Sunday, June 6, 2010

5 June 1956 “Elvis, Vegetables, Dogs-n-Chicks”

Elvis is really beginning to get up steam. Tonight he will appear on the Milton Berle show. Though other ‘teen heart-throbs’ such as Sinatra caused a stir among the young, Elvis was really that beginning. I know many people like Elvis and I do to, but I wonder if this is really that beginning of the modern media machine that takes over a person and sells them to people. At this point in time, the wars are over and the youth don’t have to worry about their friends dyeing or any general fear as just 15 years earlier was a very real threat. And the sad thing about it is, the industry machine; this taking a person and marketing them as a product obviously does affect the person (Elvis died from Drugs and was very badly misused and ill-treated) Is this what music has become today? Did it start innocently enough here only to become a vehicle to create a craze to sell sell sell and simply to separate the youth from the old? Now, does each generation need to always shock to make their point or to prove ‘they have arrived’? It seems so. It is too bad that again we could not see the earmarks of where we are today in our oversold, over-produced marketed world. Why can’t music just be good and fun to listen to or make you sad and cry or make you feel impassioned or even just tap your feet? Why must it be a battle line in the sand between generations? Does that make it easier to market to groups? Twice as much revenue if more ‘styles’ are needed overall? Tweens like this, teens like this, 20-30’s like this, etc and on and on.
I do feel with our modern technology some of this is starting to crack, in that anyone out there now can be heard and are not at the mercy of the ‘big industry’. It perhaps really is a time of change, maybe we really are at the cusp of a new ‘Retro-Renaissance’ (now I better copyright that term so I can make millions every time someone says or types it, right?) I hope that we can begin to move away from the conglomeration of our species and into a new way of thinking of pure and simple joy without the care of ‘shock and awe’ or ‘Me me me’.
Well, enough of that, how about some garden talk: As many of you know, I have been busy both out in  my garden and building my structure for my chickens. They both are very time consumming and add to that my usual chores of cooking/cleaning/marketing as well as trying to keep up with our blog…well, I have been a very busy gal for sure.
My garden is coming along nicely. Yesterday morning we had waffles with strawberries from the garden.strawberries1 These are so much sweeter than store bought ( I did a taste comparison) Of course our local farm also has strawberries to pick, which I will have to take advantage of, as my little patch will not produce enough to put up jam. But, next year I will plant twice as many and hope to one day provide all I need from my home with those. Then I can spend my money at the farm for blueberries as they take up more room than I have here.
I also picked a few radishes to serve with dinner last night.radish1 These are an old heirloom variety called French Breakfast. They are meant to be long and thin (these actually could have been picked sooner) and their greens are lovely, much like the peppery taste of arugula and great on salad. Last night, though, they were so pretty in their natural state, I just served these and fresh farm tomatoes (hot house started at local farm) raw with our roast beef.roastbeefdinner Now, for those of you who don’t eat meat, this may not look very appetizing, but Hubby and I are very much the ‘rare beef’ eaters. It has more true flavor this way. And the mashed potatoes have fresh basil from my garden (It has done So well from seed, I pick from it everyday to cook with!) and garlic chives as well as some of the chopped leaves of the radish. This was just a sampling of how we shall be eating like kings come late summer!
Oh, and just for fun, some more shots of my radish. I just really enjoy photographing my vegetables and plants. There is some intrinsic artistic value to me in something that I created by planting from seed, nurturing and then documenting it.radish2 radish3
My chicks are also getting big and impatient for their new home. One set of eggs did not hatch when I originally hatched my chicks and the main I purchased them from felt bad and mailed me another dozen free. So, I put them in the incubator and out of a dozen, two hatched. I have two new chicks to add to the fold (when they get older, now they are living in a box on my desk). My little dog loves all small living things. I honestly don’t think he would hurt a fly. He loves the chicks and begs to be put in the box with them for as long as he can stand the heat of their heat lamp.montychicks1 Here he is curled up resting in the box with them. The two chicks think he is mum and when he goes in the box, run up to him to huddle under his ‘feathers’.montychicks2 This little grey one seems to be his favorite. It needed help getting out of the shell and is a little bit ‘the runt’ he watches it very carefully and will not move quickly for fear he will step on her.montychicks3 Here you can see the two little chicks ‘under his wings’. The light is red, because their heat lamp is red and we did not use a flash for this shot. So, we have many things happening on our little ‘mini farm’.
I have so many other things ear-marked and notated down to blog about, but again, I need to get back out and get to work. I hope you enjoy this smaller post and I shall next time talk more about food and I think discuss fashion. We have been having a talk of a good ‘vintage primer’ on the forum that I really think deserves more in-depth look here on the blog.
Well, happy homemaking, all.

