2015 Year in Review

If you have been in and social media site in the last week or so you have been probably been bombarded with year in reviews which randomly select pictures you have posted over the last year to create a montage of the last year. So you know it's that time of the year again. You would also know it is that time of the year again since I have started posting on this blog again. :-)

In January of this year, I posted my goals for the year, here. I did not say resolutions because that seems to imply binary, yes or no. You either did it or not. Resolution doesn't need to be binary but that seems to have become the norm. So in my post I called them targets. So let's review them to see how we did.

Fuel Right Program

I don't post much about work. And this post isn't really about work but about food and health. It starts off with Hyland though. This last week Hyland kicked off Good Nutrition Month. The basic goal of the month is to give up drinking soda permanently. Basically the idea is that soda provides two and half donuts worth of sugar with each glass (8oz?) and that by giving it up people would be that much more healthy.

Hyland has won company with the best perks in Northeast Ohio for several years running. As part of that Hyland provides free soda drinks for everyone. There is an irony that this month's wellness program is to get people to voluntarily give up one of the benefits. And this month's program so far has been impressive! Today, for example, we got free fruit (see picture above) and a cup for drinking water. The picture below was my take today! Tomorrow I get a free lunch!

But it really kicked off last week when on Wednesday, we had Kristen Kilpatrick, MS, RD, LD Wellness Manager at the Cleveland Clinic Wellness Center (website, google plus page (+Cleveland Clinic, +Cleveland Clinic Wellness) kick off the month with a presentation. It was a tremendous presentation with an huge amount of information.

Council Rejects Lease Settlement - No Gas Wells in the Park

As I posted here and here, Highland Heights City Council has been deliberating an resolution that would allow Mayor Coleman to sign a lease with Bass Energy to place two gas wells on property within the Community Park as part of a lawsuit settlement. This last Tuesday while I was in Chicago on business City Council voted on the resolution.

Running Late but It's seeding time

Okay, I guess I'm technically supposed to start at the end of March. So I'm running a little late, but it's still early April and it's been a cold March. And a cold start to April too. Heck, just a few days ago it was still in the 20s and 30s.

Though I'm not sure if it's still on the blog since I transitioned to blogger, but last year I got an offer from Hometown Seeds to give there seeds a try. I am getting the seeds for free for writing about them on my blog. So yes, you may want to take what I write with a grain of salt because even if I intend to write objectively, chances are unbeknown to myself, I'll be cutting them a break. I just wanted to get that out there upfront.

Did I Mention Cherries?

Did I mention the cherries from our tree are ready? Oh, right, this morning I posted about picking cherries. Yesterday, Elly, Ken, George and I were out for about an hour maybe less. As I mentioned in this mornings post, the cherries we harvested yesterday were way more than we could eat so we were taking them to the JANO Sakura Picnic.

 

 

We did exactly that and we came home empty handed. Those that weren't eaten at the picnic, people stuffed them in ziplock bags and took them home. Not a single cherry left. Sigh. We came home cherry-less. (Which was the idea!)

Picking Cherries

Over the last week or so, we've been watching the cherry tree in our backyard. It seems the time is finally here to pick them. It's a balance of waiting to just the right moment and saving the cherries from the birds.

 

 

So Elly, Ken, George and I headed out at about 11:30 yesterday morning to start picking what seemed to be the ripest cherries.

 

 

 

An hour later we had barely made a dent in the cherries on our tree. Still I think we gathered something like 500 cherries. The picture below are the cherries we gathered sitting on our stove. From this picture, you really can't get a sense of how many cherries there are, but trust me there is alot.

 

 

This is way more cherries than we can eat before they spoil. Plus, the tree is still full of 'em. We'll bring most of those we gathered to the JANO Picnic today for people to snack on. The rest we'll probably make some preserves, or jam. We might try a cherry pie.

cherries are ready!

Garden 2010

So I have just about finished planting my garden for this year. This Memorial Day weekend, I took Friday off so I could have a four day weekend. I'm glad I did as we expanded the size of this years garden in the back yard. It' probably 25' by 15' or there abouts.

Friday I spend pretty much all day tilling. I rented a roto tiller from Home Depot and started in at about 9:45. I didn't finish until about 6PM. I only rented it for 24 hours so I had to return it by 9:15 on Saturday. I wouldn't have minded going through one last time of turning the garden. But it was sufficient. It was a long day made better by my daughter's boyfriend and my youngest son chipping in to help with the tilling.

 

Seed Catalog Arrived

Just noticed that my seed catalog arrived today. I believe that I asked them to send me on via the web. Considering the fact that the weather is clearly getting warmer - it was gorgeous today here in Cleveland - it's time to start planning for the garden.