Beetle

This is the first year that I have my own small garden outside my house.  I tried one last year at my parents' house but it is a 20 minute drive there and over 100 ft from the water source so it was difficult to properly tend to it.  Plus they don't have beetles there so much as they have horrible head buzzers, horse flies, deer flies, mosquitoes...not much fun.  I don't have those at my house.  My husband built me a beautiful raised bed and I planted some stuff in it.

I'm not quite sure what as I didn't pay much attention, but I'm fairly sure it is mostly cucumbers, parsley, a tomato plant, and cosmos.  As an added bonus I have a buttload of sunflowers growing in the back that the birds planted.

I first noticed that there was an excessive amount of beetles a few weeks ago.  I would walk outside and get attacked by them.  They do not bite or sting but will clumsily fly around your head and land in your hair or on your clothes and with their pokey little feet they are hard to get off.  If they land on your skin you will feel it but it does not hurt.  However it scares the crap out of my girls when one lands on them.  I decided to git-r-done.

I first went to Aubuchon.  They only had Japanese beetle traps, but I was desperate so I bought one in hopes it would trap both kinds.  I set it up and watched as Japanese beetles came from no where and fell in.

Japanese beetle trap

Japanese beetle on my flowers, right downwind of the trap and not seeming to care...after 2 rain storms it seems to have lost some of its potency.

  I previously had not seen any of those so it obviously is a strong attractant!  None of the Oriental beetles seemed to be able to make it into the bag though.

Next I tried Ace, then Lowe's, then Home Depot.  No one had anything for these Oriental beetles.  I called up the local agricultural store, L.D. Oliver Seed Company, and they had had them but were sold out and weren't going to get more until Friday.  It was Wednesday and I was really wanting to get these buggers gone before they decided to lay eggs all over the yard.  I bought a bottle of Bayer Grub Control and sprayed that on my garden dirt and on the lawn around it.

Friday came and I went to the Oliver Seed Company.  I was happy to see that they did indeed have the traps for this kind of beetle and happily paid my $9.95 for one.  The boy behind the counter said this was the first year they had carried these traps and they were selling fast.  I took it home and assembled it in the car.  I opened the door to the car and got the pheremone disk out, opened the bag, and put it on the trap structure.

Here is a short, crappy video I took:


BZZZZZT  BZZZZT BZZZZZZZZZZT

That was the sound I heard in my ears.  I looked around and these beetles were coming from every corner of my lawn and swarming around me and the bag.  As I held it beetles were falling into it.  I hadn't even put it on the hanger yet.  I set it down on the ground and tried to assemble the metal hanger (sold separately for $4.95) but the damn metal sleeves that hold the metal rods were too tight.  Cheap thing.  So I had to take it inside and shove a screwdriver into them and wrench them apart and then hammer the rods into the sleeves.  I came back out to a black cloud of beetles around the pheremone.  I picked it up, beetles clinging to my arms and hair and clothes, and pushed it all into the ground.  Instantly there was an inch deep of beetles inside the bag.

Assembled, and already attracting.  The round thing at the top is the pheremone.

  

In 1 minute this is how many there were inside...

I ran back to my car and drove to my parents' house where I was going to spend some of the 100°F afternoon in their air conditioning.  A wind was picking up which was blowing hot air around and it was miserably humid.  About 5 minutes down the road my A/C in my car quit on me.  It made a nasty burning plastic smell and then the compressor stopped working.  Dammit.  I shut it off and rolled down the windows.  My poor Autumn was in the back crying for alternate reasons. First she was too hot, then the wind was blowing her hair into her eyes and mouth and she wanted the windows up, then she was too hot again.  Poor thing eventually went to sleep.

When I left my parents' house 2 hours later and made it back home I was dismayed to see the beetle trap had fallen over in the wind.  The cheesy metal stand had come apart and there was a mass of horned up beetles writhing in one spot.

Spilled Beetles

 I had a horrible thought that perhaps I had just turned these beetles on and they would escape, fertilized and ready to lay eggs, making the matters worse than if I had left them alone in the first place.  I began plucking beetles from the ground and plopping them back in the trap.  But there were so many it would have taken me hours and it was so very hot outside.

