The PawPaw Patch

Chicken Update

2011-06-26T21:17:00.005-04:00

It's been a while since I've posted, sorry about that. Coming home from vacation always seems to be more involved than you expect. Wanted to give you an update on the Galloping Herd and the coop:

As you can see above, we spared no expense and wrapped the coop in Tyvex scraps that we had around. Funny thing the chickens refused to go in the coop at night and for a few weeks we had to manually toss them in before we closed it up.

The roof vents. 'Nuf said.

Partially sided. The birdies seem to like to hang out under the coop.

More siding. That is Camilla, the Cuckoo Marans, at the bottom. Larry the white rooster above her. Eagle, another rooster, outside the fence on the far right. the other 6 on the deck.

OF COURSE they have a deck! Don't be silly.

The four red chickens on the deck (you can only see the 4th's head). Ronnette turned out to be "Ronnie" another rooster. He's crowing, so we know for sure.

Camilla and Eagle making eyes at each other. Eagle keeps flying out of the pen. We put him in, 10min later he's out again, so we just gave up and made sure he had water outside. He seems thrilled to be on his own.

Action shot: Larry chasing Eagle chasing (I think) Crystal.

I will have a garage update later this week!

Away for a Bit

2011-05-28T23:09:00.003-04:00

I was hoping to get some more pictures up this past week, but I've been busy getting ready for a bit of a vacating trip, which I will go into later.

The chickens are well, growing like mad. Starting to fight a bit and get some personalities. So far, the lineup is:

Larry, the white rooster. He is probably not going to stick around. He's pretty aggressive.
Eagle, the black-and-white rooster. I have a soft spot for him, he's sweet. Besides, he keeps escaping. I'm going to call him Eagle of Alcatraz.
Peaches, a little white one with peach feathers on his chest. I say 'his' because I think it's a he. We'll see. I know, "Peaches" sounds funny for a guy, but...
"Honey," whose name I might change because I wanted a chicken called Camilla. I don't think Honey is an Easter Egger because she doesn't have fluffy cheeks or slate green legs.
"Cukoo," who also is in the running to be called "Camilla." She'll probably win the new moniker.
The three red hens (?) that I can't tell apart yet I'm calling Crystal, Ronette, and Chiffon. These were the names of the backup singers in Little Shop of Horrors, and they were named after the girl groups from the 50's. One of these might be a rooster, we'll see. If so, I'll adjust the names.

And there you have it. Tell me, do you name your chickens??

Day of Chickening, Part 3

2011-05-18T20:27:00.004-04:00

It took a bit longer than exptected to get the run done (a week). They were fine, "cooped up" (hahahaha) for a week, the temps were ok, and we engineered the roof on one side so that we could prop it open to allow for ventilation.

Then, on Sunday, we opened the door for the first time.

(A whole new world! A new, exciting point of view!)

The redish/peach one was the first out! Good girl!

Finally, a few more brave souls made the 'leap'

Introducing a few. Introductions will be ongoing as their personalities (and genders) make themselves known. The black and white one in the middle got a name first: Eagle, due to the markings. The blacker one is a Cuckoo Marans, they lay very dark brown eggs. The other white one in the picture has peach feathers on its chest.

Here is Eagle with the four red hens. One of the (the one on the right?) is ligher colored than the others, doesn't have puffy cheeks or greenish legs (like the rest of the Easter eggers do, regardless of color) and has pink legs. I'm not sure if she really is an Easter egger, but time will tell.

Day of Chickening, Part 2

2011-05-10T20:06:00.000-04:00

And here they are:

7 "Easter Eggers" and one Cuckoo Marans (the one on the perch).

Let us out! Let us out!!!

We worked on the run the rest of the week and, finally....on Mother's day, we let them out.....which you will see in Part 3.

Day of Chickening, Part 1

2011-05-08T19:49:00.003-04:00

First, let me say it's good to be back. I needed that 6-month break, but I think I was a happier, healthier Jody when I was blogging. Please look for at least one update here and my other blog weekly.

Lots of things have happened in the past six months, which I will probably discuss at another time. Right now, I need to talk about our finally getting a flock of chickens after hemming and hawing about it for two, maybe three years.

Our friend Barbara in Virginia had a batch of chicks from a candling exercise her "Chicken Enthusiast" group (as I call them, not as they call themselves) had done. The time they would be able to handle no extra heat in the coop corresponded well with the time we were planing on visiting at the end of April, so we decided to hurry the hell up and build the coop:

The above is the view from the house.

The main frame of the coop. Max is looking at me. At this point, he is totally clueless about what is coming...

This was the batch I had to choose from. Yes, it was up to me. Matt wound up not being able to come to Virginia with me. There were 22 it all (mostly Easter Eggers), and I came home with eight...

...in a cardboard box in the back seat of the Camry. I was really hoping someone would be poking their head out the vent holes (windows) in the box, but alas, it was not to be.

Stay tuned for Day of Chickening, Part 2....

Article Round-Up: a side of arsenic, groundwater, chicken feed, GOOD news about milk

2010-10-04T20:06:00.002-04:00

September 24, Dartmouth – (National) Professor warns against arsenic ‘on your plate’. High levels of arsenic in rice and rice products present serious hazards to public health, a professor from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland said in a seminar at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire September 23. The professor discussed the dangers and pervasiveness of arsenic, which has long been linked with cancer, in a seminar, "Arsenic on Your Plate." Although health organizations and governments have stressed the need to regulate arsenic levels in water, the professor said there are no corresponding standards for arsenic in food. He cited research to demonstrate that rice is particularly susceptible to arsenic contamination, and that diets heavy in rice can be related to arsenic-related health conditions, including cancer. Rice absorbs a substantially larger amount of arsenic than other crops because the water used to flood rice paddies is able to "mobilize" arsenic from the soil, the professor said. Levels of arsenic contamination are higher in rice grown in the United States than in any other nation, according to research the professor cited in his lecture. Rice from the South, specifically Arkansas and Texas, shows the highest rates of arsenic poisoning because of the arsenic-laden chemicals farmers previously used to cultivate cotton there, he said. Source: http://thedartmouth.com/2010/09/24/news/arsenic

September 27, Homeland Security NewsWire – (International) Worldwide groundwater depletion rate accelerating. In recent decades, the rate at which humans worldwide are pumping dry the vast underground stores of water that billions depend on has more than doubled, said scientists who have conducted an unusual, global assessment of groundwater use and recently released results of their study. These fast-shrinking subterranean reservoirs are essential to daily life and agriculture in many regions, while also sustaining streams, wetlands, and ecosystems and resisting land subsidence and salt water intrusion into fresh water supplies. Today, people are drawing so much water from below that they are adding enough of it to the oceans (mainly by evaporation, then precipitation) to account for about 25 percent of the annual sea level rise across the planet, the researchers found. Soaring global groundwater depletion bodes a potential disaster for an increasingly globalized agricultural system, said a researcher of Utrecht University in Utrecht, the Netherlands, and leader of the new study. He and his colleagues will publish their new findings in an upcoming issue of Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union. In the new study, which compares estimates of groundwater added by rain and other sources to the amounts being removed for agriculture and other uses, the team taps a database of global groundwater information including maps of groundwater regions and water demand. Source: http://homelandsecuritynewswire.com/worldwide-groundwater-depletion-rate-accelerating

October 1, Associated Press – (Ohio; National) Court strikes down parts of Ohio milk labels rule. Dairy processors can make claims that their products are free of a synthetic growth hormone, a federal appeals court in Cincinnati, Ohio, ruled September 30 in striking down parts of the state’s rule on milk labeling. Key parts of the state’s labeling rule violated First Amendment rights to commercial free speech, a three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled. The Organic Trade Association and the International Dairy Foods Association sued the Ohio Department of Agriculture in 2008 over a state rule on how consumers are informed about whether milk is made from cows that were given a synthetic hormone. The trade groups argued that the rule is too restrictive. It prohibits composition claims such as "antibiotic-free" and "pesticide-free," violating their free speech rights and impeding interstate commerce, the groups argued. The appeals court reversed a lower court decision on the free speech issue, concluding that the state’s ban is "more extensive than necessary to serve the state’s interest in preventing consumer deception." The appeals court agreed with a lower court ruling that the rule does not impede interstate commerce. Source: http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2010/10/01/business-financial-impact-us-oh-milk-labeling_7977181.html?boxes=Homepagebusinessnews

September 22, WTAQ 1360 AM Green Bay – (Iowa; National) Feds: Feed ingredients not Salmonella source at Iowa egg farm. Federal officials said feed ingredients bought by an Iowa egg company were not the source of Salmonella that contaminated the farm’s eggs. According to FeedStuffs.Com, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) believes the feed got contaminated during or after its processing at Wright County Farms. But officials are still not sure how the Salmonella was generated — and their investigation is continuing. Wright and nearby Hillandale Farms recalled 550 million eggs after a salmonella outbreak reported last month. It was responsible for making 21 diners sick at a Kenosha, Wisconsin restaurant in June. More than 1,500 people were sickened nationally. Top officials of both egg farms testified before a House sub-committee in Washington D.C. September 22. Panel members said they have records showing that Wright routinely tested positive for Salmonella contamination in the 2 years before the outbreak. The sub-committee has also asked the FDA and the Ag Department for their records in the case. Reports show that U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors were aware of growing sanitary problems at Wright — but they did not notify health officials. Source: http://whbl.com/news/articles/2010/sep/22/feds-feed-ingredients-not-salmonella-source-iowa-e/

And I just love this headline and had to include it:

September 21, Associated Press – (Arizona; International) Agents stop harmful insects at U.S.-Mexico border.

At least they're stopping something at the border, right?

The Virginia Trip

2010-09-22T20:58:00.000-04:00

We had high hopes and full intentions on going to the 4th Annual Heritage Harvest event at Monticello but, alas, it was not to be. It would have been too much, as we cut a day off our normal leave-thursday-comeback-sunday trip. It would have been too much driving and we decided not to go. Next year, we hope.

In any case, we were busy! Matt built a ladder roost for the chicken coop, we helped Barbara harvest the, gosh, maybe 100 winter squash she had in the lower garden. We listened to the coyotes in the middle of the night and I swear they sounded like a pack of hyena from the Serengeti. It was creepy.

We also went to the Lexington Wine Festival and found 11 bottles of good stuff and came home with them. And, my god, the people watching! I had no idea that 80s preppie was so popular again! It was hilarious! All the guys in their seersucker shorts, polo shirts, and sweater vests. It was straight out of the comic my mom had once called 'Save an Alligator, Shoot a Preppie.' I still have it somewhere, I'll have to find it again. Anyway, the people watching was a riot.

The weather was beautiful, the food was wonderful. Probably won't get back down this fall....maybe in November if we're lucky.

Ag Article Tuesday

2010-09-14T07:33:00.003-04:00

Article Round-up for the past week:

September 3, North Carolina State University – Many urban streams harmful to aquatic life following winter pavement de-icing. The use of salt to de-ice pavement can leave urban streams toxic to aquatic life, according to a new U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) study on the influence of winter runoff in northern U.S. cities, with a special focus on eastern Wisconsin and Milwaukee. More than half of the Milwaukee streams included in this study had samples that were toxic during winter de-icing. In eastern and southern Wisconsin, all streams studied had potentially toxic chloride concentrations during winter, with lingering effects into the summer at some streams. http://www.usnews.com/science/articles/2010/09/03/many-urban-streams-harmful-to-aquatic-life-following-winter-pavement-de-icing.htm

September 2, NaturalNews – (Michigan) Antibiotic tainted beef illegally sold for human consumption. The FDA is seeking a permanent injunction against ScenicView Dairy of Hamilton, Michigan for ignoring multiple warnings about the tainted meat. According to reports, the FDA has warned Scenic View Dairy at least eight times since 2001. http://www.naturalnews.com/029644_beef_antibiotics.html

These two are a bit old:

Fungus Infects Basil Crops

Dairy Farms Misuse Antibiotics

Off to Virginia!

2010-09-10T08:16:00.001-04:00

Matt and I are off to Virgina for the weekend! See you Sunday!

OMG, has it really been a month & a half??

2010-09-06T20:04:00.002-04:00

Hi. Um. Yeah. Well.....

I thought it had been about 4 weeks since I'd been on here, but no. Of course not, it's been longer. You see, and I know I whined about this before, but I spend literally 8 HOURS staring at a computer screen at work. While I did do this before with the Old Job (OJ), I actually was doing a lot of....well....personal stuff and browsing at the OJ. The NJ is totally different. I'm on all the time. And when I get home from work at 6:30, I'm pooped and I still need to deal with the evening meal.

The good news is that while I'm getting home later, Matt has been able to work on the garage more while waiting for me to get home.

The bad news is that between the hours changing for my work schedule and the drought/heat wave we've had here, the garden became a weed-intensive mess.

So, to make a long story short:

I am so far behind in reading all the blogs that I usually read that I will never be able to catch up.
I will endeavor to do at least *2* blog posts a week
I will try on weekends to make time to read blogs again
I am truly hoping that cold weather will bring increased interest in the home computer

One of the interesting things about my job is that I am privy to agricultural news that can be facinating. One of the posts per week I intend to work on is a gleaning of the ag news from the point of view of national security issues. For example,

September 1, Agence France-Presse – (International) U.S. cracks down on Chinese honey smuggling ring. The U.S. government announced criminal charges September 1 against executives from six German and Chinese companies accused of smuggling antibiotic-tainted Chinese honey in order to avoid import duties. Officials said it is the biggest food smuggling case in U.S. history and is part of a years-long crackdown on illegal imports of substandard, tainted and counterfeit products. The accused allegedly conspired to illegally import more than $40 million of Chinese-origin honey in order to avoid antidumping duties totaling nearly $80 million. The case comes after a series of scares involving Chinese products, including melamine-tainted pet food that killed scores of dogs and cats, and children’s toys made with lead paint. The U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois cautioned that while the honey was tainted with antibiotics that are not approved by U.S. regulators for use in honey production, there was no reason for the public to "panic." German company Alfred L. Wolff is allegedly at the heart of the conspiracy to import the mislabeled honey. It allegedly bought low-cost honey from several Chinese suppliers and then shipped it to other countries where it was filtered to "remove pollen and other trace elements that could indicate that the honey originated from China," the 44-count indictment said. Source: http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=356430

And this, from the Canadian Medical Association Journal:

Report calls for overhaul of US food safety system
Tainted peanut butter. Poisoned cookie dough. Deadly spinach. In an era of daunting problems with foodborne disease and illness, a prestigious scientific panel is recommending that the United States government overhaul its food safety system to zero in on the riskiest foods and target limited resources where they can do the most good.

