Hi Paul, How are you?

I ran in to your dad the other day as I was walking down Wilber. We chatted for a while and he was singing your praises, telling me about your big promotion at work, your beautiful house, and your wedding. He also was very proud of Mike and his new job.

He showed off the vegetable garden and he explained how he has to mow the lawn every three days to keep it neat. It does look very nice indeed. But Kenmore is not the same as it used to be. Is that because there are black people who live there now? Remember how there was only one black student at Kenmore West when we went there?

I couldn't help but remember how he used to get so mad sometimes. He is so much more mellow than he used to be. Probably because of the brain tumor.

I'd love to see you some time!

i can't believe how horrible it is to be pregnant. i am certain i am not the only one who has felt this way, but i really don't know anyone else who has expressed just how bad it really is.

i know myself pretty well. i have been aware of my body and always been healthy. but now, from energetic and competent, I have digressed to being exhausted and disabled.

i have gained one pound so far, but my clothes do not fit me because my body has gone haywire. all of a sudden, about 1 week ago, i started getting fat. i feel like a blob.

the worst physical change is that my boobs have gone from a size 32C to a fucking 32E. i've already gone up three sizes and i can't even begin to explain how uncomfortable it is to have those things hanging off of me all the time.

and i know it's just going to get worse.

i used to sleep a normal 7 or 8 hours a night. now i sleep 12 hours a day (yes, half of my life!). and when I am awake, i am almost always tired.

people have started to say congratulations to me. i want to scream that i hate this and don't want to be congratulated. this is such a burden. i didn't know it was going to be like this.

the indianapolis colts were my favorite team this year (sorry, bills, but you have become my second choice), and sadly, they lost now in the wildcard playoff.

new orleans, my third favorite team, also lost today.

i don't have anyone left to root for.

I have certainly taken a liking to my chickens. It all started when I got 10 hens for my birthday this April. Our flock has now increased to 48 birds.

My latest additions were 3 of these buff brahmas (this is not my photo, but it shows what they look like). They are the sweetest girls ever! They LOVE people and are the friendliest of the 9 different varieties that we have.



But, they are HUGE!!! I think one of them weighs about 9 pounds. In contrast, my White Leghorns (which is your standard everyday, factory farm, egg-layers) weigh around 4 pounds each.

I can see the economy of raising 4 pound chickens instead of large chickens. I'm already spending $20/week on food! Yes, that is over 50 pounds per week, although they do eat much less food when there is no snow on the ground and can forage for themselves.

the other day, i watched a documentary called Beer Wars. good documentary; it seems that in a lot of ways beer is a few years ahead of vegetables in terms of big vs. small, as the craft beers are growing in popularity.

but there is a super-villain in the beer industry. and the short story is that i vowed never to drink another budweiser or anheuser/busch product again in my life. they are evil.

i broke that promise only two nights later, tonight.

i wanted to get some beer for me and mark. i drove to the beer store to pick up some OV, old vienna, for $7/12 pack. (the cheapest, best non-anheuser/bush product in a 20 mile radius, at least.) when i went to check out, the cashier informed me about their special on budweiser-select 55: only $7/24 pack! i am pretty poor, so this was absolutely too good to pass up.

i let down my principles so quickly. (i got both the O.V. and the busweiser select 55)

but it seems that anheuser-busch had the last laugh. budweiser-select 55 has only 2.4% alcohol. that is like drinking one water for every beer. (OV, and my other favorite beer, Labatts, are both 5%)

here's an update on my life. perhaps i will get in to blogging again, as it's the "down season" (as long as my mac holds up, anyway)

we grew over 40 different vegetables this year. big winners were corn, tomatoes, hot peppers, and greens.

the farmer's market downtown was great.....when it didn't rain. it is absolutely horrible when it does rain. it is terrible to have to bring all that produce home.

this convinced me that we need to start a CSA next year. we're starting small, aiming for just 12 families this year. we will still sell at farmers markets, but the long-term goal is to grow the CSA because people at farmer's markets are so fickle. for now, we will only distribute from our farm directly.