That was yesterday.  It rained very hard last night and was insanely windy but the beetle trap stood up to it all and was still standing today.  I went out to check out how much was in there (at this point its actually FUN for me to be doing this.  I need a job.) and as I approached the bag I could hear scritch scratch scritch scratch sounds.  There was a good 2" or more deep pile of beetles in there.  Wow.

And the ground was still moving with more crawling in that direction.  I saw one actually fly and make it out of the bag so I realized that I should probably dump them out so that the pile can start over.  I got a gallon size ZipLoc bag.  The bottom of this trap has a handy zipper lock also so that you can dump it out and reuse it, unlike the Japanese beetle trap pictured earlier in this long post which you have to buy replacement bags.  I placed the open ziploc bag over the bottom of the trap and managed to unzip the trap enough for the beetles to start spilling out.  Yuck.  This is how many I got:

Most of what was in the bag

They are mostly still alive too.  Hopefully not for long.  I zipped the trap bag back up and set it straight again.  Then it rained really hard.  The sun came back out and when I checked on the trap (an hourly process for me at this point:  checking and plucking and tossing in more) there were several beetles flying around it again, more in the bottom, and more crawling up the grass trying to get in.  

I'm both interested to see how many more I catch by the end of the day, and horrified that there are so many of these pests in my yard!  I think I will go buy 2 or 3 more traps and set them around the perimeter of our condo property.  Then I get to check on and empty even more bags!  LOL!  Check out that Oliver Seed Co. if you are in Milton.  I had never been in there before but they seem to have good prices and all sorts of stuff for farming and gardening and they are always having a sale on something!

Hippie's Skin Regimen

When I went to visit my sister Sarah at the end of February I came away with some valuable information.  One such piece of information was how she got her skin so silky smooth!  She shared with me that she has been using oil to wash her face.  Now, that seems to fly in the face of logic doesn't it?  All the big corporations that make beauty products and retail them for anywhere from $15 to $150+ are printing "Oil Free" on their packages as if that should be a comforting thing!  But think about it, what does our skin produce naturally?  Does it produce sodium lauryl sulfate?  Or PEG?  or how about disodium lauroamphodiacetate?

No.  It does not.  It produces oil.  This oil is supposed to soften and protect our skin.  If your face is getting really greasy you may want to take a look at what you are stripping it with.

To start out with, I have always had very oily skin.  Now that I'm older it seems to be turning to combination skin so I have dry spots on my cheeks, near my eye brows, and around my nose.  I was using all sorts of exfoliating products (Neutrogena, Garnier, etc) and then slapping on a bunch of lotion (Mary Kay--which I still swear by and the new regimen actually helps it absorb better), and alternating with Aveeno foam cleansers.

No longer.  Sarah had me try her mixture, which was 80% "carrier" oil (you can use olive, safflower, sunflower, etc.), 10% castor oil, and 10% jojoba oil.

 You put a quarter size amount on your palm and then rub it into your dry skin, massaging all around your face.  Then take a fairly hot wash cloth, wring it out, and lay it on your face.  Breath in and out deeply and relax until it becomes room temp.  Then take the cloth and in a circular motion wipe off the oil.  Repeat if desired.

Now me being me, I took it a few steps farther.  Every third day I make an exfoliant:

I do the above but I also add green tea (brew a cup in boiling water, let it cool down, and then add it in), a tablespoon of fresh lemon juice, 4-5 tablespoons of white table sugar, and 2 drops each of essential oils in Cedarwood, Rosemary, and Sweet Orange.

 It gives it this wonderful oriental aroma that really makes me relax.  In the shower I apply this sugar mixture to my face and gently massage.  I then do the same hot washcloth trick where I lay it on my face for a minute or so and then gently wipe off the mixture.  Then I use the leftover oil/sugar all over instead of soap.  I concentrate on my arms and shoulders because I have these awful little red bumps that appear and look like pimples but are not.  This mixture makes them dry up and leave.  I am so excited I will get to wear tank tops this summer.

Next I am going to try to make my own soap.  Here's a list of what is in commercial products, and what they might do to you.  I notice that "depression" is listed for several, and as I do have clinical depression I really want to avoid things that might make it worse.

