meganerinmiller

First major tomato harvest of the season

2011-07-28T23:02:00.000-07:00

So, the tomato plants are doing WAY better than I thought they would. To the point that they have taken over half of our patio in a giant, delicious tomato jungle. The cherries are especially tasty... so excited to eat these all summer long.

... and my first lemon cucumber!

Backpacking Tahoe - Slideshow

2011-07-28T22:51:00.000-07:00

Backpacking Tahoe - Panoramas

2011-07-28T22:26:00.000-07:00

Just got back from a great backpacking trip with my mom and sister. Here are some panos I made. It was really beautiful.

First tomatoes of the season!

2011-07-10T16:51:00.000-07:00

First harvest!

Can you believe it? It's like a jungle out there. With tomatoes hanging on every vine!

Green Zebra's are ripening!

Lots of cherry tomatoes...

Secret plums

2011-07-01T14:34:00.000-07:00

I just discovered a hidden plum tree deep inside the hedge out in front of our house. I only noticed because a beautiful, delicious red plum dropped into my garden all of a sudden. "Are plums falling from the sky?" I asked myself. On further inspection I confirmed that there is a completely hidden, malled, and disformed plum tree hiding among the hedge...

Where I collected some plums

following the tree trunk down the hedge

I should have noticed earlier from fallen fruit on the sidewalk

Really. It does not look like there's a plum tree in there!

inside our yard where the plum fell. rather poetic.

June Patio Garden

2011-06-19T00:06:00.000-07:00

Amazing blossom opened today!

Succulents in bloom

Happy succulents

Rex loves being outside!

Litting purple flowers on my cat mint

Strawberry blossom – it opened up an hour later in the sun

Tomatoes on the vine

Tomato blossoms, waiting for that big fat bumble bee to return...

Beautiful iris in bloom

Cucumber blossom

Strawberries reaching to the sun

Lemon cucumber hiding in the leaves

Baby tomatoes on the vine

Rex rolling on the pavement... what a goof ball...

It's a sticky affair...

2011-06-18T23:35:00.000-07:00

First jam of the season! Strawberry Preserves, with a hint of cinnamon. Strawberries from Full Belly Farm. There is nothing as divine as the smell of boiling strawberry jam...

9 baskets of fresh berries yielded 8 8oz jars and 8 4oz jars. Mmmmm!

WindowFarms at San Mateo County Fair

2011-06-11T22:50:00.000-07:00

My WindowFarms display at the San Mateo County Fair is located in the sustainable living section in Redwood Hall. I was so excited when I found this IKEA frame solution for hanging the display! It allowed me to screw the hooks directly into the top shelf of the display, and attach strings etc. where needed to properly suspend the WindowFarms.

Here are some shots of the prep-work. I built the frame and tested the WindowFarms first, then the day of installation, I prepared the plants by rinsing off the dirt from the roots, placing them in the net cups with hydroton, and loading them up in my cooler with water for transport.

Highlights from the San Mateo County Fair

2011-06-11T22:24:00.000-07:00

Who would have thought - people still exhibit their chickens, jams, homebrew, cakes, cookies, plants, flowers, and quilting? This year I am displaying my WindowFarms at the San Mateo County Fair. Today I checked out some of the rest of the fair, and here are just some of the highlights – or more accurate, characters present at the fair.

our beautiful world...

2011-04-21T22:03:00.000-07:00

The Mountain from Terje Sorgjerd on Vimeo.

Symmetry

2011-04-21T07:37:00.001-07:00

Symmetry from Everynone on Vimeo.

The Birth of a Word (TED)

2011-03-31T20:29:00.000-07:00

Wow. This is just amazing!

The Pomplamoose Revolution

2011-02-25T16:27:00.000-08:00

What a fantastic article in the SF Gate weekly that I picked up last night on my way home at the Caltrain station. I am so proud of and excited for Jack and Nataly! The article does a fantastic job of telling about how they got started, major breakthroughs along the way, and how "a band with no CDs, no record deal, and millions of fans is changing the music industry." Kudos to you, Ian S. Port!

Seeing them on the cover is particularly exciting to me, as I have always hoped they would get picked up by the media and known that their creativity and talent would get them there!

Here are two fake Rolling Stone covers I designed as a project for class in December 2008, featuring the amazingly talented Jack in his home studio:

J&N: Love you guys and miss you!

February garden: chard, parsley, chives

2011-02-20T19:07:00.000-08:00

First additions to this season's patio garden~

Plum blossoms - it's spring!

