Gamble

Farming is a gamble. A HUGE gamble. A necessary gamble. If all farmers decided to give up whenever a gamble went bad, the rest of the world would surely go hungry. This year was our first year growing peas. They are a risky crop because they don't necessarily make you money, but they are great for the soil as part of crop rotation. So, Grant was more than thrilled when his pea crop was one of the best in our part of the country. He has some 7 and 8 peas per pod pods. That is a big deal. (Or so I am told).

So, you can imagine how devastating things were around here yesterday when two major hailstorms made their way through yesterday. 

 This is one of the windows on the north side of our house. There are six sets of windows along the front of our house. Five of the six are now broken. Not good.

But this is worse.

This is Grant in his pea crop. Hours before it was above his waist. Now is doesn't even cover the soles of his shoes. This is what tens of thousands of dollars that you could have had, looks like when it is ripped out of your hand. 

Grant was surprisingly cool, calm and collected when he called to tell me what had happened. This photo was taken two hours after the storm ended. He sent me the picture and said it was funny that the hail was higher than the crop was.... I didn't think it was THAT funny... :/

So, here is the gamble. Farming is all about relying on things that are completely out of your control... it is about hoping you get rain at the right time, sun at the right time, hail never, frost never, and then hope that your crops fill out, the flowers bloom, and that there is money at the end. And all of that can be wiped away in a matter of minutes. 

In an effort to save a few soon to be obsolete pennies

I live an hour from the closest Starbucks. This is a good thing for my wallet. I am not one of those people with enough disposable income to go there every day and spend $4 for a coffee. (In fact, I don't know a lot of people with this much disposable income). I do however, enjoy what they have to offer, so I have had to learn how to make my own replacements for their yummy drinks. I have perfected my own iced chai latte. I have some chai spice that I made that I use to make it just that much more chai-y (yes that is a word). I also use the Tazo Chai concentrate that they sell at Starbucks, but I buy at Costco for a fraction of the cost.
Today is the passion tea lemonade experiment. I bought the passion tea bags, and ready made lemonade. I have just steeped six bags of tea and they are chilling in the fridge. I also just made my own simple syrup.... I just have to wait for it all to cool, and the experiment will be in the testing stages! I am excited for all of the money this is going to save me!

Layer Cake - WAS

My friend Catherine and I are the only ones of our friends that like real wine. By real wine I mean not Arbor Mist, or Boones or whatever the other crap is the rest of them drink. We have also decided that we are red wine snobs. We don't have the need to drink white. So, because of that, we decided to create our own Wine Appreciation Society. Tonight, on the menu is Layer Cake. I had the Shiraz a while ago on a date night with Grant. We took a bottle of wine out to one of our fields one night, and watched the lightning to the south of us. I really enjoyed it, and immediately tasted the different layers... hence the name I guess.
Tonight is their Primitivo a.k.a. Zinfandel. I am excited to talk wine with her, but more importantly, celebrate her birthday; a day late.