Best #$%!&* Brownies in the World!

Deep Dish Brownies:

¾ cup butter or margarine (blech) melted

1 ½ cups sugar—organic is best tasting and a little crunchy!

1 ½ tsp. pure vanilla extract—not imitation!

3 eggs

¾ cups all purpose flour

½ cup cocoa powder

½ tsp. baking powder

½ tsp. salt

1 cup dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350°.

Grease 8x8 pan –important for DEEP DISH effect!

Combine flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt in a separate bowl.

In medium mixing bowl blend melted butter, sugar, and vanilla with electric mixer. Add eggs beating well with SPOON. Gradually add flour/cocoa mixture to egg mixture—slowly is best because if you add it too quick there will be tons of pockets of dry powder which will take you forever to smooth out. 

After well blended, add chocolate chips.

Spread into the prepared pan evenly. Bake 40-45 minutes or until brownies begin to pull away from the sides of the pan.

Cool completely, add some confectioner's sugar if desired, and cut into squares. Should make 16 brownies—don’t eat ‘em all yourself!!!!

Bowling with Three Year Olds

Today Autumn's preschool went to Spare Time for a bowling field trip!  I was unsure how bowling would go with kids this age, but they all behaved really well!  At first Autumn wanted NOTHING to do with it and wanted to go home.  She hates crowds and loud noises.  I had to un-cling her from my side and then had her "help" me push the ball down the ramp.  I was getting a little frustrated with her at first but I took a deep breath and just relaxed.  Being cooped up inside so much is not good for me.  Makes me irritable!!!

Since the lens I normally would use for this kind of thing is busted, and I forgot to grab my 50mm portrait lens that would have allowed me to use 200 or 400 ISO instead of 1600, these are not the greatest pictures!  Still cute nonetheless :)

Caroline, who shared a lane with us 

Lily

Autumn lol

Most of the class.  It was really hard to get a good group shot from my angle.

Nicole

He wasn't the only one cooling his head off on the blower!  Hysterical!

Another head cooling session

That's Autumn's score on top!  100!  She does better than I ever did!

Bread Attempt #3: A short, fat failure!

My Jovial brand einkorn wheat came yesterday so I was excited to try to make bread with it today.  After going bowling with my 3 year old's preschool class I was pretty tired (and that was just from watching!) but I mustered up enough strength to give it a shot.

Unfortunately the bag of flour was a lot smaller than I had hoped it was.

Because it is called a "sandwich loaf" I was really hoping this would be the recipe that would replace our store bought bread that we use to make...sandwiches!

I combined 4 cups of flour with 1 tsp of salt in one mixing bowl

In a smaller bowl I dissolved 2 teaspoons of Fleischmann's active dry yeast and 1 tbsp of honey in 1 cup of warm water and let it sit for 5 minutes.

Note:  Before really double-checking the recipe I had combined the honey and water with 2 TABLESPOONS instead of 2 TEASPOONS of yeast and this is what happened:

Nice head on that eh?  I ended up throwing it outside because I was afraid to pour it down the drain!

After the 5 minutes I stirred the liquid into the flour and kneaded it inside the bowl until it was to the point where I could knead it on the counter top.  It looked really nice, smooth, and much less sticky than the last try:

I let it rise in a greased bowl with a plastic bag on top since I only own 2 boxes of wax paper and 2 boxes of aluminum foil.  That's a head scratcher. 

Once it had risen for an hour I punched it down.  That step was NOT in the recipe but I had read to do that in other recipes so I just did it.  Probably this was my first real mistake.  After kneading it again for a few minutes I tried to shape it into a loaf.  That didn't work out so well.  I put it in the greased metal 8x4 pan and let it rise for 30 more minutes.  It did not rise very high this time.  Uh-oh.

The recipe called to bake it at 375 for 35-40min.  I checked it at 35 minutes and it seemed overcooked.  I took it out and it smelled like it had been about to burn!  

I took it out of the pan and placed it on the cooling rack.

I let it cool for an hour and then I went and cut a piece.  It was like corn bread texture.  Thick, dense, a little crumbly but not too bad.  Tasted great with butter on it.  BUT NOT A REAL LOAF OF BREAD like I have been envisioning!  I want bread I can use for sandwiches dangit!

