Yardivore

by | Aug 3, 2012

I had a boss several years back who liked to establish arbitrary goals: “let’s have this project all wrapped up by the third week in July.” I imagine he was just trying to motivate me, but he had a tendency to forget assignments once given. Most endearingly, he’d get angry when you described what you’ve been doing the last several weeks: “Why would I ask you to do that?”
I no longer work there, so now I need to make up arbitrary goals for myself. I’ve run a few marathons in recent years, and that felt good. Of course what really makes me feel best is not meeting my goals. Setting goals too high means that you can be constantly disappointed in yourself. This is an important part of my personality: my mother raised me well. Or at least in her own image.
One of the arbitrary goals I’ve set myself is to start eating meat so that I can more effectively eat locally. This has gone poorly. It’s been about twenty years since I gave up my carnivorous ways so that I could fit in with the hip Ausitn, TX alterna-scene. I clearly didn’t achieve that goal either, and that feels good. A few weeks ago I tried a chicken sausage. The texture was rather off putting and it tasted very. Well, all I can think of is sweaty. Maybe the chicken was really fit.
I’m still working on that goal.
Now I’ve decided to try and eat something I’ve grown everyday. In the summer this will be easy. It should go well in the fall too. I think it will only get dicey towards the end of the winter before the overwintered spinach wakes up.
I’m hoping that maybe I’ll start a new trend. Locavore, may have peaked. Here’s a screen shot from the google trends tool:
I figure google trends is a better way of measuring public interest then just about anything else. It’s a better than a poll, because it tracks not just what people say they’re interested in, but what they’re hunting for on google: what they really want to know. As you can imagine the google trends page for nearly any sinful activity looks different from “locavore.”
Why are people from Bend and Boise so interested in being Locavores? I will tell you one thing, Portland better up its game if it wants to hold on to the most pious crown.
I’m going to start a new trend: yardivore. It’s better because 1) it has an “i” in it 2) it has all of the vowels excepting “u” and sometimes “y” 3) “loca” sounds crazy 4) I made it up and 5) it sounds more like carnivore sort of. It also isn’t on google trends yet.
There is one hit on google though: http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2010/07/jocelyn_h_chilvers_is_suburban_superhero_wheat_ridge_yardivore_kenny_bes_hip_tip.php. Apparently someone else thought of it first. Damn.
Some pictures from this week’s garden:

I had a boss several years back who liked to establish arbitrary goals: “let’s have this project all wrapped up by the third week in July.” I imagine he was just trying to motivate me, but he had a tendency to forget assignments once given. Most endearingly, he’d get angry when you described what you’ve been doing the last several weeks: “Why would I ask you to do that?”

I no longer work there, so now I need to make up arbitrary goals for myself. I’ve run a few marathons in recent years, and that felt good. Of course what really makes me feel best is not meeting my goals. Setting goals too high means that you can be constantly disappointed in yourself. This is an important part of my personality: my mother raised me well. Or at least in her own image.

One of the arbitrary goals I’ve set myself is to start eating meat so that I can more effectively eat locally. This has gone poorly. It’s been about twenty years since I gave up my carnivorous ways so that I could fit in with the hip Ausitn, TX alterna-scene. I clearly didn’t achieve that goal either, and that feels good. A few weeks ago I tried a chicken sausage. The texture was rather off putting and it tasted very. Well, all I can think of is sweaty. Maybe the chicken was really fit.

I’m still working on that goal.

Now I’ve decided to try and eat something I’ve grown everyday. In the summer this will be easy. It should go well in the fall too. I think it will only get dicey towards the end of the winter before the overwintered spinach wakes up.

I’m hoping that maybe I’ll start a new trend. Locavore, may have peaked. Here’s a screen shot from the google trends tool:

I figure google trends is a better way of measuring public interest then just about anything else. It’s a better than a poll, because it tracks not just what people say they’re interested in, but what they’re hunting for on google: what they really want to know. As you can imagine the google trends page for nearly any sinful activity looks different from “locavore.”

Why are people from Bend and Boise so interested in being Locavores? I will tell you one thing, Portland better up its game if it wants to hold on to the most pious crown.

I’m going to start a new trend: yardivore. It’s better because 1) it has an “i” in it 2) it has all of the vowels excepting “u” and sometimes “y” 3) “loca” sounds crazy 4) I made it up and 5) it sounds more like carnivore sort of. It also isn’t on google trends yet.

There is one hit on google though. Apparently someone else thought of it first. Damn.

Some things going on in the garden

I seeded this lettuce inside and just transplanted it. Lettuce doesn’t germinate well above about 70 degrees, so I started them in the basement under lights. After a few days of hardening off, I hope this will give me some lettuce in August or September.

I’ll be making some faux sriracha out of these babies. Last year’s quart disappeared pretty quickly.

The pumpkin plants have been a bug magnet, but I think I have two or three that might just make it. Luckily they seem to have kept the bugs from some of the other squashes. We’ll see.

Itty-bitty watermelon plants. Will they fruit before frost? Will anyone want to eat watermelon in October. Stay tuned!