A 500-page report by a committee of the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council recommends, among other things, that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) shift "from a reactive approach to a risk-based approach" to food safety, set up a central data analysis operation to more efficiently pinpoint problems and better coordinate inspection efforts with state and local governments.

And this: California wholesaler fined for banned chemicals on vegetables

So, I hope to bring several of these a week. Stay tuned for that!

Also, I will hopefully be writing this week or next about The Three Sisters....of Failure! Yes, my corn, beans, and squash all took a dive this year. Dammit. Tomatoes did well, but not much else did. *sigh*

Mystery Roofing

2010-07-20T07:42:00.000-04:00

Many, many moons ago I teased you all with a discussion about the Mystery Roofing and told you I would let you in on what it was soon.

I didn't. "Soon" didn't happen. Sorry about that, but you know how it is. I need to keep in mind that I shouldn't make promises life won't let me keep.

Anyway, the mystery roofing material will be revealed....here....today.

We live below a hill that has a quarry. They mine the greenish gray stuff that you see on shingles. It is actually a fiber, but I digress. We try to keep a good relationship with the management, etc, of the company, and they have done us the great favor of dropping several loads of their 'junk' stone at our house for us to use in landscaping. It is a pretty blue green hard stone with veins of quartz running through and they can't put it in the crusher. Score for us.
While Matt was up there once he noticed large rolls of used conveyor belt laying around. He asked if he could have one, they said fine and they dropped it off for us.

This is heavy duty thick stuff. Several layers of rubber close to 4' wide. Matt had the idea of using it as roofing material.

We unrolled it and measured out 25'. We only needed 24, but of course we wanted to have some flop over the side and we will trim it later.

Cutting it turned out to be WAY easier with a utility knife than with, say, a skill saw.

We rolled the strips and secured them with some old clothesline wire. We used Kubby the Kubota backhoe to get them to the roof. If we hadn't had that option I'm not sure how we would have done it, because these babies were *heavy*.

Matt and his dad snapped a chalk line and rolled them out, overlapping by a foot or so. We secured them with ceramic-coated screws, that way if one needs to be replaced all we need to do is unscrew it.

I was concerned with aesthetics, but I don't think it looks bad at all. We caulked under each overlap.

And from a distance....it looks like roof!

So, the screws were about $120, total, and the tar paper ran about $22/roll. The caulk was about $60 total. So, for around $300 we roofed the entire garage!

NEW JOB!

2010-07-08T08:18:00.002-04:00

I got a new job!!! I wrote more about it here.

I hope to get to some pictures of the garden this weekend, right now I'm crackerdog with trying to catch up on stuff.

The blueberries are turning color.
The corn is starting to send up tassels.
Rabbits love my squash plants.
We haven't had rain since 1997, or so it seems. Everything is so dry.

More later!

The Things You Find In Your Freezer

2010-07-02T07:43:00.001-04:00

**I wanted to put in a quick plug for my other blog where I'm writing for the next few days on what it is like growing up in the extremely Civil War town of Gettysburg. This is the 147th anniversary of the battle which happened July 1-3. You may now resume with your regular blog reading**

We've recently had a windfall of things falling from the sky and into our laps with no strings attached. I mean, a LOT of things from different places. It is very strange, and it always makes me feel uncomfortable when things like this happen because I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, or for the pendulum to swing the other way. But, I don't think that's going to happen in this case.
One thing we've gotten is a new-to-us refrigerator. It is slightly bigger, different style, and has an ice maker. For some reason, we waited until after I got home from work on Saturday at 8:30 to start moving stuff from the old one to the new one and move it.

I don't know why but things like this often turn into the beginnings of possible divorce proceedings. How difficult is it to decide to keep or pitch a container of salad dressing???? WHY do these things always get ugly? It is so stupid! Now, looking back, it is funny. But at the time, I was tired and hungry, he was tired and hot, and it was about 98* outside even that late at night.

So. We did get everything moved or pitched as necessary. We freed up a lot of space, too, by doing refrigerator triage. The freezer was the most interesting by far. I found things in there I had forgotten about and things I had been looking for. One thing I did realize is I need to be a bit more specific when labeling and I shouldn't write something whimsical and funny on the container thinking that I'll just automatically *know* what is in it by looking at the contents or that I will hopefully remember the funny, hahahahaha time I had when I wrote it.

Case in point:

WHAT???? What was I thinking? What is actually in the bag??? I have no idea and while I KNOW it really isn't what it says it is, I didn't have the courage to open it up and sniff. Nor did I thaw it to take a better look. Meatballs? In sauce? I pitched it. I have no idea what it was. And you should have seen Matt's face when he pulled it out of the freezer! It was hilarious.

So, yeah, a better job at labeling this year.

Corn a Month Later

2010-07-01T07:36:00.004-04:00

I mentioned before, this is the first time I've ever grown corn. I bought an heirloom variety called 'Blue Jade' that is only supposed to get 2-3 feet high. They said you could put it in a container, so I did.

This was it on May 27.

June 27.

Not bad, huh? It appears to be most of the way there. I've been keeping it well watered.

Need Rain

2010-06-30T10:10:00.002-04:00

It is so dry here now. We haven't had rain for at least 2.5 weeks. Trying to water every day but it isn't happening.

I was going to ask how you know if your tomatillos are ready to harvest, but I touched one yesterday to see if it was firm and it fell off into my hand. I assume that is how you know? LOL.

Everything else is growing, slowly. Some things are at least three weeks early, like the berries. Other things seem to be growing slowly because of the lack of rain and the extreme heat. It was almost 100* over the weekend. Fortunately, it is nice and cool today and it was 53* this morning, so I have the house opened up.

There is a lot going on here, personally, right now. I will update soon, but I don't want to talk about it until it is in stone. It's good, don't worry!!! I just don't want to jinx it.

Eau du Earthworm?

2010-06-27T21:58:00.001-04:00

Yahoo recently ran a story about some strange perfumes and i wanted to share it here.

The article can be seen here.

The three perfumes I wanted to mention are from Demeterfragrance.com, which is not coming up for me. I wonder if it crashed due to all the traffic?

Demeter offers three scents that all us gardeners might be interested in: Beetroot, Earthworm, and Mildew.

As I said, their site is now down, but if you view the cached site you also come up with the following

Basil.
Beeswax.
Bonfire.
Celery
Clover.
Condensed Milk. (seriously)
Cucumber.
Dandelion.
Dregs. Not sure what exactly they might mean by this.
Firefly. Never smelled a firefly before.
Fresh Hay.
Frozen Pond.
Giant Sequoia.
Mesquite.
Ocean.
Tarnish.

The one I think I would actually consider purchasing is Heliotrope, which is one of my favorite scented flowers.

New Garage Resident

2010-06-23T21:29:00.000-04:00

We have a new resident in our garage:

One of the biggest toads I've ever seen.

In other garage news, we've ordered the windows and doors...including the garage door. It set us back a pretty penny. I'm not sure what I was thinking it would be, but that wasn't it.

Berry Patch June 2010

2010-06-22T21:07:00.000-04:00

Just over a year ago, Matt and I bought 4 cranberry plants and put them in. Well, two made it this far and....we have cranberries!!!!!

OK, so there are only three, but still!! We think they are soooo cute!! What should we name them?

In other news, this must be the earliest I remember the blueberries turning color in the 9 years I've been here. I can't believe it!

Lactofermentation and Garlic Harvest

2010-06-21T21:02:00.004-04:00

Lots going on right now but here's a teaser:
We went over to D's house (of 'Bramble' fame) and she had a jar of fermented pickles on the counter. We talked about it, she gave me the recipe and instructions....so now I also have fermented pickles on the counter!

Also, take a look at this mother:
Yup, garlic harvest has begun....at least 3 weeks early! So far, I've dug two varieties that are fairly early varieties anyway (chinese pink and shantung purple), and are very pleased with the size, etc.

2 Recipes for Leftover Rice

2010-06-16T11:08:00.003-04:00

My darling hooband recently made rice to go with a stir-fry recipe I was trying out for the first time. Problem is, he made approximately enough rice to feed the country of Japan 3 times over for 2 days. OK, that's an exaggeration, but only slightly.

So, what to do with the leftover rice?

Fortunately, I had one recipe and after a quick internet search I found another. Both are wonderful. So the next time you find yourself with a lot of leftover rice, try one of these on for size.

Creole Rice
(I found this one on Allrecipes.com)

1/4 cup butter
1 tsp Creole seasoning*
1/8 tsp pepper
2 cups cooked white (or whatever) rice

Melt butter in a saucepan, add seasoning and cook for 3 minutes. Stir in rice. Cover pan and heat through. Serve!

*If you don't have any you can use: 1/2 tsp EACH paprika and garlic powder; a pinch EACH cayenne, dried thyme, and ground cumin. I would also add salt to taste.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Leftover Rice Rice Pudding
(I can't remember where I found this recipe)

2 cups leftover cooked white rice
3 cups milk (any kind, even soy) (I used slightly less and it was fine)
1/2 cup sugar
small pinch salt
1/2 cup raisins
1 tsp vanilla extract*
1/2 tsp cinnamon, optional**
pinch of nutmeg, optional***

Combine cooked rice, milk, sugar, and salt in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil, then lower heat to a simmer and stir in the vanilla (*I actually had part of a vanilla bean, I used that and took it out later) and raisins.

Cook until all the milk is absorbed (30-45min). Stir in cinnamon and nutmeg, if using.

Serve warm or chilled. If you chill it, it will thicken up a bit more.

* ** *** Feel free to mess with this recipe. When I put in the first four ingredients, I also put in some empty cardamom pods I had on hand to infuse. I picked them out later. The first time I ever had rice pudding, Tim put in cardamom and it just isn't the same without it (thanks, Tim!). Also, you could put in a broken up cinnamon stick in the first step instead of putting in ground cinnamon later.

Cabbages! And Brown Sugar!!

2010-06-10T06:11:00.000-04:00

Last year, I put in cabbages for the first time, WAY too late.

They overwintered fine, though, even with a snow load like we had.

Most of the plants bolted, including this one, but I harvested 6 baby cabbages last night!

Aren't they adorable? Three of them are already chopped up for sauerkraut, the other three will be sauteed. In butter. This week sometime. Yum!

So, now I want to grow MORE cabbage, but I don't have any in yet. Is it too late?

In other news, I was reading a blog several weeks ago where they were talking about making some staples instead of buying them. One of the things was brown sugar. It's easy cheesy, just mix molasses with white sugar and you have brown sugar. You want dark brown sugar? Add more molasses. Simple.

And it was gorgeous and tasted divine. I'll never buy brown sugar again.

New Flowerbed

2010-06-05T11:15:00.001-04:00

I believe I have mentioned before that one of my projects this year is to fill in the new flower bed that we started last year.

This is the area beside the driveway before we started. Matt cleared all the sod off with Kubby the Kubota. We lined the area with a thick layer of hay, put in a few large, decorative stones, and I started planting. I don't have many pictures (yet) of the whole area, but I do have a few closeups of some things that are blooming now.

I put in several creeping thyme plants in what will be small pathways. This one is blooming!

Barbara gave me some Bronze Beauty Dutch Iris bulbs, here they are as a group.

And here is a close up of one.

A rose I picked up last year. It is a Jackson & Perkins Hot Cocoa rose they also had marked as Cesar Chavez. I happen to like Cesar an awful lot, so I got it. Notice how light the opened rose is compared to the buds.

One of the buds close up.

I will get more pictures soon to show the overall progress.

Mystery Plant, Take Two

2010-06-03T11:04:00.001-04:00

I had posted pictures of a Mystery Plant we saw in Virginia the beginning of May. Thanks to a GardenWeb Forums website, it has been identified as Conopholis Americana, aka Squaw Root, Bear Root, or Cancer Root. It is parasitic and grows on Oak tree roots.

I have another mystery plant, though. This one is growing in the beds that I put the beans in this year. When we were putting in the poles, we found what we thought were 'puffball' type mushrooms. They were small, though, smaller than I've ever seen puffballs. About one inch across, maybe slightly more, shaped like potatoes. And they had roots, and they seemed to be all connected together. There were maybe 8 of them growing under the dead leaves, it was very moist there. They felt like Jello with a slight skin.I forgot about them. Then, this.

They still feel Jello-like. They look....well. You can see. The brown is mud, underneath they are the red-orange you can see below the mud.

When I saw them from a distance (above), I can honestly say my first thought was something was dead under the leaves with its legs sticking out. Then I thought Garden Gnome. They really are very strange looking.

Any ideas?

