Spring Doings and Plannings

Some of y'all might be wondering what I'm up to. 
Some of y'all know what my plans are in general, and some are still in the dark because plans are still close to the vest.

So here are some general things that are going on. Some of you will know how these fit into my larger plan, and some of you will just have to be patient until I can reveal all.

I've got my spring garlic count! 90 made it through our harsh winter.  I lost some, in places where I didn't get enough mulch on top of them.  But 90 is still respectable. If I get 3 big cloves from all 90, planted this fall, that will be around 270 garlic plants up in 2015.  My crazy old lady co-gardener was surprised to see garlic in the plot this year. Most people around here are when I tell them what the plants are.  :-) It just means I'll have a monopoly on the market when the scapes are ready in June.  The scapes may be about all we eat or sell of this crop. Well, those and the smaller cloves I don't want to plant. This crop is meant to be the seed garlic for a larger cash crop next year.
My daddy asked me if there is a large market for Iowa garlic. I believe there is. My farmer friends at Coyote Run Farm, south of Des Moines plant something like a half acre of hardneck garlic every year. They have a picture of baby Rowen and I out for one of their garlic planting parties in 2009, so I know how much they plant. I know I will not be anywhere near that level. I also know they sell out every year.   The trick is nice big bulbs, and tasty varieties. Those two things are impossible to find in grocery store garlic. Get people hooked on the deliciousness that is locally grown hardneck garlic, and they'll never go back to the sad little grocery store garlic.

My cold frame performed well again this year, in all of its DIY glory.  The last frost date is this week, (and true to form for this spring, we have a frost chance for Friday) and my spinach has been producing like crazy since the beginning of May. Another week and we'll be buried in lettuce, some of which was also in the cold frame and is beginning to crowd out the last of the spinach.

My farmers market in town continues it's downward spiral.  This year the Chamber of "Commerce" has decided that it won't start until JULY 2nd!!  For fucks sake!  The other local markets are already starting, we went down to the opening weekend for Sioux City's market this past Saturday. And sure, it's no July market, but people were THERE! Vendors had greens, onions, eggs, meat, transplants and crafted goods. Customers were THERE! Why our Chamber thinks May and June don't deserve market times in our town, I don't know.  I strongly suspect it's because they are fucking morons.

Moving on. I've decided I will still register as a vendor and go in July-Oct.  I've also decided I'll start when I have the produce to start, and damn their official start date.  I'm making my own sandwich boards to offset the lack of city support for earlier selling dates. (Their limited support of the market includes signage along the main highway through town pointing motorists one block North to the market location.)  A big shout out to my dad, who brainstormed a bit with me on the sandwich boards. I got a start on them this past weekend, and my rusty woodworking skills came back to me. I even remembered to buy sandpaper and sand the boards before applying the primer. *high five* I'm making them really solid so they should last quite awhile. I'll be adding other things to my market stall this year. A scale is top of the list. I scored a big food-grade tray last year in a trade with a fellow market vendor, so that will find uses this summer. If I have enough of the chalkboard paint left when I'm done with my sandwich boards, I might make up some small boards for labeling prices/varieties of veggies.

In the fun news category, I'm signed up to run in another 5k this summer. The Color Run in Omaha in mid July.  I've been out jogging a few times this spring, in between the rains and storms. So far I'm running better than I did at the beginning of last year, much better. So, I didn't lose it all over the winter. Looks like this week might actually let me start the 3 times a week training that I did last year. If things go to plan I'll get to run with my younger brother, the ex-Marine. It sure would be nice to have a good time with him, it's been too long. And knowing that I'll be running with him will certainly keep the pressure on during my training.  Us two, competitive? ....yea.   :-D

So there's what's going on right now. We're keeping busy and holding on. How are things with all y'all?
-Jennie

My first 5k!

Well, I  (sorta) did it. I ran in my first 5k this weekend.
The Sioux Falls Glow Run.

I asked an old friend, and experienced runner, to run it with me, and he graciously stayed by me the whole way. Thanks Schwenk!  I had fun. I think he did too, in spite of everything.