My father has a Kitchen Aid that has a kneading attachment and he has a convection oven so I'm going to probably take my ingredients over there the next time I attempt this.  

Back to the flouring board.

Fresh, Yo!

I hadn't had much domestic bliss to write about lately because, well, I've been damn lazy.  Winter tends to do that to me, especially freaky-deaky weather like what we've been having here in Vermont.  One day its 55 (but 35 mph winds of course) and the next its -20 (also with 35 mph winds).  Ya just can't go outside!!!

Perfect day for baking!

After a month or so of this crap I start to just withdraw and have spent too much time watching reality TV.  Teen Mom 1 to be exact.  I just can't believe Gary lets Amber beat on him like that and that SRS doesn't come take Catelynn's brother away from her crack head mom.

But I digress.

Since Thanksgiving as you may know I have been adding fresh juices to my diet.  I'm not fasting (nor do I think I have the discipline to.  Ever.) but I am trying to add 2 veggie juices a day to my regular eating habits.  I also have not had a soda since Thanksgiving.  This is huge for me because I was a big Diet Coke addict from the age of 15 (I'm 34 now) and I didn't think I'd ever be able to stop.  We'll see if I can keep it up in the summer.  I don't feel any different to be honest.  I actually have gained about 6 pounds total since I stopped my antidepressants (when I started juicing) and began eating healthier.  Of course not exercising hardly at all doesn't help.  The juices are not calorie-free so I'm really hoping that when this weather crap breaks I can start walking outside again and even myself back out.

Along with juicing comes an awareness of the other foods you are putting into your body.  I am turned off by pasta now, and by a lot of the snacky foods that I was eating before.  Namely cereal, crackers, and candy.  I was also a York addict but the thought of putting that much pure sugar into my mouth at one time makes me want to gag. I do still eat chocolate though, but I prefer the good stuff.  One thing that I also wanted to learn about was what exactly was in the bread that we all eat so much of.  I have to wonder at times if I am not gluten sensitive.  I have learned from this juicing process that red meat really messes up my insides as I get an episode of IBS every single time I eat it.  I used to think it was vegetables that did that to me until I stopped eating red meat and then reintroduced it.  Holy moly.  I also notice that when I eat a lot of bread I often do not feel that great after.  When I say a lot I mean 2 slices of whole wheat Pepperidge farm type bread and probably a dinner roll in the same day.  That's a lot for me.

I did some research on the type of wheat flour that is used today and found out some interesting facts.  The first thing that I discovered was that the wheat of today is drastically different on a genetic basis than the wheat of our ancestors.  In the last 50 years we have been fed "dwarf" wheat.  Here is a quote from an article on HuffPost that is a real must read:

The Bible says, "Give us this day our daily bread." Eating bread is nearly a religious commandment. But the Einkorn, heirloom, Biblical wheat of our ancestors is something modern humans never eat.

Instead, we eat dwarf wheat, the product of genetic manipulation and hybridization that created short, stubby, hardy, high-yielding wheat plants with much higher amounts of starch and gluten and many more chromosomes coding for all sorts of new odd proteins. The man who engineered this modern wheat won the Nobel Prize -- it promised to feed millions of starving around the world. Well, it has, and it has made them fat and sick.

Here is the full article: Mark Hyman, MD: Three Hidden Ways Wheat Makes You Fat

Naturally I decided to try to find this einkorn wheat. Nope, nowhere to be located in Chittenden County!  Not even in the hoity hippie food stores.  I went online and found out that some people call it "farro" wheat flour.  Without spending more than a few moments on that I remembered seeing that kind of wheat in the bulk section of the Healthy Living market.  The next day we went back there and I bought about a pound and a half of it.  Not super cheap, but perhaps worth it?

Yesterday I tried to find recipes for bread that use this flour.  Zilch.  I found plenty of recipes using the grain itself, but nothing with the flour that was doable in a reasonable time and price range.  Crap.  Several sites kept calling it spelt (which it is not) and emmer (which it kind of is...sometimes) and then I was all confused.  On the advice of my friend Astrid I emailed the King Arthur Flour bakers.  Unfortunately they did not give me a recipe as I had asked, merely gave me more information on the wheat.  I'm thinking at this point that I am wasting my time trying to figure it all out, and decided to just go all in and make a regular bread recipe using this flour.

