Dogs Steal Yarn

Looks like the migration to WordPress and the new url is happening this weekend, according to The Man Behind the Curtain. This old dogsstealyarn url will automatically redirect you to the new one, which I'm not going to reveal until it's ready to go. I'm not sure how this change will affect RSS feeds. My guess is that you'll need to resubscribe to the new url. Sorry--a small bit of a pain in the ass, I know. Fingers crossed for a smooth switch, and I'll see you on the other side.

My god...my petty little problems, my teensy luxury problems are so very very small in the face of this...

Happy Mother's Day

"What was I thinking when I said it didn't hurt?"

Yeah...

When I said I had pretty much come to terms with Drowning Practice not selling, I thought I was telling the truth, but it turns out I lied to you and to me and to everyone else I fed that line.

I am not okay with it. I'm not okay with it at all.

All I've done is shifted all my hopes for that book onto the next one, now putting enormous pressure on myself to make the new book this incredible, shiny, brilliant thing that will quickly and easily find all the success and accolades that its ugly older sibling manuscript didn't find. I've been expecting the new book to make it all alright. Which is bullshit. Because it will either have better luck finding a publisher or the same shitty luck as the first book, but I'm dooming it from the start if I'm writing it with the hopes that it will somehow save me. If I'm no longer writing it because I'm moved to, and because I want to tell the story and I have questions I need to explore and answers I need to find... If I'm now writing it because I want something to happen to me, outside of the book itself and the writing...well then the book and I are both well and good fucked.

I'm crazy depressed about Drowning Practice not selling. I "failed" at that, so now I'm trying to be the best bread-baker, the best organic gardener, the best stay-at-home mom. Very seriously researching yogurt-making and home canning systems and considering making my own soymilk.

Yeah. It's gotten that bad. There is no sane reason for me to make my own soymilk.

(This is not to say I feel any differently about self-publishing or very teensy presses. The first person who suggests that route, I can't guarantee my previous good grace to. I'm in a head-biting mood.)

No revelation or decision to share with you here. It's just that I woke up to a few things today and apparently all is not well in Utopia.

So that's the news from here, for today anyway. And now, to tend to the rising bread dough. Anyone seen my apron?

First harvest

The spinach starts that I planted at the beginning of April are already ready to start feeding us. I harvested the first of it today, just taking the outer leaves to (according to my gardening books) encourage more growth. We're having it for dinner tonight. Well, we're having it as a small side dish for dinner tonight, since that amount of spinach cooks down to not all that much. But I suspect it will be the most rewarding side dish I've eaten in a while--the very first thing we'll be eating from our garden.

After a few weeks when the asparagus crowns just looked sad and dead and I was afraid I'd planted them wrong or too soon, there's finally some activity starting in the asparagus bed. Strange little things, those asparagus crowns. They won't be ready to harvest until next year.

Then we've got the plants I started from seeds. Please forgive the shots that look like the plants are in jail. I started off taking the photos with the anti-cat chicken wire in place, then thought better of it and rolled it back for the later shots:

Winterbor kale

Early Dividend broccoli

Early Wonder beets

The spinach I harvested today, pre-harvest, and to the left of it Swiss chard

Tyee spinach (and behind it, garlic)

The strawberry plants in the pot are quite happy.

As are the strawberries planted in the ground on the other side of the yard. (Beside the also-happy blueberry bush. I forgot to snap photos of that side of the yard. Sorry! Next time!)

Oh...and do you remember the strawberry plant that looked like an alien from this post? Take a look at that alien now.

That's kind of magical, isn't it? I'm hoping the asparagus crowns grow similarly more attractive with time. They're kinda freaky right now.

Not pictured, but also coming up, Napa and Merida carrots.

*Post inspired by Norma's State of the Food Garden address. She's my gardening hero

And so...

...yes. The blog will be renamed. I know what the new name will be, but don't want to reveal that just yet. Full disclosure: I decided on the new name about five minutes after I posted the entry about maybe changing it. So I guess my mind really was made up already.

I'm going to combine the name-change with the redesign and migration to WordPress that I've been threatening for ages and ages. I won't be starting a new blog--all the old Dogs Steal Yarn entries will go with us.

The new banner Xina made for me (which then sat in a digital closet while I put off the migration) now needs to be updated with the new name, and then David can move everything over. I'm not sure when all of that can happen, but I'll keep you posted.

In the meantime, I have my hands full. Toddler with a "touch of bronchitis," per the pediatrician. Have a great weekend. I'm off to baby my baby a bit more.