Long Life

Do This Now, day 1... and also ramblings about how I can sometimes be offensive and need a humility check.

2011-11-14T09:59:00.000-08:00

I had a conversation with a friend recently that made me feel really good. She said, "can you write that recipe down for me? Actually, just write down everything you do. Ok? Thanks." It was sweet. Do I aspire for people to want to be exactly like me? No, I aspire to live a productive, clean, thrifty, resourceful life. But a little vindication never hurt. And inspiring people to make changes for the better always feels awesome. Anyhoo. It inspired me to start posting more tips.

But first, some rambling...I have this habit of learning things, doing things, routinely doing things and then expecting everyone to know how to do said things. I'm sure it annoys the living daylights out of people who are around me. Sorry people. I had a moment like this on Saturday when a bunch of women from church got together to do crafty things. Several women were making aprons out of dishcloths. Most of the women making them were brand new to sewing. I walked by and said to the woman teaching the class, "what a cute and easy project!" It was meant to be a compliment to the woman teaching but one of the women struggling through her first sewing project looked really offended. I felt bad and tried to mend the situation by saying, "I mean what a cute, simple, er, I mean basic, uh..." Open mouth, insert foot. I can be a real ass sometimes. But honestly I feel like my ability to quickly learn things, retain them, and utilize them in my everyday life is a gift from God. In fact I know it is, so here's hoping the tips in the following posts are helpful to someone, somewhere.

I'm going to attempt to post one tip a day...until I run out of things to post. Hopefully this will last for at least a month. Or maybe I'll forget and it'll last 2 days. Bear with me. My hope is that you'll be able to use the tips to better your life, green your life, simplify your life etc. etc. Best of luck to you. I think I shall christen this project, "Do This Now." Because the idea is that the tips are things you can incorporate into your life now. Today. As I proof read all of this I feel it comes off very pompous, that is not how it's intended. Humility anyone?

Tip 1: Stop buying paper towels. Just do it. I have this thing that I like to do, which my husband really hates...but eventually he comes to terms with it and often ends up loving it because it saves us money. I like to see how long we can go without something that we think we NEED (I am currently attmepting it with plastic wrap and the Mr is going through some withdrawls. Nothing we can't handle though). It's in the same vein as, "make it do or do without." It started with paper towels three or fours years ago and has since spread to other things. Suffice it to say, we haven't bought paper towels in three of four years. It has forced us to think of alternative ways to clean up messes and such. Most of the time a dishcloth works great. I'll be the first to admit that sometimes, you really just need a paper towel...for example when you need to wipe up spilled nail polish. And for such times as this I offer this advice...save the paper napkins from when you go out to eat (and they give you like 20 million) and use them instead. Or an old sock. Or a raggedy t-shirt. Be resourceful. If we can do it, so can you. If your home is already sans-paper towels try it with something else.

Homemade Baby Wipes- The Smart Person's Version -and also some stuff about beets.

2011-10-03T10:52:00.000-07:00

Hello blog followers. What a relaxing weekend we've had. However relaxing weekends make for busy mondays. What a crazy cluttered house we now have. Caroline refuses to sleep without being held. She's been kind of a teething beast lately. So the housework waits and I guess I'll just have to snuggle her while blogging. What torture.

Meanwhile Jonas has books to put him to sleep.

I thought about doing a cloth wipes solution post but since this site just covers it so well I'll direct you there instead. I like the castille solution recipe. Target even sells Bronners soap now so there are no excuses.

While researching cloth wipes and how to make them I found a lot of intense multiple layered/topstitched/fancy pants homemade wipes tutorials. No thanks. Have I mentioned that the pregnancy was taxing? I think so. I was not up for that. So what I did was cut up an old flannel receiving blanket (with which we were overrun) into 16 squares and serged the sides. (I do not have a serger so when I say serged I mean I used some serge-like stitch that my machine has. And when that became too time and thread consuming I switched to just zig-zagging around the square twice. I am nothing if not efficient.) The cloth wipes work very well and hold up great in the wash. This is the way to go. Do not waste your time with all of that topstitching nonsense. Old baby washcloths also work great. Don't over-think it. Why people feel they need some fleece/flannel/hemp monstrosity to clean a baby butt is beyond me.

I should also mention that we have two spray bottles, one with the solution and one with water. Spray the butt with the solution, wipe, spray with water, wipe, done. This is my method. Others prefer just soaking the wipes in the solution and leaving them in a wipes container. Do what you want. As long as you use the wipes within a week you should be safe from funkiness. I also recommend using essential oils that have antibacterial properties like tea tree and lavender oil to further quell any of the aforementioned...funkiness.

What else is new you ask? I've discovered how wonderful raw beets are in smoothies. It's also fun to juice them. Yesterday morning I juiced some beets and found Jonas licking the juicer spout after I'd moved on to blending. Yum! My father-in-law (who is often dubious of the things I eat) saw the smoothies and said, "so you've just started drinking blood then, huh?" Yep.
I'm excited to go buy some beet seeds this afternoon and plant them. How fortuitous that they are in season.

My Life: Be Jealous.

2011-09-30T14:11:00.000-07:00

I'm alive! It's the truth. Though just barely (no not really, I'm fine). Since having Caroline my life has not been the picture of health that I wish it to be. I wound up in the emergency room a while ago with bad chest pains. It wasn't great. They immediately ruled out any sort of heart problems rather quickly, which was good. But it took the doctors another 10 or so hours + a switch in hospitals + x-rays + blood tests + a cat scan to rule out a blood clot in my lung. That was terrifying. Every person I saw kept reminding me that it "could be fatal." Thanks Hospital staff! Like this stabbing pain in my chest just isn't terrifying enough. They were great though.

We took Caroline to the hospital with us since she refuses to take any sort of bottle. And that was all I could think about the entire time: Caroline won't take a bottle! What is Greg going to do?! Greg, promise me that if I die you'll make your mom retire and watch the kids! I will not have my children raised in daycare! I used to work in daycare! Some of those people are monsters!

Yeah...it was a fun day for Greg too.

So what DID I end up having? PLEURISY! And no, not the lung-filled-with-blood-and-fluid kind, just your simple inflamed lung kind. Thats me. Keeping up the tradition of contracting old people diseases while still in my twenties. I normally enjoy great health with random bouts of afflictions normally reserved for the 50 and up set. I'm looking at you Shingles.

So what else have I been doing lately besides not blogging and resting my old lady lungs? Well...

-Making myself an accidental super glue glove while attempting to glue part of a kitchen drawer back together. Seriously my hand was covered in super glue. I'd be lying if I said it didn't have it's benefits.

-Playing hangman. Jonas's favorite new game. Meanwhile trying to stave off his incessant questioning about why the game ends in a person hanging. "Uhhh...it just means you lost. Pick another letter."

- Planning ways to keep Jonas entertained (see above). Two years before this kid can start kindergarten and he can read, do simple math, and recognize each individual state by shape alone. A few weeks ago I awoke to him teaching himself how to read the names of the states by cross-referencing a US placemat and a 50 Great States book from the dollar section at target. He's pretty much a genius. I am learning so much from him! Did you know that Delaware was the first state? (You did? Well I didn't! Thanks a lot Highlands Elementary School.) I told Greg I plan on getting Jonas a bunch of anatomy books from the library. We could have a little Doogie Howser on our hands people! A LITTLE DOOGIE HOWSER! I think we can all agree that this is very exciting and likely. (sarcasm).

- Feeding the She-Hulk...though perhaps string bean is a better nickname since she's not so much husky as she is long. FYI: Yankee Doodle is her actual nickname. Anyway...she literally eats every hour on the hour some days (and nights). Meanwhile women I associate with talk about stretching their babies eating schedules to three hours and four hours. I'm against schedules for wee babies. They're hungry! Let them eat! ...This may be why I consistently produce chunky babies.

-House shopping! We're still in the super fun stage of finalizing our loan and looking at cute houses. So I'm pretty excited. Though I've had to give up on the dream home to beat all dream homes so everything else will inevitably come in a sad, sad second best. It was beautiful. On 16 acres. COMPLETELY off the grid. We could get a cow! It had a creek running through it. A CREEK! Sadly the creek was part of the downfall. The house was down a long dirt road...the creek ran through part of the road...if it rained the Mr wouldn't be able to get to work...sadness now consumes my every waking moment. Not really. We're house shopping! And the house that is right for us is bound to come our way. I can feel it! Meanwhile I will dream of retiring to the dream home to beat all dream homes. A CREEK!

I realized yesterday that it's been a year since we started trying for a baby. How quickly time flies. Man alive did that pregnancy do a number on me! Every day I feel a little bit more like my old self. Jonas and I have started planting the winter garden. We make all of our bread again. Some of the wash gets hung on the line to dry (mind you not all, I have a three month old you know!). We've started using cloth wipes in addition to cloth diapers. So easy! Why didn't I do this with Jonas? We're back to green smoothies for breakfast. We walk places. We do pilates. I've discovered the many virtues of Bon-ami cleanser. So yeah. Life is getting back to normal and it feels amazing! Congratulations on making it to the end of this super-post.

The one where I complain about my new, wonderful life.

2011-07-27T14:21:00.000-07:00

I've titled this picture, "Baby with finger mustache." And as you can probably already tell this isn't go to be a REAL blog post...just me rambling...yet again. Holla!

Holy crap having two kids is hard. It really makes you start to question the sanity of people with three, four, etc. AND I'M GOOD WITH KIDS! I remind myself daily that it'll get better. Someday the laundry will be done. Someday I won't have a tiny screaming person attached to my boob every second of every day...and I'll miss the hell out of it. But right now all I can think about is how nothing seems to be getting done. Jonas has suddenly turned into a crazy person. His new favorite phrase is, "I don't care." And he's suddenly decided to start wetting the bed every.single.night. Oh, and totally peeing his pants in the middle of Barnes and Noble. Awesome! Here's to never cleaning out the car and thus being able to find a wrinkly pair of brown pants for your kid to wear into target so you can buy infant tylenol because your hulk-ette is already teething! Yay!!! What happened to my sweet little three year old boy? He broke a lamp the other day...then threw a hotwheels at my head...then dropped a bunch of rags in the toilet. I get it. Kids act out. But I miss being able to make juice and muffins every morning and spend the day hanging the wash on the line and reading picture books. I'm just sayin'.

On top of everything we're also having our roof completely re-done. It's super fun. Caroline really loves the loud banging. I'm pretty sure the workers think I'm a child abuser based on Jonas's recent penchant for unprovoked, blood-curdling screaming. Oh, and they've seen my boob at least three times now while walking past the sliding glass door, the one with the broken blinds, because as I mentioned earlier...the wee one feeds constantly. How I love that adorable pig-child. Seriously she's cute. Though I'll probably think otherwise tonight at two, when all she wants to do is party.

In other news the chickens started laying eggs. Also, I've started doing Zumba in an attempt to get rid of this baby sag. Though the amount of chocolate I consume these days surely negates such attempts. I bought a bunch of new clothes at the thrift store the other day...because nothing fits. SURPRISE! The newer, bigger clothes don't fit either! What the crap? I sat down and cried...this was also the day Jonas started melting down. Coincidentally ALSO the day the hubs was at comi-con...Boy did he come home to a barrel of laughs! We had egg sandwiches for dinner and I've taken to wearing elastic waist skirts. How's your life lately?

Caroline Camellia

2011-07-01T13:54:00.000-07:00

So after 36 hours of hard labor -no joke- Thirty.Six.Hours. That's what I get for insisting on a VBAC. I'll be honest and admit that at one point I told the nurse, "screw it, let's just do a c-section." BUT! I said that because, 1: I had been in labor for a really long time. and 2: Because the best doctor ever was going to be leaving soon and the doctor from hell was going to be replacing him and I'd be damned if that woman had anything to do with the arrival of my child. Seriously, she was evil. She yelled at me, I yelled at her, nurses yelled. It was a super pleasant birthing experience. But thankfully, after hearing the story from one of our nurses the best doctor ever agreed to stay late and deliver our baby no matter what. See what I mean? Best doctor ever! If it wasn't for him I wouldn't have gotten the VBAC I was hoping for. Anyway...don't I look wonderful? This picture was taken around hour 32 or so.

Our tiny girl is here! The nurse's first words upon her arrival were, "wow she has a lot of hair on her lower back! Luckily it's blonde!" How lovely. Also, it's not blonde, it's brown. Here's hoping it falls out!!!

And by "tiny girl" I mean, huge girl. I guess the Mr and I only make one type of baby. Slightly smaller than her brother, Caroline weighed in at 9 lbs 3 ounces and 22 and a half inches long. The longest baby our nurse had ever measured. We heard someone exclaim from the hallway, "that's almost two feet long!" Yep, that's our baby.

At first her face was quite swollen, and she looked identical to Jonas when he was born.

But now that she has recovered from being born she's starting to look like her own little person. Though she still looks a lot like Jonas...and just like my little sister Kellie, when she makes her grumpy face.

She, not unlike Jonas, skipped the newborn phase and went straight to 3 month old. So many cute little newborn outfits went completely to waste. Here she is in her 3-6 month clothes.

Jonas absolutely loves her! While riding up in the elevator to see her in the hospital he said to Greg, "I think she will be sooo sweet." He was right. When she cries he's quick to respond by patting her and saying, "Oh you poor little baby." Who knows where he got that one. Another phrase he uses at least daily is, "look at how tiny her little booty is!" So complimentary.

Now we're all just relaxing at home. Enjoying the Mr's paternity leave and eating my weight in food every day. Because guess what? I CAN EAT AGAIN! and it is glorious. Jonas asks me every day when I will be skinny again. The other night at dinner he announced excitedly, "you're skinny now mom!" Then amended his statement to, "well not that part (motioning towards my stomach) but your feet are skinny...just your feet...and your toes." I'll take what I can get.

The nurses and everyone involved in Caroline's arrival were WONDERFUL!!! With the exception of Satan Doctor, mentioned earlier. Caroline's full name is Caroline Camellia. Camellia like the flower. Her middle name was decided on in the hospital at the last minute, but after two weeks (yeah did I mention she's two weeks old already?!) I still like the name so it worked out. She had her two week appointment yesterday and has exceeded her birthweight by 9 ounces so she's well on her way to being a chunk like her brother was. Better start building up the arm muscle!

P.S. Remember how I thought I'd have tons of energy and time to do things after the baby arrived? Well I wasn't completely crazy. Jonas and I planted a late summer garden earlier this week!!! Hooray!!! Now if the tomatoes could just ripen before it gets too cold.

Pregnancy, Gopher, Rooster...Our Lives of Late

2011-06-09T16:08:00.000-07:00

If I really loved you, gentle reader, I would dig through my bag packed for the hospital, find my camera and take some pictures to post. But I don't forsee that happening. So how about a photo from days of yore. Look! My garden used to produce food! This is from last years garden. Unfortunately there's no current photo to compare and contrast, mostly because I don't usually take pictures of dead plants. Just imagine 70ish square feet of mostly naked soil with dying plants in it.

I think we successfully killed the gopher. Either that or he got bored and moved to the neighbors yard. But not before he was able to eat and/or destroy everything. What a curious gopher he was, he left the strawberry plants alone (yet tunneled under them enough that they're barely hanging on) but he ate all of the onions and almost all of the garlic. Funny, since those are the plants recommended for keeping gophers away. FAIL! Anyway, there are no new mounds appearing, which gladdens me. I'm slowly moving the strawberry plants to the opposite side of the yard and mourning the loss of this years bounty. Maybe after the baby is born I'll find time to plant some stuff. HA!

Which brings me to the next topic: this kid is still in me. It makes me rather cranky sometimes. I'm so tired of having the same conversations (with strangers) over and over and over (and over) again. I want to be able to go shopping and not have to talk to every. single. person. "no it's not twins," "no it's not triplets," "due june 14th," "it's a girl," "2nd baby," "thanks for saying I remind you of a zeppelin." I ran into a fellow pregnant woman at costco earlier this week, she's due the 18th but is having a scheduled c-section tomorrow. TOMORROW! Damn her for having her baby before me, especially since she only looks like she's 6 months pregnant. I realized after I got home from costco that if I hadn't fought the doctor for a VBAC I'd probably be having MY baby tomorrow. So I only have myself to blame. I still really want a VBAC...then again I also really want to eat food again, and not have to wear my husbands largest shirt because absolutely nothing else fits over the zeppelin-esque belly. See what I mean? Cranky.

One of our chickens is a rooster. Did I post this already? He has found his voice and then some. He crows incessantly from 5:30AM til 7PM. I'm really surprised none of our neighbors have attempted to kill him. Then again there's a peacock farm on the edge of our neighborhood, and those things go all night long. Especially during mating season, which we are in the throes of. So maybe one little rooster isn't so bad. Our across the street neighbors actually like the peacock farm, they say, "it's like living at the Wild Animal Park." That will be my defense for the rooster, "it's like living on a farm!" I've tuned the peacocks out for the most part and only really notice them at 3am or when we have company over and they ask, somewhat startled, "what the crap was that sound?" The rooster is slated for our dinner table anyway, in about a month. Jonas is excited. When I asked him what he wanted for lunch today he said, "how about we eat the rooster, mom?" He's asked me on several occasions to explain to him the slaughtering sequence. What you do first -chop off the head. Where the organs are -inside. Where inside -all over. What you do last- chop off the feet. Why- so you have something to hold them by while you pull out the feathers. This prompted a response of "I don't ever want to grow feathers mom!" Which prompted a discussion of the differences between birds and mammals. Ahhh the education of a homestead life. I'm pretty sure he'll grow to need therapy.

Finally, a post with pictures.

2011-05-25T13:42:00.000-07:00

This blog has been sorely neglected. Not unlike everything else in my life lately. Basically right now we're all just focusing on keeping our heads above water until this baby comes! I seem to have delusions that I'll be able to get so much more done once she's out of me. While the crazy vomiting that was ever-present in the beginning of the pregnancy has subsided I still have a love/hate relationship with food. I love it. It hates me. I feel sick all of the time regardless of what I do or eat. Obviously the only solution is for this kid to come out. Luckily that is quickly approaching!!! Less than three weeks til the due date, and less than four weeks til the mandatory scheduled c-section (lets all hope she comes before it gets to that point!) This wee one seems far more eager to arrive than the last one, then again she could just be a tease. Doc says the baby's shaping up to be about nine pounds. She seriously doubts the baby will get all the way to ten the way Jonas did. I've heard such promises before. Jonas was supposed to be, "8 pounds at the MOST." Whatever, I've got no problem with nice, big, sturdy babies.

And now the promised pictures.

Here's a picture of how fat I am these days...and by "these days" I mean, like a month ago.

Here's a picture of my kids face with marker all over it. Dry erase does not come off little kid skin as easily as one would think.
Here is a blurry picture of a doll I made for our friend's third birthday.
Here's a doll I made for our other friend's fourth birthday.
Full body shot. The little cape comes off. Adorable, right?
Here's a table runner I made my mother-in-law for mother's day. I've been meaning to make this runner for forever and I finally got around to it.
A little bit closer picture of the fabrics used.
Here's what the easter bunny left Jonas.
Here's Jonas thrilled with "easter hunting," as he calls it.
Here's Jonas actually hunting. We practiced hunting for about a week before easter actually came...and continued to hunt long after.

That's our life lately. There's actually a lot more lying on the couch and sleeping than is pictured here, but you get the idea. Our chickens are doing great. We call one Houdini Chicken, because she manages to escape from the run no matter what we do. They eat scraps like champs and somehow managed to completely destroy their seemingly indestructable waterer. So there are trade-offs. The eggs should start rolling in around August. The garden is not to be this year. Which KILLS me. We have a gopher. I hate him. We bought poison but have yet to stick it into his hole due to lack of reassurance that said poison won't toxify the soil. Toxify? You know what I mean. He's eaten a large chunk of what was planted. I pulled out several plants and fed them to the chickens just to spite the gopher. I really do hate him. Jonas hates him too, and asks every day when we are going to kill it. I have doubts about how healthy this is, but the kid's pretty upset about his pea harvesting being cut short. And lastly, we're all recovering from a horrible cold that Jonas spread around our house. When it rains it pours. This happens every time I let him ride in one of those shopping carts with a little police car on the front. Seriously. Every time.

Our Baby

2011-02-09T15:12:00.000-08:00

It's a girl! I know I could have posted this a long time ago but decided to keep everyone in suspense. Honestly though, the reason I haven't posted until now is because I pass out at about 8 every night. She's sucking the life out of me!
We're very happy that this one is a girl, since she will be our last, and it's nice to have one of each. We have absolutely no idea what this child's name is going to be. I have names I like, the hubs has names he likes, there are even names we both like! We just can't pin it down to THE name. I hope she's a red head, I deserve to have a child that looks like me, since the boy is so clearly the spitting image of his dad. Down to his toenails, no joke. I've been told he has facial expressions that are similar to mine, but it's not really a consolation. Those paternal genes are hard to break. It's ok though, he's cute...like his dad.

Pregnancy Slogan

2011-01-23T19:42:00.000-08:00

Here's a new pregnancy slogan I came up with today after church. Pregnancy: the only time people think it's "socially acceptable" to say things like, "wow I'm so glad you're fatter than I am!" I admit the slogan is still a little rough around the edges, but you get what I'm trying to say.

People keep saying crap like this to me. To make it worse OTHER PREGNANT WOMEN keep saying crap like this to me. The line from the slogan was actually said about a month ago. Today another pregnant lady flattered me with, "You're really poppin' out a lot more than I am these days." Thanks.

The saddest part is I am way smaller with this baby than with the last one. Hopefully that means this one will be smaller. Nothing against ten pound babies but...they are HEAVY! Especially when they hit 20 lbs by the time they're 2 months old. Trust me, I've heard enough jokes about how my breastmilk must be heavy cream (from people who I'm only mildly acquainted with) to last me a lifetime. Seriously you wouldn't believe how many people said something like that to me. They all thought themselves very witty. Uhhh...please don't comment on what you think my breastmilk is like, it's awkward. Boy I'm cranky.

I'm Back!

2011-01-17T10:20:00.000-08:00

Some of you may have noticed that I took a brief (four month) moratorium from this blog. It's because I've been a little bit preoccupied. Puking my guts out. Who doesn't love four months of that? The Mr and I (and Jonas) are expecting baby number 2! The last and final child. No WAY I'm signing up for this again. Last week I overheard a pregnant woman say that women who are sick when pregnant need to, "just get over it." It was all I could do not to strangle her.
It's been hell to say the least. I keep going back and forth between which is worse, the overwhelming sick feeling/constant malnutrition/dehydration bit or being utterly useless. For four months I haven't been able to do much of anything, which can wear on a person. You should see my house. You should see my garden. I, myself, am afraid to look in the chicken coop. The Hubs has been AMAZING, doing laundry, housework, shopping, learning to cook, being my constant nursemaid, cleaning puke out of the carpet and all with nary a complaint. What a stud I married!
My in-laws have been great as well. If not for my sweet, sweet mother-in-law poor Jonas would have gone without much of a halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas because goodness knows I've been in no shape to cook or make a costume. She also scrubbed my kitchen to within an inch of it's life, made us dinners, shopped all over to find whatever I wanted, took Jonas so I could rest. And that's just the beginning. I'm so grateful to have married into such a wonderful family, and to live so close to them.

So that's been my life for the past four months, just gestating away on the couch. But now I'm feeling much better, fighting the tail end of a crazy cold and constantly snacking so I don't puke but it's miles from where I was. I'm so ridiculously excited to be able to clean my house and get back to life as it should be. Jonas has been begging me to plant peas with him in the garden. The kid loves his peas.