one thing i LOVE is our chickens. mark got me 10 hens for my birthday this april. they are fun, and i view them as pets, not livestock. anyway, the eggs were a *huge* hit at market. so we got 30 more chickens this october, and they will start laying in march or april. the chickens live in the barn, where our farm is, and we have moved in to our house, about 4-5 miles away, in town.

it is much easier to make money from selling eggs than it is to sell vegetables. we have yet to make any profit on the farm (this year, our expenses were very high, and last year our harvest was poor). mark and i are hopeful and confident that year 3 will turn this around.

so i work as a bookkeeper on the side (i really like doing this, and i hope to expand this business.) and i also do income taxes. i do not like this job at all, but the seasonal work is exactly what i need.

so far, it's been a great growing year. our garden has vastly expanded, and our knowledge has grown even more. plus, it's a lot of fun to be your own boss.

i wanted to let everyone know that i am selling at the downtown buffalo farmers market on thursdays. it's on main st, near lafayette square from 8am-2pm. so come over to say hi if you're free.

i have sold out of veggies almost every week (turnip greens, however, did not go over very well). we make about $100/week, which i think is pretty good for our second year of this enterprise.

mark and i are buying a house. we are just in the early stages. basically: we made an offer, they accepted. we're going to the bank tomorrow, getting the home inspection on Sunday. this is very exciting!
i really hope it works out, we love the house, it's the perfect location, it has room to expand for our future pets and kids, and gives us a great base from which to run our farm.

i really needed a job, so i went to the temp agency. it turned out that they liked me so much that they asked me to work for them, at their agency.

i now have a job giving other people jobs. i actually really like this job. and they really want me to stay.

i now have a dilemma.

i've been studying income taxes so that i can be an income tax preparer. i thought this would be the ideal job for me while i spend much of my time farming. pretty much because
1. tax season is January 15-April 15, which won't interfere with my farming
2. i am really good at math
3. i already know a lot about income taxes
4. the training only cost $80 (after reviewing my life, i realized that the only thing i regretted was wasting so much money on education that i didn't end up using)

i suppose i don't have to decide what to do soon, but i am wondering if i should stay at this job or actually switch to an income tax preparer job.

we were protected, at least for a lot longer than most farmers, especially the organic farmers, who can't use poisons to prevent the disease.

but late blight came to our farm this week. one week ago, our tomatoes were perfectly fine. but today we were forced to pull all of our 450 tomato plants. the signs appeared on tuesday. by thursday, i was fairly convinced, and friday i was sure. it took me a full day to convince mark, but he gave in today as well.

late blight is a disease that exists all the time, but it doesn't usually appear until after tomato season ends (after the first frost). but this year, a major distributor of seedling tomatoes (bonnie plants, in alabama) delivered infected plants to walmart, lowes, kmart, and other large stores in that vein. so everyone who bought their plants from those stores got infected plants. and although we had started organic plants from seeds, we eventually got blight, because the disease travels by air.

rochester has had no tomatoes this year. and pretty much everyone east of us didn't have any either. it is really sad.

we were actually lucky. despite the cold, rainy weather, we got to harvest vine ripe tomatoes for about 10 days before we got the blight. we got about 50 pounds of fresh, red tomatoes and enjoyed every single one of them. they were so good! i love tomatoes!

today we harvested the remaining green tomatoes that did not have signs of blight. about 200 pounds. they will ripen inside, but never taste as good as they would if they were ripened on the vines. 450 plants should give a harvest of about 4000-5000 pounds. we pulled the other plants out of the ground, because keeping them there would only help to spread the disease.

here are some photos, although the disease doesn't show up nearly as well on the photos as it does in reality. there are black splotches on the stems, the foliage is dying, and the fruits have darkened, leathery splotches. it is suggested that anyone noting this disease pull their plants right away. there is no cure, not even pesticides or fungicides at this point.



close up of green tomato. the "dead giveaway" sign of late blight is the white powdery substance, which contains the spores that are widespread by the wind.



nasty partially red tomato that rotted away, also containing white powdery spores.



our large harvest of green tomatoes.



beautiful harvest of heirloom tomatoes from the previous day.

despite this problem, will we grow tomatoes again next year?

hell yes!