Spring Garden

2010-06-01T20:50:00.001-04:00

Finally, FINALLY I have time to write about the garden! I've been so busy trying to get things in the ground, weeded, prepped, covered, mulched, etc etc. So, here is the update:

One of the new things we're trying this year is corn. Corn! I've never grown corn. I picked a variety from Seed Savers Exchanged called Blue Jade. It is a sweet corn that only gets 2-3 feet high, so it is ideal for containers. And I know corn is best grown in clumps (not rows, per say, unless you clump the rows) so I planted it in the half whiskey barrel we have by the porch. We'll see how it goes.
The radishes are giving such a great burst of color here in this patch. Also planted here are peas, beets, parsnips, and carrots. The carrots didn't sprout. Not. A. One. I don't know why. I think I planted 6 different varieties, and nothing. I'll put in a late batch in a different bed in July, probably, and hope for the best. Everything else did ok in this bed. I'm at a loss.
The two head lettuces I grew this year: Tennisball (right) and Dazzle romaine (left). Aren't they gorgeous? Notice the baby in front. I started a few more from seed, then transplanted them today so when I cut the heads of the older plants, the babies will be established and I'll have another batch coming along.
Another pic of the lettuce. I haven't tried the Dazzle yet, but I'm really happy with Tennisball, which I got from Montecello when we were there a year or so ago.
A flat of things waiting to be planted, including but not limited to tomatoes, lettuce, squash, and okra. Some have been planted since I took this picture.

Also, I have seeded beans and cucumbers, and put in some of the pepper plants. The garlic scapes are starting to show, the red shallots are starting to flower (but not the gray shallots yet), peas are on the vines, potatoes are flowering, blueberries and blackberries are in their infancy, parsnips are flowering (I'm collecting seed this year), and some of the tomatoes are flowering, too!

More Later

2010-05-26T19:14:00.001-04:00

Uber-busy here guys. Hope to post later about plantings, etc, and some garage work. Also, visitations and events probably posted on the other blog. Stay tuned!!

Solar Lights

2010-05-21T08:13:00.000-04:00

Matt picked up some solar lights and I must say they've been fun. Notice the light's brothers and sisters in the background, too.

Work (and Play) Weekend

2010-05-19T07:47:00.000-04:00

Saturday was all play. It was gorgeous weather, sunny with clouds and not too hot, maybe low 70s. We got up early for us on a weekend and met our friend Angie for breakfast and catching up at the French bistro in Gettysburg. Crepes with strawberries and cream, crepes with bananas and nutella. Brioche French toast with breakfast potatoes. Oh, my, theirs are the best breakfast potatoes I’ve ever had.

After, we walked around the farmers market on the square. Purchases were made, including 2 pepper plants, some rhubarb and strawberries (both destined for jam this week), a few celery plants, and a bar of great soap.

Then, Matt and I drove around a bit of the battlefield before heading home the back way, over hill and dale and avoiding the main interstate.

I can’t remember what all we did for the rest of the morning and the early part of the afternoon.

Around 3 we collected Matt’s parents and headed down to Baltimore for an early dinner. It was a celebratory dinner for my FIL’s retirement, his birthday, both Matt & my birthdays, our anniversary, their anniversary, etc. We went to Fogo de Chao, which is an Brazilian steakhouse. Matt and I have been there once before. It is by far hands down the best cooked and seasoned beef I have ever had. I can’t rave about it enough. I would happily go there more often, but at $50/head you kinda need a really GOOD reason.

I wrote about Fogo here, go read about it. The only thing I can add to that is 1) I had a cocktail this time, the Brazilian national drink Caipirinha. Very strong, quite good. I don’t think I’d make one at home, but it was nice. 2) I also had a dessert, I had the crème brule. I’ve made crème brule, but it was never like this. SO creamy. JoAnn ordered a slice of cheesecake. It was mislabeled on the menu, it should have said ‘A Slice of Cheesecake the Size of the Rock of Gibraltar.’ Ray laughed really hard when they brought it out.

Then we went home and lay around like bloated whales. Eventually we slept.

Sunday was a work day. We went out for a quick breakfast, then hit Lowes and got some garden-related hardware that we needed: big plastic tubs, smaller tubs, a couple hanging baskets, potting soil, some stone.

When we got home, Matt spent a few hours on lawn care and lawn mowing.

I planted 19 tomatoes: 12 Super Marzano paste, 1 Principe Borghese drying, and one each of Sungold, Brandywine, Japanese Black Trifele, Henderson’s Ponderosa Pink, Kellogg’s Breakfast, and Cherokee Purple. I still have some others to plant.

Last year, I used a technique I’d read about for tomato planting and that was putting them in horizontally, as in parallel to the ground, with only the top greenery above the ground. The thinking behind this was that as the roots grow along the planted stem you will have a root system that is close to the surface, therefore close to the water when you water it. The downside to this is the plant will also dry out that much faster, and when it does rain/you do water the plant, the dirt will tend to wash away and the plant will pop out of the ground. So, this year I’m planting them the normal way again. We’ll see.

I also put in the 3 celery plants (never grown celery before), and 4 peppers. Haven’t planted beans yet, way behind there. But the ground is mud. MUD! I was worried about the tomatoes drowning, and now they’re saying 3 more days of rain on top of all that MUD!! If I put in beans now they’d just rot anyway. So. Waiting. But I can get the poles in the ground now while it’s wet. MUD. Ugh.

After a lunch break, Matt was back at it with the lawn, and I started in on some self-watering tubs for large plants. I took the plans from the Frugal Life blog on these, I thought they were great. I made three, one for my fig and two for Matt’s parents, who weren’t going to do a garden this year. I also made last year’s hanging tomato baskets into potato pots. We gave three of those to Matt’s parents, too, and kept 4 for us.

Making the pots, mixing the soil, etc, was hard work! My back was killing me. Matt said I was walking like an old lady. I need to figure out some exercises to help strengthen my back a bit, this just won’t do.

After we got cleaned up, we wound up doing some much-needed grocery shopping and getting a Papa John’s pizza with accompanying garlic sauces, which makes 4 meals out in 2 days. Not good, and we’ll try to do better this week.

Bramble

2010-05-14T08:24:00.002-04:00

I was having a conversation with my friend D recently over the phone. D is a former coworker and a friend. She and her family are from Poland and she still carries a fairly thick accent. She also gardens and has a very nice collection of fruit and berry bushes which reseed on a regular basis.

D: I have extra red currant if you like some?

Me: Sure that would be great.

D: And gooseberry?

Me: Yes, that too!

D: Do you need any bramble?

Me: (pause) Did you say 'bramble?'

D: No! Bramble!

Me: (another longer pause) D, I could swear you're saying 'bramble?'

D: (louder) NONONONONO!!! BRAMBLE!!!!

Me: (totally clueless here, people. I'm trying like crazy to figure out what she's saying)

D: (louder still) BRAMBLE!!!!!!

Me: (long pause) OHHHHH!!!! BAMBOO!!!

D: Yah! Bramble!!

Me: D, I'm sorry, but the accent really threw me on this one!

Dead silence. For like 15 seconds. I'm actually kind of worried that I pissed her off. Then:

D: Baaaaaaaahm......BOO!!! Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahm.....BOO!

It was too funny.

Tomato Sanctuary

2010-05-10T18:56:00.000-04:00

40* last night, maybe 38* tonight. Happy Mother's Day!!

Garden Update

2010-05-06T21:12:00.003-04:00

All the purchased tomatoes arrived today. Add those to the tomatoes I brought home from Barbara's and the tomatoes I started from seed and it is Tomato Central Station here.....and the night temps this weekend are supposed to drop to nearly 40* this weekend. So, the INSIDE of the house is going to be a jungle.

But I know it won't last, next week it'll probably be just fine and I can start planting them outside!

There really isn't much else to report. We haven't had time to work on the garage, the asparagus is done for the year, the cabbages have mostly bolted. Potatoes are doing their thing, as are the peas, leeks, etc etc.

Carrots really haven't sprouted and I'm not sure why. I'm going to keep a better eye on their water situation and go from there. Radishes, beets, and lettuce has all sprouted there fine, though. Hm.

I have started in cups the squash, okra, more lettuce, and a few flowers. I will be repotting the fig this weekend, too. I repotted the Korean Red Pine (pine nut tree) yesterday and I'm pleased to report it has new growth on it. Repotted the bay laurel and it has new growth, too.

Flower bed is coming along. I'll hopefully be posting pics soon.

Mystery Plant - Virginia

2010-05-05T07:52:00.004-04:00

What the heck are these??
We found them growing either singly or in clumps on a hillside in heavy shade and heavy leaf litter. I think the tallest was about 10-12 inches. Click on any of the pics for a larger view.
You'll notice the nubbins on the side almost look like flowers.
In this picture, it very much looks like flowers that have bloomed and then died from the ground up. The top parts look like they are still in flower.

Morel Season 2010

2010-04-26T20:21:00.005-04:00

For the past 4 years now we have waited with baited breath for....morel season. Morels. *sigh* How we adore you!
And how hard you are to find! OK, I have more trouble than the average person. I can be standing literally within INCHES of these things and still not see them.Last year was a horrible year for them around here. This year? Fantastic! So far, Matt has gathered at least 2lb.
Yes, Matt has. He can spot them yards away. Yards! Seriously, he's a morel-spotting savant. So impressed. I actually have yet to step into the woods this year to search. Why? I can't find them anyway. And I can be at home, making Rosemary Flower Jelly instead.

Most of our haul we've been dehydrating for later use.

However, the first batch had a special purpose. We'd been waiting on the first batch to make Sauteed Morels with Cream (above). I've had morels with eggs (ick), morels fried in butter and served over steak (just ok). After having this classic French cream sauce with toast, I truly cannot think of any reason to have morels any other way. This recipe can be found on The Great Morel recipe site, and I HIGHLY recommend it.

Sautéed Morels with Cream
15-20 fresh morels or reconstituted dried, cut in half if large
1 large shallot chopped fine
1 large clove garlic chopped fine
2 TBS butter (best with unsalted)
2 TBS olive oil
3/4 cup chicken stock
1 cup heavy cream
salt & fresh ground pepper to taste

Put olive oil in heated pan over medium heat. Add garlic and shallots, stir and sauté until softened but not brown. Add butter until melted then add morels. Stir and cook until mushrooms start to brown, about 4 min. Add chicken stock and cook for 2-3 minutes. Add cream and cook on low until reduced and thickened. Classically served on toast, but the best on grilled New York Strip steaks.

The Asparagus Patch

2010-04-22T05:28:00.002-04:00

I was going back looking for pictures of our asparagus patch and realized I'd never posted pictures of it when we put it in! It was a big deal at the time, I was kind of surprised.

Late summer 2008, I purchased old icky asparagus crowns at 50% off at a greenhouse. Some of the roots were moldy, actually. We pitched them, but overall I thought it was a good gamble and got two bundles of crowns. The downside is they weren't marked as to what type they were.

Matt dug two trenches with Kubby the Kubota, roughly 16" wide by 17' long. We tossed the bits of sod out, mixed in quite a bit of compost, lined the trenches with cedar shakes, and planted them in a row. There are 14 plants in each row.

From spring 2009

We really weren't expecting much the first year, we'd heard that it takes a few years to get much out of a new patch. So we were surprised when the patch produced like gangbusters.

Spring 2009 I cut asparagus for about 2 weeks and we got two pounds out. Only 6 months after I put them in.

Fall 2009, I top dressed the whole patch with a goodly amount of homegrown compost. Asparagus is supposed to be a heavy feeder so you need to give them as much good stuff to eat as possible.

Early spring 2010 I took all the dead fronds off.

Spring 2010. We lined the patch with weedguard and mulch, but the ground ivy went straight through it, dammit.

Another view from this spring

It looks as though this year may have already topped last year. There are a few roots that may not have made it, or maybe they're just slow (they're riding the short bus this year).

The precious darlings sprouting!

So far this year we've done 4 cuttings of approximately 8-10 ounces each, which comes to more than two pounds already. We've been cutting for not quite two weeks and will probably cut for another week. And the spears are huge! Most are 1/2 inch or more, many of them are 3/4 inch.

We prefer to roast them with a bit of salt on the grill or with salt and olive oil under the broiler. How do you like your asparagus??

Food Security

2010-04-21T09:44:00.010-04:00

A couple years ago, Angie and I went to an Earth Day event at the local agrihousing development/commune (or whatever you’d like to call it) Hundredfold Farm. It was a fun event, a little cold, but still. I attended several talks (including one at their greenhouse/wastewater treatment plant that was wonderful) but the most interesting one I sat in on was called ‘Food Security.’

Going in, I wasn’t sure what exactly they were going to be talking about, but being colored by my day job I thought it might be security of the nation’s food supply, as in national security.

Nope. It was security of your personal food supply. Specifically he was discussing the problem that is Global Agribusiness, GMOs, and the rise and fall of oil prices and what it will do to the grocery store. He was calling us all to protect ourselves and our families against the downfall of the current ‘cheap food’ method of eating. It was very interesting and funny, believe it or not, and I wish I had a tape of it.

So….fast forward to Spring 2010. Two years since that talk. Since then I have expanded my garden. I don’t think we’re headed for a world war. I don’t think we’re headed for communism (or OMG Socialism!!!) or anything like that. I do think we are headed for some serious economic problems that will affect how we live (and I’m a bleeding-heart liberal, by the way). I don’t think cheap food is going to be cheap forever. It can’t sustain itself.

Since the talk, the economy has tanked, a lot of people are out of jobs….and a lot more people are keeping chickens and tending home gardens, etc. Hm.

Last fall, I was worried about my job due to our contract being up. Matt and I talked and were very happy that….we had our garden’s bounty preserved in the basement. We were happy that…..he knew how to hunt. It turned out to be ok, I’m still working. But there it is. It was very interesting to realize this.

This spring, rumor was flying of layoffs at Matt’s workplace. We were coming out of heating season, it was the time to do it. So, we sat and talked again. And you know what? We were both glad that I had already ordered and received the seeds for this year’s garden (in addition to the saved/traded seeds from last year), and several tomato plants were on order and paid for. It was already planned. It was taken care of. We would, just barely, be ok if he lost his job.