I don't mean to complain, I've really learned a lot this past season. Mostly about myself. Not the least of which, how blessed I am. And to blatantly steal from Modern Family: I wouldn't make a very inspiring disabled person. Seriously, I've really taken for granted what a gift it is to be able to work, to vaccum, to plant a garden, to cook a meal.
So in conclusion, we look forward to welcoming another bundle of joy in mid June! We find out what the sex of the baby is tomorrow!

Happenings and Lentil Stew

2010-09-16T09:09:00.000-07:00

"MOM! I caught a chicken!!!"

It's been a crazy few weeks aroung here. Jonas andthe chickens got sick last week. Separate illnesses. Jonas had a flu bug, most likely from sticking a child strap from a grocery cart in his mouth. YUM! And the chickens had Coccidiosis. Which, as it turns out, is horribly gruesome. The inside of the coop looked like a bloody horror film. I hunted down some Corid (albeit for cattle, but I diluted it in their water and it worked like a charm) and now the girls are back to their old, noisy selves. Still no eggs.

The garden is winding down. Jonas and I are out there every day (per the usual) clearing things out and prepping for the winter garden.

I may (or may not, who can remember these things?) have mentioned that the Mr and I are going to be trying for another baby. Jonas is NOT happy about this and makes no bones about it. He tells me almost daily, "I do not want a new baby to come to our family. Just me!" There are different variations of this. Boy is he in for a rude awakening. But I digress. The reason I bring up the impending pregnancy is that this week I am doing a detox in preparation for it. It's going splendidly! It's not an intense detox or anything, no lemon/syrup/cayenne/water craziness going on. Just super healthy, raw stuff. Well, ok, raw food and beans. Because lets face it, beans are good for you and I'm not going to exclude them. I've been having green smoothies for breakfast, salads for lunch, lots of fruit, and tabbouleh and things for dinner. I'm not playing this detox hard and fast so don't judge me. I had lentil stew last night. It was WONDERFUL! So here's the recipe. Obviously I made a few changes to the recipe so it would be "detox friendly." Veg stock instead of chicken and no bacon. Enjoy!

Chickens

2010-08-23T11:13:00.000-07:00

We finally got our crap together and our chickens are here! They are even more awesome than I ever imagined. We only have two right now. Two Rhode Island Reds from my pal Ingrid. (Thanks Ingrid!) We plan on adding one more pullet later.

Jonas named one Brownie -because it's slightly browner than the other chicken. And he named the other Ginger -because it's the name of the main chicken on Chicken Run...and he's a little bit obsessed with that movie. But the name ginger totally fits because the chicken is burnt orange in color.

This kid LOVES the chickens. I'm starting to become slightly worried that he thinks he's a chicken, at least on some level. The chickens roll in the dirt, Jonas rolls in the dirt. The chickens scratch in the compost, Jonas scratches in the compost. The other day he came inside asking for a new shirt...because his current shirt was soaked with filthy chicken water. Oh yeah. He drank it. We monitored him closely for signs of chicken induced diseases for the first few days, because I'm just a little bit paranoid. More than once I've caught Jonas chasing them around with a scrubbing brush (terrorizing is probably a better word) saying that he needed (NEEDED) to brush their hair. What am I going to do with this kid?

The chickens seem very happy. They run to us when they hear our back door open and follow us all over the garden. They finally found the compost today, after exploring the yard for several days. Chicken Heaven. Their favorite place seems to be underneath one of the green bean teepees. Go figure. And their favorite treats are the sprouted legume/grain mixture I've been giving them, and tomatoes they find on the ground.

We've had a few predator run-ins. One morning after letting the chickens out of their coop I went inside to fetch laundry to hang on the line. When I returned there was a hawk watching the chickens from our garage roof. I threw a zucchini at it and it flew away (anyone who says they're overrun with zucchini isn't thinking of ALL it's practical uses). Then THREE more hawks flew out of our neighbors trees. We haven't seen them since but SHEESH! That night a skunk sprayed our coop. The chickens were safe inside but oh my. Who knew that skunk spray smelled like fire at point blank range? Tis true. Mercifully the smell had completely dissipated by the next morning.

In other news...remember my last post, how I rambled on about the strange weather? I've since decided that this blog has magical powers because it has been 100 degrees outside EVERY DAY SINCE. What is that about?

So how are your lives lately? I was having a facebook conversation with my friend Siobhan the other day about chickens. I told her Jonas and I had spent the entire day outside watching the chickens, interspersed with bits of hanging laundry on the washline. Siobhan also has chickens and totally gets how awesome they are. "We're livin' the dream!" I think is an exact quote from that conversation. And we totally are! And while the phrase "livin' the dream" is fine I read a line on another blog today that I like even better, "life right now is dope as hell." Indeed it is.

Summer So Far

2010-08-17T10:39:00.000-07:00

I've been a lame-o again. I can't even remember the last time I posted on this blog...and I lack the motivation to go and look at the previous post. Anyway. I've been extremely busy -isn't everyone?

Well over a month ago I went camping for a week with a bunch of girls from our church. It was quite an experience. These were my cabin girls for the week. Sometimes they were awesome, sometimes they were downright rotten. But I loved them through it all. At the end of the week they were awarded the "Night Owl/Party Cabin" award if that gives you any idea of what the week was like.

Here's a shot of me and my pal Cous Cous (no,not her real name) waiting to go home. We were ready.

Camp was fun, but back on the homefront this has been happening every other day. Keeps me busy canning and pickling and roasting and dehydrating and freezing.

The southern california weather this summer has been the strangest I can remember. Perhaps strange is the wrong word, but "cold" doesn't exactly fit either. Anyway, it's been the coldest summer since the 1930's. While not frigid by any means it's still unseasonably cool. 70's most of the time, when it's usually in the 90's and 100's. The plants are loving it. The tomatoes haven't had a bit of blossom drop, there was a small bit of blossom drop with some pole beans but they're back to normal already.

At the beginning of the season I planted equal numbers of small red and yellow tomato plants. Red and Yellow jelly bean tomatoes and red and yellow pear tomatoes. I didn't keep track of which was which, and only planted out the strongest seedlings. I don't know what happened but EVERY SINGLE small tomato plant is yellow. Even the volunteers. Maybe they just like the weather better, or the soil, or the yellow plants are stronger by nature. Whatever happened we're up to our eyeballs in yellow jellybean and pear tomatoes. What a hardship:)

Here's a shot of our sunflowers! I have a spot of soil that is riddled with fusarium wilt. It's hard to find things to plant that are unaffected by it. Sunflowers are one of those things. So voila I planted a bunch of black oil sunflowers to feed our impending chickens. They look beautiful! This is not the best of pictures, they obviously need a good watering. So just take my word for it. Oh, and the bees LOVE them. Hooray for pollination!

Speaking of chickens... Here's the coop we broke down and purchased. I'm VERY happy with it. While the other coop we received is AWESOME, it needed some work to be chicken ready, and a run, so we just bought this, though we'll probably be keeping the other one as a place for baby chicks when the time comes. Anyway this new coop...LOVE it! Love the size and attached run and pull out tray for cleanup. While the run is small it shouldn't matter too much since we plan on free ranging the chickens and the run will only be used on specific occasions. Plus it's the perfect sized chicken tractor for our yard. The benefits are just endless. Can't wait for the chickens! Can't wait for the eggs. Can't wait for the weed and insect control. Can't wait for the MANURE! Stay tuned.

Simple Gifts

2010-06-29T17:32:00.000-07:00

We are truly blessed people here at the homestead. Seriously. If we want for something it appears. Almost like magic. Almost. But it's not magic, it's our kind family, or neighbors or fellow church goers.

Our washing machine gave up the ghost yesterday. Out of nowhere, it just decided it had had enough of laundry. I hear that, am I right ladies? I had to wash and wring all of the laundry that was midcycle when the washer quit. Of course it was a load of jeans. Sheesh. I have learned the hard way that women of yore had MUCH stronger hands than I. But the father in law called this afternoon and a new one will be here by friday. Amazing? I think so.

I've been thinking about teaching myself some basic piano but have been procrastinating actually doing it because, well, we don't have a piano. It's a dying art it would seem. In our church congregation I think there are two people that play. So they're stretched pretty thin when it comes to playing for meetings. As I've mentioned before I'm partially in charge of the youth in our ward. We always sing acapella in meetings because nobody plays. How sad. A few weeks ago a lovely woman in our ward came up and offered to give us her 90 year old baby grand. She's the wife of the man who gave Jonas the classical music guys. Anyway, it's the cutest piano you've ever seen. I am in LOVE with it. Now to get it to our house.

And the last blessing, that arrived just today. A CHICKEN COOP! As I said in an earlier post we've recently received the go ahead for chickens. On Friday my husband's boss, who also lives around the corner from us -and across the street from the inlaws- offered to give us his chicken coop. He built it himself and I am impressed. He and the hubs brought it down today and it is a thing of beauty to me. I took pictures but, alas, they won't load since Greg installed some sort of somethin' when he got a new camera for his birthday. Boo. But the pictures will be up soon. And you can all voice an opinion on what color I should paint it. I'm thinking yellow, but don't let that sway you.

Anyone else out there feeling blessed?

Hands Down Most Awesomest Free Knit/Crochet Pattern Site EVER!

2010-06-27T20:46:00.001-07:00

I was reading a blog post a few days ago by a woman who lives in CALIFORNIA. She was very concerned about the impending winter (uhhhh...). To the point that she couldn't enjoy the beautiful weather we are enjoying. I'm sure you are all as befuddled as I am...impending winter, it's june! Also, winter in so cal, not that terrifying...quite balmy actually. So she's probably a bit nutty. My husband probably thinks I"m a bit nutty too. Here's why. A few days ago I started crocheting something. Nothing out of the usual there. The hubs asked what I was making, and when I told him it was a sweater his response was...OOOOOOOK. He left off the "weirdo." But I knew it was implied:) But what better time to crochet (or knit) a wonderful winter sweater than while you're enjoying crappy summer television?! Also, sweaters don't crochet (or knit) up fast people! So by the time I'm done it'll be time for wearin'! Perfect.
I searched and searched and SEARCHED online for the perfect sweater pattern. Nice crochet sweater patterns are hard to find, and if I'm gonna put the effort into it, I better be flippin thrilled with it, am I right? After stumbling through lots of free sweater pattern sites I finally hit upon this beauty and I HAVE to share it with you. I don't know why I didn't find it sooner but it is heads and tails above the other free pattern sites. Seriously it makes the other free patterns look like something the cat dragged in. I practically bookmarked every project, and there are hundreds! My absolute favorites are all knit sweaters but I'm just not advanced enough in knitting yet to attempt an adult sweater. But crochet is another story. While this is my fave.
I also LOVE this little number and it's what I finally settled on (sans the buttons, I've got different buttons in mind. And it's not grayish but off white) It's great because I plan to be expecting our number two little bundle of joy come this winter and I think this sweater will accomodate that nicely.
So enjoy the site! You're welcome.

Summer Time

2010-06-27T15:00:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the lack of posts. Summer is a time-thief. Jonas and I spend almost the entire morning in the garden these days. I LOVE that. We come in around noon so he can eat lunch. Though he's always too full of sunberries and green beans and cucumbers and tomatoes to eat anything so I don't know why I even bother.
Proof of Jonas snacking away on green beans.
The plants growing around the new citrus trees are growing taller than the trees. Is that a problem?
Lemon Cucumbers. LOVE them. Jonas and I eat them like apples, right out in the garden.
The sunflowers are all about nine feet tall! The birds in the yard love to land on the leaves and peck away at them. At first I thought grasshoppers were eating the leaves. Turns out the sparrows find them delicious. Who knew?
The long island cheese squashes (seed purchased from seedsavers.org) are coming along nicely.
We'e getting zucchini in all shapes and sizes these days. The cross pollinated volunteer zukes are all pear shaped (none pictured here). But they all taste the same so who cares?
We've been sneaking some time in at the beach also.
Jonas is completely OBSESSED with classical music. At first the hubby and I were proud, now we're just over it. He begs to listen to it ALL DAY. EVERY DAY. And when he's not listening to it he's humming it...loudly...to a grocery store clerk. Or "meeping" it as seen on the muppet version of ode to joy. Anyway, the reason this picture is relevant is because a nice older gentleman in our ward heard that Jonas loved classical music -because we were at his house and Jonas was going on and on about beethoven and "bastian bach." So this nice man gave Jonas a set of plastic classical composer busts. Jonas calls them his "classical music guys." The Beethoven one has an angry face, per the usual. So the other day I look at Jonas who is sitting in his highchair making this face and I ask him if everything is ok, to which is replies, "I'm making my Beethoven face, mom." Duh. That kid is a crack up. Or as he says, "a crack out."

CHICKENS!

2010-06-13T21:22:00.000-07:00

We got the go ahead for chickens! It's like Christmas morning...if christmas morning include looking at coops online for two hours! YAY!!!

I Have A Family Here On Earth, They Are So Good To Me.

2010-06-01T20:19:00.001-07:00

I've been somewhat discombobulated lately...in case you hadn't noticed. But nothing too dramatic, or even remotely dramatic. Today I just felt, lucky. Or blessed if you prefer. Could I have a better life? I think not. Seriously, I am livin' the dream. I spend my days with Jonas, coloring, making bread, hanging the wash, staking the tomatoes. Greg did all of the laundry over the three day weekend, without being asked or even hinted at. My Jonas asks me every day to plant seeds with him in the garden. He says, "Mom I like your pretty pretty dress." He will make some woman very happy someday. The Mr tells me, "you look really nice." He already makes this woman very happy.
Jonas's favorite song at the moment is Families Can Be Together Forever which I sang to him once at bedtime and he's begged for ever since. He already knows both verses, and belts them out while grocery shopping. Jonas has started demanding what he calls, "being a family." This consists of the three of us either hugging or snuggling really close. He asks for it at least once a day and we love it. "Mom, let's be a family on the couch!" Who could say no to that?

The garden is booming, our home is filled with love, we're planning to add more love and some chickens. With all of this a happy ending seems redundant.

Everybody Wants Some (You Want Some Too) Cue The Dancing Hamburgers...Bad Better Off Dead Reference...

2010-05-27T14:03:00.000-07:00

The theme of this week is: everybody wants a piece! I said this to my friend Nikol on sunday when she asked why I was half an hour late to Sunday School. Walking from the chapel to Sunday School I was stopped 5 times! I'm very in demand, in case you haven't heard. But I'm sure I'm not the only one who has been stopped 5 times on their way to Sunday School, or anywhere else for that matter. In addition to working with the teenage girls at church I was also recently asked to co-head a community garden for our church congregation. And I was informed on Sunday that I am a member of the activities committee by default since I work with the youth, shoulda read that fine print. Anyway, my house is a wreck because it seems like every waking moment is spent doing and planning and going to meetings and such things. I'm not complaining, just busy and excited about new things that are happening, especially that community garden! Still, the housework suffers. This morning I succumbed to the messy house and stopped begging Jonas to pick up the dominoes, and watched The Jane Austen Book Club while I made train tracks out of dominoes with Jonas, who, I might add, has actual train tracks but obviously prefers dominoes. My life can't be too busy if I can watch a movie on a thursday morning. Right? Actually I did run on the treadmill for 20 minutes during the movie, and we ate breakfast, so it wasn't a total waste.
I was in a meeting a few weeks ago, regarding working with the youth in our church and one thing that was said struck me, "some things matter and some things don't." Yep. This is my justification for not vaccuming all week. That's right. All. Week.
Aaaaaand, the phone just rang, I've been asked to go camping for a week in July with a million teenage girls. When you're hot, you're hot.

How's your week going?

Bread!

2010-05-18T12:40:00.001-07:00

I've been making our bread for almost two years! I still can't believe it's been that long. Anyway, I've learned a lot about making bread in the past two years, please benefit from my experience.

First and foremost, there is no such thing as good, homemade, entirely whole wheat bread. It can't be done. I don't care what you say about hard white wheat versus hard red wheat, etc. etc. It can't be done. It can't I say! I've tried damn near everything I can think of (and then some) and every single time it ceases to rise and I am left with a bread brick.

That being said, all white bread is not good for you, and as my good friend Ingrid points out, it's disgusting when it sticks to the roof of your mouth...like superglue. Indeed. So, here's how I make bread, works like a charm every time:

Dissolve 1 Tablespoon of yeast in a quarter cup of hot water. I used to use a candy thermometer to test the water, until I realized it's not life and death, just feel the water with your hand, it should be warm enough to dissolve the yeast but not so hot that it'll kill it. I've never had yeast die on me so don't fret.

When the yeast is dissolved add two cups of lukewarm water or milk. I usually use water, unless I'm feeling fancy, it's so hard to get the milk temp just right. And by "so hard" I mean, It requires an extra dish...and dishes have to be washed (sometimes BY HAND! can you believe such cruelties exist? I've been washing every.single.dish by hand all week, it takes forever. The new dishwasher was installed today! HOLLA! It is a thing of beauty, but I digress.)

Add two tablespoons sugar or agave, or honey or molasses or whatever sweetener/yeast food you desire. Add two teaspoons salt, to keep the yeast in check.

Add 1 cup wheat bran, 1 cup flax seed meal, and 1 cup white flour, stir until it's smoothish. Add 1 more cup white flour and stir it for five minutes or so until it becomes stretchy and the gluten begins to develop. Contrary to what many believe yeast is not entirely responsible for the bread rising A LOT depends on the gluten in the bread, stirring at this point and kneading later develop the gluten and will give you a loftier, prettier loaf.

Add another cup white flour (or wheat flour if you want) and dump the contents of the bowl out onto a floured surface, knead in the remaining 1-2 cups flour, it's not exact just knead flour in until it's not so sticky, if you fear the dough is getting too stiff with flour but still is quite sticky then stop adding flour and use a little oil on your hands to knead the dough. This works brilliantly. Some people suggest that 20 minutes of kneading time is ideal, others say it's impossible to over-knead bread and that the longer you knead the better. Just knead the dough until it's smooth, if you have time (and desire) beyond that to keep kneading, go for it, otherwise move on.

Grease the mixing bowl (or don't. The world won't end if you don't) and put the dough back in to rise, cover the bowl with a wet cloth. The wet cloth is somewhat important because sometimes dough can form a thin crust type surface that inhibits the rising. After it's doubled in size (like a half hour to an hour) divide the dough in half and form it into log shapes, let it rise for another hour or so in greased loaf pans, when they're almost bread loaf size bake them, they'll rise a little more as they bake. Bake at 375 for 30ish minutes. They're done when you tap on the top and it sounds hollow. Enjoy!

It's About Time

2010-05-17T21:41:00.000-07:00

So, sorry the blog has been super lame lately but, well, these things happen. I would tell you that I lost the camera, and felt hesitant to publish pictureless posts (because that's the truth) but honestly how many times have I used that excuse? It's startin' to look a little thin. Anyway, found the camera! Things in the garden have been keeping me on my toes. Also I helped my BFF Nikol put in her very first garden, exciting stuff. And I was put in charge of a gardening bulletin board display at church. It's been a month for gardening, to say the least. We're beginning to enjoy the fruits (and vegetables) of our labor, we had zucchini orzo for dinner last night, and jonas and I have been eating the first few strawberries and green (or purple) beans right off the plants. Can't wait til everything's coming full force. I broke down and bought a harvesting bucket (at target for like 2 bucks, you can't beat that) because the kitchen collanders we used last year were less than ideal. Now we eagerly await things to fill them with.

Here's our avocado tree that was started from a pit YEARS ago. Who thought things would turn out so well? Finally it's in the ground!
What a face!
Our herb garden in the works, I'm really pleased with the way it's starting to fill in. You can see the raspberries in the background. They've certainly taken off this year, 20 new plants at last count, and all from last years 1 plant!
Check out the size of this chard root. I finally dug up the super chard about a month or so ago. It was a sad day.
Our newest cleared spot. Eventhough it's halfway into May I have just gotten around to weeding and mulching this bed. Honestly it's not my favorite, eventhough it gets the most sun of anywhere else in the yard, a large chunk of it is riddled with fusarium wilt. Life's just not fair. But the tangerine tree is coming right along, as you can see all of the weeds went toward mulching said tree.
I'm staying my hand and allowing the lettuces to go to seed...hence I'll have seed for next year.
This is one section of our square foot garden, shown here are Sunberries, Sunflower, corn, beans and alyssum.
Here's our square foot garden from afar. It is a thng of beauty. I keep saying to my husband: LOOK HOW PRETTY OUR GARDEN IS! I just can't believe it, after living here for 4 years we're finally cookin' in the gardening department.
Our pitiful little three sister's garden. The soil in this area hasn't been worked as much as other areas of the yard. It sorely needs some mulch, maybe I'll get to that tomorrow.
A row of tomatoes, including: brandywine, beefsteak, yellow pear, jelly bean, speckled roman and other random heirloom varieties. I took this picture a few days ago and already the plants are much bigger. I dug a few out today and transfered them to my mother-in-law's garden. They were just too crowded.
Jonas kept saying "picture me by the strawberries, Mom! Picture me by the strawberries!" The kid loves his strawberries, and his awesome sesame street underpants...perfect for swimmin'!

Hope all is well at your homesteads!

Anything Not Pertaining to Elephants is Irrelephant

2010-04-08T07:38:00.000-07:00

I should really be cleaning the kitchen...or the bathrooms...or the living room...or folding the laundry...

Last weekend I attended a double baby shower. One of the women was having a boy and the other a girl. Since last week I also had to finish up easter projects I needed something quick to make for a gift. After searching and searching on google for a stuffed animal tutorial I came up with these myself. Pretty cut and dry, two elephant shaped pieces, sewn, stuffed, embroidered. The best part is they cost next to nothing to make! The gray fleece was found in a Joann's remnant bin forever ago and both pink fabrics are from thrift store sheets. I'd like to make more to put up in my etsy shop (it would be great to finally get SOMETHING in there) but have yet to find the time, the garden is quite demanding this time of year. There are 9 pregnant women in my church congregation all due by october, so there are quite a few baby showers coming up, I better get crackin' on the baby gifts. My bff Nikol and I are the only young, unpregnant women left in the ward. I swear if one more person tells me it's my "turn" to get pregnant I will punch them in the face. Seriously, right in the face. But I digress. Here are more elephant pictures.

As I said in an earlier post, there are potatoes cropping up EVERYWHERE. I've been pulling them out all week and on tuesday I got a pleasant surprise. These!
Potatoes under a potato plant, who would have thought? We had them in a chickenless chicken soup...since we're all sick at our house. I'll admit it's a pretty measly harvest, but let me remind you that none of these potato plants were planted intentionally. They all came from the compost. Next year I'll purposefully plant them in the compost and anticipate a heathy harvest, since I know they love growing there.

Here's a rambling story about garden promises I've made myself...and broken. Remember the chard that never stops giving that has actually stopped giving to go to seed? I'm sure you do, I never shut up about it. It was actually a sad, runty little chard to begin with. I was actually going to pull it out to make room for more zucchini last year but decided to leave it alone, mostly because after spreading a truckload of mulch I lacked the motivation to bend down and pull it out. And look what came of it! See, sometimes laziness really pays off! But that is not the point of this story. After seeing the chard take off I vowed to never pull out a productive food plant, no matter how small, if it's still producing leave it be. The same goes for volunteer plants, oh how I love them, they always produce more food than puposefully planted ones. Well obviously I've broken my promise to myself in pulling out all of the potatoes, and yes I regret it. Who knows the bounty I could have harvested if I had left them alone. I've learned my lesson...again...and this time the hard, potato-less way. Don't make the same mistakes I do. Anyone else have fun volunteer or victorious underdog plant stories?