9 comments:

  1. Unfortunately if tastes in music didn't change we'd still be beating two sticks together and singing "Duh duh duh"!! Music is such a dynamic force and as such demands dramatic change every once in awhile. That is about the cutest thing ever seeing the baby chicks with your little dog!

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  2. oh, I don't think music shouldn't evolve I just wish the corporate world now didn't have as much say in it, I feel it is almost stunted when compared to individual impetus to music which is driven by passion to create and not CREATE the next big thing to sell merch, tickets and cds.

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  3. For example, I look at this band Pomplamoose, which have no record deal but loads of talent and passion for their music. The two of them have started to make a name for themselves by using Youtube. Their style was able to evolve based on their own following their heart and their own thoughts to get a different or new sound in their music. Even though many of their compositions are remakes of more 'corporate powered big songs' it shows their taking part of our society and running with it not because a panel of exec's are telling them this is the way they should spin it so they sell more records. So, in many ways I hope we can have a movement running tandem with the 'big companies' to create music that maybe only was once heard locally to globally by Youtube (which is now a big company) but with the creative power and selling decisions in the artists hands, if that makes any sense. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xMCNmUaGko

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  4. i also had waffles for breakfast yesterday... but I went with bacon and maple syrup as it's definitely not strawberry season here... so cold!

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  5. When I think of musicians outside the mainstream and getting famous on YouTube, I think of the band that did the song known as The Treadmill Video, because of the music video they did for it where they are on treadmills the entire time. It's very cool. The band's name is OK Go and the song is actually called "Here It Goes Again".

    They're showing up on commercials and TV some, and it's entirely because their treadmill music video on YouTube went viral. It's a catchy song too.

    The roast beef looks soo good!! Beef should always be served rare, and lamb should be served still practically bleating.

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  6. monty with chicks is so cute!!

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  7. Waffles with strawberries for breakfast! How fabulous is that!? Can I move in at your house? :)

    So adorable photos of your little dog and the chickens.

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  8. Loved your last posts, including this one. One quick side note, my 4 year old daughter LOVES your post with "June is Busting out all over"! Thank you so much for posting that. SO fun! We had a hamburgers for dinner the other night and the meat was very, very rare. I thought of you and you are right, the meat tastes soooo much better that way. Love the pic of your strawberries and LOVE the red curtains in the background. Barbara

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  9. Your beautiful chicks and sweet Monty always bring a smile to my face. Isn't it interesting how totally unrelated animal species will sometimes "mother" and befriend others?

    I agree also with the satisfaction and allure of photographing fruits, vegetables,and anything else that one grows. There is such beauty and fine design in nature, that the shots could easily hang as artwork on a wall. I've signed on as a volunteer photographer for the Countryside Conservancy here in OH and am supposed to shoot the Conservancy's Farmer's Markets...so lots of interesting subject matter, especially as the summer goes on.

    As to the music industry...well, what started out as a good idea back in the early days was eventually mutated into the creativity-stifling mechanized vehicle that we have today. I've had the pleasure of knowing a very fine musician who came through the system, made it big in the eighties, struggled with the record companies wanting to tell him what to write and how to sing it, eventually he and his band decided that it wasn't worth being untrue to their nature and gravitated away from the major labels and formed their own. As he has gotten older, he has harnessed the power of the internet and innovated a monthly webcast that showcases not only his work, but work of emerging musicians. The show has garnered much critical acclaim over the last year or so. So...sometimes one has to circumvent the system these days...and I'm exceedingly glad to see such outlets as YouTube, etc. which do that. The person I was speaking of? Daryl Hall of Hall & Oates.

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