We dodged a bullet. Two other people were let go at his workplace and Matt’s job is secure.

For now.

The talk I saw 2 years ago hit home. After the first panicked “What will happen?” went away, the first thing we both found ourselves thinking was…..thank goodness we canned all those veggies.

Craig's List is Made for You and Me!

2010-04-19T05:26:00.000-04:00

With apologies to Woody Guthrie

Matt was perusing old local listings

Huge Fisher woodstove! His eyes were misting.

I heard him typing with great ambition

Craig’s List was made for you and me!

Chorus

Craig’s List is your list, Craig’s List is my list

Used Kenmore dryers, electric golf carts

Ikea futon, a set of lawn chairs

Craig’s List was made for you and me!

He emailed Gerry, who wrote back shortly

That the stove was still there, and getting dusty.

Did we want it? …DID WE WANT IT!!!

Craig’s List was made for you and me!!

Chorus

Craig’s List is your list, Craig’s List is my list

New vendors needed out near Glen Burnie

Property available for a hunting group lease

Craig’s List was made for you and me!

We took the truck down (it’s an F-150)

To downtown Baltimore. Yup, in the city!

We did get lost once, but the stove would call us:

Craig’s List was made for you and me!

Chorus

Craig’s List is your list, Craig’s List is my list

Tea candle holders, asking $15

Bill Jenkins pro stock Camero pictures

Craig’s List was made for you and me!

We met two ladies, they took our money

Two-hundred fifty! This stove’s a honey.

Now…how to load it? This part was funny.

Craig’s List was made for you and me!!

Chorus

Craig’s List is your list, Craig’s List is my list

Crystal bowl with etching, total body pillows,

1977 Gottlieb Vulcan Pinball????

Craig’s List was made for you and me!

We set a ramp up, and tried to winch it (didn't work)

So, Matt pulled it up himself! Nothin' to it!

The two ladies looked on with both their jaws dropped!

Craig’s List was made for you and me!

Chorus

Craig’s List is your list, Craig’s List is my list

From used recliners to ‘Vette transmissions

Goats need debudding? Wanna sell some chickens?

Craig’s List was made for you and me

How to Caption Pictures

2010-04-17T19:52:00.001-04:00

I have a poll over on the right side of the screen. I'm curious what people's feelings are on photo captions: below or above? Please let me know, thanks!!

Tiny Tomatoes??

2010-04-15T04:40:00.000-04:00

I started my Super San Marzano paste tomato seedlings in the middle of February. It took most of them a week or so to sprout. By the first week in March they were about 3-4 inches high, and the first true leaf started to peek out.

They haven't grown since.

I would think it was something with the variety, but the single Henderson's Pink and the two Kellogg's Breakfast I started a week later have been behaving the same way.

I have watered them normally. I have fertilized them a few times with kelp liquid fertilizer. I moved them outside when the weather was warm and sunny and moved them back inside when it got windy and cool again. I checked a few, their roots look normal.

This week I'm going to pot them up a size, and I will be potting them deeply so some of the stem is in dirt to promote even more root growth. But I'm worried as these little darlings should be ready to go in the ground in a month and they are still so tiny. Also, I believe my seedlings last year were way further along than these.

Any thoughts?

Rebuild Part 5: Rafters and Roofing

2010-04-11T21:43:00.004-04:00

Rafters are up!!!!
They went fairly quickly, too:
This weekend, we put plywood on the roof. We had a gorgeous weekend to do it, too. 60s, sunny, breezy, and you can see the trees are budding out:
He doesn't go anywhere without his Calvins!
Really a gorgeous weekend.
I specifically took this picture to make the exhaust look like it was coming from Matt's butt. He's not happy about it, but I think it's funny:
Mr. Vino came to help again this weekend. He even got up on the roof! He wasn't too sure about it at first, but he didn't have any problems. When he came back on Sunday, he was up the ladder before I even got a chance to say hi.
The roof is fully covered now. Next up is the Typar and our extra-special roofing material, which will be a secret for now. It's NOT shingles. It's NOT tin. It's NOT sheepskins. You'll have to wait.

A picture of emerging asparagus

2010-04-06T20:01:00.002-04:00

Especially for Mama Pea. :)

Spring Planting

2010-04-06T09:18:00.002-04:00

I have this habit of taking pictures of every new veggie sprout and every planting of every veggie....every year. Matt has been making fun of me for this. This year I found myself standing in front of the newly sprouted asparagus bed with my camera in my hand and I had the following conversation with myself in my head:

Repeat after me: you don't need to take pictures of the first asparagus every year.

I don't need to take pictures of the first asparagus every year.

People by now know what they look like. Every year.

People by now know what they look like. Every year.

These aren't the droids you're looking for.

These aren't the droids we're looking for.

Move along.

Move along....Move along!!!

So. Now that I have that out of the way, I can tell you that this weekend I planted kohlrabi (for the first time, too), broccoli plants, and leeks. I also rehabbed two tomato beds that I didn't get to last fall, and I tried to fix the pea beds. Too wet, a lot of them became slug food/homes and some others rotted. I have enough seed to reseed if necessary. Oh, and the asparagus is coming up.

Tomorrow I plan on planting some flowers and such in the new flower bed. I hope to get the potatoes in this week as well as the carrots/radishes.

Matt finished up the rafters in the garage on Sunday, I will have pictures of that soon.

And...it is supposed to be 90* tomorrow. Ick.

Tulips

2010-04-04T21:04:00.004-04:00

Little Red Riding Hood:
Red tulip that came with the house. This is only the 2nd time it has bloomed in the 9 years we've been here:

Having a Heat Wave

2010-04-01T09:07:00.002-04:00

So, now we're back to 75*. Supposedly going to be 85* on Saturday.

I go from too cold to plant spring veggies to too warm in one week. I'm going to plant them anyway, probably this weekend.

In other news (pictures forthcoming), asparagus is starting to come up, cabbages and broccoli that overwintered seem to be doing well, and peas are planted.

Preserved 2009

2010-03-31T20:47:00.000-04:00

What I preserved through March 31, 2010

11 quarts beans
7 pints beans
12 pints bourbon peaches
13 pints beets
8 pints raspberry chipotle sauce
8 4oz jars mustard
4.5lb shelled peas frozen
6 half-pints mango chutney
14 jars violet jelly
5 quarts peach pie filling
6 pints carrots
3 quarts carrots
4 pints orange-glazed carrots
1 pint getty sauce
7 quarts getty sauce
2 quarts preserved lemons
10 half-pints pickled beets
3 half-pints green tomato chutney
6 quarts Greek potatoes
11 jars cherry tomato cinnamon jam
5 4oz jars lemon chutney
12 half-pints salsa
6 half-pints salsa verde
6 things frozen shredded zuch
6 things frozen roasted tomatoes
7 pints dilled green tomatoes
16 pints applesauce
7 quarts apple slices
1 quart dried apples
5 things frozen pumpkin puree
4 bags frozen squash chunks
3 bags of broccoli
10 pints parnips
Various dried fruits

Spring???

2010-03-27T21:38:00.001-04:00

Last weekend it was 75* and beautiful.

Last night, it was 25*. We had a pretty decent frost this morning.

WTF???

Bad News From the Bees

2010-03-25T17:23:00.002-04:00

Yahoo posted this story yesterday:

Bees in more trouble than ever after bad winter

The not so great highlights include:

One-third of those surveyed had trouble finding enough hives to pollinate California's blossoming nut trees, which grow the bulk of the world's almonds.

"There were a lot of beekeepers scrambling to fill their orders and that implies that mortality was high," said Penn State University bee researcher Dennis vanEngelsdorp, who worked on the USDA snapshot survey.

The losses were extreme, three times higher than the previous year.

EPA officials said they are aware of problems involving pesticides and bees and the agency is "very seriously concerned."

Among some of the interesting comments to this article:

Einstein said, that from the death of the bees, we had no more than 4 years, until we all died. Thanks Monsanto, for making this verification test possible....3 years, 250 days, and counting...Tick...Tick...Tick...

Interestingly, the following got mostly negative reviews. It's true, though; I don't know why it pissed people off:

European honey bees are an introduced, invasive species responsible for more human deaths every year than snake bites and lightening strikes. It's unfortunate that they have displaced so many North America's native pollinators. Perhaps this will allow those to re-populate and refill their niche.

And....lastly:

The good news is that there are bee raising methods that seem to be working, if they are practiced on a small scale. I know of several keepers in NY whose colonies have remained intact through the crisis. it's too early to tell, but let's hope that is still the case. We've really, as a society, got to start rethinking our love affair with the perfect lawn. The pesticide use, runoff and loss of habitat is a major drive behind many ecological ills. If we lose the bees, folks, we are down to hiring people to do hand-pollination. Wonder what that will do to food prices and availability? Anyone with an interest in this topic should research the small-scale beekeeping methods that are working, and modify practices to help preserve them.

A Few Updates

2010-03-24T09:19:00.000-04:00

I dug the last of the parsnips and carrots today. I'm going to can the parsnips but for the carrots I think I'm going to slice and dice them and dry them. Anyone have experience with this?

I planted the peas on Sunday, 5 varieties:

Sugar Snap, of course
Little Marvel, which did so well for me last year
Eclipse
Lincoln
Green Arrow

I have no experience with the last three, they were given to me by my friend Barbara in Virginia. IIRC, Green Arrow was her favorite. I'm looking forward to seeing how they do.

The Artichoke seedlings are coming along, too. Actually, I had (at last count) 26 come up. 6 of those have gone to live with Angie:

Our friend Vino came by a couple weekends ago to help nail up plywood. I think we've scared him off, he hasn't been back. We've nicknamed him 'Thor' for his, ah, ability to handle a hammer.

I *finally* got Matt to Fitzgerald Pottery in Dillsburg. He seemed just as in love with their stuff as I did, and we came home with 2 new mugs and a small bowl. He was very partial to the light green, while I liked the brick and dark greens and blues better.
Not much work got done on the garage this weekend even though the weather was gorgeous. Matt came down with a stomach bug on Sunday and he was out of commission pretty much all day.

Pineapple in Brown Sugar Rum Sauce

2010-03-23T09:00:00.000-04:00

Oh, yeah.

This is the second time I've made this recipe. Now, pineapple isn't exactly 'local' in Pennsylvania, I know. But. This is great over vanilla ice cream. This is fantastic when a ham steak soaks in it and is baked. And I'm sure it's great by itself, but honestly it's never made it that far.
The recipe is in the thin Ball Blue Book that Matt's grandmother gave me:

2 ripe pineapples
2 cups water
1.5 cups brown sugar
1/2 cups rum

The first time I did the recipe I diced the pineapple in about 1/4 chunks. Very small, this time we did them larger (Matt helped). I also used dark brown sugar this time, hence the nice, dark color:
Take the water and brown sugar, boil it, then reduce it to a simmer for 5 minutes. Add the pineapple until it is heated through, place into 1/2 pint or pint jars and process in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes. Nothing to it!

The New Flowerbeds

2010-03-20T06:58:00.000-04:00

I have two new flowerbeds to plant this year. I don’t think I talked about them last year, but I had planned on it. One is a small corner bed with a decorative rock. The other is much larger (above), the entire side of the driveway and under the maple tree (so shade garden, too).

I have planted a few things in each bed, don’t know how they will take over the winter. Lots of space to take up, so one of the things I’ve been doing in sitting down and making a wish list of all the flower plants and seeds I’d like to get, semi-regardless of price. I won’t get all of it. I’ll be surprised if I get half of it, really, but it is nice to see where my interests lie in this area.

So, here is a sample of my wishlist:

Territorial Seeds - Amaranth, Autumn Touch (flower) Already ordered.
Tulip Tree Hill - Cotton, Earlene’s Green and Nankeen (yes, really)
Big Dipper Farm – two varieties of hardy fuchia(!), a red lady hellebore, and a single flowering red anemone, which I have been looking for forever and could only find doubles at this point, so there is a good chance I’m ordering from these people.
Select Seeds: Feverfew-Virgo; Tobacco-Crimson Bedder and Woodland; Mexican Tulip Poppy; Clematis-Roguchi; Delphinium-Royal Aspiration
Roots & Rhizomes: this one surprised me with a long list. Coreopsis-redshift; Delphinium-Coral Sunset; Helleborus-Golden Lotus and Peppermint Ice (at $15/each, probably not gonna happen); Daylilly-Rose Crush; Trollius-Cheddar; Verbascum-Caribbean Crush; Kirengeshoma; Periscaria-Painter’s Palete. Also, various hostas.

Dutch Gardens & Dutch Bulbs: almost sure these are the same people, so I’m combining the lists: Hosta-mix; Blue Sea Holly; Himalayan Blue Poppy ($24.99? Probably not going to make the cut); Primula-Francesca & Red Cap; Potentilla-Fire Flames; Oriental Lily-Nippon; Primrose-Poker; Dahlia-Bishop of Llandaff
Bluestone Perennials: for some reason, almost everything is sold in groups of 3 plants. But I only want one!! So, I’ll price elsewhere….grumble….Aquilegia-Tequila Sunrise; Artemisia-Powis Castle (mine bit it, I want to replace it); Mums-various; Digitalis-Obscura & Pam’s Choice; Geum-Fireball & Flames of Passion. Mallow-Purple Satin

Stay tuned for updated pictures as things start growing!!

Lovely Farm Artwork from Etsy

2010-03-19T08:32:00.004-04:00

Lookee who I found:
Isn't he darling? I love hairy cows like that. How about this one?

Cute, too. I found these on Etsy accidentally at RozArt's shop. She also does pets, landscapes, there is a great wheat field painting, and a bunch of chickens, too:

And bees. I love bees! I can see a future purchase for the walls of my jewelry studio...

Spring cleaning up and planting is happening, stay tuned for an update. Oh, and the garage, too!