Goings On

2010-04-01T07:00:00.000-07:00

Well the Spring garden seems to be wrapping things up slowly but surely.

Here's what we reaped from half a square foot of carrots. The other half of the square foot was just as bountiful and the other square feet lived up to the standard.

We didn't freeze any carrots because Jonas promptly ate them. The day we harvested them Jonas ate 8 big carrots and a string cheese for lunch. Lunch of champions.

Why has the chard grown so tall? And stopped making leaves lower down?

Here's why, because it's going to seed. Dun Dun DUN! I'm very sad about this. In mourning even. This trusty little plant (big plant) has fed us almost every day this past year. You just can't beat that.

But fear not, the little chards are coming right along and will be keeping us well stocked in no time.

Potatoes are springing up EVERYWHERE this spring and it is quite inconvenient. This was supposed to be a grow heap for squashes and melons, but squashes and melons are not good companion plants for potatoes and I can't get the dang things to go away, no matter how many times I hack them to the ground. So it will be a grow heap for potatoes and tomatoes instead.

Here are the fava beans. I'm not quite sure what they are doing. They've been making blossoms for about a month, but not a bean in sight. What is that about? They're lucky they're a nitrogen fixer or I'd have pulled them out long ago to make space for a tomato or two.

Humus In A Hurry

2010-03-31T14:23:00.000-07:00

No, not hummus...Humus! Humus is the long lasting remnant of decaying organic material. It improves soil structure and increases water retention. Gardens LOVE humus. I actually read a blog once where a woman was so desperate for humus in her soil that she put a bunch of compostables through her kitchen blender. Yikes! Here's a way to get rid of weeds (and their seeds) and make wonderful garden humus in a hurry (and by hurry I mean two weeks...this is sans blender, people).

About this time each year the weeds are going crazy. I just can't pull them all before they go to seed. Observe: And of course just throwing seedy weeds into the compost pile would leave their seeds unscathed and prepared to sprout in next year's garden. I know there are those out there who feel my pain. Here's what you do. Put all of your weeds into a bucket. I usually tote a bucket around with me while weeding and when it's full move onto the next step. The next step is filling the bucket with water and covering it. At first it will look like this: Cover it with whatever you want, this step is to essentially keep mosquitoes from spawning. I even used a pizza box once with a brick on top. I like to keep things classy. Leave your bucket to rot (lovely) for two weeks. Here's what it looks like at the end of one week: At the end of two weeks it should be good and black and ready to be poured into a compost pile or garden bed or lawn or whatever. Be warned, it smells like death. Seriously. But in the end you'll live through it, it'll kill all of the weed seeds and your soil will be all the better for it.

i have the best friends ever

2010-03-28T16:43:00.000-07:00

The re-posting begins. So as stated in the previous post I was a dummy and erased a TON of blog posts. But I have the best BFF ever. She painstakingly (and time consumingly) copied all of the missing blog posts from her google reader into an email for me...without being asked!!! Couldn't you just cry from joy? No? Well I could. I'll start re-posting things soon -as in, immediately after this post if the wee one keeps sleepin- I appologize in advance to you followers for inundating you with previously read material. Bear with me. And a million thanks again Nikol, surely this will pass into legend.

And, I am twice blessed because my friend Ingrid's husband Richard left me 4 trash cans full of good black compost.

Make that thrice blessed, my husband and father-in-law got me a nice truck bed full of compost from a place up the street.

I'm in heaven. I told my husband it's like Christmas morning. And it totally is.

Yesterday I traded a large bowl of lettuce and 9 tomato seedlings with the aforementioned BFF Nikol in exchange for three large bags of oranges. How lovely. We had orange juice with breakfast. Nothing beats the feeling of growing your own food, or raising it, or swapping it. The wee one is waking. Look forward to post flashbacks soon:). It's probably best I go, dinner don't make itself, am I right? :)

Life Lately

2010-03-26T14:18:00.000-07:00

Sorry the blog has been somewhat devoid of pictures lately. I (or was it the Mr.) have lost the camera charger...and the camera is dead...so there you go.

Things are going great at our house! I'm busy making these for jonas's easter basket, and also a set of these
Now when I say a set I mean, I'm not making any of the whole-egg kind, but crocheting 6 of the egg-opens-to-reveal-baby-chick variety. I'm making 6 chicks in 3 colors, ergo 2 chicks of each color, it can be a matching game of sorts for the wee one. He's been begging for the eggs crochet (what a weirdo) ever since I bought this book and I figured what better time than easter? Anyone else making anything cute for easter? Please share!

Eating mostly meatless at our house is going swimmingly! I've been very, very bad about posting meatless recipes on the blog so here's one to begin making up for that.

Last night we had Black Bean Cakes. Which don't sound great but really are. Any time you combine the words "bean" and "cake"...it's a dangerous road, but I promise they're great, and super healthy. We tell Jonas they're hamburgers and he usually eats them. But last night he wanted nothing to do with them...but that may be because he was forced to eat it in the car on the way to my sister's house for easter egg dying. I was running a bit behind yesterday. But I digress. I don't remember where I originally got this recipe but I've made a few adjustments to it anyway.

You'll need:
2 Tablespoons oil
4 chopped scallions
6 cloves of minced garlic
1 Tablespoon of ground cumin
2 Cans of black beans rinsed and drained
1 Large sweet potato peeled and grated (about 2 cups)
1 large egg, beaten
Half a cup of dried bread crumbs or (my fave) rolled oats pulsed through a processor until bread crumb consistency.

Sour cream, lime wedges and cilantro for serving.

Heat your broiler. In a skillet heat 1 Tbsp oil and add the garlic, cumin and scallions, if you want spicy bean cakes add a chopped jalapeno as well. Cook 30 seconds to a minute and then transfer to a large bowl. Add the beans and mash it all together using a potato masher. Leave about a quarter of the beans whole. fold in remaining ingredients, use the final tablespoon of oil to grease a cookie sheet. Divide the stuff into eight equal parts, form them into patties and broil them 4 inches from the heat. 8-10 minutes on one side, flip, 2-3 minutes on last side. Serve with serving stuff:) They look like this. Only better...and not so dry.

Next. My girls and I have finally gotten book club up and running again! This will make my goal of reading one book a month much easier. For this coming month we're reading Assassination Vacation By Sarah Vowell. In which the author travels to various presidential assassination sites and writes about it with wit and somewhat tongue-in-cheek humor.

Next month we're doubling up and reading both The Backyard Homestead and Made From Scratch both of which I LOVE and am very passionate about.

The garden is going great. We continue to eat from it daily and I cannot wait for the summer stuff to begin producing...have I said that yet? From the 3 brambles planted last year we now have 15 brambles and counting! The raspberry and boysenberry are spreading like wildfire...though I cannot say the same for the blackberry, it's just not pulling it's weight. The herb garden started last year is really starting to take off, and that side of the yard is looking much improved. Once again I'll be growing more tomatoes than I originally planned for. I should not be allowed to look at seed catalogues. I started like 8 different varieties and just can't stand watching all of the little seedlings go to waste. I'm trying to foist them off onto friends...still it should be a bounteous summer.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?!?!?!

2010-03-26T11:58:00.000-07:00

I am very angry. Here is why. I went to clean out my drafts that have been hanging around forever and ended up deleting like the last 6 months of posts. Including the one I just spent an hour or so putting together. I'm going outside.

What is Edible Forest Gardening? (and making small changes)

2010-03-10T14:29:00.000-08:00

This post is inspired by Nikol's comment which asks if edible forest garening is like having an orchard. Good question. The answer is, kind of, only much, much better.

When planning an edible forest garden you basically copy the format found in nature, specifically in the forest. If you walk through a forest you'll see that it's not just trees, but trees and shrubs and vines and ground level plants. Many niches are filled. In an edible forest garden you have all of these components and they either produce food or provide some other positive contribution to the garden (like fix nitrogen into the soil, or attract and house beneficial insects/birds). For example, in the edible forest garden I'm planning we have citrus trees, then various berry shrubs planted around them, followed by lower growing plants like flowers, vegetables, and strawberries. It takes some time and consideration when planning such a garden, but once the garden is put in place it takes very little time to keep it running. Think about it, with most space filled, there will be very little room for weeds!
My husband was skeptical of this gardening strategy at first, since it would appear that many of the plants are required to grow in the shade. But, remember in an edible forest garden you copy nature's format, planting shrubs in sunny openings and lower growing plants around the edges. I'm blessed as far as edible forest gardening goes since I live in southern california and inadequate sunshine is the least of my worries. In fact I've been planning one section of my garden so that it will create shade for my poor blackberry bushes. The truth is plants are much hardier than we give them credit for. They actually want to grow if you can believe that.

If this is insufficient explanation of edible forest gardening then either shoot me a comment or check out the book. There are two volumes by the way and, as much as I love the first volume, the second sounds even better.

In other news: can I just say that if you aren't washing your hair with baking soda by now you should be. It is AMAZING, I just can't say enough good stuff about it. My hair feels like it did when I was a young'un. And it's only been a little over a week. I've had a few conversations with people lately that have left me a little baffled. When I tell them I use baking soda to wash my hair they seem to think I'm plum crazy. Even when I give them the facts, they still think I'm crazy. And I can see their point, using copious amounts of chemicals does seem the smarter option. Well, live and let live.

On a somewhat related note: I was reading a raw food book about a month ago and something I read in it has stuck with me. I can't remember the exact wording but basically what the author said was that with each small, positive change she has made she notices significant improvements in her health and the way she feels. And she wasn't just talking about eating raw food, it could be any small change that you make for the better. Using natural cleaners, being more active, eating healthier, etc. I've made two small changes this year and the effects have been dramatic. One of the small changes was the baking soda thing (and I'm sure you're all sick to death from hearing about that) The other small change was green smoothies. Jonas and I started eating green smoothies every morning for breakfast, care of the embarassment of green riches our chard plant provides. If you are unfamiliar with green smoothies here's the recipe: 2 cups of greens, fruit, water (or liquid of choice), blend it, consume. Don't worry, they taste great. And if your's does not taste great, add a banana you'll be fine.

Now Jonas and I, of course, miss some days. Every once in awhile I dont feel like going out into the garden at 6am to pick chard (like when it's pouring rain) so we have cheerios instead. But we have them most days. And I feel great. I assume Jonas feels great also, but he's a kid, he always feels great.

Just something to think about.

Garden Update

2009-07-15T13:54:00.000-07:00

Here in Southern California we are blessed with a ridiculously long growing season. Seriously, last year I didn't pull my tomatoes out until the end of December! Since we have such a long growing season it's a good idea to plant several garden rotations, replacing tired plants with new, vibrant ones. Case in point: our sunberries have to go. Jonas will be so devastated, he would seriously sit out there picking berries and eating them all day long if I'd let him. See: Since the sunberries are winding down I've started ten new tomato plants to replace them with, most of them Red Siberians to carry us through the cold-ish months. I'm curious to see if they'll make it straight through the winter. I'm hoping for a bumper crop from these babies, for canning. My other canning tomatoes have not done so well and now the japanese beetles are moving in and eating them:(. Quick side note, my plan for the japanese beetles this year was to just pick them off of the plants in the early mornings when they are sluggish, but they have outsmarted me again! They are living in our neighbor's yard and coming over into our yard in the afternoons for feeding time. Very frustrating!

We are also replacing our first rotation of bush beans. Bush beans generally only produce beans for a two week period before dying back, so it's good to plant several rows of them with sowing dates a week or two apart, to keep you in constant supply. We have four rows of bush beans, or to be honest, two rows and two self watering containers, each with an equal number of plants. The good news about bush beans (and really any legume) is that they have the uncanny ability to pull nitrogen from the air and fix it into the soil through their roots. This makes bush beans an ideal crop to plant near hungrier crops like squash, melons, corn, tomatoes, etc. Once the plant has died all of the extra nitrogen remains in the soil, so bush beans are an ideal candidate to be replaced by hungrier crops as well. In our case I am replacing the first bush bean row with hard winter squashes. Instead of pulling out the tired green bean plants it is a good idea to snip them off as close to the ground as possible. Leaving their roots in the ground means you are leaving as much nitrogen in the ground as possible. After snipping the green bean plants I laid them on top of the soil along with some dead tomato plants and other trimmings, then I spread a bag of manure over the whole thing creating a small grow heap. I also added plenty of organic fertilizer.

And lastly the determinate, silvery fir tree tomatoes, which were in five gallon buckets, have been replaced by basil.

Things are looking good in our garden, despite my sister's boyfriend commenting "if people didn't know what you were doing back here they'd think there was just trash everywhere." Lovely. :) He is referring to the fact that I use junk mail to mulch the walkways between rows and keep the weeds down. Here are some pictures for your viewing delight:)

A funny italian zucchini I found today. It looks like it was going to have a siamese twin but things didn't quite work out. Am I the only one who saw this and thought: Alien fetus? That's just me? Ok then, moving on...

Today's summer squash harvest.

One of the self-waterers with new green bean plants. Side note, the self waterer book I ordered from the library is in, I'm picking it up today and hope to have lots of juicy tips for you all.

The Cayenne Peppers are turning red, we'll have hot sauce in no time, hooray!

Our Myrtle is in bloom three months late. What is that about? I've heard that myrtle is sometimes eaten as an herb. I'm still a little too skeptical to try.

A new zucchini plant on the rise!

One of our hot pepper plants called Tequila Sunrise. It grows very similar to the tabasco pepper. I'm really hoping it tastes similar. I loves me some tabasco sauce!

Our giant marconi peppers are really living up to their name!

Felted Baby Bunny Slippers

2009-07-15T13:10:00.001-07:00

Last Saturday I attended a baby shower for my friend Tandy. I love making gifts for people when I have the time, and it's so easy to make things for babies! I mean, everything's much smaller and therefore less time consuming. I whipped up a pair of felted fuzzy bunny slippers for Tandy (small problem, Tandy's baby will be born in August, in San Diego, not exactly slipper wearing weather, hmmm, oh well). I originally got the idea for the slippers from my friend Nikol (who just happens to be Tandy's sister). Nikol found a picture of felted bunny slippers on etsy and emailed it to me months ago. My initial thought was, Hey, I could make something like that! And so I did, there were a few bunny slipper prototypes and here is a picture of the final product.

I made them with some off-white wool that I had on hand, but I recommend making them with white wool if you can. The great thing about these slippers is that they are felted, so even if you're not the best at crochet the felting will generally hide any uneven stitches. To make the slippers first you crochet two infant moccasins (instructions to follow). I used a J hook and crocheted them very loosely. They will be somewhat bigger than a baby foot, but remember you are going to felt them.

Instructions:
Make 2 (duh!)
Round 1: ch 14. Dc in 4th ch from hook and in the next 9 chs. 7 dc in last ch. Working down the free loops on the other side of the chain, 10 dc. Join w/ sl st to top of ch 3. (28 dc)
Round 2: Ch 3, dc in same st. Dc in next 10 sts. (2 dc in next st) 7 times. Dc in next 9 sts, 2 dc in last dc. Join w/ sl st to top of ch 3. (37 dc)
Round 3: Ch 3, dc in next 15 sts, (dc dec) 4 times. Dc to end of round. Join w/ sl st. (33 dc)
Round 4: Ch 3, dc in next 11 sts, (dc dec) 5 times. Dc to end of round. Join w/ sl st. (28 dc)
Round 5: Ch 3, dc in next 8 sts, (dc dec) 6 times. Dc to end of round. Join w/ sl st. Finish off. (22 dc)

Weave in ends and felt mocs.

Next you make the ears. Here's where it gets a little tricky. Chain three and crochet 8 or so rows on those three stitches, whatever looks proportionate in relation to the moccasins, on the ninth (or so) row, the last row, slip stitch in the first stitch, half double crochet (or double crochet if you feel adventurous, it's not an exact science) in the second and slip stitch again in the last, finish off. This last step is to round the ear. Make four ears, obviously.

Then you sew the ears to the moccasins with wool yarn and felt them (felting instructions to follow). Now, with Tandy's slippers I stitched the little faces on after felting, but I think stitching a face on before hand (with wool)and then felting would also be very cute. It would certainly blend well.

Now, to felt. Set your washing machine to it's hottest setting and throw the slippers in with an old pair of pants that you are SURE won't bleed color into the wash. Also add a bit of detergent. Bring a pair of tongs with you to fish the slippers out of the stifling hot machine, you don't want to use your hand for this. Start the machine and let it agitate the slippers (agitation and heat are what cause the wool to felt). Before your washer gets to the rinse stage check the slippers to see if they are felted enough (more on this later) if they are felted enough (lucky you I ususally have to do at least three cycles) then rinse them in cold water and shape them to dry. If they are not felted enough then wind the washing machine back to start (don't rinse, don't refill, use the same hot water). Run the slippers through as many cycles as needed to felt them to your liking and then rinse and shape them to air dry.

So, how will you know if the slippers are felted enough? Use your best judgement, the slippers should start to look like a solid piece of felt and the individual stitches will all mesh together. Remember that the felted look will intensify with drying so if they look close to what you think they should look like pull them out and rinse them. Remember that the more you felt them the more they will shrink down so if they are getting to be about the right size they're done. And lastly, remember that you can always felt them more later, but you can't undo the felting so better to be safe than sorry.

The last two things to do are to stitch the face on and deal with the ears. Stitch a face on using black yarn for the eyes and pink for the nose. Now the ears: if your ears are looking how you want them to look then leave them alone, if they are falling to the side or something then stitch them into a placement that is pleasing to you with a white thread. When I did this with Tandy's slippers it only took like two small stitches per ear to hold them back, they kept falling in the poor bunny's face. And TADA! You are done. How adorable. While this may sound like a bit of work it actually goes rather fast. Now I'm working on figuring out an adult version of these, how fun would that be? Enjoy! Here's one last picture of them because I just never tire of looking at my handiwork:)

Hot Sauce

2009-07-15T10:08:00.000-07:00

This year I planted lots of hot peppers. Originally I had no plans for the peppers, I just wanted to grow them and so I planted them. Once the cayenne peppers really started coming on I realized I would have to think of a way to use them. So I decided to make hot sauce, and I was very excited. Rightly so. I put hot sauce on everything! Seriously, it's an addiction. Seriously...I saw this thing on PBS about how it's completely possible to become addicted to spicy things. Moving on. If you've got an abundance of hot peppers and would like to make hot sauce here's how you do it. It's so easy! You can use any hot pepper you like, I used cayenne and plan on using tequila sunrise and jalapeno peppers next week.

Before you start be aware that hot pepper oils are very irritating and hurt like the dickens if you get them in your eyes, or even if your hands are exposed to them for too long. The oils can remain on skin for a very long time so please just wear gloves and be careful.

Here's what you'll need, Hot peppers, vinegar, salt.

First trim the stems off of your peppers and throw them whole into a sauce pan. Cover them with vinegar and cook them. Put a lid on the pot, the vinegar/hot pepper steam is potent!

Next, if you want to peel the peppers then be my guest. I got tired of peeling them after about thirty seconds and devised a simpler way -which will be revealed later.

After peeling -or not peeling, as the case may be- put your peppers into a blender with a bit of the cooking vinegar and blend the living daylights out of them. Add more vinegar until you get the consistency you want.

Now, if you didn't peel your peppers -or even if you did- pour the blended hot sauce through a fine sieve. The sieve should catch most of the peel and seed bits that eluded the blender blades. Salt it to your taste. Pour the hot sauce into an old tabasco sauce bottle that you saved and are now recycling:).

If you make a lot of hot sauce, I've heard that it freezes well, so you're in luck. Enjoy!

Use the pulpy sieve leftovers to deter unwanted rodents. We have a cardboard compost pile that mice just adore. I sprinkled the cayenne pulp around the back of it -where Jonas can't get to- and I'm hoping it irritates them into leaving. Probably won't happen, but one can hope.

Slow Roasting Tomatoes

2009-07-12T22:37:00.001-07:00

I love to grow small tomatoes. I'm pretty sure jelly bean tomatoes are my favorite. Now there is a plant that just doesn't quit! I also like red pear and yellow pear tomatoes. Though red pear seems a little too susceptible to blossom end rot for my taste. I feed and feed and feed some more and they still remain calcium and magnesium deficient. Whatevs. Often, at this time of year I am faced with an abundant crop of small tomatoes. What does one do with so many little tomatoes besides eat them raw and in a nice pasta salad? Jonas and Greg can pack away quite a few of the little guys, but still we have a lot left over and there's no way I'm going to can them (can you imagine peeling all of those little things? I can, I did it once, four years ago. It's hell). What you can do with them is slow roast them. I initially got this idea from Barbara Kingsolver's book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Something everyone should read. But I digress.
Slow roasting tomatoes is easy as pie! Basically you slice small tomatoes in half, spread them out, cut side up on a foil lined baking sheet, spray them with olive oil (or toss them in olive oil pre-spreading if you don't have a handy refillable oil sprayer), season and let them sit in a low oven (like 250-300 degrees) for a few hours until they shrink down. Check them every now and then to make sure they aren't charring, charred roasted tomatoes do not taste good. Learn from my mistakes. A properly roasted tomato should be very sweet and delicious. A poor-mans version (and a somewhat softer version) of those expensive sundried tomatoes.
I am very fond of roasting a whole bunch and then freezing them for later. They are delicious alone, or on a pizza, sometimes I throw a bunch of them in the food processor with some garlic, olive oil and maybe basil if it's in season and whip up a pesto (the pesto also freezes nicely.) If you do decide to freeze the pesto, freeze it in ice cube trays so that it's easier to portion out later and defrosts faster. But I've gotten off track. Honestly these tomatoes would make cardboard taste good. Try them, I guarantee you'll want to just eat the entire pan yourself. And you can, I mean, they're tomatoes, they're good for you:) Here'e what they look like all done.

What Is That Thing?!

2009-07-09T15:38:00.000-07:00

Something has taken up residence in our worm bins. Or, I should say, LOTS of somethings have taken up residence in our worm bins. Last week I spent several hours picking a bunch out, only to find they've increased ten fold this week. At first I flipped out. They are creepy looking, and also the fact that I didn't know what they were added to the flipping out. So what am I talking about? This:

We have Black Soldier Fly Larvae!!! Gross, right? Right. It is very gross, but also very helpful. Lucky for us, we have millions of them. And I'm quite delighted. I'm perhaps most delighted because, now, since they're helpful, I don't have to spend hours upon hours picking them out. I've read online that they are just as helpful, if not more so, than red worms. They eat a lot! And subsequently poop a lot. I've read online that there are actually people who go to the trouble of acquiring them so as to add them to their compost piles/bins. In Australia they occur naturally, and apparently the same is true for San Diego.

Black Soldier Fly Larvae are not maggots, nay they actually deter maggots and keep them from sprouting up in your bins. And the adult soldier fly is not a pest. Hooray! I am somewhat dubious though, I mean, who determines what a pest is? All I know is that since these little fellas have arrived the fruit fly population has decreased to almost nothing.

They still creep me out, but then again so did the springtails at first. Hopefully I will become desensitized to these guys soon. Anyway, if any of you start worm bins and these things show up, fear not. They're here to help.