It was disappointing in some ways. I didn't get to really test myself for the 5k distance. The organization was too poor, and there were multiple choke points during the run that we had to slow to a walk to squeeze through. It took us 42 minutes to get back to the finish line, and I had only trained for a time of 26 minutes.  So, the last 5 or 10 minutes I was just tired, and had to do some walking to give my legs a rest.

I didn't have a bit of trouble with my asthma though, and I'm not terribly sore today, so I think if I do another one, I'll be pretty close to running the full thing. It would be nice to run another one just to try again at running the full thing.

Have I mentioned I may have become a runner? I have never liked it. Ever. I was one of those students in high school that intentionally scheduled enough AP courses that I could opt out of PE and the running that would entail. "I'll run when someone is chasing me," was a favorite line. So, I've never ever gotten this far before. And training the last couple of weeks was ... dare I say it.. fun. Every run, it seems like, something hurts. Something is tired, or crampy or sore, and I have to get past it. And every time I do, I feel great. 0-5 minutes, always feels disjointed, ungraceful. 5-10 minutes is when I usually have to let go of whatever is paining me, run through it, but I'm starting to feel warmed up and not so disjointed.. And then there's this time period from like 20-26 minutes where it just feels great. I have my pace, I have my breath rhythm, and I'm just running, and I've never experienced that before. It's peaceful in some ways and cleansing in some ways, and triumphant because I've overcome my lazy inclinations, my little pains and I know I've done good for my body. 

I thought running would be more similar to my biking, in that I would just feel like I had a good workout.  But it's more than that, and that's been a nice surprise.

So, I'm going to keep at it, at least for now. Will I buy expensive shoes? Go without shoes? Try for something longer? I don't know. Maybe not.. but I'm not ruling anything out at this point. 

Thanks to everyone for the support. 

Official run time: 41:32   (lol, and by official, I mean that's what my watch said, as this run had no tracked time keeping.)

- Jennie

Meeting Goals

I'm counting down the days till my 30th birthday.  1 month exactly is all I have left of my fabulous stint as a twenty-something. Honestly, I'm fairly proud of the last decade. It's been an amazing journey, I've had a lot of fun, and I've worked really hard. The start of my 20's I was a stripper, trying to make my way through my last couple years of college. I dodged a bullet when my roommate's pot growing operation got busted, and that was a tricky year that followed. But, I fought to stay in school and graduate, and I made it, albeit with few prospects for an engineering job at the time I walked across the stage. The troubles kept me in Ames for one more year, and that was the year that saw love blossom with the man I'd eventually convince to handfast with me.

This weekend we'll celebrate 5 years together as a common-law married couple. <3 nbsp="" p=""> Two kids. Two beautiful boys. The eldest is already accelerating towards the big kid ramp. The youngest, just yesterday he was a babe in arms, and now of course, he's chasing after big brother as quickly as his chubby little legs will take him.

Some goals have fallen by the way-side. I'm not a rising star in the salsa scene. I haven't left the country since my study abroad trips in college. My kids aren't bilingual. I'm not a xenogeologist. Although, technically that last one died before my 20's.

Some goals are works in progress. My student loans are still massive. But I've paid off the car and 98% of the credit card debt. Home-ownership seems like a pipe dream at this point, so far away and so unlikely, it's not even worth the title of "goal." How can we save for something like that? I get 4 checks a month, one of them goes to rent, one of them goes to student loans. That leaves me 2 checks for everything else. And we do save. We have a savings plan. But all it does is keep us from drowning during normal emergencies, (car repairs, family visits, root canals..) we can't seem to hang on to any of it for long enough to build on it. ...   That got depressing, let's move on.