Adventures with Kohlrabi

2010-03-18T09:09:00.001-04:00

We bought some kohlrabi at the grocery store last week.

We've never eaten kohlrabi.

We've never cooked kohlrabi.
.
.
.
Any suggestions????

I Spoke Too Soon!!!

2010-03-15T09:05:00.003-04:00

Rain! Lots of rain! Water pouring off the hill. Water in the basement. Sump pump set up. Water mitigated.

*sigh*

The float came off the damned sump pump in the middle of the night. Could have been a LOT worse, only 3" of water. So. We have two rugs to take outside to dry out, but it won't be until at LEAST tomorrow because, you guessed it, it is raining AGAIN today. Most everything else is fine.

In other news, I have a post up on my other blog about a woman who takes motorcycle trips through the dead zone around Chernobyl. And I think *I* have problems??

Suddenly Spring!

2010-03-09T07:21:00.001-05:00

After the Great Whumping that was this winter, especially February with 40+ inches of snow, March has not only been calm but warm. It appears that for at least a week it will remain that way, too. It's been in the 50s for the past 4 days and it appears that it will remain around there for the rest of the week!

The daffodils are coming up.

The iris reticulatas are coming up.

The rose is showing new growth.

It is really early. Keeping in mind that in the past 15 years we’ve had not one but 2 major blizzards the middle of March, I’m hoping that this trend is not a fluke. As much as I like winter, this spring is a wonderful breath of fresh air.

Tomato seedlings are up, the artichokes are up, the peppers are just starting to peep out. I have cabbages and lettuce to start, and some flowers, too.

Veggie Seed Order 2010

2010-02-28T07:52:00.001-05:00

Of COURSE I’m buying seeds! It is February, isn’t it? Geesh.

I did a quick and dirty list of what I wanted to grow again or more of this year (more okra, more paste tomatoes) vs. what I didn’t (melons, slightly fewer tomatoes overall and NO hanging baskets this year except flowers). I also did a quick inventory of what I had and made a list of what I needed. Below is the result, and no, it is probably not complete. Some do have links. all have already been ordered and I think most of them are already here. I’m sure I’ll order or purchase some things not listed:

Territorial Seeds:

Artichoke, Violetto (yes, really. It's hardy to zone 6)
Cucumber, Boothby’s Blonde
Mustard, Tah Tsai
Chinese cabbage, Tenderheart
Radish, French Breakfast
Tomato seed, Super Marzano (my paste tomatoes for the year)
Onion seedlings, Copra (storage onions, which will be in addition to the ones currently in the ground)
Sluggo, for slug death
Tomato plant, Princepe Borghese (these are specifically grown for drying)
Tomato plant, Mortgage Lifter
Tomato plant, Sun Gold

Seed Savers Exchange:

Carrot, Paris Market
Beet, Burpee Golden (two packs, so I have more for pickling)
Corn, Blue Jade (2-3’ plants, can be grown in containers!)
Squash, Potimarron (I saw these here and fell in love with them)
Drying bean, Good Mother Stallard
Lettuce, Yugoslavian Red
Tomato plant, Brandywine
Tomato plant, Cherokee Purple
Pepper plant, Sheepnose pimento

Bake Creek Heirloom Seeds:

Cucumber, Jaune Dickeleischige
Leek, Giant Musselburgh
Pak Choy, Extra Dwarf
Cowpea. This is something new I’m going to try. Black eyed peas are a cowpea. I haven’t yet decided what I’m going to get or where I’m getting it from…
Parsnip, half-long Guernsey

I’m also planning on visiting the PA Herb Festival in April at the York Fairgrounds. Another local blogger, Tulip Tree Hill from Lancaster, will be there. She is starting her farm this year and I have plans to get from her. These were on my lists for catalogs until she published her 2010 plant list:

Tomato, Snowberry
Tomato, Japanese Black Trifele
Watermelon, Orangelo (I know I said no melons this year, but have you seen this thing?)
Tomatillo, purple and green

So, except for a few things here and there as fun, that's it! I actually bought about half of what I bought last year. Some tomatoe seedlings are already started, as are the artichokes. Pictures soon!

What are you prepping??

More More More! How do you like it?

2010-02-15T07:12:00.004-05:00

The pictures I took while stuck at work I wound up listing on a Flickr page, so you can see them here. I especially like the picture of the building I work in at night.

This picture shows the left turn out of my facility completely blocked by snow drifts on Thursday afternoon. They eventually did come and open it up, we think it was the National Guard. This is the main avenue from town to access the interstate. There was a lot of traffic coming from town, making it as far as the gates, turning around, and then getting stuck there because there was more traffic coming along behind them. It was a nightmare.

I didn't take too many pictures at home. Here is the obligatory Max picture (taller than three yorkies at this point):
The herb bed. I took a pic of the herb bed the last huge storm we got, too. Keep in mind this is after drifting. I really don't know how much snow we got from this storm, but I'm guessing somewhere between 18-25".

The garage. Note the blue tent thing collapsed on the second floor. If the snow load didn't do it the winds did:
Interestingly, in the picture above the drifts closest to me are about 4' while the snow has completely blown off the part of the sidewalk closest to the garage. It made shoveling.....interesting at best. The drifts are pretty, with sharp cuts going from here to there. If you framed a picture just right you would believe it was taken in the Alaska or Antarctica landscape.

We finally got completely dug out on Thursday afternoon (or was it Friday? Things really are running together about last week). We're 3/4 of the way digging up to the burning barrel. We dug out the trash cans, too.

Here is really hoping that we don't have a sudden warm spell or 2" of rain all at once. I'm beginning to have a real appreciation for those of you who live like this every winter.

January 25 Flood Pictures

2010-02-12T07:36:00.004-05:00

There's just SOOOOO much exciting weather going on here, Idon't know what to do! These pictures are from 1/25/2010, before either of the big snows we got. And thank god for that, can you imagine what would have happend if we'd gotten 4" of rain on top of 50+ inches of snow?

Anyway all of these were taken with a crappy disposable camera that I bought in the campus shop, so forgive the quality. I'll put the captions above the pictures. If you want access to a campus map, click here. Most of these were taken near the burn buildings, which are located at the top right of the map.

A shot from the point of view of the burn buildings. This is usually a field. Tom's Creek runs on the left. A road parallels it, you can make out the street lights:
From the hill, looking down, again usually field:
More formally field shots:

During the flooding, a stream grew here:
And it was gone the next day (this is the digital camera picture):
Conveniently, they were setting fires at the burn buildings this day:
Another shot, can you see the bridge beside the brick building? Almost under water:
Another shot of the bridge:
There is a low head dam past the trees in the above picture. You can't really see it, but the sound was incredible.

So, flooding. It was gone by 5pm here. In fact, when I took the above pictures the waters were already receeding.

Stay tuned for blizzard pictures tomorrow!!!

Snowpocalypse Update

2010-02-11T09:37:00.003-05:00

Hi everyone!! I'm still stuck on campus! That makes two nights for me. It hasn't been bad, actually, I kind of like the quiet time by myself. I have an awful lot of pictures to post, so many that I may just put them up on Flickr. I'll let you know.

Campus is still snowed in, the maintenance staff is working a lot of overtime, but to be honest the wind is causing so many walks to fill in just after they'd been plowed open that they just stopped for several hours yesterday because there was no point. They did a little bit again last night, then as far as I know nothing until about 5 this morning. There are Icicles of Death all over the place, some of them easily 6 feet long.

Winds have been upwards of 30-40mph with gusts easily around 50mph. I slipped and fell once, didn't hurt myself, but there is a lot of ice on the walks that the snow is covering. Very dangerous. We have sun today and even though it is so cold I'm hoping that the walks melt a bit.

In other weather-related news, I saw a picture of the storm this morning on the national radar. It was as big as a hurricane, it was rotating like a hurricane, and it had an eye like a hurricane. Very interesting.

Most of Maryland is still in a state of emergency. Hospitals are requesting 4W drivers to help with their transportation and probably to get doctors/nurses in and out. If you're stuck working at a hospital through something like this burnout must be an incredible problem. They need replacement staff badly.

This morning, I was in the lobby of the dorm where the main office is for Guest Services, and they got a call from security. It seems a truck had been stuck on the main road down about a half mile from campus. We had all heard that, it had been there for hours. Apparently it still had people in it including a child. Why on earth they stayed in the vehicle when there is a camps RIGHT HERE is beyond me. The mainenance staff had been working on clearing roads with the backhoes and dump trucks (because the plows weren't big enough to handle it all), and when I looked out the door towards the South Gate (closest to the stuck vehicle) I could see a caravan of the equipment headed there to open the access road. They were going to get the people out to bring them to a dorm. So, yay us! Cause, yah know, when disaster strikes FEMA is here!

On the home front, Matt is currently trying to figure out how to get all the snow moved. He is expected to be in today, which I just don't see happening. He called me last night at 10:30. Apparently the quarry (grit mill) on the hill above the house had a transformer fire earlier. Then it stopped. And then there were some strange electrical things going on around the house, like flickering, lowered lights and a humming sound. Well, the humming was coming from the mill. Matt said that the Aircraft Rescue fire apparatus from our local SECRET NUCLEAR BUNKER went up the road. He looked at the mill and they were having a huge electrical fire, flames 40' high and he said it looked like someone set off a truck of fireworks. He said the backyard looked like daylight, it was so bright. I wish I'd been there to see it.

So, I'm working today 10:30 to 2:30, then....I hope I can get home. If not, I'll be here....again....for a third night. Everyone is wonderful, there is a nice sense of amusement over the whole thing, even though we all have work to do. But.....I only brought one change of clothes. I'm wearing a pajama top today. It is a nice pajama top, and if I dont' tell anyone no one will be the wiser. But I wanna go home.

Oranges, part 2

2010-02-10T07:22:00.000-05:00

After canning the clementines, I had a lot of orange peel.

Did I mention I had a lot of orange peel? A lot. I cut it mostly into strips:
I had so much I wound up boiling them in two batches. The first batch I boiled in two water baths and I changed the water once. They boiled for 2o minutes each, and I thought the first batch was really mushy. The second batch I only boiled once for 20 minutes. They were tough. Note to self: two water baths of 10 minutes each are fine for orange peel (3 @ 20min each are good for grapefruit peel, usually).

After everything is boiled to death, you mix an equal amount of sugar to what you have of orange peel (2 cups orange peel=2 cups sugar). Mix in a little (NOT much, like 1/4-1/2 cup) water and add the orange peel. Stir until it spins a thread.

Well, that's what the directions say. I don't know what that means, so I just stir until it seems things have been absorbed well.

Then, dump them out on a parchment/wax paper-lined cookie sheet to dry. Try to separate them out pretty well or else they will take days to dry like mine did. Ahem.

I also didn't use wax paper and, as you can see above, had to chip them off the cookie sheet. A little spray of water helped with this.
Some of them were destined for the chocolate dip. nyum.

Winter Storm Pics, Vol. 2

2010-02-09T07:15:00.002-05:00

I downloaded the rest of the pictures this morning and these are the better ones.

Here's Max. Poor thing. He loves the snow, but...if the one in December was a taller-than-a-Yorkie-snow at 19", this one is a taller-than-TWO-Yorkies-snow.
The grill looking like some kind of mushroom:
The sun came out at one point, how weird does this look?
The car, I think. It looks like a marshmallow with side mirrors:
The calvalry. Matt on Kubby (the Kubota) and his dad Ray on the John Deere:
And, finally, our house, garage, and greenhouse as seen from the road.

Winter Storm Pics, Vol. 1

2010-02-08T06:57:00.004-05:00

The first of two posts about the snow. The first picture is Friday around 5pm at work. That's my car, I'm sure they were waiting for me to leave so they could plow the main entrance.
This is of my herb bed:
This is the fencing around the blueberry bush:

For scale purposes, this is what it would normally look like. Well, without the stream running through it, of course. Consider this a teaser of the flood pictures I still have to post:Matt, shoveling a path for Max and looking shocked:
He's 6'3", remember.

Garage Update

2010-02-04T08:29:00.002-05:00

Due to cold and weather, we really haven't been working on the garage lately (shock):
Yeah, it's been like that. We did get all four walls on the 2nd floor done, though, and the beam is up. Next step: rafters!

Oh Muh Darlin' Clemintine!

2010-02-03T20:15:00.000-05:00

I found this recipe for canning clementine oranges recently and as we LOVE them I decided to try to save some so we'd have some decent citrus options over the summer. I bought 15lb of clementines. I know, I know. 5lb was for eating, though, and I knew some would be a little funky, and they were. So, that's about 10lb for canning.
Since I have fingernails and Matt doesn't, I peeled while he took all the segments apart. It actually didn't take too long.

What took the longest was getting the water to boil. I waited on that FOREVER.
Very light syrup, 10min in a boiling water bath (eventually), and tada! Very little siphoning this time, and only one of the quarts didn't seal.
So, ten pounds of clementines got me 3 quarts and 6 pints. And a huge pile of peel....soon to be candied (stay tuned)...

Is the TSA Checking for These Things?!?!

2010-01-30T15:43:00.004-05:00

Back in December, I took the infamous Bags Of Leaves that I'd gotten from my dad and put them on top of the Parsnips and the Carrots and just left everything in the ground. Since then we've had a really intense cold weather/wind spell, and I had no idea what to expect. I took our long shovel and went to do some digging about 2 weeks ago.

It turns out there was no need to worry! The carrots pulled right out! The ground was so soft and nice. It was a bit frozen where two bags would meet, where there wasn't so much insulation, but still.

Parsnips did need digging but not because the soil was frozen. They needed digging because of the size. Last year my parsnips looked like this. This year? A couple of them were bigger. Two were at least 4 inches across the crown and 16-18 inches long. I kid you not.