Glorious, Glorious Vinegar

2009-07-06T13:41:00.000-07:00

Last summer, when I had a child that took two naps a day, I read Organic Housekeeping by Ellen Sandbeck. It completely changed the way I cleaned house. The book is a bit long. Since reading a book on housekeeping isn't the most exciting thing in the world, I'll cut to the chase for you and share some things I learned...and still use a year later.
Easily the handiest tip I picked up from Ms. Sandbeck was the many uses of...Vinegar (kinda gave it away with the title didn't I). Who knew it had so many uses? If you don't keep a giant, costco size jug of vinegar around you're missing out. It's so cheap, and seriously could clean almost everything (if not everything) in your house, and it doesn't stop there. Here are some uses for vinegar to get you started.That's what I'm talking about.

For cleaning hard surfaces: countertops, toilets, stovetops, walls, refrigerators, floors, etc. When vinegar dries it leaves zero residue, also it dissolves stuck on messes fast and has natural antibacterial properties making it ideal for cleaning and wiping up. Also, since it leaves no residue you don't have to worry about it leaching into you (or your kids, or your food) like you do with chemical cleaners.

Sticker Removal: like it says people, vinegar will remove the stickers your kids decorate the leather couch with. Also good for removing the labels from jars you are recycling to hold the new homemade yogurt you just fermented. Clever.

Fruit and Veggie Wash: If you are somewhat paranoid about your produce being clean, and buy into that expensive veggie wash sold in stores look to vinegar (and hydrogen peroxide) instead. Keep a spray bottle of vinegar and a spray bottle of hydrogen peroxide (must be in separate bottles to remain potent) around for cleaning fruits and vegetables. Obviously don't clean everything because you need to challenge your immune system every now and then to keep it strong. But if your apple fell into raw meat juice or the lettuce is extra dirty spray first with vinegar then hydrogen peroxide. Rinse if you want. Don't be afraid of the hydrogen peroxide, it's completely safe.

Spot Cleaning Carpets: In the book Ellen Sandbeck suggests that vinegar and a rag can be used to clean your wall to wall carpeting (that's some serious elbow grease). It works just as well for spot cleaning. The problem with spots in the carpet is that they keep coming back (this is doubly true for when your husband spills an entire bowl of roasted potatoes on your brand new carpet, am I right ladies?), you clean them and then a few months later they reappear. How do they do that? Basically residue stays behind and new dirt clings to it. Vinegar solves this problem since it leaves no residue. Hooray!

Glass, Mirror, Window Cleaner: If you have previously used cleaners like windex then you will initially need to clean your mirrors and windows with a solution of vinegar, water and dishsoap before using just vinegar to clean them. This is because windex and similar cleaners leave behind a wax like residue that vinegar cannot get rid of. Or so says Ellen Sandbeck. When I started using vinegar to clean windows and things I just lived with some slight streakiness from the waxy stuff and eventually it went away. If you are less lazy than I, use the dishsoap stuff once and live streak free from the get go.

Jet Dry Replacement: I am starting to sound like a broken record, vinegar leaves no residue and therefore your dishes will rinse clean. Pour it into the allotted jet dry spout, and rest easy knowing the vinegar is much easier on the enviroment, and cheaper to boot.

Weed Killer: Peace-loving lover of the earth that I am I'm strongly against Roundup and the like. Use vinegar instead, just as effective, a million times less harmful! I pour it into the cracks of our driveway every now and then when I feel like keeping up with the Joneses. Works like a charm.

Laundry Gunk Banisher: Pouring a half cup of vinegar into the rinse cycle rids your laundry of...you guessed it...residue! Vinegar is indispensible if you use cloth diapers. It keeps the smell down (if you let the diapers soak in the wash before actually washing them, like we do) and rinses away any soapy residue that would irritate a baby bottom.

See how awesome vinegar is? If you aren't already sold on it's many glorious uses you should be. Who doesn't like saving money, helping the planet and ridding their home of unnecessary chemical cleaners? Enjoy, People:)

Summer Of Squash

2009-06-26T08:44:00.000-07:00

Those of you who have successfully grown zucchini before will sympathize with this problem: here is our zucchini harvest for the week (minus those that have been eaten, which is a lot!). We are bringing in about 7-10 zucchini every other day! All from 1 (1!!!) plant. Well actually the little round ball zucchinis are from two other plants, obviously. I really shouldn't call it a problem, it's an enormous blessing! In an emergency we surely wouldn't starve, provided that the water keeps running during said emergency.

I was warned of such problems/blessings by many people, but I still went ahead and planted many zucchini and summer squash plants, 8 have survived. Only three are producing, the others are either in the baby stage or the teenager stage. My father in law asked why I planted so many and here is the answer: there are so many different kinds! Who could ever choose just one. Also, I don't mind giving away squash and I have come up with quite a few uses for it. That's what this post is about, how to use up all of that zucchini. If you are in doubt over any of these recipes my father in law, who HATES squash, has eaten and loved several of them. And he wouldn't lie to me:)

#1 Zucchini Bread. I'm not typing out a recipe for this, mostly because the recipe I use is a mediocre one. Pull out your betty crocker cook book and use that or if you've got a better recipe please share! Zucchini bread recipes also make zucchini muffins, which are easier for little hands to hold.

#2 Zucchini Scrambled Eggs or Omlette. Sautee shredded zukes in a little olive oil and stir in eggs, or if your making the omlette put sauteed zukes in middle of omlette and fold. Not the prettiest thing, but it's sure tasty!

#3 Shredded fresh for salad. Shred it and toss it into a salad. SO good!

#4 Shredded and sauteed with other veg as a side dish. If you don't have a mandolin slicer and grow a lot of zucchini, invest in the slicer. It is also known as a Chinese Mandolin, but everyone is using that name less and less in this politically correct day and age. Anyway, my mandolin slicer also comes with a julienne blade. If you don't have a mandolin you could julienne by hand. Julienne carrots, zucchini and yellow squash. Sautee the carrots in some butter or olive oil until they start to soften, add squashes, sautee until the green on the zucchini brightens. Season and enjoy.

#5 Barbara Kingsolver To The Rescue. In her WONDERFUL (if a little bit preachy) book, Animal Vegetable Miracle, Barbara Kingsolver lists a few recipes for using up a zucchini harvest. Recipes include, Zucchini Orzo (we eat this A LOT at our house this time of year), and Zucchini Chocolate Chip Cookies. You may be skeptical of the cookies but they're pretty good. You can check out these recipes at animalvegetablemiracle.com/recipes

#6 Gnocchi (or pasta) With Summer Vegetables. Also a good way to use up a tomato and garlic harvest. Quarter and slice two medium zucchini or summer squash. Sautee in olive oil with two cloves minced garlic. Season with salt and pepper, add two cups grape tomatoes sliced in half. Cook until it all makes a juicy sauce. Toss in 15-16 ounces cooked gnocchi or pasta of any shape. Stir in a quarter cup fresh basil, chopped, some parmesan cheese, 1 tablespoon butter, and two tablespoons lemon juice.

#7 Add To Pizza. Using your new, handy mandolin slicer, thinly slice several zucchini. Briefly steam them and add them to your pizza like pepperoni. Even the FIL liked this one.

#8 Veggie Lover's Pasta Bake. EVERYONE loves this dish. Sautee two sliced zucchinis in olive oil, add a package of frozen spinach and sautee until most of the liquid is evaporated. Add a jar of marinara sauce, a jar of alfredo sauce and a cup of shredded mozarella (I usually leave out this addition of cheese). Stir in 16 ounces cooked penne. Pour it all into a 9 by 13 baking dish and sprinkle on more mozarella, bake until the cheese is melted and it's all good and bubbly. Seriously this is sooo good.

#9 Chicken Taco Filling. For the chicken portion of this throw 4 frozen chicken breasts, a package of taco seasoning and two cups water into the crockpot, let it simmer, shred it and let it simmer a little longer to soak up some juices. This is good as taco filling all by itself, but that doesn't use up zucchini, does it? Shout out to Siobhan for the crockpot chicken recipe:) THANKS! If you don't want to make the chicken filling yourself you can buy it at most big grocery stores next to the packaged pulled pork. In a pan sautee quartered and sliced zucchini and/or summer squash. Add a bag of frozen black bean, corn, onion, green pepper mixture (I forget what this is called). Cook until the black bean stuff is thawed. Stir in the chicken, heat it all up and serve in warmed flour tortillas, with sour cream and whatever other accoutrements you choose.

#10 Whatever. Zucchini has such a subtle flavor that it can be added to almost anything, soup, pasta, taco filling:) Once you start looking for places to use zucchini you'll find them. More veg never hurt anyone.

#11 Give It Away. It's good karma and the garden gods will surely bless you.

Yogurt Making Made Easy

2009-06-24T17:24:00.000-07:00

This post goes out to the Damsel at Damselindisdress.wordpress.com. The Damsel has a post about making yogurt from powdered milk, if that interests you check it out. I made yogurt from fresh milk using the same method. Before reading her post I was using the crockpot to make yogurt, which works but takes a bit more effort. Want to make your own yogurt? It's so easy!

First you will need some starter cultures, the wonderful little bacteria bugs that make yogurt yogurt. You can either purchase cultures and have them mailed to you or you can use yogurt from the store -much easier. Here are a few things to keep in mind when purchasing your starter yogurt, while not all of them are absolutely necessary they're good ideas. Try to find a yogurt with as few ingredients as possible. The yogurt should be plain, and without pectin. It absolutely MUST contain active live cultures -duh- most yogurts tout this on the label these days so it should be easy to find. Remember that the cultures in your starter yogurt will be the cultures in your homemade yogurt so if you want something specific -I'm looking at you activia consumers- buy accordingly. I've read that stoneyfield farms yogurt is highly reccommended as a starter.

Here's what you do, in clean, ovensafe crockery (I actually used the crock from my crockpot) combine 6 ounces of starter yogurt with 4 cups of milk. Whisk well. Heat your oven to 275 degrees. Once the oven has reached 275 degrees turn it off and place your covered yogurt-to-be inside. Let it sit for 8 to 12 hours. When you return it should be yogurt! Admittedly it will not be quite as firm as store bought yogurt, that's because it doesn't have pectin in it. Store it in the fridge and enjoy it in good health. Remember to save 6 ounces as a starter for the next batch. Look at you making your own food:)

Cheese Making

2009-06-11T14:22:00.001-07:00

Here is a picture of my very enthusiastic friend Nikol, holding a cheese making book. Can you guess why she's so excited?
Because we made cheese, Yo!
First we read the instructions. They were awesome, if not completely forthcoming -more on this later-- notice the almost completely non-sequiter goat in cap and gown. It made my year.
Next we had to heat the milk to 90 degrees. (Was it 90 degrees? I can't remember, anyway...) That's my hand giving the thumbs up, I helped, in my own way. --methinks someone should have cut her nails before cheesemaking night. That's not right.
The milk started to curdle. We got very excited.
It continued curdling...
...and our anticipation and excitement grew with each passing moment.
Then it started to look -and smell- like vomit and we became slightly less enthusiastic. But we remained undeterred!
We separated the curd from the whey. The cheese's likeness to vomit continued, on a thicker level. My good friend Siobhan considered saving the whey for pizza dough (who knew?) but ultimately she poured it down the drain, we didn't fight her on it.
Ingrid was skeptical that the cheese would turn out.
After heating the curd in the microwave to an unholy temperature it had to be pulled and coerced into cheeselike form. The instructions recommended wearing rubber gloves. The cheesemaking kit included latex gloves. We used them, despite our misgivings that they might give the cheese an unpalatable flavor. Rookie mistake.
We continued pulling the cheese, unwittingly...
It was starting to look cheesy.
We formed it into logs and chilled it.
The cheese worked out! Even Ingrid couldn't deny it.
But I'll be honest, and tell you, it did not taste good. Our downfall was the latex gloves. Next time we'll be sure to use utensils to pull the lava cheese. The other girls were champs and ate all of their cheese. I couldn't stomach it. Wimp.

Some of us had a little too much fun making cheese.

Big Worm Bin, Little Victories

2009-06-11T13:45:00.000-07:00

Here's some good news: it hasn't even been two months since I established my first worm bin and I've already expanded to a second. That's right, the worms quickly multiplied so today I set up a second -and larger- worm bin. The parents have been giving us their compostables to feed the worms so we are blessed with a plethora of kitchen wastes. Which means, ultimately, a plethora of compost! I harvested the worm castings a few days ago, there was a LOT! And already both bins are full again. One of my favorite parts of this story is that we didn't have to buy more worms. They were just there for the taking. Simple pleasures. Although now that I think about it, at this rate, we could become overrun with worm bins by the end of the year. There are worse things. Most likely I'll be able to start giving worms away to friends...I've already got several in mind. You know who you are, and you've been warned.

Our little homestead is running great these days. I spent most of monday and tuesday in the kitchen baking things for family birthday parties (we have quite a few birthdays this time of year). I also made yogurt, which I then made into yogurt cheese. Jonas and I have been spreading it on crackers for morning snack. Correction, I usually do the spreading, he eats it at his leisure. And on top of the yogurt cheese I made bread, rolls, and started a jar of sprouts to be used on friday.

I've been making our bread for well over a year. I just can't believe that! We haven't bought store bread in a YEAR! How time does fly. When I first told one of my family members that I was going to attempt to make all of our bread she cautioned me --be careful, it's hard. And it was a bit trying at first, we suffered through a lot of not-so-good bread. But now, it's almost second nature, part of the routine. I'm bringing this all up because it correlates to the yogurt thing. Why have I started making yogurt? Because the guys that haul our recycling away have announced that they now only accept #1 and #2 plastics. Yogurt containers are #5. We eat quite a bit of yogurt, especially Jonas. It pained me to put those containers in the trash. So I started making our own. I had thought about doing it for awhile but this recycling thing really gave me the kick I needed. The first batch of yogurt didn't go so well. Then I talked to my friend Nikol -hi bff!- who had made yogurt before and she recommended using a crockpot to keep it at an even temp while fermenting. Brilliant! Now the yogurt making is a breeze. Hopefully a year from now I can come onto the blog and write about how I've been making all of our yogurt for a year. Small steps. It makes me feel great that I know what my family is eating. I know exactly what is in that yogurt and bread. In a dream world I would know the cow/goat that the milk for the yogurt came from, and grow the wheat for the bread myself. Again, small steps.

Wondering how you yourself can make your own yogurt? That's coming up in a post next week. I'm waiting until the next time I make it, so the post will have lots of lovely pictures to go with.

Not Quite What I Was Planning

2009-06-05T12:43:00.001-07:00

First, some pictures:
The sunberries, which have take off! They have outgrown their allotted space...and then some.

One of the rows of green beans, with a little fennel at the very end.

A row of hot and sweet peppers I planted, including, red marconi, better belle, tequila sunrise, jalapeno, chocolate beauty and pasilla bajio. We obviously have been using a lot of shredded junk mail and newspaper to mulch and keep the weeds down. My sister and her boyfriend Ben came for a visit on memorial day and Ben, looking into the backyard said to me: Uh, someone dumped a bunch of trash in your yard.

Here's what the trifle tomatoes look like these days.

A handful of sunberries, taken several days ago.

The title of this post is stolen from the six word memoirs book. But it seems very appropriate, as, the garden this year has turned out to be something entirely different from what I planned. Isn't that always how it goes?

The Edamame still hasn't come up, and I've given up on it. Maybe I'll try again next year, or possibly even later in the season, if the mood strikes me.
I have fallen in love with the volunteer plants. Particularly the zucchini, MY it is a large plant!

The self waterers, which had my heart at the beginning, have become quite the disappointment. Many of the tomatoes in self waterers have seemingly incurable blossom end rot, and the plants just can't handle heat well at all. On the other hand, I think all of the slaving I have done over the ground soil is finally paying off. There's one tomato plant inparticular -a red pear- that has out grown the self waterers. It's SO vibrant, and hardly ever needs watering. While I still hold a place in my heart for the self waterers, I think I'm going to use them for smaller things like green beans, and basil next year. Here's a picture of some tomatoes on the wonderful red pear!

June is here already, and we are beginning to enjoy the fruits of our labor here at our house. pear and jellybean tomatoes are ripening here and there. I seem to forget, every year, just how much better a homegrown tomato is compared to store bought. The brambles are ripening also, at the rate of a berry a day. Jonas, upon eating his first raspberry promptly picked and ate all of the remaining (and unripe!) berries on the plant. And here I thought I'd be fighting off the birds, apparently the problem comes in a form closer to home.
The sunberries are coming on strong as the weather heats up. We're picking a good size handful every day. Jonas eats them faster than I can pick them most days. Today while picking sunberries A RAT ran out from the bushes. I was thoroughly disgusted and quit the berry picking for the day. I guess this means the rats from last year have returned. Isn't that just wonderful. Now we're just waiting for the japanese beetles to arrive and then the vexations will be complete...hopefully.

Oh! And I also harvested the garlic today! I kept thinking it was too early, that I had to wait until june...then it dawned on me, um, it's june! So I pulled it up and learned a valuable lesson, the the size of the stalk does not in any way correlate to how big the garlic head will be. Some of the wispiest stalks produced the biggest heads. Go figure.

Though the garden hasn't sprung up exactly as I mapped it out it is still a thing of beauty to me. It fills me with glee to think that by this time next month I'll be up to my neck in tomatoes. Canning season is just around the corner. It'll be keeping me extra busy this year as I have been put in charge of the parent's apricot harvest. Greg's mom will be in Europe for a month, and therefore unable to jam. And despite Jonas picking the green apricots off of the tree, the harvest will still be sizeable.

Can You Dig It?

2009-05-16T15:04:00.000-07:00

One of our lovely roses

This has been a very busy week in our garden! The grow heap is finally underway, I planted an herb garden, and the "bean" area is taking shape.

I put the herb garden in on tuesday. I really want to make it into a rock/herb garden but lack the rocks at this point. All in good time I suppose. I tried somewhat to keep the left side of the plot for culinary herbs and the right side for tea/medicinal herbs. Of course some herbs fall into both categories so it's not a strictly followed set-up. So far the herb area houses, english lavender, french lavender, sage, tarragon, creeping thyme, lemon thyme, greek oregano, lemon verbena, chammomile, basil, and chives. I'd like to put in some bee balm, lovage, echinacea, and mint (in pots). As a testament to how invasive mint can be let me tell you this, I've found a mint plant growing in the center of the herb plot. I have never planted mint so it must be from the previous occupant (Greg's grandma). I have tilled and weeded and done all manner of things to this plot and yet the mint remains. You gotta respect that staying power.

All week, all season really, I've been working to prepare the bean area. It has been an adventure. At one point, in december I think, I covered it in cardboard to smother any weeds, then I neglected it so while the cardboard kept some weeds out it acted as a mulch and protected others. It also did a fine job housing all kinds of not-so-beneficial insects, (read: slugs earwigs and ALARMINGLY fast moving spiders, seriously what are those things). We have never had trouble with slugs before but this year they are rampant. I'm going to try the old beer-in-a-jar trick, but haven't gotten around to it yet. Anyway, this week I really buckled down and got the area cleared. I spread five bags of manure only to realize I'll need at least three more. I've mounded the manure up into two long rows. Since the rows are slanted I am left with an awkward triangle space at the corner, I'm most likely going to be putting three tomato plants there. Which should round out the grand total (so far) of tomato plants to...Twenty. We have had, and continue to have volunteer tomato (and squash) plants all over the garden, just a perk from using compost I guess. Whenever one gets in the way I pot it up so I have several waiting to go in the ground.

The Bean Area
The two long rows will become four when I divide them each with a watering trough. I used this trough method for the sunberries and they are growing by leaps and bounds so I've decided to put it to use for the beans and squash as well. One of the rows is planted with onions. I planted the onions close together so we can harvest some for green onion use and leave some to bulb up. The onions share a trough with the Envy Soybeans, which I planted this afternoon. I think I'm going to plant the remaining two rows with bush beans but I'm torn with wanting to put in more peppers so one may be bush beans and the other sweet peppers. I already have two rows of bush beans on the other side of the sunberries.

A few winters ago when it got ridiculously cold here in San Diego one of our shrubs along the fence died leaving us with a bare spot in the shrubbery, which I delight in, I hate wasting water on ornamental things. I'm thinking about planting some dried beans from the cupboard there and seeing what I come up with. We eat a lot of dried beans so being able to grow at least a portion of our own would be helpful.

Our tomato plants are becoming heavy with fruit, although Jonas likes to lighten their loads every so often by picking green tomatoes. This does not make me happy. Jonas's favorite word is "ball" he says it at least 50 times a day. He ascribes the word to anything remotely round...including tomatoes. The poor kid just can't resist and I'm worried with each scolding that he'll catch on to the no picking rule just in time for, well, picking. Of course by then he'll be too afraid to pick anything. Sheesh. Here's one of the selfwaterers, still growing like crazy!

Here are some tomatoes in the ground that have taken off as well.

We've started getting some sunberries, at the rate of 2 or 3 a day. The bushes are COVERED in green berries so when they really start ripening, holy mole. Jonas really likes them, which is good. They're sweet but have a definite tomato-ish flavor. Good news, since eating the berries Jonas has stopped whacking the plants with his shovel, progress. We've also been rewarded with one raspberry and one boysenberry. There are lots of green berries on all of the brambles, but this one early ripening berry thing confounds me.
The sunberries and if you look in the foreground you can see the bean seedlings

And fianlly, the grow heap. Greg and his dad picked up a load of dirt from Alpine Rock and Block today. Some went to the parents house and some came to us. I planted fifteen cucurbits in the grow heap this afternoon. There are already three cucurbit volunteers in the heap. If all goes according to plan our harvest should be wonderful! I've planted: Lemon Ball Cucumbers (LOVE THESE TO DEATH!), Carolina Cross #183 watermelon, zucchini, yellow straightneck squash, several other summer squashes from a mixture so they'll be a surprise, Prescott Fond Blanc melon, Marina Di Chioggia pumpkin, Long Island cheese squash, waltham butternut squash, and Sugar Baby Watermelon. Most of the cucurbit seeds I got from seedsavers.org. I have several other squashes that I'm going to plant on the other side of the yard, they won't get the benefit of the grow heap, but whatever. Here's the grow heap from one angle...
and another. It may look like just a mound of dirt but you wait.

And here is a reward for those of you who have stuck out this blog post to the end. What troopers you are. While perusing garden blogs I came across this lovely nugget of a website www.pathtofreedom.com. It's all about one family's urban homestead in Pasadena. What an inspiration! Their home looks like my dream. Over 350 different kinds of edible and medicinal plants growing on 1/10th of an acre. And that's just the beginning. It's really cool, check it out.

Worm bin, self waterers, basically an update on the same old stuff.

2009-05-06T13:27:00.000-07:00

Hello Faithful Blog Followers (or half hearted blog followers, as the case may be.) I can't believe it's already May! May and I still don't have the cucurbits in their grow heap yet. Time has gotten away from me.

The worm bin is a great success! I haven't harvested the compost yet, though I could, there's plenty in there. However yesterday I harvested the tea from the drip container. And by "harvested" of course I mean "poured it into a glass jar." The amount of springtails living in the drip container was astounding, and seriously gross, I felt like they were crawling on me for the rest of the day. The bramble fruits received the tea gratefully, I assume. I poured the half cup of tea into my big green watering can, filled the can with water and poured it over the leaves and soil. The worms eat the scraps I feed them so quickly that I can hardly keep up. I've read and heard that worms aren't fond of any brassica (broccoli, cabbage, etc.) or onion family member (onion, garlic, leeks etc.) Also you have to take it easy on the citrus because of it's natural pesticide properties. So that cuts down on what I can feed them, we go through a lot of citrus in our house, and I do mean A LOT! The worms still get fed properly but they go through food so quickly I'm worried that they may be over crowded. Should I start a second worm bin? I think I'll hold off on that for awhile. It sure would be nice to have a second one come summer though, we'll have quite a lot of scraps when things start ripening.
Here's a picture of the worm bin.