Some goals are being met. I ran a full 20 minutes last weekend. That's 2+ miles, and definitely 1 mile farther than I've ever run in my life. That same day I set up at the farmers market and sold out of everything except bok choi. It was only 30$ worth of garden bounty, but it was MY garden bounty. Urban farmer... it's not an organic CSA with regular paying customers.. but I'm proud of the start and determined to build on it.  The small start also helps to defray the costs (in time and materials) of growing my own food. Having non-GMO food, free from pesticides, herbicides and fungicides is worth the trouble, but it's nice that I can finally make some money from it too.
I've learned to quilt, and learned to knit.
I've learned yoga, belly dance, and lots of salsa moves.
I live with people I love, in a house full of things that I've created, surrounded by green growing things that sustain us all.
I've found my footing as an engineer. The road for this one has been rocky from the beginning. I don't know why 17 year old Jennie got so scared of the geology path. I don't know why I thought computer engineering would be a good fit. It never really has been. Sure I have the smarts for it, but let's be honest, I don't have the passion for it, and probably never will. I don't care about technology, I'll pick hand tools over gas powered anything, every time. I haven't missed my personal cell phone, and feel no need to get a smart phone. So while I have found that I can competently start up giant factories, pumping out consumer goods and pet food, I find I have little interest in the work, or the goods produced. I'd rather be digging in my gardens. How that dichotomy will play out over the next decade remains to be seen. 

I'll be running a 5k to celebrate my birthday next month. You're all invited. :-)
Sioux Falls Glow Run
August 24th, 9pm at Falls Park.

I may do some tweaking to this blog, just to keep it current, so don't be surprised if the look changes a bit.

I may set some goals for the next 10 years, any thoughts on something I should add to that list? :-D

Take care y'all.
-Jennie

Exercise is a Pain in My...

Well I did my first run post-babies this week.  Not that I was a huge runner pre-babies. I wasn't. Asthma and an injury to my right knee curtailed what little jogging I did, and I never made it further than a mile at any one time.  I'm starting with a couch to 5k training regimen, even though "couch" perhaps isn't the best description of my level of fitness. (But, maybe that's just ego talking.) It's mostly interval training, with the first couple of weeks being just 20 minutes at a time, consisting of an alternating run/walk. The easy lead in will hopefully allow me to get my lungs and knees worked up to the unfamiliar tasks of running. My legs are telling me quite clearly today that running uses different muscles than walking and gardening and biking. But, the pain is low level muscle ache stuff, and not sharp-hurt knee pain.

Why run now?  It's a combination of things. 1. I found a blog written by an asthmatic runner, and it has given me some techniques to try to mitigate that drag on my running enjoyment.  2. There's a wellness challenge at work to run a 5k this summer. 3. I need something intense I can do for 20 minutes in the morning, because that's the best time I have for non-garden related exercise.

So, I'm registered for my very first 5k, in August. It's going to be my 30th birthday present to myself.
http://sioux-glow.com/   Of course, I picked a glow run. :-D For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, a glow run happens at night, on a course with both regular and black lights.

Registration is now open on active.com for August 24th, 2013.
Register Now
What is Sioux Glow?
Sioux Glow promises to be one of the most talked about 5K Run/Walk experiences in South Dakota. On August 24th, participants will wind through downtown Sioux Falls starting and ending at Falls Park. We light up the dark with glowing runners making their way through this scenic 3.1 mile course. The 5K is followed by a post-race after party featuring live music and a beer garden (for those participants who are 21 and over). This after party is open to runners and for a small cost to non-runners. This evening promises to be a BLAST so grab your friends and come GLOW with us!
What about the route?
This course consists of 3.1 miles of glow in the dark fun where you will find multiple black light zones, glow stations and thousands of runners decked out in their best glow gear. The Glow Run will also feature DJs cranking out “fist pumping” music to keep you motivated along the way. The course ends at the Falls Park where the band will be playing and spectators will be cheering, welcoming you to the after party.
This will all take place outdoors in Falls Park.

 Doesn't that sound like fun!
 Hopefully the next couple of months of training will go well.
I have some cute new running clothes headed my way to help motivate. The old maternity lounge pants and 5 year old sports bra are barely cutting it right now.  I want to go get a medical alert bracelet that has my asthma listed on it, just in case. Even on the first run, the new strategies really seemed to help, I didn't wheeze at all, and I got pretty huffy-puffy. Still, the medical alert bracelet will give me and hubby ease of mind.

I'll keep y'all updated as the summer progresses. Come and join me if you feel inclined! The more the merrier.
-Jennie