Which leads me to a really great story. Matt scrubbed everything up (thank you dear!) and I bagged the larger parsnip up in a clear plastic bag, put a twist-tie on one end, and I took it to work for my coworker.

She didn't come in until around noon, so I sat the parsnip on her windowsill, pointy end up, behind the curtains where it would keep cool.

One of the federal employees came in, like he usually does at lunch, to do some research for a project he's working on. Two things you should know about him: 1) he is known nationally as Mr. Emergency Management (seriously, he is THE go-to guy for this stuff), and 2) he has a reputation for being rather, um, arrogant, but really it is just natural shyness. It's been years before we finally broke the ice.

So, he asks me if I had a nice weekend. I told him I did, I dug some carrots and parsnips. He looked at me and said, "Parsnip.....what's a parsnip?" And I said "Hold on, I have one here," and (smiling to myself devilishly) I went over to my coworkers desk, reached behind the curtain and pulled out The Monster.

He had been following me over and literally jumped back two steps when I showed it to him. His eyes went W I D E. His jaw dropped.

"HOLY MOLEY!!" He said. "Is that normal?!?! You could kill someone with that thing!!" He tentatively took it from me. He wielded it like a club.

"Does the TSA check for these at airports?!?! This is a serious weapon!"

About then my coworker came in. She sized up what was going on and said "I'm not going to ask what you two are doing."

Mr. EM went on in this vein for about 10 minutes. He was seriously impressed. He did say at one point, "Did you notice my first thought was of destruction? Yeah. It's what I do."

So, frequent fliers beware!! They're going to start carrying parsnips soon.

Blog Post Wish List

2010-01-25T14:16:00.002-05:00

Here is my wishlist for blog posts to finish this week, if I get time:

1) Harvest in January!
2) Flooding in January! Maybe even with pictures!!!
3) Garage work from January!

I know! Three (3) blog posts! When will I ever find the time? How will I ever get home tonight after the 4 inches of rain have closed all the roads!?!?!? Will the house be there or will it have washed away? Exciting? Maybe. I hope not, though. I don't really need any more excitement today.

Dad Update

2010-01-23T08:24:00.002-05:00

OK. So. We went to see dad yesterday. They had transferred him to York hospital because they have the cath lab there and a stellar cardio group.

The good news is that 1) this thing that has been happening (for 3-4 years!!) isn't life-threatening, it is fairly common and treatable. Dad is coming home today. Mom is going to get him.

The bad news is that the procedure they had scheduled for yesterday (called an EPS, similar to a cardio cath) they had him all prepped and were into it about an hour before the doc decided he wasn't going to proceed because 1) dad's heart rate and breathing slowed down enough to be dangerous, and 2) the doc just didn't realize how large dad was until he saw him on the table. The combination of these two things made it too dangerous to proceed without an anesthesiologist there, so the doc called it off.

SO. Dad is being sent home with a 2-4 month monitor and instructions to loose weight.

I do not envy my mom.

That was an outcome that probably was obvious, but I wasn't expecting. I WAS expecting them to do this proceedure and find all kinds of blockages in his arteries and we would be told he needed a sixteen-tupple bypass surgery.

MIA Again

2010-01-21T08:53:00.002-05:00

Hi, I'm back. Still hoping to get some new pictures/posts up, but something came up. Dad is in the hospital, nothing serious (or so we've been led to believe), but still.

The story is typical-male. Apparently for some time now his heart will start racing and (this is the typical male part) he'll pound himself in the chest and it'll stop. He hadn't told anyone about it, of course. So, last night it happened and he (in his words) didn't pound himself in the chest fast enough and got very lightheaded and they went to the hospital.

The doctors said there are two things it could be, so tests are in order today and we'll know something. I'm guessing pacemaker.

Anyway. I'm guessing he didn't pound himself in the chest fast enough because mom was there and he didn't want her to see it. Probably he was hoping it would just stop on its own and he wouldn't have to. And then she wouldn't know about it.

Here I am!

2010-01-18T09:05:00.002-05:00

Sorry I've been so MIA lately, I've been spending a lot of time working on the application package for the job I'm applying for, due tomorrow.

I hope to have new garage pics up this week, as well as some pictures of my most recent garden harvest. Seriously, I harvested some fresh veggies, and I scared the bejezus out of a coworker with one of them. It is a great story, stay tuned!

White House Garden Update

2010-01-12T12:46:00.002-05:00

Great article here about the first year of the White House potager.

I love that they have hoop houses!!!

I love that our First Lady and Big Bird talked seeds on Seasame Street!!!!

I love that they harvested honey from their own hives!!!

New Garden Link

2010-01-09T18:28:00.002-05:00

I've added a new link. It should come as a refreshing read for those of us in North America right now, as Scarecrow's Garden is not only in Australia, but they are in a hot and dry area of Australia. Enjoy!!

Deerloaf

2010-01-06T10:21:00.002-05:00

Our friend, Duane, has gotten (at least) 5 deer this hunting season. He always brings us some meat. Up until marrying Matt, I'd never had deer before. I find that I like it, but don't really know many ways to prepare it. Deer is drier than beef, so you need to take that into account when cooking it.

I recently found a fantastic recipe for a meatloaf using venison and I wanted to share. It is from America's Favorite Wild Game Recipes cookbook, which also happens to be on permanent loan to us from Duane. We've made it twice and love it.

Wayne's Special Venison Meatloaf

1/3 cup catsup
2 Tbsp barbecue sauce
2 Tbsp French dressing (I used fig balsamic dressing as that was all I had)
2lbs. lean ground venison or substitute
1 cup canned piccalilli or pickled mixed garden vegetables, rinsed and drained
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup coarsely crushed seasoned croutons (I used panko bread crumbs and added some thyme and garlic powder)
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 tsp seasoned salt

Heat oven to 350*. In a small mixing bowl, combine catsup, barbecue sauce, and dressing. Set aside. In large mixing bowl, combine 3 Tbsp catsup mixture and the meatloaf ingredients. Spray 9x5 inch loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray.

Press meatloaf mixture into prepared dish. Spoon remaining catsup mixture evenly over meatloaf. Bake for 1 to 1.5 hours or until meat is firm and no longer pink. Let stand 10 minutes before slicing.

Indoor Gardening

2009-12-30T17:44:00.000-05:00

Not too much going on outside, so I thought I'd add some indoor gardening pictures.

I re-did 4 of the mini moss gardens recently:
I added tiny blue seed beads as drainage at the bottom of each, too. I think they look nice:

The Christmas Cactus I was given is blooming:

We were given a juniper Bonsai from Matt's brother. I've already started training it. This is the before picture:

This is the after picture. I'm trying to do a 'cascade' style in the front. It is wired and pulled downward:

Holiday Tradition, in Chocolate

2009-12-29T12:55:00.001-05:00

Three years ago, I watched Nigella Lawson make a Chocolate Cherry Trifle on Food Network. It looked incredible, and I don't really like cherries that much. I decided to make it. I'm not going to post the ingredients here, you can go to the link above and find them. I am going to talk about custard making, though.

I'd made several custard-style ice creams and after watching Nigella discovered that I was doing it wrong. You should never let a custard boil.

Below, I am mixing the *8* egg yolks, sugar, and cocoa:
I didn't know that you shouldn't ever let custard boil. Oops. It will separate and you will get scrambled egg yolk in with whatever you're making. While it won't kill you, it isn't pleasant either visually or texturally.

After you mix the yolks, sugar, and cocoa in a bowl, heat the milk and cream. I heated until it was steaming:
Whisk the warm milk into the yolk mixture. Pour a little in at first, whisking like a fool, and then whisk the rest in. At this point you also mix in the melted bittersweet chocolate:
Put everything back in the dutch oven and heat over medium, stirring constantly. Use a spoon - don't us a whisk, it will just keep it frothy on top and you won't be able to see the Evil Bubbles of Boiling.

Directions always tell you to cook the custard until it is thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon. I have never found this helpful, doesn't it always coat the back of a spoon, just more thinly at times? Here the spoon is coated, but the custard just isn't thick enough:

She is right in her directions, too: you want this to be thick. Runny won't do. I think this time I finally found the right method for telling 'doneness.' When it is thick enough that when you push it to one side of the pan AND IT TENDS TO STAY THERE, it is done:
The recipe calls for two chocolate pound cakes, too. I used box mix with 1/3 cup of cocoa mixed into the dry mix. I know, I know, but it is easier. Also, it turns out I only needed one, so the other is currently in the freezer:
The mostly-finished product! Notice the liquid at the bottom of the bowls? Homemade cherry liquor. All it needs is freshly whipped cream *unsweetened* on top:
Even if you don't make the whole trifle, the custard part of this recipe is to die for. Really. And if I don't make this for Christmas every year my husband will kill me in my sleep, so be warned. If you make this dessert, you may be destined to make it forever.

Our Trash

2009-12-28T11:41:00.001-05:00

I’ve been listing more stuff on Etsy lately, you can take a look here. Several of my listings have pictures of jewelry laying on or hanging from ice-encrusted trees, shrubs, rocks, and leaves. I love these pictures. Most people I talk to love these pictures.

I’ve gotten some flack, though, from some people on Etsy about them because the ice may be dirty. These are people who are clean-freaks, I’m sure you’ve met them. They don’t want to wear jewelry that other people may have worn. They think it is icky to put jewelry on ice. Because. Ew.

The ice may be dirty.

I’ve been on the fence about changing the pictures. I keep wondering if it is keeping people from buying from me. I’m not afraid of dirt, I think exposure to germs makes me healthier and so far I’ve been proven right with a cold every 3 years, a stomach thing every few years, no flu to speak of ever, etc etc, while other people drop to cold and flu left and right despite their extreme hand washing and use of antibacterial everything.

Anyway, I was talking about this with a friend recently who, I believe, likened the complainers to morons and told me not to ever change the pictures, they were gorgeous.

So, I’m making a proclamation today that I will not change the pictures and will actually TAKE MORE ICE PICTURES as soon as I can, because they’re lovely. So there. And if you don’t like it, go find some boiled jewelry somewhere else.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After that intro, I’d like to talk about our trash. When we moved into this house, we opted not to have trash service. We do not pay for someone to haul away our garbage. Our township recently switched trash services and we got a bill in the mail for $53/quarter. We're not going to sign up.

We’ve worked our garbage into 5 categories. I will talk about them here, briefly, after which I will relate a short story about our first 2 weeks living here. It is a great story.

Compostables: We compost what we can. We have a seal-top bin on the counter that we line with a compostable ‘plastic’ bag made of corn starch. When it is full we throw it in the compost bin, bag and all. I have also been known to compost other things, like an old wool sweater, cotton balls, and a mostly decomposed dead owl I found in the lawn once. Yum!

Meat/fat/cheese: Most of the meat and fat we toss at the top of the yard for whatever animals will eat it, usually some of the gazillion feral cats we have here thanks to our neighbor the crazy cat lady my mother in law.

Burnables: all paper and cardboard goes into one of the trash cans we have in the kitchen, which we take once a week or so to our burning barrel to burn.

Recyclables: All recyo-babbles get bagged up and taken to the local Refuse Transfer Station (dump) about 5 miles away. We can deposit all recyclables for free.

Everything Else: Whatever doesn’t fall into the above categories gets bagged up and taken to the dump about every other month (um, more often in hot weather). This is usually plastic or metal that can’t be recycled, Styrofoam, sometimes bones, foamfill from torn-apart dog toys, other miscellaneous items.

The last trip we made to the ‘dump’ was this weekend. We threw out 60lb of trash that we’d accumulated for well over a month, and it cost us $3.00. Sometimes it is $2.50, sometimes $4.

So, for a year it costs us less than $3/month for a grand total of less than $36/year. Plus, with our sorting we really don’t throw out as much.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Now, for a trash story:

The elderly woman who lived in the house before we did had been bullied by the landlord of the house next to us to allow his tenants to use her driveway. By proxy, they also got away with not paying for her to have the driveway cleaned off in the winter and they used her trash service. The trash was put at the end of the driveway and they could just add a bag or two to her bag. Hey, an old lady doesn’t accumulate much trash in a week, right? It was never noticed by the collectors.

Then we moved in and didn’t renew the garbage contract.

(We also sent the landlord a letter via our lawyer saying they could no longer use the driveway because they had roadfrontage and didn’t, legally, have a right to use it, and almost got into a physical fight with the man over it. It was a fun time for everyone! The story I’m relaying here happened before the letter, though).

So, Tuesday the week after we moved in the woman who rented next door dragged her bag of trash to the end of the driveway.

Wednesday morning, it was still there.
Thursday morning it was still there.
Friday morning (shock) it was still there. She dragged it back.

The next Tuesday she dragged TWO bags of trash to the end of our driveway.
Wednesday morning, it was still there. Are we seeing a pattern here?

Thursday morning, it was still there. She dragged it back to her rental house. (Quick. The woman is quick).

I’m not sure what happened between she and her landlord, but she didn’t do it a third week. I also can’t remember if they wound up having trash pick-up at the end of their driveway when they eventually were, ah, forced to put one in (right over the sewer box, I might add). If they did I’m sure she ended up paying for it and not the landlord. We had new neighbors by the end of the year.

Late Fall Harvest

2009-12-22T10:53:00.000-05:00

For a garden blog I haven't been talking much about the garden, have I? Here is a bit about what is going on:

This is the broccoli on November 15:
I had 13 broccoli plants this year (14 originally, one didn't make it). I bought them at Lowes in Lexington, VA, because my local greenhouse was sold out by the time I got to them. I really wasn't sure I was going to get broccoli this year because by the middle of October they were but wee little broccoli wannabes. When I picked the first batch at the beginning of December they were huge:I got a great Fall broccoli crop! A little wormy, but I took care of them (for the most part. I hope). You can see the size here, my gloved hand is at the left: A week after I picked the first snow-covered batch we were having a cold and windy spell and I decided to pick the rest before the wind got to it. It has all been blanched and frozen now.