The first thing I tried was an All Recipe bread.  I used half all-purpose flour and half farro.

The bread did not rise and came out very dense.  My entire family devoured it though and Alicia stated that it was "SPECTACULAR".  I think they are just deprived of good home cooked foods because, let's be honest, I HATE COOKING so they never get any.  They are probably so excited that I actually used the oven for something other than a countertop that they think anything tastes SPECTACULAR.

This morning I was determined to make a real loaf of bread, one that looks bread-y.  Thanks to the magic of Facebook I was offered a delicious sounding recipe from a friend who I have not met in real life but who loves baking.  I substituted 3/4 of a cup of honey for the 1 cup of white sugar since I didn't have any turbinado sugar to use, and I used 1.5 cups of farro plus 3.5 cups of King Arthur Flour Bread Flour.  I also bought new yeast, the Fleischmann's fast rising active yeast, which made a big difference I think.  With the first load I had used an organic Rize brand yeast which was a week out of the sell by date.  I didn't think it would matter but apparently it did!

The first step was to melt a stick of butter and add it to evaporated milk and hot tap water in a separate 1 quart bowl.  She didn't specify how much evap milk and I had only bought small 5 oz cans so I used a total of 8 oz.  I wanted to go easy on the liquids anyway because I was using honey.  Next I had to mix 3 tbsp of yeast with very warm water in a separate small bowl.  This was probably the most difficult part of the entire process.  The yeast immediately clumped up and became nearly impossible to stir so I had to add about a half or 3/4 of a cup of water to it in order to be able to stir it for 3-4 minutes!  It kept sticking to the spoon.

Then I poured in the first liquid measure, added a cup of bread flour, and then added the yeast.  I kept adding flour until I had put in 3.5 cups of KAF bread flour and 1.5 cups farro flour.  The dough seemed to be the right consistency to start kneading.  I spread bread flour on my (clean) counter and then slapped that sucker down.  My only example of kneading to go by was what I remember my mom doing when I was eye level with the counter top.  Can't be all that hard, right?  Those muscles on the backs of my arms started screaming after about, oh, 45 seconds.  I kept going though, picturing the 2 cm shard of glass that is in my left hand in between my metacarpals grinding around, probably puncturing something.  Maybe I really SHOULD get a bread machine.

I kneaded that dough for a good 10 minutes.  I measured the time in Dr Phil commercial breaks.  I then placed it in a greased plastic mixing bowl.

I really do not have a lot of the tools necessary for successful baking, seeing as I have always hated cooking.  I covered it in a damp towel and placed it on top of the oven, which was preheating to 330 degrees.  Within a half hour or so the dough had risen substantially.  I punched it down and kneaded it again for 10 more minutes (or 3 commercial breaks).

 Then I divided it in half since I only have 2 small bread pans, greased the metal one, and placed the dough inside.

I let it rise again until it was about 2 inches higher than the edge of the pan and then put it in the oven for 25 minutes.

Sorry for the blurry pic but my camera lens is busted and if I get a pic in focus its from luck!

After 25 minutes I took them out and knocked gently on them.  Three times.  It sounded hollow to me, which is what the recipe said to listen for.  Yay it was done!!

Except, something wasn't quite right.  The one in the silicon pan was a bit obese due to no support on the sides, and seemed like it was falling in on itself.  I shrugged and walked away, being told to let it cool before messing with it. I waited an hour and went back. I took the one in the metal pan out and decided to cut off the end and eat it.  It was lunch time after all.

Uh....what?

It is hollow!  Like, a huge hole I can stick my head in hollow!  Back to the drawing board.

Shadow says "I'm going back to bed."

Green Juice Tastes Good?

Who knew!

2 green apples

1/2 lemon

1" ginger root

2-3 celery stalks

big ol' handful of kale

1 cucumber

Seriously delicious, served over ice.  

Found this and other great recipes on 

All About Juicing.com