And the inside of the worm bin a few days ago...

I sprouted 5 black trifle tomatoes awhile ago, if you recall. They grew quickly and feeling pressed to get them into the ground I dedicated part of the grow heap to them. I saved one to put into the last self waterer I have to make. I should still have enough room left for the cucurbits. As it stands now the grow heap is just last years compost pile spread out over one of the garden beds. Yes, I finally moved it over. The portion now dedicated to black trifles will not get a layer of soil, rather the compost will act as a mulch and that's that.

Most of our tomatoes already have fruits on them! The silvery fir tree tomatoes are loaded! Silvery fir tree tomatoes are indeterminate so it's somewhat expected that they should bear a lot of fruit all at once. Still, it's exciting.

On the right side of the yard I've started planting bush beans. I'm working this week on preparing an area for edamame, more bush beans, onions and maybe eggplant. The sunberries have really taken off since the weather has warmed. Jonas has it in for the sunberry plants and whacks them with a shovel if given half a chance. What a weird kid. Still the sunberries are getting larger and there is something to be said for that.

If I haven't stressed this enough already let me say it again, the self watering containers have exceeded my best expectations! The tomato plants in them are simply huge! And they grow so quickly they seem to need tying to their stakes every day! It's only may and I'm starting to wonder what I'm going to do when they out grow their stakes. That time is fast approaching. The red pear is spilling over the edges in every direction. The brandywine's leaves are bigger than my hand! Greg and I have decided to add a lot more self waterers for next year. I can't believe what a difference the constant supply of water has made to the plants. I'm very excited to try carrots in them come winter. Here are several pictures of the self waterers I took a few days ago.

Dress and Worm Bin

2009-04-16T19:15:00.001-07:00

After reading Made From Scratch, I got excited about sewing some of my own clothes. So I've been working on sewing a dress for myself. I picked out a pattern and the material and as of last night I've got the bodice done (sans zipper). I'm way too excited about having a dress. I can never find a dress that I like that also fits me. They're usually too short. In making this dress I actually added three inches onto the skirt length just to be sure. Just another perk to sewing your own stuff I guess:) Hooray! I love dresses and just don't wear them enough, usually they're reserved for church and special occasions. When I was looking at some old patterns online there was one that I fell in love with, a housewife dress from the 50's. Those were the days, a dress and pearls everyday. I tell myself I'd wear dresses more often if my daily activities allowed. Activities like, gardening, corralling Jonas, turning the compost, shoveling manure into our four door family car. On a related note the old-ish couple across the street from us work in their yard every Saturday. The woman, Mary, always wears a mid-thigh denim skirt (in varying colors) with jewelry and everything. That's my kinda gal! Sometimes it gets a little graphic when she climbs the bank, but she looks good! But I digress... I'll post some pictures of the dress when it is completed.

Last saturday My friends Siobhan and Nikol and I went to Summer's Past Farms for the sweet pea maze, composting class and general merriment. I left with another lavender, French Lavender this time, and Lemon Verbena. I've had my mind set on growing lemon verbena for a little while and I'm so happy they had it at summer's past farms. It smells amazing and I can't wait until it's established so that I can make tea from it's leaves. I really wanted to get my hands on some scented geraniums but they were plum out.
The composting class was a revelation. I learned that I can apply a light dusting of fireplace ash to my abundance of pine needles to get a healthier ph balance in my compost. Pine needles are very acidic and ash is very alkaline. A match made in heaven.
I also saw a really neat worm bin that the instructor had made herself out of two rubbermaid containers. I liked the idea so much that I made one for myself. I picked up a pound of red worms at the farmer's market today and now my worm bin is off and running. To make the worm bin you simply acquire two large tubs that nest inside one another with a reasonable amount of space in between the bottoms (for the tea to collect). The bottom container will act as a tea tray, for all of the glorious juices to drain into. Drill holes into the bottom of the second container and also along the top edge (for air circulation). And you're finished, fill it with worms, bedding and food scraps and you're in business.

I am grossly disappointed with our carrot harvest this year. I pulled them all up yesterday, they were in the ground twice as long as they needed to be and they were still shrimpy little things. We didn't use any of them, off to the compost pile for them. All of our carrots will be grown in containers next time, most likely in the self-waterers.

The self-waterers by the way are working marvelously!!! The tomato plants are already a very good size and we've been eating the basil. In fact we had some tonight on our pizza. We also had two strawberries this evening...which Jonas saw fit to pick off of the plant. I caught him when he was picking the second one, his little fist was so tight around the berry that I just let him pick it rather than have it squish in his hand. It wasn't ripe, but still tasted better than any store bought strawberry and it was even better than the carlsbad berries (though markedly smaller). Jonas loves himself some strawberries, I'll have to keep a closer eye on him now that he knows they are over there. We are having a similar issue with the peas, he loves them and is constantly trying to pick pods off the vine before they are ripe. It fills me with glee that Jonas has such experiences and will grow up with a knowledge of how food "works." But it's somewhat inconvenient to find unripened, half-chewed pods littering the ground.

recent happenings

2009-03-30T19:38:00.000-07:00

Almost all of the tomatoes are planted! Hooray! There are fourteen total, which is two more than I originally planned for. I've had to get creative with placement. The self watering containers I've made are working better than I could ask for. The plants are bigger and look healthier than those in the ground.

I finally put the new strawberries in. I transplanted three aloes to the front bank and planted 8 strawberries in their place. I can see them from my kitchen window. I keep thinking how nice it will be when they fill in and create a cover of berries...provided they don't die of some disease. I have the worst luck with strawberries.

Greg had school tonight so it was Jonas and myself for dinner. I made orzo with frozen pesto from last year's garden and spinach and chard from this year's garden. Jonas was super cranky and tired (when I asked him if he wanted to go to bed he said yes and headed for his room, then threw the mother of all tantrums when I wouldn't let him go to bed. Poor kid.) so I made the mistake of just chopping all the greens and didn't bother to remove the chard stems. It was fibrous and gross. Strangely enough Jonas ate a very large portion.

On thursday I'm getting together with my gals, the mongeese, to make jam. I jam once a year, always in march or april. We eat quite a bit of jam. Greg eats a pb an j every day for breakfast at work. So the jamming is extensive. I probably won't get all of it done on thursday but it will be wonderful to get at least some of it done in the company of my favorite women.

I'm currently reading Made From Scratch and I love it! It has me all energized to start sewing and buying second hand. I don't know what I would do without a steady supply of motivating books from the library. They really inspire me to do more and to do it well.

Hope everyone is having a great day.

Gardening Class

2009-03-23T19:38:00.000-07:00

On Saturday my mom (in law) and I went to Kniffing's Nursery to attend their gardening class extravaganza. It was wonderful. So informative. When we first arrived we decided to bypass the rose seminar and just walked around looking at what kniffing's has to offer. It was the type of place where you can spend the entire day walking around.
We returned to the seating area just in time for the tomato and vegetable seminar. It was taught by Steve Goto who opened with, "I used to be called the tomato king but have been promoted to tomato god." I really can't argue with that. He knew more about tomatoes than anyone I've ever talked to. I didn't agree with everything he said. For example he said that it was impossible to grow an indeterminate tomato in a five gallon bucket. Wrong! I did it last year and the year before and the year before. The plant last year was the first to produce and the last to die. It kept going after the cold season varieties froze out. Yellow Pear tomatoes are awesome.
Here are some things I gleaned from the tomato god:
Instead of getting one crop from determinate tomatoes you can remove the "old wood" which has already fruited and stretch out production into as many as 5 crops. Good news for canning. I will attempt this on my silvery fir tree tomatoes later in the summer.
Only determinate varieties of tomatoes should be grown upside down. (Richard/Ingrid this info is for you:)) Please note that this information stems from the "only determinates should be grown in 5 gallon buckets" idea, so take it with a grain of salt.
Green Tomatoes, how do you know when to pick them? When they first start to have a golden sheen. The more golden you let them become the worse they'll taste so pick them fast.
You should water tomatoes once a week for about 40 minutes. I was already doing the 40 minute thing, but every three days.
To get the best flavor you should pick tomatoes the day before watering, if possible.
Watering with chlorine filled tap water is bad for plants, it kills the good soil microbes. Makes so much sense. A good solution is to set a bucket of water out in the sun for 24 hours or so to work the chlorine out. while this is good for the soil it's somewhat impractical and I can't say that I'm going to do it all the time, or even often, especially when the garden is in full swing. Oh poo!
There is hope yet for my fusarium/verticullum wilt soil. There's a product called Penetrate which inundates the soil with baccillus (baccilli?) they break up clay soils and outnumber the bad viruses etc. Not unlike yogurt for humans. It's pricey, like 60 bucks, although you get enough to cover 4000 sq feet. however I talked to steve goto afterwards and it is my understanding that worm tea has very similar effects.
Another amazing thing about worm tea, it kills grasshoppers by smothering them with spores. Same for white fly. Which is awesome since we have a white fly infestation that will not be squashed with other methods. The shrubbery in our yard is soooo extensive that the white fly just go from place to place to place, no matter how much I spray. Oddly enough they leave the veg alone.
But it doesn't stop there. If you mulch with worm castings then the plant takes all of the goodness in for a systemic effect, meaning (allegedly) that harmful insects won't want to eat or live on the plants since spores and things will irritate them. One more reason I need to start that worm bin.
Steve Goto spent part of the class reccommending different types of tomatoes, the best canning tomato, the best black tomato, the best tasting all around tomato, the sweetest, etc. Here is a list of what I remember. I haven't tried any of these varieties yet so try them at your own will.

.

Best tasting all around: Momotaro. Candi, my mom (in law) bought one to try out. I hear it's the perfect combo of acidity and sweetness. Wins hands down every time Steve has a tomato tasting.

Best For Canning: Red Pear Italian Special, this tomato has good production paired with low amounts of seeds. Candi bought some of these to try out.

Sweetest: sungold. A small yellow variety that has such a high sugar content that it will "explode" within half an hour of picking. The sugars ferment and the tomato sort of cracks open. To avoid this cut the tomato from the plant with the top greenery still attached, remove greenery when ready to eat, obviously. I planted one of these the year I got pregnant with Jonas, I was too sick to water it and it died. :(

Fun One: The Big Zach. These are now sold out in southern california. Kniffing's had the only two flats of them and they sold like hot cakes. I got two of them...suck on that! Greg and Candi think I'm nuts and here's why. Big Zach's grow to about 8 feet tall and consistently produce 4-6 pound tomatoes. I can't wait.
Best Black: Black Trifele. I've got some of these started in peat pots right now. I'm ahead of the game. Cherokee Chocolate is supposed to be really good too. All the flavor of Cherokee Purple and none (okay little) of the shoulder cracking.

Beyond tomatoes I've been doing a lot in the yard lately. I planted a bunch of cucurbits along the wall on the right side of our yard. The soil is very poor over there is most places, I haven't done anything to improve it, so we'll see how the poor plants do.
Jonas and I ate our first peas of the year and they were amazing! Sweetest things ever. There are many more pods still on the vine and more appearing every day. Green Arrow Peas are a variety I'll be sure to use again next year.
After the garden seminar on Saturday Candi came over and we looked around my yard for a bit, talking about the oleanders that need to be taken out, the white fly problem and possibly turning the small lawn off to the side into a raised bed. That would be the coolest thing ever.

So much to do. Hope everyone is enjoying spring.

Gardening Motivation For Siobhan...and anyone else who would like it.

2009-03-17T19:20:00.000-07:00

Our garden is well under way. I wish it was summer already, I'm dying for tomatoes and basil and all of those good things.

Our raspberry plant has a bud on it, Hooray! Also, all three of the cane fruits have sent up new plants! The Boysenberry has sent up three! Impressive.

I simply do not have enough compost fodder to sate my appetite. Over the weekend I looked into whether or not it's safe to compost oleander and I've decided to skip it, which saddens me because we have so much stinking oleander! I can't wait until they're all gone.
The two houses that face ours across the street are very neatly kept. The owners are out there every saturday doing upkeep. This past saturday I went out and chatted with them. I love our neighborhood, and our neighbors. I told them any time they want to donate their yard wastes to a good cause I'll take them. Greg, Jonas and I had to leave to go to a birthday party but when we returned there were bags full of compostables waiting for us in our driveway. I'll have to remember to thank them with produce this summer. How sweet of them.

One of the bags was full of grass clippings! Compost gold! I actually ended up using it to prepare the sunberry plot. It was perfect, I spread out a layer of grass clippings and then a layer of horse manure (yes I loaded it into the corolla again, laugh it up nikol) then I soaked it all down and stomped it into a nice even plot and planted the sunberries. 14 plants total.

On Saturday I also went to the nursery and had a vexating conversation with the manager over my dead, diseased strawberries. He claims strawberries don't get verticullum and that they died because I didn't water them enough. I guess watering them every day just didn't cut it...in winter! He asked where I got my information and when I told him online (several university agricultural study websites) he scoffed saying "you never can trust the internet." Of course when I claimed that a few weeks ago all of the other strawberries in their nursery had verticullum too he didn't believe me, and they're all sold out now. Lovely. They did however have all new strawberries of a different variety. And to the nursery's credit they replaced the dead strawberries. The guy was nice enough but vexating in so far as he didn't believe a word I said and kept insisting that I NEVER watered them.

I planted a cayenne pepper and a yellow pear tomato today. Then I mulched everything with compost and weeded the carrots. I'm becoming very antsy with the winter vegetables. Some days it takes everything I have not to tear them out and start the grow heap. I wish they'd hurry up and finish growing already, I've got me some squashes to plant! I've decided to plant all of the winter veg in containers next time around, and let the ground spend the down time recovering. The four self waterers should come in handy. The one self waterer that is already up and running is working wonderfully.

Last night for dinner and today for lunch I had salads from the garden. I had to pull out a parsley plant to put in the yellow pear tomato so today's salad was lettuce, spinach, chard, mustard AND parsley. It was wonderful. This week of hot weather just may send the lettuces into seeding mode so I'm eating my fill while I still can.

About half of the tomatoes and basil are in their permanent homes now. And all of the sunberries. There's still so much to go in though, the soybeans, the pole beans, the squashes and melons and cucumbers. Again, I wish it were summer already.

Two in one day, you're so lucky!

2009-03-12T14:15:00.001-07:00

As mentioned in the previous post I just finished looking through food from small spaces or whatever it's called. In the book the author gives detailed instructions on making your own self watering planters. JACKPOT! While the article I just read in Mother Earth News on container gardening touts commercial self watering containers as "inexpensive" I think fifty bucks is exorbitant. So this make it yourself solution is ideal. There are several models in the book, one of which I've already done with success, and another I plan on trying very soon. The one I've already made is a sterilite storage container from target, while not the prettiest thing it gets the job done and houses one of the brandywine tomatoes and three basils. It will be perfect for carrots and greens and peas next winter. I've obtained three more sterilites to make...you guessed it, three more selfwaterers. Basically what you do is create a reservoir in the bottom of the container by cutting the lid to fit inside and sit ontop of two bricks or woodblocks. You then cut a hole in the lid (which is now actually the "bottom" of the planter) and insert a basket extending down into the reservoir to act as a wick from which the rest of the soil will draw water. I didn't have a suitable basket so I punched holes in a plastic gallon flower pot. You also cut a smaller hole in the lid to put a piece of PVC piping through, this is where you'll be putting the water into the reservoir from. you fill it all up with soil, add water through the pvc, add plants and you're set. Oh, also drill holes through the sterilite at the top of the reservoir for drainage.
The planter I intend to try soon is a variation of the same thing but with 2, 5 gallon buckets.
If this makes no sense whatsoever, check out the book.
My planter costs 16 bucks total, including soil, and it's ritzy soil...suck on that Mother Earth News!!! Just kidding, I love them.

Springtime, lollipops and rainbows...

2009-03-12T13:55:00.000-07:00

This post actually only includes springtime, I just included the other things in the title because Greg keeps singing this song over and over. By song I mean, he knows the first four words and repeats. But anyway, spring is here, hooray!

Jonas and I have tired of muffins for now. Well I have at least. I don't know that Jonas will ever tire of muffins, he'd probably eat them non-stop if I let him. So we made granola last week. It's delicious. I lack the motivation to go and find the recipe right now. Laziness. I'll post it later.

My seeds from burpee have finally arrived. The peppers were really the only time sensitive thing I was waiting on. I should have started them weeks ago. The watermelon seeds will wait until I make the grow heap before getting in the ground and the black truffle tomatoes are going to be late and I've come to terms with it.

I read (and lost AHHH!) a book from the library called food from small spaces or something like that. Since reading it I've started growing our own sprouts for things like stir frys and salads. A lady in line at Sprouts, seeing me with a tub of mung beans asked me "how do you cook those beans." I told her that they were for sprouting. She looked quizzical and so I explained further that I sprout them and put them in a stirfry. Still quizzical. "You know, like, chinese food." Still quizzical, I opened my mouth to explain still further when she said abruptly, "I got it." The end. That was weird.

In case anyone is wondering here is how to grow your own sprouts:
place a quarter cup of mung beans in a quart canning jar, fill the jar with water so that the beans are covered and add a tablespoon of hydrogen peroxide (the book says bleach but that doesn't jive with me so peroxide it is) soak for fifteen minutes. This is to sterilize the beans so you don't get e coli or something equally unpleasant. Put a clean piece of cloth over the top of the jar and attach with a rubberband, strain, rinse, and fill the jar with water again, leave the beans to soak 8 to 12 hours. strain. Rinse the beans everyday, twice a day if neccessary to keep them from drying out. Keep the jar in a dark place with absolutely no sunlight. in 3-5 days you should have sprouts. There will be a lot of little green hulls in the sprouts, remove them if you want or leave them in. Leaving them in can increase chances of bacterial contamination so if you're eating the sprouts raw it's probably best to remove them. If you're cooking them it's not that big of a deal. Cook them no longer than three minutes to retain nutrients.

Enjoy People! :)

Tis the season...almost!

2009-02-28T15:53:00.001-08:00

The day I've waited so long for is finally here (on tuesday!). Our average last frost date! At the end of every summer I'm always bummed thinking it's going to be an eternity before we have tomatoes and basil and cucumbers and summer squash, but here it is already, Spring! Greg and I watched a cooking show today while eating lunch, the host was slicing the worlds most delicious looking tomato. Greg commented on how good it looked and I said something about how I'm so ready for tomato season again. Here it comes. I'm ridiculously excited. Which is strange because I moved all of our summer seedlings outside quite awhile ago. But anyway, time for the real gardening to begin.

I have somewhat of a conundrum in that I need to start preparing the grow heap for the cucurbits but the plot it has been assigned to is the plot with the peas...which just started flowering. Lovely.

It seems like this time of year is filled with nothing but weeding, which I love so I shouldn't complain. The rains we just received have really helped the weeding process. My past week was spent out in the garden, weeding, and planting nasturtiums. I've also started pruning the lemon tree, who knows the last time it was pruned...it's taking forever. After I'm done pruning and spraying the lemon tree with a soapy water/baking soda solution I'm going to plant nasturtiums underneath it.

In pruning the lemon tree I have discovered a whole new area of our yard. What fun! The back corner behind the lemon tree goes mostly untouched, Greg has been back there but I sure haven't. It struck me today how absolutely perfect it would be for a shady lettuce and Greens garden. There's a giant ugly oleander in the middle of everything, that must go.

A friend of mine has offered to give me a worm composter that she inherited from her house's previous owner. I almost peed my pants with excitement when I heard the news. I haven't picked it up from her yet (maybe because I haven't stopped weeding) but I have been reading up on vermicomposting and all of it's glory. Once I get the bin set up I plan on buying worms from the worm lady at the lakeside farmer's market.

I went to the nursery a few days ago to look at their strawberries and judge whether the strawberries in my yard got verticulum from my soil or if they brought it with them from the grower. Well they absolutely brought it with them, which really pisses me off. Anyway as I was leaving the guy behind the counter gave me a free gardening magazine, which was really random. In the magazine there was an article about pepper plants and how they are actually perennials, and not annuals as most people think. I've decided to grow all of my peppers in pots this year and take them inside in the winter to test this new perennial pepper knowledge. I've ordered giant marconi peppers from burpee. They sound wonderful.

I also ordered carolina cross #183 watermelon seeds, against my better judgement. What I'm going to do with a triple digit pounder watermelon I don't know. Perhaps a watermelon eating party.

That's all for now. Hope everyone is as excited as I am about spring! Hooray!

Catch Up

2009-02-15T19:29:00.000-08:00

Wow, what a slacker I have been lately. Not in real life, but definitely on the blog. Sorry about that folks. Nothing like a best friend to tell you it's time for an update, thanks Nikol:). You can all thank her for this post. Since it's been so rainy, some days monsoon caliber rainy, I've had little motivation or need to go out in the garden. The rain watered everything for me! Now that it seems to be letting up I should really get out there. The veg rows need weeding and the compost really needs to be turned.
During the torrential downpour Greg and I -but mostly me because Greg was sick- set up a simple rain catch system. And I DO mean simple, essentially buckets and garbage cans placed at strategic points outside. We were able to catch a lot of water off of the roof, several garbage cans worth. I plan on using this to water the garden when everything starts drying out.
My seedlings are growing by leaps and bounds. It's clear they are as ready for spring as I am. Most of them need to be repotted and are quite leggy. The tomatoes especially. I hope the evenings warm up soon because I don't have enough counter space to house everything once they're moved to bigger pots and I don't have enough cloches for all of them to go outside. I've been using some empty baby food jars as make-shift cloches for a few of the smaller sunberry bushes. They work quite nicely.
I'm becoming fairly certain that the strawberries are riddled with verticullum wilt. Why?! Why must I be plagued with these horrible, irradicable, soil diseases? And of course the plot I have slated for berries is the one with verticullum wilt. Verticullum attacks most berries.
In trying to replan the garden to allow for a different berry plot and sufficient space for all of the cucurbits I've decided to make one giant grow heap out of all the compost and some soil from Alpine Rock and Block. It'll be on the left side of the yard, where the cucurits were going to go anyway, but instead of several small hills I've decided to grow all of the cucurbits in one big, long grow heap. The plan is to plant the bushing varieties (zucchini and such) along the top, and the trailing types around the edges. I'm very excited about this and I've been building up the compost in anticipation. I think the best part may be that at the end of the season I'll be able to just flatten out the grow heap and have lovely rich soil ready for winter plantings.
Those of you who have read previous postings may remember me saying that seed catalogs are going to be the death of me. That remains true. These days I'm in love with the hardy kiwi, specifically the red variety, but honestly I love them all. The hardy kiwi is a vine that has beautiful red and green foliage, it produces small, completely edible kiwi fruits that can be eaten like grapes. The skin isn't brown and furry like the traditional kiwi. One vine is said to produce over 100 pounds of fruit in it's first year! I've got my eye on this one for next year.
I can't believe spring is almost here! I get so discouraged at the end of summer because I know I'll have to wait months until I can really garden again. This year winter went by very fast. Maybe because I really got into winter gardening. Either way, hooray spring is almost upon us!!! And speaking of winter plantings, we had a lovely salad from the garden with our dinner tonight. We had the parents over, it was wonderful! I expected the lettuce this year to be covered in nibbles from bugs, but it hasn't been, it's been pristine and lovely. The mustard is all hole-y though, maybe there's something to that. Maybe the mustard distracts the critters from the lettuce.