I also cut into the single Australian Butter squash I got, and 'Butter' is the perfect word to describe the flavor. Fantastic! I will grow these again:

1/3 of this squash went into this apple and cranberry dish for Thanksgiving:The remaining 2/3 was cooked (too much, I think) and frozen. This is a great squash.

My remaining carrots and parsnips are still in the ground. I covered them over with the now-infamous bags of leaves to try to insulate them some. Next warmish spell I'll try to dig them up. The cabbages, I fear, are toast. Just got them in too late.

The Perfect Storm

2009-12-21T10:41:00.004-05:00

We had a wonderful snow storm on Saturday. When I got up at 5am to let Max outside I think we already had 2-3 inches. By 8:30 it was 6 or so. By 10am the car looked like this:
Matt was on-call (and was a bear about it). He did get 5 calls. Four of them he actually was able to troubleshoot via phonecall and talk the people through lighting their own pilot flame, checking to see if the vents were covered with snow, etc, and even did a more complicated call with a guy who was far more mechanically inclined than most and could handle it. Matt did have to run out once.

For the most part, though, we mostly stayed inside and watched birdies:

We went out once to shovel off the 2nd floor of the garage:
By 4pm the car looked like this:

We went out to shovel a few places for Max to do his thing because by 8pm we had a taller-than-a-yorkie snow. By 8:15, Max looked like this:
Sunday, we had some wind and the blowing snow with the sun behind it was gorgeous:All told, just shy of 19" here. A big snow for us. I think they're calling for another this week. I *really* hope we don't have a sudden warm spell, can you imagine the flooding??

The Only Thing The Garage Is Good For

2009-12-14T05:44:00.000-05:00

Is playing ball with Max....

I dowanna give it to you:

Rebuild Part 4: Second Buncha Days!

2009-12-13T13:34:00.007-05:00

Day 11 (November 24): We built the main beam for the garage. 27'.-
Day 12: We put it up:
Here is the lower half of someone. Not sure what happened to the upper half:
Day 13: Thanksgiving. You guessed it, the joists went up:

Day 15: Stairs.
Somewhere around here, we started putting plywood up as a windbreak. The garage door is boarded up temporarily:
Day 16: Plywood floor for the 2nd story!
Day 16ish: stairs completed.
A lot of other little stuff happened in the meantime.
Day 22: The closet under the stairs was framed in:
Day 22 was Saturday, December 5th. Stay tuned!

Not My Fault Monday

2009-12-07T19:38:00.004-05:00

There is a website out there called Not Me Monday and, while I’m not going to make a practice of it, there are many people who do the Not Me Monday on a regular basis. This story seemed a good idea to transform into a Not Me Monday. Keep in mind this never happened!

Earlier in the year, my father (who lives about 15 miles away) was lamenting about all the leaves he has to vacuum off his pristine lawn and how the town is giving people heck about coming around and picking them up. Suburbia, I never knew ye. I did not offer to take all the bags of shredded leaves he had for our garden.

Flash forward to October 2009. Dad did not call and say he had 8 bags of leave to pick up, and my husband did not go and pick them up in his work truck on the way home.

3 weeks ago, my father did not call and say he had 7 more bags of leaves to pick up, and he did not say that DH should come and get them as soon as possible. He didn’t say DH should just pull around back in his work truck, and that he should hurry because if he waits too long the ground will be too soggy.

DH DID NOT call my father around 4pm on Friday of that week to tell him he’d be over to pick up the 7 bags of leaves.

My DH did not get THAT VERY DAY a brand-spanking-new Ford F-450, dual wheel work pickup with a liftgate, bins along the bed, extended cab AND a boom on the back for lifting extremely heavy tanks. Less than 50 miles on it. It sparkled. Very heavy truck. It did not have that new car smell.

It did not rain for 2 days straight prior to this. Ahem.

My father was not standing outside waiting for DH to show up. He did not wave my DH back.

DH did not shake his head no.

My father then DID NOT VIGOROUSLY WAVE MY DH BACK AROUND THE SIDE OF THE GARAGE.

DH then did not shrug, say OK! And drive around the back of the house.

*deep breath*

The truck then did not sink into my parents back yard. The pristine, vacuumed lawn. It didn’t sink in the whole way up to the lug nuts on the huge truck tires. It didn’t sink in THAT DEEPLY.

The rest of the story (when I was not told it a couple hours later) made me laugh so hard my sides hurt the next day. Oh, wait. No they didn’t!

I’d gotten home from work and my neighbor caught me outside and talked my ear off for half an hour. Then, I went inside and let Max out for about 15 minutes and got the mail. Then, we went inside. It was close to 6pm. I noticed there were NOT three messages on the machine. The first two were not from my mother:

“Hi, it’s mom. Matt got the truck stuck in the backyard. Dad wanted me to call you so you knew where he was at. Bye.”

“Hi, it’s mom again. They got the truck out. He’s on his way home. (pause). Bye.”

(notice it’s “Matt got the truck stuck” but “they got the truck out”? Yeah, I noticed that, too). The third message was from Matt:

“Hi. It’s me. I’m on the way home. See you in a bit.”

Nothing about the truck. I waited. He didn’t pull the truck in and did not stop about mid-driveway. I watched from a dark window. He didn’t get the hose and start spraying off the truck. I went outside, trying to hide my smile.

(Me: “Nice new truck!” Him: “Your mom called, didn’t she?”)

For the record the truck is fine. No damage, just mud.

It was obvious at the start there was a problem, and my dad (being a control freak) tried to take point and direct everything. (Mother, being smart, went inside). Dad has little-to-no experience with large truck like this and I dare say he was way out of his element and mainly got in the way.

But the highlights that did not happen:

My father did not suggest trying to pull the Ford out with his lawn mower.

Matt did not kill a locust tree with the winch.

Matt did not ask dad for a sledgehammer to pound wood into the mud under the tires to give it traction. My dad did not then tell Matt that he doesn’t own a sledge, and Matt didn’t then rage at him. My dad did not then go get the axe. Matt then did not pound stakes into the ground with the axe, get up and turn around only to find my father standing WAY too close and, in a bit of a rage, my DH did not stare down at my father, holding an axe in a serious manner, and say in a deep guttural voice: “MOVE!”

My father did not then scurry away, penguin-like.

After 45 minutes, the backyard that had been vacuumed of leaves just hours before did not afterward look like a Monster Truck Mud Bog had taken place. There were NOT several 2-foot-deep ruts in the backyard.

The mud tracks from my DH’s new work truck did not run for MILES.

We do not, 3 weeks later, still have pieces of my parents sod and lawn on our driveway. My father, who that night made a whole lotta nice-nice, has NOT since turned bitchy and blamed everyone who was there for the incident. It was, apparently.....not his fault.

MIA

2009-12-04T09:33:00.002-05:00

Sorry I've been a bit MIA. Busy, tired. Sick recently (stomach thing, ick). Posts on garage work, broccoli, and the jewelry class I took coming either here or on GemlikeFlame. Stay tuned!

What I Cooked This Week

2009-11-26T19:28:00.002-05:00

I had off this week and one of the things I wanted to do was cook. A lot. I had a bunch of recipes I've been holding off on doing because of time constraints, but this week:

I made the Garlic Corn Saute recipe from YD's blog. It was REALLY good and easy. Make sure you let everything caramelize just a little.

I made Rosemary Shortbread cookies, I've already talked about them here. These are SO easy.

I made a Cranberry Orange Tart with ginger cream cheese using the tart dough recipe I found on David Lebovitz's blog. This was also super easy, much more so than the final outcome looked:
I did a Beef Burgundy crockpot recipe. If you've ever wondered what 1/4 cup of red wine looked like when you added 1/3 cup flour, this is it:
I made Brandied Mushrooms and a Squash cassarole with Cranberries and Apples for Thanksgiving, and they were both great.

I also cooked up this pendant:
It is a commissioned piece for a coworker. I was pretty happy with how it turned out.

A Roundup

2009-11-25T07:36:00.000-05:00

A few things I've read lately on other blogs that I like:

A funny story about having a homestead with no running water (thanks for the laugh, Mamma Pea!)
A great blog post about growing your own food...I feel this, I've been asked a bunch this year why we're growing so much food and if we actually think we're going to eat all this!
The US isn't the only country losing its farming herritige. France is also having problems. Have a look at this great blog post about local farms and CSAs in France, which garnered this wonderful line: "...[food] that's so good I want to marry the person who made it and dedicate my life to somehow returning the favor." I've had food like that, haven't you?
Just a reminder that I'm doing a book giveaway here, and I have a list of seeds I would LOVE to send you here.
A post from the daughter of a coworker who is with the Peace Corps in the Ukraine right now. She is in the 'immersion' part of the program right now, staying with a family that speaks no English. She is very proud of herself: She cooked tea!

Tomorrow, I will post about what I've been cooking and/or making recently. With PICTURES! Stay tuned.

The Garage Rebuild! Part 2

2009-11-24T18:43:00.003-05:00

I'm going to start posting pictures of finished work in 10-day to two-week intervals, just to show the process AND progress.

Day 1: Max helped by getting in the way. Here I am (I KNOW! A picture of ME!) putting the washers and nuts on the all-thread through the plates that the walls will sit on.
Day 2: Wall one. Oh, and the beam in the middle which will hold the horizontal beam. Also notice the header for a future door:
Day 3: Wall two.
Day 4: Beginning the opening for the 12-ft garage door. Just need to build the head beam. He also put in the landing for the staircase:
Day 5: Prepping the wall in the back:
Day 6 & 7 nothing got done.

Day 8: Header for the garage door built and in place:
Day 9 & 10 nothing got done, too rainy. That brings us up-to-date, believe it or not. Day 10 was yesterday, Monday the 23rd.

The Garage Demise, part 8

2009-11-16T18:01:00.007-05:00

We had been stuck in a weather cycle here where it rained (POURED) every weekend for three weeks. We had hoped to have concrete poured before last weekend, but alas it was not to be.

We did have PLENTY of time to get the forms and such in, though. We poured right on top of the existing floor (I think I talked about that already) and re-used the ceiling boards as concrete forms, too. We hardly had to buy anything.

We also left in the back wall. More on that in a bit.

Below is one of the pins that is holding the concrete form in place. As you can see, we painted it bright orange so that all the criminals that that apparently secretly run around our property in the middle of the night would see it at the last minute as they tripped and fell.

And it was about 30* that morning as we got up around 6am to wait for the concrete truck to arrive....

The crew: l-r, Corey, my FiL Ray, Vino-the-security-guard-from-work, and Matt-the-husband-from-here. Max is freaking out inside because he isn't part of the party:
Vino hasn't done concrete before, as you can tell from this picture where he's cornered himself in really well. He really pitched in, but I'm not entirely sure he knew what he'd gotten himself into.
We used the sludge from the last bit of concrete to fill in the back wall a bit to strengthen it:
Using the 16' float to smooth things out:Smoothing a bit more:TaDa!!!!! All in all, we finished 10 yards of concrete in a little over an hour. That is really, really good in terms of time, they allow you 1hr 50min for 10 yards.

Weekend

2009-11-16T08:45:00.002-05:00

Sorry, no NaBloPoMo this weekend. No time. Saturday we had a wood delivery from Lowes, about 5 hours after we were expecting it. I had a surprise trip to the vet which lasted an hour longer than I expected, then we worked.

Sunday, we worked. Period. Today, I hurt.

I will be posting the concrete post tonight, and after that I'll probably do a weekly accomplishments post about the garage.

Fall Veggie Update

2009-11-11T07:38:00.006-05:00

I was about to post about pouring concrete when I remembered that a) this started out as a garden blog, and b) I haven't posted about gardening in a loooong time, so I'm doing that today.

Onions: I harvested our 2009 onions already and they are in the basement, but on the suggestion of a friend I seeded onion directly into a bed this past August to overwinter. This was a French variety I'd really wanted to try more of, and I'm really excited to see how it works out. So far, so good, as they are coming up and look healthy and sturdy:
Garlic/Shallots: I planted these this past weekend. 35 French gray shallots, 3 red shallots, and I'm not sure how much garlic yet (I haven't tallied them up). Planted Transylvanian, Chinese Pink, Music, Applegate, and Shantung Purple.

Broccoli: I have two varieties of broccoli in, too: this fall crop and a purple sprouting broccoli for next spring. This year's batch is almost ready to pick.

Cabbages: I may have put these in too late, I'm not sure. I've never grown cabbage before.

Turnips: I planted a lot of turnips, ONE grew. It is currently in the refrigerator waiting to be cooked.

Carrots: These did beautifully in my second batch. I've picked a lot, but there is a lot still in there. I'm going to wait until after the first real freeze to pull them.

Parsnips: Still in the ground, I have no idea what's going on down there.

Peanuts: I got about 8 dozen peanuts!! Off four plants!! I'm pretty happy with that, and they are good size, so I think I will grow them again.

The Garage Demise, part 7

2009-11-08T09:37:00.001-05:00

This is the concrete-prep post. Sorry if I'm boring people out there with all the details, but I find it a bit interesting. I've never been part of a demolition/rebuild before. And I'd like to document it for the future, too, so we can look back someday and say "Remember when..."

After the roof and walls were down, we needed to prep the existing pad for a new layer of concrete. We decided to pour right on top of the existing pad. We had no idea how thick the current one was (it turned out to be waaaay thicker than we'd thought, about 10" instead of 4"):

We needed to get as much crud off as possible, and we decided to scrub the back wall while we were at it, too, since that was staying as well. Check out the dirt coming off the wall!