2011-02-16T07:44:00.000-08:00

Whether or not the calendar says it's spring, these last couple weeks of hot weather have definitely made it feel that way! The plum trees in the driveway suddenly began to burst into beautiful blossoms this week, though with this week's rain and wind many of them have just ended up on the ground. Either way I am sure there will be a bountiful number come summer for more jam!

Transplanting + cuttings from succulents and cacti

2011-02-15T14:50:00.000-08:00

Last week I took cuttings from several of my succulents and cacti. This is not too hard to do – here's how: Using a clean sharp knife, slice off a stem or branch at a node area. Let the cutting dry out and seal for several days (if you don't, it can get infected when you plant it). Get some cactus/succulent potting soil and bury the end of your cutting ~1 inch in the soil. Water very gently.

If your succulents go crazy, and start getting lots of dried up leaves and filling your pot, you can transplant them to a larger pot, or divide up the plant into smaller pots and let it grow more. Enjoy the pics, and happy Tuesday ~

Transplanted succulents

Transplanted cacti

mom and baby succulents, transplanted!

More transplants

Cascading Tower of Psychedelic Color

2011-02-10T13:42:00.000-08:00

This is a fun painting experiment! (really think they could have chosen more fitting music for the video though...) Wonder how specific the artist gets with choosing the order of the colors...

Rainbow graffiti machine!

2011-02-07T13:37:00.000-08:00

robo-rainbow from mudlevel on Vimeo.

David McCandless: The beauty of data visualization

2011-02-06T23:09:00.000-08:00

This is a wonderful talk by information visualization designer David McCandless ("Information is Beautiful"). His book is very interesting and inspiring, as is much of the infographics movement (of which I am taking part), and look out for more posts in this vein as I am taking an Interactive Infographics course this semester, and saving tons of links to my Delicious feed.

Yuba River

2011-01-23T20:18:00.000-08:00

Michael and I spent our third anniversary up in Nevada City at a wonderful vacation rental in the woods with a hot tub, and only 5-minutes drive to the beautiful Yuba River. We had a great hike along the river mid-morning, and took a lot of photos. The river valley was shrouded in mist and moisture, and it was overall a very magical time.

During our hike, when we reached the end of the trail before turning back, we stumbled onto a campground area that was evidently mating grounds for ladybugs. It was a rather BBC Life moment, and what a discovery out of all that blue water and mist, to see such vibrant red. Amazing – and kind of gross – I wonder if they return there every year... (scroll down for my picture, though it does not do justice to the magnitude of rocks, trees, and campground literally covered with ladybugs.)

Squishy Chewy Delicious Sourdough

2011-01-23T18:55:00.000-08:00

Above - the dough before proofing overnight in the fridge.

Below - the finished, beautiful loaves!

Thank you Michael for getting me a subscription to Cook's Illustrated! Their 24-hour Sourdough recipe helped me break through my bread barriers, and make fantastic sourdough! mmmmm!

Google Presentation tools - super cool!

2011-01-05T15:33:00.000-08:00

Look what you can do now in Google docs!

Bringing Colour to Life - a very neat ad

2010-12-06T12:01:00.000-08:00

The ad itself is at the end of the video. Some really beautiful imagery!

Canon Pixma: Bringing colour to life from Dentsu London on Vimeo.

Bottling Beer!

2010-11-07T10:31:00.000-08:00

Yvonne and I bottled our 5 gallons of Oatmeal Stout yesterday. It was an adventure figuring out the siphon. Once we got it going though, it went really fast, and I am impressed with how easy the home-brew community has made it. Instructions and equipment are really easy to understand and follow, and the barrier to entry is low with simple easy first-time recipes - really fun and affordable way to make beer. In two weeks, we'll open a small bottle to see how it's doing, but probably more around mid-December the beer will be ready for a holiday party!

Filling and capping bottles

Finally figured out we had to start the siphon above the carboy to make sure we had no air in the tube.

Five gallons of beer, for ~$30 of ingredients! awesome!

Halloween Awesomeness 2010: Xena and Gabrielle

2010-11-01T19:34:00.000-07:00

"Her courage will change the world..."

Linnea and I made the most awesome Xena and Gabrielle costumes for Halloween. It was super fun and a great creative outlet. I made mine primarily from a pair of leather pants, tinfoil, and shiny fabric, held together with staples, and decorated with sharpies. Linnea's is an orange skirt, a brown bra, and strips of fabric, beads from a belly-dancing outfit, and a kick-ass belt. We strolled through town with the theme-song playing from my iPhone.