That's all for now. Ta ta!

Berry-palooza

2009-01-26T19:23:00.001-08:00

We've finally got all of the trellis poles in the ground and now they're just waiting for me to string the bailing wire. Note: bailing wire smells. Then I have to go get more manure and plant the actual brambles. They've started sprouting leaves in their pots. Time to crack down and get it done I guess.
Allow me to take this time to describe the difference between everbearing and june bearing raspberries. June bearing raspberries bear fruit in june -whodda thunk it?- and continue to produce through the early summer. While everbearing produces a crop of fruit on old canes in june and then another crop on new canes in late august or early september. The second crop continues producing until the frost. In addition to boysenberries and blackberries we will be planting heritage raspberries this year. Heritage is an everbearing type. Since it will be the plant's first year in the ground I don't know that we'll get an early summer crop, seeing as there are no old canes. I've read that many farmers cut back the everbearing types opting for only one harvest in august/september. I doubt we'll do that. Although I've toyed with the idea since we also have blackberries and boysenberries. It would be nice to get a large crop of raspberries all at once for jamming. I'm going to see what kind of berry output we get with the three bushes and adjust accordingly for next year. I thought three bramble fruit bushes would be plenty but while perusing the burpee catalog I saw that one order of raspberries equals five plants. Maybe three isn't as many as I thought. They'll grow and spread over time, sending up new shoots, so I'm not too worried. I'm sooo excited for these berries!!! A small container in the store runs upwards of 5 bucks, so to have them right in the backyard, in abundance -fingers crossed- will be a blessing.

And speaking of berries, all 15 sunberry starts have sprouted, some already have "true" leaves! -the first two leaves on a seedling are technically considered the seed casing. I'm impressed that all of them have sprouted. When after 10 days we only had one, I started losing hope, but now all of them are on their way towards berry production. Information about the sunberry is pretty limited, although last week I did discover that it's technically a cross between brambles, which is strange since it looks and tastes almost exactly like a blueberry. I'm not sure what growing conditions it likes, or whether it will produce fruit in it's first year. It's going to be a trial and error summer with the sunberries.
Moving on. Requesting more seed catalogs this "late" in the season was a big mistake. I had my garden all planned out, but now have my eye on carolina cross #183 watermelon seeds. The melons can grow up to 200 pounds!!! I doubt they'll get that big in my yard...maybe if I put them in the grow heap... I don't know where my obsession with giant produce came from or why I have it in the first place. Must be the freak factor. One thing is certain: these seed catalogs will be my undoing.

Hope everyone is doing well!
P.S. these white currants make me very jealous of cooler climates! I wish we could grow them here, and gooseberries too! Don't they look so refreshing?!

Recent Happenings

2009-01-21T13:21:00.000-08:00

Hey all! Sorry it's been so long since I've posted anything. I've been trying to whip the house (and garden) back into shape after being sick. Also my nights have been taken up with other things, so the blog suffered. But I'm back.
I finished planting all of the strawberries and mulched them with pine needles. We are now getting a pretty steady crop of lettuce and other greens. Yesterday I broke down a huge stack of cardboard boxes that we had in the garage. I used the cardboard to cover a plot on the right side of the yard. It's very weedy and I'm hoping the cardboard will smother out at least some of the weeds before I have to spread some manure there in March. I planted last year's green bean trellis with some Green Arrow Peas from Seed Saver's. I'm using them as a test to see if Fusarium was really what plagued the beans. If the peas succumb to a similar fate then the answer will be yes, it was fusarium. Unless this strain of pea is fusarium resistant, in which case I'm screwed, but we will have peas. So it works either way. That's pretty lazy gardening right there.
Yesterday I also propagated (or attempted to propagate) seven new lavender plants. I only have one in the yard right now. I took a woody cutting from the existing plant and pulled off seven side shoots. I dipped the shoots in rooting hormone and planted them in little terra cotta pots full of planting mix. They should root in the next four weeks. You're supposed to propagate lavender in the summer, but whatever. I'm hoping that the climate is mild enough to allow for this winter propagation. I'm keeping them on the kitchen windowsill. I would love to have millions of lavender plants. If these take they are destined for the front walkway. It's in pretty sorry shape, some big lavender bushes would go a long way towards sprucing up the place.

Last saturday I bought echinacea seeds at henry's while grocery shopping. That recent bout with the common cold spurred me to consider more herbalist remedies. I'll probably end up planting them along the front pathway as well. Hopefully the next illness will find us prepared with echinacea leaf tea.

The seedlings I started a little while back are doing amazingly well. Almost everything has popped up. Meaning we will have quite a few tomato plants this year, and sunberry bushes and basil.
On Saturday Greg started digging holes for the bramble trellis poles. It is not going well. Greg really hurt his back. We're pretty sure we've hit solid (read: not decomposed) granite. And the holes are only half as deep as they need to be. I don't know what we are going to do.
On a happier note I found clothes pins at Payton's Hardware here in Lakeside. Pretty cheap, I think it was three bucks for a bag of fifty. I fashioned a clothespin holder out of an empty milk gallon by cutting a hole in the side directly under the handle, then severing the handle at the base. The handle slips right onto the line and the pins go in (and out) of the hole. Brilliant!

Fancy Book Learnin'

2009-01-15T19:50:00.000-08:00

I've been feeling sick-ish since Monday and last night I finally succumbed to a head cold. I tried to convince myself that it was just allergies, but it was not to be. I'm very blessed and Greg took the day off of work to take care of me and to look after Jonas. I'm feeling better already, maybe it's the dayquil or maybe it's the gallons of fresh orange/carrot juice Greg has been making for me. Bless his heart, he loves that juicer.
So in lieu of actual work I spent the day reading gardening books from the library. I'm really into herbs lately. I have a large plot reserved for herbs this year, as opposed to the small plot and containers I've been keeping them in. I'm also going to convert the strawberry pot -a large terracotta deal with a bunch of side holes- into an herb pot, I just think it'd be cooler with all sorts of things coming out of the holes instead strawberry after strawberry. And now for something completely -ok slightly- different. Lavender is a plant I would love to have more of. I have one that I planted last year, it's still rather small, probably because I don't water it often enough. I read today about propagating different herbs from cuttings. I'm so excited to try it out. Especially on the lavender. I would love to have little sachets of lavender flowers in our dresser, and lavender linen spray for bedding and such. How lovely. Also the plant attracts butterflies and hummingbirds. Not that we need any more hummingbirds. There's a second hummingbird nest in the purple tree. What fun. But I digress. The book is called, A Handful of Herbs by Barbara Segall, Louise Pickford and Rose Hammick. The pictures in the book are very inspiring. Though one strange thing about the book is the amount of herb descriptions containing the caution: avoid when pregnant. Parsley for instance, who knew? Probably Siobhan. P.S. I've decided to keep the rosemary in it's container for now. Those things can go kind of crazy when given the run of the land. And speaking of rosemary, there's a really awesome rosemary bonsai at the garden center. I'm going to try and start my own bonsai from a cutting. Wouldn't that be adorable?
And now for something completely different, for real this time. Potatoes. I read in a separate book, that you can use unfinished compost or mulch instead of soil to hill up potatoes. This changes everything! I hate piling soil onto potatoes because 1: it erodes away so quickly (and yes you can shore it up with a tire, but sorry I don't have any spare tires around and have yet to expend energy on an alternative). and 2: the soil has to be bought. I hate buying soil. Paying for what is, essentially, fancy dirt, doesn't thrill me. (this is also part of why I stopped buying manure, money for poo, are you kidding?) I'm pretty sure it's too late for potatoes here, and I don't have ground available for them anyway so...next year. If you are interested in growing potatoes you can buy seed potatoes from many sources, Seed Saver's Exchange has lots of cool ones. Or if you're looking for a cheaper alternative just buy the type of potatoes you like at the supermarket. Some may have been treated with a chemical to retard their growth, but it will not inhibit them entirely, so plant 'em, and save some of their harvest for next year's chemical-free seed potatoes.

Couldn't resist. That's all I can think of for now. Take care guys.

Gardening Experiments

2009-01-14T21:19:00.000-08:00

Earlier in the week I listened to my favorite pod-cast, The Alternative Kitchen Garden. In this week's edition of the pod-cast, the host Emma discussed various gardening experiments she has tried and those she will be trying in the future. It got me think about different experiments I've tried. Prior to this I really hadn't thought of them as experiments. I don't know what I considered them, but experiments seems to fit the description.
An experiment I tried last year was the potted pole bean trellis. I read in "The Bountiful Container Garden," that the roots of green beans only go down six inches, so they can be grown in relatively small pots. I discussed this idea with my father-in-law and the idea for the trellis was born! I bought 14 1 gallon pots at the nursery and a ton of garden twine. Between two patio posts I strung twine, from top to bottom, in rows at 5 inch intervals. Then I affixed 1 string of twine per pot, going from the top of the patio awning down to the pot. Is this making sense? The beans grew great on the improvised trellis and reached the top in no time. I didn't get many beans because of blossom drop due to high temperatures and humidity. And after the blossom drop passed the plants were overtaken by fusarium wilt. I mulched the pots with manure from the north, it carried the fusarium virus and all of the plants succumbed to it. Fusarium wilt is incurable and once it gets into your soil there is no way to get it out, it can lay dormant for decades. So I'm thankful that the infected manure went into pots and not the ground. I'm going to try the green bean trellis again this year, and reccomend it for any one planning a container garden or looking for a pretty wall screen.
The next experiment is one I'm trying for the first time this year. I actually got this idea from Emma (she of the alternative kitchen garden). We have an abundance of cardboard and paper in this house. I've decided to try a predominantly cardboard/paper compost. Of course I'll put some high nitrogen materials (like grass) in to kick start and speed up the process. But for the most part it will be torn up cardboard. I'm using a large cardboard box to house it and we'll see how it works out. If nothing else, at least it will begin to break down so that it can be added to the normal compost incrementally.
And now for an experiment that didn't go so well. Companion container gardening. Last year I tried to grow lemon ball cucumbers and a tomato in the same container. The idea being that the tomato would grow upwards and the cukes trail over the side. Ideal because the tomato and cucumber, though related, share very few of the same pests. What happened was the tomato took all of the water and the shallow rooted cucumber thirsted to death. I draw the line at watering something several times a day. Had it not been for that experiment I may never have tried the lemon ball cucumber. Which would have been a mistake. They are amazing! I had to buy six starts so quite a few went into the ground. They are very drought tolerant, very cute, very prolific and very tasty. I'm growing them again this year, of course. I'm really excited to juice them. We has sooo many last year I gave them away to neighbors. Some, oddly enough, wouldn't take them because they didn't look right. Apparently if it's not long and dark green it's not a cucumber. Whatever people.
Last year I also trained a container summer squash to a trellis. It was so cool! A ball zucchini is what I think it was called. Most summer squash trail and like to be trained upwards but some don't so before you go trying this make sure the squash is a trailer. If the plant sports some curly tendrils it's a good sign it'll train well.
I hope this post inspires you to be experimental and try some new and different things in your garden. Who knows what you'll find? If you've got a neat experiment story I'd love to hear it. Til tomorrow, people!

All In A Day's Work

2009-01-13T19:29:00.001-08:00

Where does the day go? I meant to get so much done today and comparatively accomplished very little. My to do list looks so pathetic, so many boxes unchecked. But tomorrow is another day. I guess I'll focus on the things that did get done.
I raked up a ton of pine needles from the lawn and laid them down as a mulch for the 5 in-ground strawberry plants. I also raked enough needles to fill a bucket, to be laid down later when I put the other plants in. I was going to get myself some straw to mulch the bramble berries but, in keeping with the use-what-you've-got theme I think the pine needles will work just fine. Nay, better! I picked spinach and emptied some buckets of last year's soil. Found a nice collection of fat, disgusting grubs and squashed them. I'm planning on growing all of the tomatoes (except those slated for the compost pile grow heap experiment) in buckets this year. The one's in buckets did so well last year and were not systematically destroyed by japanese beetles. Which is more than I can say for the in-ground tomatoes. Looks like we'll have quite a few tomato plants, most of the seedlings have come up and I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the rest.
A few days ago I tried to plan out meals we could eat once the garden starts producing and the eggs start rolling in from arranged barters. We've been trying some of the meals, to make sure we like them. Tonight we had a frittata with spinach, canned tomatoes, onion, and parmesan cheese. It was delicious. I can only imagine how much better it will taste with fresh from the garden tomatoes or roasted tomatoes (I love making those!!!) The frittata is perfect for our meal plan because it can be adjusted for year round enjoyment. When we are inundated with zucchini, we'll have zucchini in it, and when we have lots of spinach, spinach, or tomatoes or peppers. See how it works? So many possibilites. I'm also looking forward to including lots of fresh herbs in the dish.
To make the frittata all you do is saute a bunch of vegetables in a 10inch pan with some oil, beat about 6 eggs with a little milk, pour that over the top of the vegetables, cover, turn the heat to low and let it cook until the top is set -about 6-8 minutes. I sliced it into wedges, not unlike a pie, and we ate it with some toast. I'm excited to eat this with a side of berries or melon in the summer.
Today I was determined to set up a clothesline. Amanda has reinspired me. We had one set up last year, essentially a thin rope strung between two patio awning posts. I took it down when I set up a hemp trellis for bucketed green beans last year. All the beans died of fusarium wilt, which is pretty much karma for using the dryer so much (and buying fusarium riddled manure from back east). The trellis remains so I'm at a loss as to where I should string up the new line. I'd like to put it up in the basketball court area but am lacking a second pole. What's a girl to do? Also, where can you buy clothes pins? Last year I just draped. I've looked several places and I'm still pin-less.
Til next time.

I'm A Sucker For Free Poo

2009-01-12T19:24:00.000-08:00

Today was a very productive day in the garden. I turned the composts this morning, and planted lots of lovely things in the "flower" box outside my kitchen window. I planted beets, bunching onions, lovage, cilantro, parsley, thyme, and dill. We'll see what takes. The police helicopter started circling our neighborhood looking for a shady character so I decided to take Jonas inside.
After Greg got home from work I went to the nursery and bought twelve strawberry starts. This is the third year we are trying strawberries in our yard and I'm confident that it's going to work this time. There was a somewhat pleasant surprise at the nursery, the bramble fruits I had ordered online a while back had come in...a month early. And here are Greg and I, still without a trellis. Greg, being the wonderful husband that he is, immediately called his dad and arranged to get a trellis set up on friday. Roughly the trellis will be wire strung between two 4x4 posts established in the ground. There will be one long trellis for the raspberries and boysenberries and then another for the blackberries on the other side of the pathway. I'm really glad I decided to pre order the brambles, the plants I received look a million times healthier than the stock the nursery had on hand.
After the nursery I drove out to a horse boarding place and shoveled some free horse manure that was laying in a pile by the side of the road. I shoveled it into big trashbags and heaved it into the trunk of our corolla. When I got home I let Greg lug it to the back yard. He asked who helped me get it into the car. I eventually convinced him that I did it by myself. They were pretty heavy bags. I guess I'm getting stronger. Must be all that compost turnin'.
At home I spread the manure in the berry plot. I was going to plant the strawberries so that they form the front border, but decided that the manure should probably cure a bit longer. So I planted some along the brick pathway (where the borage was going to go. boo.) And I still have 8 plants that I'll place along the front in a day or so. I can't wait to see how it all looks once the berries are established. Beautiful! My friend Nikol's blog has inspired me to take some before and after pictures. Shoulda done it sooner, like...before we ripped all of the bushes out of the plot but...so it goes.

Funky Saturday

2009-01-10T21:14:00.000-08:00

Man was I in a funk today. But, I was lucky enough to have a friend to pull me out of it. Thanks Nikol! So I didn't get much done in the garden. Jonas and I walked around in the yard quite a bit this morning, but that was pretty much the extent of the, "gardening." It was nice to spend time in the yard with Jonas without slaving away. We just wandered around, he really liked the seed pods off of our purple tree (I don't know the real name of it). The seeds jingled inside the pod when shaken. Jonas got a huge kick out of rattling an entire branch of them. He cried when I made him go inside and eat breakfast. What a baby. He's also very enthralled with a stump that I pulled out of the ground last week but haven't moved. If I let him walk wherever he wants you can bet he'll make a dash for that stump, then just stand there and poke at it. The kid likes what her likes. He also keeps picking up little rocks and saying "ball" over and over. It's pretty darn cute. Almost as cute as Siobhan's Mallory stealing vegetables from the garden.

One of my favorite people, Nikol, came over today to swap oranges for lemons. The oranges were sooo good! We juiced them for part of our dinner tonight along with some carrots. So thank you for the oranges and unfunking (defunking?) Nikol, you're the best! I hope the lemons don't disappoint. I can't say it enough, bartering is awesome. I traded lemons that probably would have gone bad, for oranges that we will certainly use up.

I realized this afternoon that the strawberries should probably go into the ground pronto. I still have to lay down a thick layer of manure and actually buy the strawberry plants. Last year I waited too long and by the time I went looking for strawberries they were sold out, everywhere. Top priority for monday: spread some cow poo and plant some strawberries. Also the ground where the bramble fruits are going in needs to be prepped. So much to do!

If anyone out there has really crappy soil and thinks they can't grow anything in it, or if you're just looking for a way to improve the soil here's what you do. Now, our soil was complete junk when we moved in, seriously, decomposed granite. I tried everything I could think of, finally I read about this method in the book, "Eat More Dirt," by Ellen Sandbeck (a must-read) I was very skeptical but, at that point, willing to try anything so I gave it a shot. It works like a dream! To start: DO NOT TILL THE SOIL. This may sound strange, I, too was raised on the idea that tilling was the way to go. Forget it. Soak the area that you want to improve with a garden hose. Spread a thick layer of composted manure (not fresh) so that the layer is 6 inches deep (no need to weed the area, big plus). Stomp it down to 2 inches. Wet it again so that it all bonds together. If you're worrying about the measurements, don't. On the right side of our yard I started to run out of manure when I did this last year and so a large area only got like a 2 inch layer of poo, at best. It still produced very well. Plant whatever you want, mulch it with whatever you want, add some compost and more manure if you like, whenever you like. It's generally a good idea to replenish the soil with goodness at least once a year, in the fall when you pull out all the dead stuff. Trust me this method WORKS!!!

Til tomorrow people. Night.

Compost-o-rama and 1 retraction

2009-01-09T20:59:00.000-08:00

Well folks, the wonder plant borage, which sounded too good to be true, was. Yes, yes, tis true. Last night while I was reading an herb book from the library I discovered that the plant should not be eaten because it has high levels of a toxin which causes liver cancer. (Liver cancer you say? Delightful.) It's nice that I'm finding this out now, after reading several things on the plant, not one of them mentioning liver cancer. So sorry to disappoint. Nobody could be more heartbroken than I. Supposedly it's a very good plant for composting, so it's not a total loss. And there's still lovage for a celery back up.

And now we're on to composting. Another book I perused last night, The Complete Compost Gardening Guide by Barbara Pleasant and Deborah L. Martin was very inspiring. So inspiring in fact that I spent the day cleaning up the yard, trimming bushes, raking and ultimately forming a second compost heap almost as large as the first. I've decided to make the old compost pile into a grow heap come spring. I'll have to layer it with some soil, but that shouldn't be too rough. Our yard is so established and filled with bushes that I could probably collect enough for several more compost piles! Plus our neighbor's umpteen gigantic pine trees that constantly drop needles into our yard (and their pool) are a big help. Blessing to us, vexation to them. The needles will make a nice mulch for the berries this year. I would suggest checking out this compost book if you get a chance. Very cool, lots of pictures and neat ideas. There are also graphs showing helpful things like, the ratio of carbon to nitrogen in many commonly composted materials. I'm unbelievably excited for my grow heap! I'd really love to do an herb spiral but think I'll end up growing winter squashes and maybe some tomatoes in it.

Wondering what a grow heap is? It's basically a compost pile, layered with soil. You plant things in it and they grow. Pretty simple huh? The reason you layer it with soil is so that the roots have something more to anchor in than just spongy, selfish compost. I say selfish because it's sponge-like qualities cause it to soak up most of the available water. As wet as a compost pile is plants grown strictly in it tend to show signs of severe dehydration. Winter squashes (and probably any member of the cucurbit family) do well in grow heaps. And it's ideal because the trailing vines can trail their way down the heap. I am worried about powdery mildew. Last year all of my cucurbits succumbed to it. Some produced before dying, others just died. I still have a half green pumpkin on my sideboard, proof that the plant died of mildew before it could fully orange-up. Jonas got into a fight with it the other day. But thats another story.

I'm newly jazzed about composting, which helps take some of the sting out of the borage let down. I'm excited about my new pile and all of the potential things around the yard still waiting to be added. And the lawn needs to be cut again. HEE HEE! Nothing like a good lawn cutting to kick off the compost! I've been considering asking our neighbors Tim and Sharon if they'll give us their lawn clippings. They, especially Sharon, are very diligent in the upkeep of their yard. Every week I watch them drag their yard waste bins out to the curb. I salivate a little. I need to just bring them a loaf of bread and ask. Bread always helps. There's that bartering system again. Boo ya!

And now I'm off to watch 30 rock. Night all.

Bartering: because sometimes, innoculating a goat is just too much!

2009-01-08T19:25:00.000-08:00

Jonas and I listen to pod-casts while we eat our breakfasts every morning. This morning was "The Survival Pod-cast." Perhaps a bit alarmist at times, but not too bad, and very useful, I recommend it highly. The pod-cast today was all about becoming independent from different systems. For example, the healthcare system, the debt system, the commercial food system. Very enlightening and inspiring. One tip I'll pass on is the suggestion to learn something new every week that will help you become more self sufficient. For instance learn to unclog a drain, or some basic first-aid, or how to change brake pads. Those types of things. The pod-cast also contained quite a bit on bartering. Consider this the segue...
Bartering has been a pretty consistent theme in my life this past week. I've been trading homemade bread for eggs with my pal Ingrid for awhile, and now I'm branching out into other trades as well. It's very useful since we try to eat locally and love eggs, but cannot have our own chickens at this time. Another bartering venture I'm excited about is trading some of our lemons for oranges with another friend, Nikol. And our good pal Amanda is getting chickens soon and willing to trade seedlings and bread for eggs. I've decided someone in my network needs to get some cows so we can have milk. I know several people who are looking into goats, but don't know that I'll reap the benefits of that. I mean, how much milk does a goat give? I fell in love with the idea of having goats yesterday, but tried to contain myself since the likelihood of being allowed goats is nil. Hello, we can't even get chickens. I'm reading Farewell My Subaru in which the author acquires two goats. Hijinks ensure, including goat intestinal distresses and innoculations that must be administered in the back of the neck. No thanks. Were we allowed livestock I could probably man up and do it, but for now I'll just make bread, and hope for the best. This whole bartering system fascinates me. Very subversive. Mr. Survival Podcaster suggested bartering for something you don't even want just to stick it to the man. I wouldn't go that far, but definitely feel around and see what bartering options are available to you and take advantage of them. And it's not just goods, services are something to barter too. Supposedly there are internet groups to fascilitate and other fun things like that. I'll look into it.

But enough about bartering. I did not make it out into the garden today. The house was in disarray and suffering for a good clean so I stayed in and powered through it. It's gotta get done once in awhile I guess. I also spent a large chunk of time juicing lemons and freezing the juice in ice cube trays. That juice will come in handy in the summer when I'm canning tomatoes. I also zested the peels and froze that. Some of the peels went towards the organic pesticide I discussed yesterday. I barely made a dent in the crop. But I'm not complaining. It's an embarassment of lemony riches.

You'll forgive me if this entry is somewhat short (yeah right), a bunch of gardening books came in at the library and I'm leaving you to peruse them. One last thing. I realized today just how much advanced planning (and re-planning) I do for my garden, especially with this newest venture. If anyone out there is planning their impending garden and would like a list of what I'm growing for ideas just shoot me a comment. Or maybe I'll post it later just for kicks. I'd also appreciate comments on topics you'd be interested in hearing me ramble on about. That's all for tonight. Later!

Lemons and other blessings

2009-01-07T21:31:00.000-08:00

I was going to write about this yesterday but forgot until the end, and by then I'd been going on forever so I left it off. Here it is. I was watching Martha Stewart while breastfeeding Jonas and she had some spunky expert girl on talking about things to combat seasonal affective disorder. She had a list of foods to eat and I found it quite interesting that all of the foods were winter season crops. Hmmm, shouldn't this have been a no-brainer? Winter squash, beets, and so on. I had a conversation a little while ago at a book club (holla mongooses!) about eating seasonally (the book was barbara kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle). One lady made the comment that it couldn't be healthy for our bodies to go without things like lettuce for such an extended period as, oh, 8 months. I responded that (and of course it wasn't this eloquent at the time, but this is what I meant) mother nature knew what was best, and that foods in season offered what our bodies needed on a seasonal basis. This idea continues to fascinate me, and has now been proven right, on some level, by martha stewart.
Of course with food availability being what it is most people have no idea what is in season and out. Kingsolver gives a handy diagram to solve this dilemma in the book, I'll let you all search that one out for yourselves. However I will offer this tid-bit I learned when I was 15 or 16 in a church lesson: If it's on sale and there's a lot of it, it's a good bet it's in season. For example, today I went shopping for more juicing supplies, oranges were on sale, voila! See how easy that was?
In other news I pulled out the last stump in what is to be the sorrel plot. Also I raked it over and picked a plethora of lemons off the tree. Jonas got cranky so the rest of the lemons will have to wait. Also the ladder scares the living daylights out of me. Our lemon tree looks infested with white fly and really needs to be sprayed with soapy water. There's a handy organic concoction I make to kill aphids and such that is made out of lemon peels (the lemonene in the peels dries out the little suckers), I am going to boil down the peels after I juice our harvest and try that on the tree.
After a visit to the nursery and seeing all of the citrus quarantined for asian citrus psyllid I am now terrified that that is what is ailing our tree. I've been meaning to call a master gardener about it, but have put it off because I just know they're going to diagnose it immediately as the psyllid and run over and chastise me. Irrational, I know, but this is how my mind works.
For dinner tonight we juiced. Greg is really getting into it which is very nice. We also had pita bread cut into triangles with hummus, and green beans. This is the first time I've actually made hummus, I've bought it, but never made it. What a difference! So much tastier. I was inspired by a friend's recent wedding reception, the food was all mediterranean and junk. Best wedding food ever. And her dad made it all! The tabbouleh was incredible. The dolmas, nothing to write home about but I think they were actually store bought. But I've gotten off track. The hummus is simple and delicious and healthy, and combats Seasonal affective disorder, how about that?
In a food processor blend 15 ounces of garbanzo beans (reserve the liquid for thinning later), 1-3 cloves of garlic crushed (I love garlic and only used two and it was STRONG, consider yourselves warned!), 2 tablespoons olive oil, 2 tablespoons tahini (sesame seed paste, pretty cheap and awesome) 2 tablespoons lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste. Whip it up, thin to the desired thickness with reserved bean juice and enjoy! What a quick healthy dinner, filling also. I'm thinking this'll be great in the summer when it's too hot to cook anything.
Well, it's late, I should hit the hay. Take care all.

TVP and other things

2009-01-06T19:55:00.000-08:00

The compost is finally sifted and moved! To sift it I used a black basket type thing they hand out at the nursey to corral plants when taking them home. It was very effective. In the end I got about two and a half buckets of good compost. I was a little discouraged at first because I wasn't getting a whole lot of finished compost but towards the bottom it was practically all gold. I used the compost to enrich the ground and smother weeds where I am planning on planting borage, along the brick pathway. I also used some as a mulch/fertilizer in the planterbox outside my kitchen window and I used the last bit to mulch/fertilize one cage of peas that was sorely lacking. How fast it went. I could use about twenty more buckets of the stuff.
The new compost pile is a thing of beauty, very tall. I'm toying with the idea of starting a new compost somewhere else, letting the current one break down nice and good, and planting some squash in it for the summer.
I planted another rotation of spinach, mustard, chard and lettuce. I'm thinking they'll have just enough time to grow before the weather gets too hot. Cross your fingers. We're getting a decent crop of spinach these days.
While I was sowing those seeds I watched a hummingbird build a nest in the back bushes. One hummingbird built while another hovered around. There are things I notice in the nest. Dryer lint from the compost and I think some threads from yarn I tossed. I can see the nest from our dining room window, not a good view, but still it pleases me to know it's there. Today I listened to one of my favorite podcasts, the alternative kitchen garden. It was all about birds and what to feed them. One of my resolutions this year was to finally make a birdfeeder and get a birdbath. Now I am even more determined! I love birds in the garden. Especially the weird yellow and black one that comes around and does mating dances inbetween the rows of vegetables. He's a hoot!

Now TVP (textured vegetable protein). I've been cooking with it for awhile, experimenting is a better word. Lately I've tried pushing it on my vegetarian sister-in-law. I bought her a big bag of her own as a parting gift when she left for college after winter break. I don't know how thrilled she was, I hope she uses it. Anyway, I say experimenting because I can't find recipes that includes the stuff anywhere! I've searched online, I've searched my vegetarian cookbooks, even the library system came up short. It's bad when the library doesn't have anything on it. Oops! I just realized I haven't explained what it is yet, for those who don't know. TVP is essentially soy flour formed into granules. You can buy it enriched or un-enriched, though obviously enriched is better since it has iron and lovely things like that. I use it mostly as a substitute for ground beef. Each serving has a ridiculous amount of fiber in it, something like 16 grams! I can't say definitively since I lack the motivation to actually go look at the bag. Because of this astounding amount of fiber I would advise caution when adding it to your diet. Some in our family, Greg especially, have had some unfortunate cramping. So work it in slowly people.
TVP is great because it's so effortless. I throw a handful of the dry stuff into spaghetti sauces and soups and I rehydrate some in hot water to add to meatloaf and taco meat. Here is my mother-in-law's recipe for meatloaf (the best ever!) adjusted to include a large portion of TVP (also the amount of veggies is upped). The recipe still retains some meat, but if you're a vegetarian I don't see why you couldn't just make it all TVP, or maybe experiment with some chopped nuts. Do what pleases you.

In a medium size bowl mix:

1/2 lb ground beef
3/4 of a cup dry TVP, rehydrated. After soaking in hot water for a bit the 3/4 cup should now equal two cups. Wring it out in a papertowel or cheesecloth.
3/4 cup quick oats
2 eggs
4-5 green onions sliced
1 tsp salt
some black pepper
about 3/4 cup shredded carrot (I used juicer pulp)
1/2 cup chopped celery (again, pulp)
A handful of parsley chopped (pulp)
3 Chard leaves chopped (pulp)
1/2 tsp poultry seasoning
good swig of worcestershire sauce
3/4 cup milk.

Mix it all up and spread into a greased 8x8 glass pan, spread special sauce on top, cook at 350 for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Enjoy. The special sauce is 1/2 cup of ketchup, 3 tablespoons of brown sugar and 2 teaspoons of mustard mixed up. If you are new to TVP I would reccommend trying this recipe with 1 pound of meat and half the amount of TVP, decrease the milk to 1/2 cup. Everything else stays the same. This recipe makes 6-8 servings.

In The Kitchen

2009-01-05T19:10:00.000-08:00

I know I didn't spend ALL day in the kitchen, but it sure felt like it. I made bread for some people, and soup for a friend of mine who just had a baby and is laid up (Hi Siobhan!). This morning Jonas and I were out of muffins so I made more this morning. I tried a new recipe which I found on the back of the ground flax bag. It is the mother of all muffins. Here's the recipe:

1 1/2 cups unbleached white flour
3/4 Cup flax seed meal
3/4 Cup Oat Bran (I used wheat bran)
1 cup brown sugar
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powser
2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 Cups shredded carrots (I used juicer pulp)
2 apples peeled, cored and shredded (again, juicer pulp)
1/2 Cup raisins (I used craisins, since we have a giant bag of them)
1 Cup nuts, chopped (I left this out since Jonas would be eating them)
3/4 Cup milk (I used a full cup since I used juicer pulp which is a little dry-ish)
2 eggs beaten (From Ingrid's chickens, Hi Ingrid!)
1 tsp vanilla

Basically mix dry ingredients, add apples and carrots, mix, add everything else, mix, but not too much. Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes. The recipe says it will make 15 muffins (which is weird, who has a fifteen-muffin tin?) But it made 24, and I didn't even add nuts! They were pretty good, the cinnamon/vanilla combo was a little strange but not bad.
Jonas could not get enough of these muffins. He would wail whenever his little highchair tray sat empty for longer than 2 seconds. When I finally thought he was done (because he had started throwing things on the ground) I put him down to play in the living room, he crawled right back to where his highchair was and ate the muffin pieces he had thrown earlier. He ate all of them and I didn't stop him. Saves me vaccuming. Builds his immune system. Everyone wins.
The muffins are great, and packed with goodness. You can't beat that. Also they look more like regular muffins, unlike the carrot/ginger ones. Here's the proof.

As for juice, I left some of the more adventurous ingredients out of Jonas's portion, hoping that he would drink it today. No good. He had carrot, apple, cantaloupe and wouldn't drink it. Perhaps he was too smitten with the muffins to be bothered. My juice on the other hand contained Apple, Carrot, Cantaloupe (rind on, not bad) celery, three big red chard leaves, and cucumber. It was delicious, though the cantaloupe leaves an after taste I can't say I care for. The juice was also a very pretty color. See?

After breakfast we went out into the garden, per the usual. The spinach starts have taken off already. Impressive. I meant to sow a bunch of things including, borage, lovage, parsley, spinach and chard, but Jonas got cranky before I could get to it. I did however get half of the compost sifted, no small feat. Our compost pile is a beast, one thing I don't like about winter gardening: the compost seems to take years to break down. There was a lovely wind scorpion nest in the middle of the pile, can't get enough of that. Hey, it's better than them hiding in our bath towels, sheesh! That was fun.
Something, probably a raccoon, the same raccoon that broke into our neighbor's liquor cabinet after sneaking in the doggy door, keeps pulling the same nasty potato from the compost and nibbling at it. Every morning I find it on the brick pathway and put it back in the pile, next morning it's back on the pathway again. I get a kick out of it. There are so many tastier things available in the pile, but it, whatever it is, is attached to that sprouting potato. I finally buried it deep in the pile today when I was sifting and moving the compost to it's new location. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll be able to sift and move the second half tomorrow, and also have time for planting seeds, and picking lemons, and juicing lemons, and spraying the lemon tree for white fly, and spreading the manure in the berry plot and starting more wheatgrass, and thinning the lettuce, and watering, and weeding. Where does it end? It's a good thing Jonas usually likes being outside. I could live without him eating snails though. Little weirdo.

A Restful (?) Sabbath

2009-01-04T20:26:00.000-08:00

Here's what I did today after church...

I made bread. I had some bran flakes that needed to be used up soon so I added them into the normal ground flax bread recipe I use. Tell me that isn't beautiful dough!

While the bread was rising I planted my seedlings. Instead of buying the tray the peat pots should be put in (which wouldn't fit on my kitchen windowsill) I saved oreo and other cookie trays thinking they'd do the job nicely. And hey what do you know? I was right. This is an oreo cookie tray, it fit 15 peat pots.

Oh yeah, while I was doing all of this Greg and Jonas watched football. A little father-son time. Adorable.

Here are the seedlings all done. And here is a list of what I started: Brandywine tomato, beefsteak tomato, silvery fir tree tomato, red pear tomato, yellow pear tomato, jelly bean tomato, different basils, and sunberry bushes. What is a sunberry you ask? Well I'll tell you. A sunberry is an heirloom which is the cross between an african berry and a european berry. It is compared to a blueberry but supposedly surpasses it in flavor. It should do well in our climate, which is good since I've desperately wanted to grow blueberries but always kill them. I started fifteen of the little suckers. Some are slated to be given away to friends and anyone willing to trade produce or eggs. If the bushes do well enough this year and are perennial I would like to replace our ornamental berry bushes in the front yard with them and probably fill the bank also. Goodness knows something needs to go on that bank!

Here is the bread all done. It rose a lot better than I expected it to. I'm glad the bran didn't weigh it down too much. I've never had luck with getting whole wheat bread to rise properly and I'm so happy the bran didn't succumb to a similar fate. Now to see if Greg will eat it...willingly.

Here's the recipe:

dissolve two teaspoons of yeast in 1/4 cup warm water. add two tablespoons sugar, one teaspoon yeast, two tablespoons canola oil. Heat two cups of milk to about 110 degrees. Pour that in. Add 1 cup ground flax meal and 1 cup bran flakes, mix it in well. Add all purpose flour until it forms a ball that leaves the sides of the mixer. Don't add too much. Like four, maybe four and a half cups. Knead it a bit and rise til doubled. Shape into loaves and rise in greased loaf pans until doubled. Bake at 375 degrees for 40-ish minutes. It's done when it sounds hollow when tapped and has a nice golden brown color. Remove from pans and lay the loaves on their sides so that the tops don't depress while they're cooling. Switch the sides every so often. This makes two loaves.

That was my day. My sister and her boyfriend also came over for dinner and I served them a spinach pasta pesto concoction. I would have made the nastutium pesto if it was just Greg, Jonas and I. But alas it was not. The pesto was from last year's garden. I'm surprised we still have so much left, I was worried we would have run out a long time ago. Now it looks like our supply should last until the new plants start producing. Maybe I should scale back the basil pesto production I have planned for this year. Nah.

Best laid plans...

2009-01-03T21:09:00.000-08:00

My blog has a follower! How validated I feel. Giddy actually is a better way of describing it. Hi, I'm a dork.

I meant to start my seedlings today, never got around to it. Which saddens me, it was the fun thing on my to-do list. I did manage to buy everything though (the easy part). As much as I love doing every little thing from scratch (to the point of ridiculousness at times, yeah, the homemade dishwasher detergent did not go so well) I'm addicted to those darn rehydrating peat pots. Perhaps it's because they remind me of those grow in water toys I loved so dearly as a child, or maybe it's that they have proven effective time and time again. I was going to sift through the compost and make my own seedling mix this year but what with Greg snapping the pitchfork like a twig and then the rain this morning, I caved and bought 2 25 packs of peat pots. I was going to list all of the seedlings I will be starting, but I'll save that for when I actually do it. (always keep 'em wanting more.)

I planted some spinach starts in the garden today. There are several gaping empty rows in the garden now that I've torn out the last of the tomatoes. I was going to plant all of it with spinach seeds but the time is flying so fast. So I planted half with starts and I'll plant the remaining with seeds. Counting the 4 week old seedlings I already had, it should make for a nice rotation.

The love affair with greens continues. Today at the nursery I came across Borage seeds. From what the packet describes it is the picture of usefullness. Technically it's considered an herb. You can eat the leaves raw or steam them like spinach (that quality in a plant thrills me to no end, again, dorky.) The stems can be peeled and used like celery, which is awesome since I don't think celery will do well here at all. And lastly the tiny, blue, star shaped flowers are edible and can be candied for winter use. In our So Cal climate borage is supposed to do well year round, in my experience that translates to: often burns to a crisp in the heat of summer. But you never know. Borage is supposed to be excellent for the beginning gardener, and should be directly sown, not transplanted. I'm going to plant it along the brick pathway on the right side of our yard, right between the compost plot and the herb/berry plot. I promised myself I would plant more flowers this year, I have a hard time understanding strictly ornamental plants and therefore rarely pay them any attention. I can appreciate beauty, but beauty with function is ideal, especially when you use precious resources (see: water) to keep it alive. So I'm placating my weary conscience by planting edible flowers. Borage is perfect! As are nasturtiums. And I'm planting sunflowers, in hopes that they'll lure the birds away from the berries. Fat chance.

Wow, I'm prolific today. Juicing. I'm obsessed. Poor little Jonas's chin is almost perpetually stained orange from the carrot juice he has every morning. When I dropped him off at Grandma Candi's yesterday to be babysat I found myself saying, "I promise I wiped his face off, the orange just won't go away." Candi understands, her skin turned orange when she was six because her mom made her eat too many carrots. But I digress. I went to Sprouts this afternoon after the nursery and bought a weeks worth of juiceable goodness. Cucumbers, oranges, apples, celery, spinach, chard, cantaloupes. So much for eating seasonally. I still refuse to buy bananas after reading "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle." I've been looking into buying my own tree, they were half price today at the nursery but they only had the ornamental type left. Surprise. Who buy's ornamental bananas? The label touted that it would provide the owner's yard with a tropical feel. Yeah, REAL bananas do that too. But I digress again. I'm very excited for a new week of juicing possibilites. I'd better end this before you all succumb to eye strain. Ta Ta!

P.S. Sorry about the lack of pictures. I meant to take some of the yard today but burned daylight doing other things. Tomorrow, I promise.

The Jack Lalane Way!

2009-01-02T21:22:00.000-08:00

On Monday I was shopping at Costco and came across the Jack Lalane Juicer. It was on sale but still pricey. I called Greg and we decided to buy it with grandparent christmas money. I LOVE IT! And not just for it's chipper-shredder like qualities, the juice is great too! I'd be lying if I told you the thought of breaking up some compost in the bad-boy hadn't crossed my mind. I need help.
Jonas and I have been juicing every morning for breakfast. Well, I juice, he sits in his highchair and is surprisingly little help. He does enjoy the juice though, and now all of his sippy-cup nipples are stained orange. This week we juiced two apples and six carrots every morning. Some mornings I threw in a handful of parsley from the garden for good measure. You really can't taste the parsley and it's supposed to have blood cleaning properties so why not? I'm amazed at the amount of increased energy I feel these days. Remarkable.
Behind the juicer there is a collection bin for all of the pulp the thing spits out. The juicer actually came with a book on how to use the pulp. Legit recipes and crap. Brilliant. I feel like a real life eskimo, they use every part of the seal, *I* use every part of the carrot. See the parallels? Also it's been very cold lately. In addition to the juice we've been having at breakfast Jonas and I enjoy Apple Carrot Muffins. I admit the actual recipe name is "Golden Surprise Muffins," but honestly I find the word "surprise" in relation to food very off-putting. Don't you? The recipe didn't come from the Jack Lalane book but the Sunset Book of Breads my mom-in-law gave me. The end result muffin doesn't look like a traditional muffin, but I think they're delicious!
I didn't get anything done on the garden today. I did manage to buy some new gloves (three pair for three bucks on clearance at target. Holla!) and acquire a pitchfork and rake from the parents. I also spent some time thinking up things to plant and subsequently juice. I must get out to pick the lemons off the tree. It, not unlike me, needs help.
And, HALLELUJAH! Good news, we are going to pull out at least 3 of the oleanders on our bank and replace them with fruit trees. I'm thinking citrus and planning a trip to the nursery tomorrow. We will see what comes of it.

Here is the recipe for the Apple Carrot Muffins. It calls for 1 Cup shredded carrot, you can use either that or the pulp from a juicer if you are blessed with one. Notice it does not call for apple at all, that was my own tweaking based on the fact that there was apple pulp mixed with my carrot pulp. Do what you will...apple...carrot... they aren't going to look like normal muffins anyway.

1/4 cup each butter and brown sugar
2 eggs
1 Tablespoon each lemon juice and water
1 cup finely shredded carrots (pulp, whatever)
1 cup wheat flour (or all-purpose if you're not really committed:))
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

Beat together butter and brown sugar until creamy, add eggs and beat until fluffy. Stir in lemon juice, water and carrots. In a separate bowl sift together dry ingredients. Add to carrot mixture. Stir just til moistened and spoon into greased muffin tins. Bake at 400 for twenty minutes. Makes about twelve muffin-ish things. I freeze them in a large Zip lock and reheat them in the microwave as needed. Hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

Happy New Year

2009-01-01T14:39:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year! Greg and I spent the first day of 2009 immersed in yard work. We pulled out a gigantic juniper bush. I'm going to move the compost pile there (after sifting) for the coming year. Then next year I'll have to find yet another place to put the compost because an avocado tree is in the works, and slated for that spot. We also pulled out a bunch of half-dead shrubs to clear the area assigned to the bramble fruits which should be arriving next month. We're planting raspberries, boysenberries and blackberries. The birds may eat everything, we may be inundated with berries, stay tuned. To top it all off I spent awhile weeding, sweeping and and dinking about. I'm very pleased with the progress we made on the yard today, although my favorite garden tool, a beloved pitchfork was lost. It snapped in half actually, and not to point fingers but...it was all Greg's fault. I'll have to pick up a new one tomorrow, and a new broom, and gloves since the fingers on mine have completely worn off. Hooray, garden shopping spree!

At lunch today I finally tried nasturtium leaves. They are awesome! I am ridiculously overjoyed. We will have greens well into summer!!! I ate them shredded up in a burrito, along with the last of the year's tomatoes. When I tasted them alone they did have a flavor remniscent of radishes, but in the burrito they just tasted really fresh and delicious. I highly recommend them. Also a plus, the nasturtiums that are flourishing in the front yard have not been decimated by snails, which is more than can be said for any other plant out there.

Resolutionizing

2008-12-31T12:59:00.001-08:00

Greg and I have decided that in the coming year we are going to grow as much of our own food as possible. I say "Greg and I have decided" but really he's just being a good sport and going along with it. In addition to growing our own food we are going to start living and eating healthier, growing our own food should help a lot in this area. In case anyone else is interested in all of this eating, growing, living healthy business I'll post recipes and other tid-bits for your blog reading pleasure.

Though I've been gardening for a few years now this is the first year I've really put effort into winter gardening. I think I may actually like it better than summer gardening, if you can believe that. You hardly ever have to water and there are far fewer intimidating bugs. The ground is perpetually moist making weeding and stump pulling a breeze. I'm amazed at how many things can be grown in Southern California in the winter. In our garden right now we have lemons, spinach, peas, garlic, mustard, swiss chard, a million types of lettuce, wheatgrass, onions, parsley, thyme, rosemary, three types of carrots, nasturtiums and soon to come, Sorrel! Of course the success of all the plants is hinging on the weather, what else is new? Every morning I wake up and pull the blinds praying that frost hasn't killed anything. We've had frost at least three times and everything is peachy, although the tomatoes and basil finally kicked the bucket, but that was expected. Hey, they made it through December, I think that's impressive.

I've been very interested in greens this week. I love cooking with spinach and want to start branching out to other cooking greens as well. Hence the mustard and swiss chard. I read about sorrel a few weeks ago and finally picked up some seed yesterday. It purportedly tastes like lemony spinach and grows back year after year. I'm excited to see if it works well in our climate.
Nasturtim leaves are also catching my attention, I planted nasturtiums everywhere last spring but they did very poorly, I think the summer was just too darn hot for them (and many other plants). Since the weather has cooled the plants have been taking off. No flowers though, but I can live with that. I've known for awhile that the leaves and flowers are edible, but apparently you can cook the leaves like spinach, though the flavor is described as "radish like." Hmmm. We'll see how that goes. The leaves have ten times as much vitamin c as lettuce, not bad. Aside from sweltering heat the plants aren't picky, they actually prefer poorer soils. A companion gardening book I read recommended planting them under fruit trees. I think to lure aphids away from the tree, but the book didn't say specifically. I plan on planting a ton of nasturtiums under our lemon tree in the spring, we'll see what happens. It certaily would be nice to have greens past mid-spring.

Here is an interesting recipe I found for Nasturtium Pesto, I've never tried it but plan to soon. I'm concerned about the lack of cheese, since cheese is awesome and all other pestos I make include cheese. Also the amount of oil is alarming. I'm going to experiment with this one and get back to you, feel free to do the same. For now ENJOY! (or not, whatever.)

Into a food processor or blender, put the following ingredients:
4 cups packed nasturtium leaves
3 to 5 cloves of garlic
1 and 1/2 cups olive oil
2 drops Tabasco sauce
1 cup walnuts
Process the mixture until smooth.

Wednesday

2008-12-31T12:58:00.000-08:00

Resolution: Make garden pay it's way.

Because Six Words Doesn't Always Cut It

2008-12-30T12:38:00.000-08:00

Saturday was quite the busy day for our family. In the morning while I fed Jonas breakfast our friend Berek called to say that his wife was in labor and to head on over. Siobhan (she of the aforementioned labor) had a home birth and I, along with my pal Nikol, was lucky enough to be allowed to watch. Alas, we arrived just after the big show went down. But we still got to watch the birth on video! It was amazing, we cried like babies. The entire experience further solidified my decision to have home births with the rest of my children. I simply cannot describe how wonderful it was, shortly after giving birth Siobhan was in bed, at home, with her new baby and husband and other 3 daughters eating breakfast her mom had cooked for her. And while Siobhan has the knack for making everything look seamless, I know my own home birth may not go as smoothly but it's bound to be better than that stupid hospital.

Later that day Greg, Jonas and I went walking around the Tijuana Estuary with our friends Hannah and Amanda. Jonas was a little trooper and only cried towards the end despite cold, windy conditions. After the estuary we went out to eat some mexican food at a vegan mexican place in North Park. Poor Greg and Jonas got food poisoning.

Then we drove over to the parent's house to eat Christmas leftovers and play games with the family. Greg won, as always. What a wonderful day.

Tuesday

2008-12-30T12:37:00.000-08:00

Regifting pumpkin bread to neighbors. Sneaky.

Monday

2008-12-30T12:36:00.000-08:00

overwork, wake to excruciating arm pain.

Sunday

2008-12-30T12:34:00.000-08:00

Creepy woman lurks while I breastfeed.

Saturday

2008-12-30T12:33:00.000-08:00

Games with family, Greg wins...AGAIN!

Friday

2008-12-30T12:32:00.000-08:00

Hoping Kevin doesn't get screwed over.

Thursday

2008-12-30T12:31:00.000-08:00

Too many poop conversations with family!

Wednesday

2008-12-24T15:01:00.000-08:00

Christmas eve already?! Better finish presents.

Tuesday

2008-12-24T15:00:00.000-08:00

Learning to make lasagna with Ingrid.

More than 6 words for Monday

2008-12-24T14:51:00.000-08:00

Jonas had his one year doctor's appointment. He is 24 pounds and 10 ounces, and 31 inches long. The doctor was concerned that he hadn't grown enough since the last appointment...that's a first! I love Jonas's pediatrician, but seriously what is with doctor's PUSHING vaccines like crazy? I said I didn't want him to get the chicken-pox vaccine and she just didn't comprehend. Finally she backed down saying, "we'll just put it on the back burner." Or, how about we just forget it entirely? Thanks. Then there was a stuggle with the MMR vaccine, I've told everyone from the beginning that I want to break it up into three separate shots. Silly me, I thought they would be prepared. They only had rubella on hand, he's supposed to get the other two between now and march, but they won't get them in stock until AT LEAST february. What a headache.

Sunday

2008-12-22T15:44:00.000-08:00

Lick the balls, unfortunate pantomime, yikes.

Saturday

2008-12-22T15:43:00.002-08:00

Cupcake disappointment, love from my peeps.

Friday

2008-12-22T15:43:00.001-08:00

My baby is a big boy.

Thursday

2008-12-18T20:22:00.000-08:00

Finger in too many pies. Exhaustion.

Wednesday

2008-12-18T20:21:00.000-08:00

Seriously, over two inches of rain!

Tuesday

2008-12-16T19:58:00.000-08:00

Rain makes garden watering obsolete, hooray!

Monday

2008-12-16T19:56:00.000-08:00

Taught sister crochet, bye bye schedule.

6 words for Sunday

2008-12-15T09:30:00.000-08:00

Cecily! 18 months goes by fast.

6 word re-cap of saturday.

2008-12-15T09:26:00.000-08:00

Happy? Know it? Clap your hands.

6 word memoir for the day

2008-12-12T21:21:00.000-08:00

I wonder what DNA smells like.

100 Things About Me. Yes I stole this from Nikol.

2008-11-07T14:30:00.000-08:00

1. I'm very loud. While I know this I never recognize it while it's happening. I come from a long line of loud people. When I was in Sunday school as a kid I could hear my dad on the other side of the church building. My loudness was inevitable.

2. My favorite Author is Annie Dillard. The first thing I read of her's was a short non-fiction piece called, Living Like Weasels, I remember thinking that if she could make weasels beautiful she had to be pretty good.

3. When I was fourteen my family decided to create a holiday. It's called Wester and it always falls on the 24th of June. You eat spaghetti for dinner and then leave a picture of the haircut you want next to your pillow, at night the Wester Monkey comes and cuts your hair.

4. I met my husband Greg when I was fourteen, at a church dance, he was dating my cousin Kady.

5. I had kidney reflux surgery when I was four years old. The only thing I remember from it was getting a giant coloring book from my aunt debi and also an incident with a bed pan involving a nurse with red fingernails and my grandpa.

6. I love to read and learn new things, by this saving grace alone did I make it through "homeschooling."

7. I was homeschooled for grades 6-12. Although at age 15 my mom said she had nothing more to teach me, told me I had graduated and enrolled me in the local community college.

8. I found out three years ago that the highschool diploma I have is totally bogus. Thanks Mom and Dad!

9. I graduated from elementary school as the smartest kid. There was a little ceremony, I received a pin and a certificate signed by Bill Clinton. The signature is fake, what a let down. But boy was I proud of it then.

10. I left one of my highschool boyfriends for his cousin. Well that wasn't the only reason, but it was a deciding factor.

11. I ended up waiting for the cousin while he was on a mission in Venezuela and nearby islands. I waited for twenty three months, then became engaged to Greg.

12. My Great Grandmother died of breast cancer when I was 6 years old. She knit me a lamb before she died, I still cherish it, though it's legs are beginning to brown. She also knit me my Christmas stocking, little matching dresses for my sisters and I, and some slippers.

13. I taught myself to knit and every time I look at knitting pattern books I search for the slippers Grandma Gale used to make. Haven't found 'em yet.

14. I have over 60 first cousins on my mother's side...and counting.

15. I wrote my first book when I was 3 years old. It's titled Zoo. It contains about five pages taped together, each page has the word zoo written on it and a picture of an animal that looks somewhat like a featherless ostrich. My favorite page has a big ostrich-thing with a little ostrich-thing in it's belly.

16. I remain to this day in awe of childbirth.

17. I miscarried a baby two days before my 20th birthday.

18. Before the miscarriage I stank at writing, I thought I was good, people told me I was good, but the truth is, it was AWFUL stuff.

19. I still can't write fiction, once in a creative writing class I was assigned a short story, so I stole a story idea from Ray Bradbury, changed names and details and made it my own. It killed! Boy was I lucky Ray Bradbury's popularity had died several decades earlier.

19. I consider my life's greatest written work to be, In Regard to the Archaic Torso of Apollo. I've rewritten it so many times I can't remember what the original contained. But, to steal from Dave Eggers, boy is it a heartbreaking work of staggering genius.

20. I won the Acorn Review Editor's Choice Award several years ago for the poem, Sexual Politics Jump the Species Gap. I didn't know I'd won until I bought the magazine on a whim and caught my name. Everything that was submitted to the magazine for publication was automatically entered into the contest so, SURPRISE. It was awesome.

21. When I was 17 I went to live with my aunt Jen in Utah. I stayed for two months and then moved back home.

22. Jen taught me a lot of things in those two months, namely cooking and actually enjoying your children.

23. My favorite movie of all time is a poorly made 80's film called, A Pyromaniac's Love Story. In highschool my best friend Paula and I watched it more times than I can count. I've watched it with other people since and nobody appreciates the humor like Paula did.

24. My favorite color is green.

25. I thrive on self sufficiency. Which is why we use cloth diapers, I make all of our bread, and try to grow as much of our food as possible. Stay tuned for the next step...cheese making.

26. In college I was, at one time or another, declared every major imaginable, history, elementary education, genetic counseling, dance, english. What a well rounded yet unaccomplished person I am. :)

27. Growing up everyone called me Sawny. Because my real name is Cassandra but my brother couldn't pronounce it. I'm pretty sure it's died out by now.

28. I broke my arm when I was 8 years old, a few weeks before I was baptized. I had to be baptized with a giant black trash bag over my arm. Also, I had to be dunked several times because my knee kept popping up.

29. When I was 17 I attended both Seminary and Single's Dances. My Seminary teacher was a recently returned missionary. We would slow dance and discuss things that had happened in seminary that morning. It was weird, and probably inappropriate.

30. My nightstand is filled (and piled) with half-full notebooks. I pity my posterity who will have to make sense of it all.

31. The night I was in labor with Jonas I watched five straight hours of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air because there was nothing else on. Never again.

32. Though it's been almost a year since Jonas was born I haven't written anything about it. Who knows why? Maybe I haven't processed it yet. Yep, childbirth is a doozie.

33. When I was in first grade we had a halloween party where the teacher read a scary story about a witch and all of her potion ingredients. After the story we were supposed to walk around a table blind folded and stick our hands into bowls filled with said ingredients. I was 6 and didn't know the owl eyes were really grapes and the lizard intestines really spaghetti. There was a Jehovah's Witness boy in the class named Joel. I overheard him tell the teacher he didn't celebrate halloween in his religion. He was dismissed to sit at his desk and color. I tugged on Mrs. Ruiz's denim skirt and told her I didn't celebrate halloween either. Joel and I colored together. He drew a picture of his family, and I drew a haunted house.

34. My bridal bouquet was three white, long stemmed Calla Lilies bound with a red ribbon. Each of the bridesmaids had one lily with a red ribbon.

35. My first car was a toyota cressida station wagon. It was older than I was, and yet a thing of beauty.

36. I'm really not an animal person. Though I would keep chickens or other live stock that earn their keep.

37. I can be a too confrontational. Sometimes it's helpful, sometimes it's not.

38. I really wish I had the discipline to be a vegetarian. I'm so close, but I love a good steak...or grilled chicken...or hamburger...it's hopeless.

39. I danced ballet for 6 years. I was pursuing it as a career when I found out I was way too tall. I taught for a little while, then moved on to other things.

40. I have dreams that come true. Unfortunately they're always about the most random, useless things, like finding a white crayon on the floor of a classroom at church. I think it's gearing me up for something big though. I can feel it.

41. The night before my friend Nikol's father died, I had a dream that it happened. Ok, so, the dreams aren't always useless.

42. I've never had a cavity. My siblings are riddled with them, go figure.

43. I started volunteering in a kindergarten class when I was 13, I stayed with the same teacher until I was 18, she was awesome.

44. I'm a major worry wart, like borderline severe anxiety. I don't worry about everything though, I just focus a lot of attention on a few specific things.

45. I was diagnosed with hypertension last year, the doctor was horrible and basically said, "you have hypertension which means you could have a heart attack or stroke at any time." I think he might have been a quack but I've started eating less sodium (not that I ate a lot to begin with) and the hypertension is gone, if it was even there in the first place.

46. I went on my first date when I was 16. We snuck into Valhalla's Winter Formal, which was held at the Hyatt downtown. We spent so much time trying to find a way in (eventually running up the back staircase when a maid left the door open) that we only got to dance for like 10 minutes before leaving to get me home before curfew.

47. I think Val Kilmer is the bees-knees. It started as a joke between my sister and I, but yeah, he really is.

48. I am safely the world's worst gift giver. Seriously I pick the most awful presents for people. I've taken to making a lot of the gifts I give because then, even if it sucks, at least it's heartfelt.

49. I think I'm a pretty awesome cook.

50. I'm not gonna lie, I think I'm a pretty awesome person just generally.

51. I always read to fall asleep. Greg usually has to pull some book out from under me when he leaves for work in the morning.

52. I love the book, The Good Earth, if for no other reason than that Wang Lung (the book's main character) lies down in his fields to soothe himself. He feeds dirt from his fields to his children when they are starving. When he earns money he buys up more and more of his neighbor's lands, more and more ways to soothe himself. I am always thinking: Wang Lung had the right idea.

53. As much as I have romantacized the idea I still lack the guts to just lay down in the dirt.

54. Jonas's name is from the Weezer song.

55. I'm convinced that Wendell Berry has the perfect life. Writing, farming, no computer to distract him. What a stud he must be.

56. When I was 17 I hiked to Havasu Falls with a group of Laurels from my stake. I was the only person to carry their pack all the way in and all the way out. I even carried another girl's pack in addition to my own for like 4 miles. It was 113 degrees in the shade. What a stud I must be.

57. My family used to go camping in the Sequoia National Forest. One boring day my siblings and I decided to peel the moss from the trees and start a fire with it. We had buckets and buckets full of the stuff. It covered the campground in thick white smoke. The ranger came and yelled at us, then at our dad who in turn yelled at us. He couldn't be too mad though, because he was the one who gave us the idea.

58. When I was 18 I went on a kayaking trip to Santa Cruz Island, as a leader to the Laurels in my stake. It was fun, but awkward being the leader over girls so close in age, some of them my good friends.

59. In my teens I memorized poetry as a hobby. What a weirdo I was.

60. I've never traveled outside of California, Arizona, Nevada and Utah.

61. If I could go anywhere I'd go to the Galapagos Islands. To see the trees and the sea lions that do noting but play in the surf all day. Ahhh that's the life.

62. If I could pick another life, I think being Amish would be pretty cool. Or a Shaker without the celibacy. How about an Amish/Shaker/Mormon mix, does that not blow your mind?

63. While I was pregnant with Jonas I watched a marathon on TV. Now I have the goal to run a marathon myself. It's slow going.

64. I am the 14th great granddaughter of King James the 1st of England (6th of Scotland). Or so I've been told. Royalty Ya'll!

65. I'm also a granddaughter to William Brewster, the minister to the pilgrims on the mayflower.

66. My favorite salad dressing (because I know you're dying to know) is an orange poppy seed dressing that my pal Sarah makes.

67. I HATE it when adults read the words to songs over the pulpit. I can't explain it, maybe it's because the corniness factor goes through the roof. Kids can do it though, that's fine.

68. When I was 8 I had a black cat named cookies. My dad ran him over. He lived a three legged life after that.

69. When I was 4 we had two pet lambs, a white faced one which I named Lambie, and a black faced one which I named Blackie. I'm so clever.

70. Lambie and Blackie had to go live on a farm in the country because they kept getting attacked by coyotes. My mom traded them for a rocking chair. I'm starting to wonder if they really did go to a farm in the country, there seems to be a rash of farm-in-the-country-equals-death hoaxes lately. But then where did we get the rocking chair from? slaughter money?

71. My cousin Tara and I built a tree house when we were 8. It was essentially a death trap, a palette shabbily nailed into an olive tree in our yard. It's amazing we survived.

72. My uncle Bryce taught me how to ride a bike.

73. I like to watch when I have my blood drawn, I think it's amazing. Blood! Coming out of ME! And it's so red! Simple pleasures.

74. I'm a firm believer in String Theory. Some say it's been disproven, but I don't buy that. String Theory just makes so much sense. Hello! Other universes all around us, 11 different dimensions. Clearly they're onto something.

75. I've reconciled the faith/science dilemma for myself. God could be in control of string theory and evolution. It's not outlandish. And in the eternal scheme of things, there's a lot we don't know.

76. I think the Beatles, Elvis and Star Wars are overrated.

77. I think Morrisey/The Smiths are pop muscial geniuses. Frankly Mr. Shankly is GOLD!

78. I have cried at television commercials, but NEVER at anything Basketball related or Donald Duck related. That's a shout out to my mongooses. Holla!

79. I get overly excited by a good vaccum.

80. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. All the good food of Christmas, and none of the crazy shopping, mall parking, general commercialism...

81. My cousins call me Gasserole, or sometimes just Gass. It's great in public.

82. Greg sometimes calls me Bacon Bits.

83. I've never smoked or done drugs. I've never had alcohol or coffee.

84. When I was 15 I cut my hair really short. Three separate strangers (STRANGERS!) asked me if I was a lesbian. Brazen.

85. I don't like milk.

86. I have 3 "creepy" old men that I hang out with, though it's been a while :( They call me their den mother. I love them so dearly. We met in a creative non-fiction writing class and the rest is history.

87. I have at least 1 nightmare about my parents every week.

88. I've had enough of people trying to mediate between my parents and I. As good as their intentions are, they should just leave it alone.

89. I have an inexplicable fear of rock climbing, not heights, just rock climbing.

90. I love to watch the birds in my garden. Especially the freaky yellow ones that do mating dances.

91. I make duct tape wallets.

92. I insist that my eyes are green. And my hair is red.

93. My favorite seasons are spring and summer. That's when the best gardening happens.

94. I love the heat, I hate the cold!!!

95. I want to live in a town where you can walk to the market, and know your neighbors, and not be afraid of crazies.

96. I know my house is haunted.

97. I look good in the color teal.

98. In first grade my best friend was Jacqueline Thompson. Her dad was a stunt double for Kevin Costner.

99. I think Greg's parents are the best parents in the world.

100. I have an amazing group of friends and family. Honestly I couldn't pick a better husband, or baby, or BFF's, or in-laws. I am truly blessed.

Blessings

2008-10-28T15:10:00.000-07:00

That's right, be jealous. Here is what I was blessed with today from the garden, a handful of SUMMER tomatoes. These aren't winter varieties folks. Say what you will about global warming my plants are still putting out blossoms at the end of October. The yellow pear tomato is a trooper! It was the first to produce this year and has just recently kicked the bucket...or pot, as the case may be. These are the last of the yellow pears but the jellybeans and the cherries are still going strong. Hooray California. They were promptly eaten in a salad. Delicious.

Pumpkin Carving

2008-10-28T14:54:00.001-07:00

Our friends Richard and Ingrid hosted a pumpkin carving party. It was Jonas's first experience with pumpkin carving and he was less than thrilled. Too close to bedtime I guess :( But the rest of us had a blast, carving, eating, and gabbing away, or clucking away according to the husbands.

Here are Jonas and I proudly displaying our finished product.

Siobhan just chillin'

Bev, Me and Ingrid slaving away at the pumpkins.

Nikol and I. Yeah BFF's :)

Greg and Bev working on pumpkins.

Gardening: because who doesn't love a hobby that kicks their butt seasonally?

2008-10-24T10:17:00.001-07:00

I am very passionate about gardening, and really any self-sufficient lifestyle practice. (I draw the line at a poop house though.) This year however, the pestilences have been knocking me out. I admit I have a severe fear of certain bugs and spiders. So when the only remedy for a japanese beetle takeover is to pluck them off plants in the early morning I either talk my husband into it, or cower on the patio with an empty bucket. They got at least half of the tomato harvest this year, the greedy suckers. My Grandmother, back when she gardened, used to keep a white netting over her strawberries to keep the birds off. Then one day after reading some bible verse she walked outside and removed the nets. She told her children, "We must share our blessings from God."

I share my "bounty" only because of my cowardice. A raccoon gang has been pilfering the winter tomatoes, I watch them from the house, remembering the line, "very much like the opossum in temperment." I leave them be. So it would seem the only thing keeping me from more god-like gardening would be that tricky change of heart. They're eating the goods any way maybe I should just surrender and say, "Yes, eat up little creatures, there is plenty to go around." But no, I worked hard for that food. I am not so close to approaching Zion.

Pumpkins Pumpkins Everywhere

2008-10-22T10:03:00.000-07:00

Jonas had his first trip to the pumpkin patch yesterday...well second if you count the trip he made as a fetus. He was far more interested in getting the hay into his mouth than looking at pumpkins. He really didn't like the emus they had in the petting zoo, neither did Grandma Candi. I must admit their look is unsettling. Toward the end of the trip Jonas finally took a shine to his pumpkin and carried it around, it was a very small pumpkin. I did the best I could to keep it out of his mouth. We can't wait to carve our pumpkins at the Smith's house this monday. Woo Hoo! I can't believe fall is already upon us.

Just Writing

2008-09-18T20:34:00.000-07:00

There simply isn't enough writing on this blog. I get so wrapped up in the pictures. So today there's just writing. It was a pretty boring day. Maybe not the best time to decide to abandon pictures. Hmmm. I read a note on my friend Missy's page about a woman who wore a bra as a shirt to a cafe. Not unlike Seinfeld. She ended with the line, "Perhaps there are still reasons to leave the house." She cracks me up. Go Missy. Today a woman at the library had a little conversation with Jonas but said nothing to me. You have to almost weave your steps when down at the library/lindo lake area to avoid the barrage of transients...perhaps there are still reasons to stay home. Thats all I'll subject you to for now. Ta-ta.

Quilt: Part Two

2008-09-09T09:48:00.001-07:00

It's amazing what one can accomplish during "nap time." The quilt is coming right along. The pieces have now been cut apart and sewn back together...after much toil. Now to sew all of the blocks together...

New Trick

2008-09-01T13:47:00.000-07:00

On Friday Jonas discovered his ability to spit...all over the place...he hasn't stopped since. It was particularly enjoyable during sacrament meeting yesterday. here are some pictures we took.

2008-08-29T12:57:00.000-07:00

We had a cousin dinner a couple of weeks ago when Cami came down from Utah. We finally got a picture of our little family, I think this is the first one since the picture we took in the OR when Jonas first came out. Yikes! How time does fly.

My First Quilt

2008-08-29T12:40:00.000-07:00

There's a new beginning quilting class in my ward. Awesome:) I'm making Jonas a quilt that hopefully he will love forever. It's a puppy theme, very fitting. He goes crazy for dogs, especially Grandma Candi and Grandpa Ken's dogs. I just finished sewing the "nine patches" together and now have to cut them apart to re-sew them to create the pattern. Fun stuff!

New Blog!

2008-08-20T19:47:00.000-07:00

Hi All! I spent a ridiculous amount of time today loading pictures onto social networking sites. I've been meaning to start a blog so that everything can be in one place. We'll see how it goes. Hopefully posting our lives here will cut down on posting our lives elsewhere.