Of course, AFTER we had swept and scrubbed the floor as much as we could, DH decided to take the steel I-beam down. After we'd cleaned the floor. After. *sigh*

They decided to try to push it up using a 4x4 and Kubby. This, I felt, was destined to be a bit of a disaster...
The pole fell over:
The pole gets put back up:
It doesn't work. Thank god, I can just see the thing slipping and getting launched by the backhoe into the air and coming down on the truck in the background. Just our luck.
Then, he decides to take the bull by the horns and just PUSH it over.
This worked.
He-man is very happy about this. But now we have concrete all over the floor and need to clean it....again.
The I-beam needed to be cut in half. He tried the Saws-all (Sawzall?), but it wouldn't cut. It was starting to burn up....
So he borrowed the torch from the garage across the street...
But proceeded to have a lot of trouble getting it adjusted to where he needed it to be....
So we got the garage guy (and our neighbor, for now) to do it.
The next installment is the one we've all been waiting for: CONCRETE!!! Finally!!!

Concrete Done

2009-11-07T21:54:00.003-05:00

Concrete is done, I'm beat. I hurt. Matt hurts. Max is fine, though, he didn't do too awful much. Pictures to follow this week. Huge weight lifted, now we can really BUILD!!!!

Concrete

2009-11-06T18:46:00.000-05:00

The concrete truck is due in the morning....gotta go, work to do!

Jane Henry and Her Hammer

2009-11-04T08:35:00.000-05:00

This blog post has a soundtrack. Please open this link in another window and wait for it to start playing before you continue...
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When we took the first wall down, we had hoped to be able to save all the block. We couldn't save it all...but we decided to use it instead for fill under the patio slab, thus saving us about $800. We knew it was going to be hard work to break it up...... Fortunately, we had someone come along that was pleased as punch to help.

Our friend, Angie, was just thrilled to come over and break things. She wanted to break things sooooo bad.....And break things she did....for over 2 hours, Angie swung that 20lb sledge and broke up block...
She only really stopped for a few breathers and a pizza break.....

...and to put some bandaids on her blisters....

She even worked at breaking up the lentil, but Matt wound up doing that. It had some rebar going through it, so it was very very sturdy:Surveying Angie's good work:There is another version of Take This Hammer here, along with a couple other 'work' songs.

The Garage Demise, Part 6

2009-10-31T14:25:00.005-04:00

The past three weekend have been nonstop rain, which has put a huge damper on our progress. We had hoped to have the concrete slab poured by now (Halloween), but no. We're planning on next weekend, weather permitting.

The walls are down now. I didn't get pictures because it happened while I was at work. You will also notice a lot of broken up block all over the ground. It turned out that some of the block we could reuse and some we couldn't, so instead of paying for disposal of the worthless block, we decided we could bust it up (with help, thanks Angie!) and use it for fill for the future concrete pad in this area. That busted block would have been about $800 of stone. Not bad for a savings!

In these pictures, Matt is on Kubby and is in the process of taking down the 'lentils' that run above the bays of the garage.
Pushing.....
And here it goes!
Kerwhump. Well, that one is done.

Our small, furry roadblock:

Dinner Issues of Late

2009-10-28T08:39:00.003-04:00

While we’re doing this garage project I’ve been struggling to get dinner on the table while still helping out outside. What’s been making it worse is that we have limited daylight now, and that will be even worse after this weekend. I like to cook, I like to cook well when I have time, and I like to use good ingredients.

It requires time, planning, etc, to do elaborate meals. We don’t have the time for planning right now, much less cooking. I have been trying to freeze leftovers so we have them in the future. I’ve also been trying to do more crockpot dinners. I have had good and bad luck with the crockpot, and I’m starting a list of meals we definitely liked and meals we definitely didn’t. I’m hoping to start crockpotting at least twice a week, while freezing the leftovers.

Here is a list of what we’ve been doing:

Beef Stroganoff: it uses stew meat, onion, mushrooms, both cream of mushroom and cream of celery soup, black pepper, a packet of onion soup mix, and sour cream (added right before serving). You serve it over noodles. We love this recipe, and it is easy, I just need to remember to have soup on hand. No browning of meat beforehand, no mixing ingredients in a separate bowl, and minimal chopping. Everything just goes in to the pot and gets stirred up.

Stuffed peppers: we did this last week and it was a success. Again, no pre-cooking of anything. Dump a can of whole tomatoes on the bottom of the pot, then place halved peppers on that. Mix onion, the rice from a box of Spanish rice, ground beef, some bread crumbs together and stuff the peppers. Then mix a can of tomato soup, some water, and the seasoning packet from the Spanish rice together and dump it over the peppers. Easy, tasty.

Moist Drumsticks: 3lb drumsticks with skin removed in the pot, then cover with a mix of tomato sauce, soy sauce, brown sugar, some garlic. Cook, then take sauce and heat it in a saucepan until boiling and add some cornstarch to thicken it up. Very very good.

I’m trying a new recipe today: Flank steak with pineapple bbq sauce. Sliced or shredded sweet potatoes on the bottom, then the flank steak in cubes. Then, mix up onion, pineapple with juice, bbq sauce, ground ginger, some water, chicken broth and dump it over the meat. We’ll see how it is. (*it was great!)

I have a few others but I can’t remember them right now. I also have a few that were terrible. I tried a recipe called Creamy Swiss Steak once, and I don't remember why but it was inedible. I don’t have good luck with chicken in the crockpot usually, too, they always turn out mealy and icky. I tend to stick with beef a lot.

My all-time favorite crockpot recipe is Apple Pie.

What is your favorite crockpot recipe?

The Garage Demise, part 5

2009-10-22T19:32:00.005-04:00

The second weekend in October we tore the roof off the garage. It was leaking like a sieve, and we had no idea what to expect. There were several places that were 'squishy' to walk on, and I was concerned about falling through.

About half the shingles are off in this picture:
You can see here that Matt has punched through all the places that were soft. That way we can visually identify them and stay away from them. He did partially fall through one hole up to his knee. He has a unique way of finding them!
Into the pickup the shingles went and down to the dump! Took two trips and 1260lb cost us around $50. Not bad.More shingle ripping:

We took up the rotting wood first, then moved on to the more solid plywood.
You can see the more rotted stuff here. It was like sand, it just fell away when you touched it.
We also found out that the roof of the garage was attached to the building...by absolutely nothing. Just the weight of the roof, that's it. The wood is not connected, not even touching the concrete block in this area, as you can see in this picture:
I just love it when he sits like this, I think it is so cute.
One of my jobs was to remove the nails.
Just one more bit to go here:

Now, finally we have good light in the garage!
Matt's mom even came over to help. Matt taught her a new curse.*
Matt decided to use the joists (above) for concrete forms, which is something else we won't have to buy now.

And in part 6, the walls all come tumblin' down!

*Dick bag!

Curly Carrots

2009-10-21T08:39:00.001-04:00

This is what happens when you don't thin your carrot seedlings.

Garage Demise, part 4

2009-10-19T09:17:00.001-04:00

I was trying to get the Garden Ninja to write this post, but he demurred. So, I'm stuck with it.

I didn't deal with the building inspector, I didn't see the building inspector. For all I know there isn't a building inspector. Hahahaha. Maybe it is actually the building inspector fairy. According to the Garden Ninja, it is more likely a building inspector troll. But, actually, it went a lot better than we had hoped.

Turn the clock back to Summer 2008, when we put up our greenhouse. We had a nice, friendly building inspector/zoning guy then through the township, and when we showed him our drawing and told him our plans, he told us all was well with and we bought a $50 building permit via the township for the greenhouse and the decking around the greenhouse. It went up, he came and looked, signed off, and that was that. Clean, efficient. No problems.

That was apparently before the state of Pennsylvania decided to adopt the ICC Building Codes, which are basically a national set of codes that, if adopted by your state, MUST be followed to the letter and everything MUST be inspected at different stages by an official building inspector (BI). It is billed as a life-safety issue, and it is. But it can be a huge hassle, and quite frankly a LOT of people around here just don't bother to get a building permit, much less get someone in to inspect what they're doing. I mean, they tell us you need to have an inspector come in and look and approve/deny a new electrical receptacle that you install. All additions, all renovations, all plumbing/heating/electrical work. Give me a break.

So, this was what we were joyously looking forward to. After we had the banks dug out, etc, Matt called the township's engineering firm who handles inspections for our township and told him what we had going on. Matt has built houses, he has a working knowledge of code. I work at a fire library, I have more than the average bear knowledge of ICC workings, and I have access to all the code books (hell, I have the Building Code of Australia's books, too). We generally KNOW what is kosher here, and we're willing to battle it out.

Case in point, the BI told Matt that he shouldn't have dug out the banks without his (BI) say-so. Matt told him in no uncertain terms that this is our land and we can dig it to our heart's content, the BI has NO say in it whatsoever. And that is true. We couldn't believe this guy actually tried to pull this. Not a good start.

What we were mainly worried about in this process is that the garage is being built on the existing footers/foundation of the one that is there now. That means that, since the total square footage is over 750ft it would have to be inspected every step of the way with an approx. $120/inspection fee, which in the end would be easily around $1500 just for inspection fees, and that was just for the structure. If we added plumbing or electricity it would be more. It would also add weeks onto an already tight schedule as we waited and waited for someone to come out and look at something before we could go on with the next step.

So, imagine our glee when we found out that the cut off isn't 750sqft anymore, it is 1000sqft. We come in at just under 1000sqft. OH JOYOUS RAPTURE!!! That meant we did NOT have to had a DAMN THING INSPECTED! That doesn't mean we're not doing it to code, however, but it does mean we can trust ourselves to do it and not have to pay someone to come in, look at something, and then say "Looks good! $120 please!"

The other joyous bit is that we don't even have to have our terrace retaining walls inspected, either. The cut off for that is 4'. If you build a wall over 4' you must have a footer for it and you must have it inspected. Well, our outside retaining walls are all going to be 3'10". So there. But, we're still putting in footers. Just, no inspections again. Whee!

We did have to get a $120 'Land Use Permit' from the township, but that was because of the two concrete slabs we're putting in for patios. We also had to get a $10 building permit from the county. That's it. Hallelujah.

All in all, a lot easier than the battle we'd been anticipating.

Watch for part 5: A Garage gets Deroofed.

Seed Destash

2009-10-18T09:10:00.003-04:00

Destash: To sell or trade your existing crafting supplies or 'stash' to allow a crafter to buy different, often newer, materials.
I'm done with knitting, so want to destash my yarn to make way for my new hobby, sewing.

I'm tired of my bead collection. I'm going to destash them on Etsy so that I can buy some new ones.

I am already looking ahead to the 2010 growing season and deciding what I want to plant. These are the things that didn’t make the cut, for various reasons. It is generally just personal taste.

Each item is linked to the catalog I bought it from (where applicable). I also have a bit about why I’m not growing it again.

If you are interested in anything you see here, email me at neo_twig AT yahoo DOT com and let me know. Give me your mailing address and I’ll send it out.

Lettuce, Bath Cos Romaine: Didn’t thrill me. I got this variety because it seemed interesting, and it was from Monticello.

Lettuce, Sweet Valentine: Nice, easy to grow loose leaf variety, but not what I’m looking for.

Melon, Israeli Haogen (sometimes just ‘Ogen’)

Melon, Prescott Fond Blanc: I tried melons again this year because I wanted to see how they did, I’ve not had good luck in the past. I got (I think) 11 melons total between this and the variety below, but I found that we just weren’t eating much, melon-wise. So, I’m going to save the space next year for other stuff (like more Okra). These are both very nice, fragrant, sweet melons.

Radish, Hailstone

Radish, Helios: We just don’t eat much in the way of radishes. Matt hates them, I like the Munich Bier radish (see below), but I can't grow them in the same rows with carrots because they're too big. We’ve been giving all our radishes to my FIL. These are both nice, basic salad radishes with a good amount of heat. Hailstone is white, Helios is an olive-yellow.

Radish, Munich Bier: I adore this and I’m willing to share in the hopes that you adore it as much as I do. I’m saving my own seed this year, too, so I should have a good supply. This variety is supposed to be sliced, slathered with butter, salted, and eaten with a good, dark German beer. It is great.

Tomato, Purple Russian (paste): If you like sweet black tomatoes, this is a good one for you. I found it to be way too sweet for me. The plants also didn’t thrill me, but that may be my dirt.

Tomato, Tlacolula: Fun to grow, very ruffly sometimes pear-shaped fruit. Would be great stuffers, not too much in the way of ‘guts’ for these. Just didn’t thrill me.

Broccoli, DiCicco: I’ve been getting my broccoli seedlings locally, so I’m looking to give these up.

Garlic, Elephant: These bulbs I grew here, but they originally came from thegarlicstore. These are a year old. Despite that, they still seem to be fine, if a bit soft, and I’m going to plant some. If you want some, let me know.

Asparagus, ??: I think they are Jersey Giant, but I’m not sure. I’m saving seed from them this year. We planted the roots September 2008, put in a good amount of compost and, not expecting much the first year, were shocked when we got lots of very big asparagus. Really happy with these, if you have a spot and good compost you should do well with whatever these are.

I also have a Florence Fennel (bulb fennel) and some Bright Lights Swiss Chard.

Fig Update

2009-10-17T11:26:00.002-04:00

Figs! I got figs! And honestly, I didn't like them!

It was so much fun watching them grow, though. I have another batch working now, but there is no chance they will ripen up before it gets cold out.

I didn't think they tasted like much. Is this what they're supposed to look like ripe? I let one go too long and it turned to mush on the bush. They're pretty, aren't they? This is a Chicago Hardy, I'm thinking of getting another variety next year.

Various Pictures

2009-10-16T12:23:00.000-04:00

My pink bromiliad is blooming and having babies! I'm gonna be a grandma!
Feast!
Did I mention we have a hotdog stand?
Mama hen watching over her wintergreen:
A rock in an unfortunate place produced this carrot: