Back to Basics

When Opossums Attack

2012-01-30T13:17:00.004-06:00

I hear and read about attacks on livestock all of the time. In my city-girl naivety, I figured that since nothing had happened to our chickens yet, nothing would happen to them. Ever.

Well, ignorance can only last so long.

As I was laying in bed, I heard the most blood-curdling squawk coming from the coop. I flew out of bed and braved the cold night, armed with nothing more than a dying flashlight.

The coop, all tightly locked up, was aflutter with horrible sounding activity inside. After popping open the door, what looked like half of a rooster dashed outside into the chicken run area with a few ladies in tow. The rest of the flock were perched as high up on the roost as they could get, staring angrily down at a rather large opossum with a mouthful of feathers hanging from its maw.

It was at this point that I realized I was completely helpless. I had nothing to kill the stupid thing with, and I could not leave it alone in the coop while I ran to get something because it would just continue to munch away on my birds. So I did the only thing I could think to do.

I screamed bloody murder for Tad until he came running outside.

He came just in the nick of time, with the light from my flashlight slowly dimming. We were plunged into darkness for a few seconds, and I began to imagine so many terrible things that could happen.

The opossum, having a taste for blood, would hurl itself at me. Or, seeing its opportunity, would go after the defenseless chickens on the other side of the coop. Possibly a scared chicken would take off of the perch and I would be clawed in the face by a rogue talon.

Luckily Tad turned on his cellphone quickly enough, and we were able to spot the intruder... in exactly the same spot it had been when the flashlight had gone out.

I might overreact a little sometimes.

We then realized we were at a loss of what to do. We had a shovel, a pitchfork, a bucket, a multitude of rocks, a log, a .22 rifle, and no experience killing any living thing with our bare-hands before. If I had had a shovel when the chaos began, I would have had no trouble trying to bash the ugly thing to death... but a good 20 minutes had passed, and I was significantly cooled down.

The dimensions of our coop were also a disadvantage to us, since it is not very tall, and we have to crouch to be in it. Swinging a shovel to gain leverage would have been all but impossible. So, we started off with the rocks, which failed miserably.

Then came the log, which was short enough for Tad to swing. After getting a few good hits in, the thing keeled over in the corner of the coop. Success! After around an hour of being out in the cold and trying to deal with the opossum, the experience was over. Tad exited the coop area, and I grabbed a bucket and a shovel to remove the opossum and chuck it into the woods.

As I went to scoop up the lifeless form, the beastly animal popped up and starting hissing and biting at the shovel. Holy cow, do they have some teeth! A scream and curses from me brought Tad back into the tiny coop. The tricky guy had fooled us! The opossum had been playing possum!

We were infuriated at being outsmarted by an ugly chicken-killer. The fun and games were over.

Shovel still in hand, I tried bashing and smashing to no avail. Next up, the pitchfork, which was deftly used to try and pierce the thing to death. Nope; opossums have freakishly thick skin.

Finally it was rifle time. I had not wanted Tad to use it since I thought either:

1. The noise would freak the chickens out so much that they would start attacking us. Let us just say that they were some very cranky tenants.
2. We would accidentally hit a chicken. Like I said, this whole experience was in very, very tight quarters.

But, we had no other choice. The opossum seemed to realize his fate was coming to an end, because he began frantically trying to squeeze through a corner of the coop that had a gap in the metal about an inch wide. He made it about halfway through, and seemed to get stuck, so Tad, locked and loaded, rang out a shot at the opossum.

Grazed and probably bewildered at the activities of the night, the opossum managed to squeeze the rest of its fat butt through the hole.

All in all, it was a ridiculous night on the farm. What I thought for sure was the butt end of a chicken on the floor of the coop turned out to just be a pile of feathers. The extent of the damage was to our poor black rooster, you know, the creepy-pictured one from my last post?

Luckily there was no damage to him other than a few lacerations. The opossum had just managed to get a mouthful of his glorious tail feathers.

The only lasting damage is to his ego. His remaining feathers cover up the naked area most of the time, but after spritzing him down with an antiseptic, his bare little tush was visible.

We think we identified the entrance area of the intruder, and reinforcement of the coop was done, but I still have been sleeping with one ear open. Every morning I am also doing a perimeter of the coop to see if something tried to claw its way in.

I guess that is how it goes, living out here. We were really lucky that I had heard the initial attack and was able to stop it from continuing. Looking around online, apparently opossum attacks on chickens are fairly common, and that they can do a lot more damage than injuring a rooster's pride.

For now, we can only try to keep the ladies as safe as possible. Oh, and keep the rifle in a handy spot... and have all of the flashlights charged and at the ready.

The Great Egg Mystery

2012-01-26T11:11:00.003-06:00

Back in December, we were preparing for the eventual drop in egg production due to winter fast approaching. We expected egg counts to dwindle down gradually, as we were bringing in 6 to 9 a day.

But suddenly, unexpectedly, we were getting none. Absolutely none!

I was boggled that the ladies had made a concerted effort to stop laying completely on the same day, but hey, you cannot question the hormonal nature of a woman.

For the heck of it, I grabbed an egg from inside and laid it in their nesting box. Maybe they would see it and have a sudden change of heart, perhaps an instinctual urge to lay again?

Lots of the farming that goes on here is trial and error, you know.

Later that day I went out to the coop to check on the flock.

The egg I had laid in the nesting box was gone.

I ran through my head of possible scenarios of how an egg had disappeared from a coop in a matter of hours. Had Tad seen the egg and brought it into the house? Did I? Had I even put the egg there in the first place? Confusion ensued.

Embracing my detective skills, I entered the coop and began digging around in the nesting boxes. To my surprise, I found a smattering of egg shells buried underneath some straw. As a grabbed some of the bits of shell, I was swarmed by ladies and gentlemen alike, who plucked the shells from my hand with an appetite I had never seen before.

My chickens had turned into cannibals.

Distraught, I did some research and found that apparently this was a common thing. Who would have thought.

I tried two different tactics to try and stop the madness:

1. I placed a round stone in their nesting boxes, which they would apparently try to eat and find that they couldn't, and this would somehow break the cannibalism spell.
2. I started venturing out to the coop every hour to bring in any eggs I could find before those vicious beaked creatures could devour them.

These two things seemed to help, but we were still harvesting considerably less eggs than before this outbreak began.

Finally, winter rolled around and the ladies actually stopped laying.

And now that the days are getting longer, I am happy to say that we are getting eggs every day and without any instance of weird bird cannibalism. Either my tactics prevailed, or the egg-drought of winter was long enough that they forgot about their taste for egg-flesh.

Who knows. Crazy birds.

Sometimes, I have better things to do than work

2012-01-21T19:53:00.003-06:00

Just when I am all ready to start shoveling/raking/weeding, these two show up at the fenceline.

This obviously means that I need to drop what I am doing and instead take loads of pictures.

And maybe also make a run into the house to get some apples to feed them.

They really like apples.

Being Prepared

2012-01-16T19:17:00.005-06:00

The weather this winter has been crazy, jumping from the high 60's to below freezing in just a day. Up until this week, we have had only one day with snow. This was going to change, though, as we looked at our forecast and saw that we were due for temperatures in the teens along with some precipitation.

We were dutiful and got everything tucked away in preparation, making sure that all of the outside animals would be able to brave the horrendous two whole days of cold weather until the temperatures jumped back up into the 50s.

The snow was pretty, light, and fluffy, and Tad and I spent the whole day in town while he was at work and I hung out with friends. We headed back home around 4 o'clock, which would leave us just enough daylight to do a perimeter of the house and make sure everything was in line before heading inside for the night.

Upon getting home, I tried to turn on the kitchen faucet only to find the water was not running. Curious, I ran throughout the house and tried every single faucet.

Nothing.

Finally I put two and two together.

Temperatures in the teens all day + A foreclosed upon house that was vacant for two years = frozen pipes.

I will admit that I had a moment of sheer panic. I had cows, chickens, cats, and a dog that needed to be watered. Not to mention that I was pretty thirsty myself. Ridiculous thoughts began running through my head, which I entirely blame on watching too many episodes of Man Vs. Wild:

We have a pond... could I haul in buckets of water and boil it on the stove to make it safe for drinking? There was lots of snow... could I melt it?

Then I realized we had a well pump in the yard, and that I should try that first before resorting to boiling pond water on the stove.

The well worked, and we hauled in several gallons of water into the house for the night just in case the well decided to freeze, too.

We spent an hour outside in the waning light of day with a hairdryer, desperately trying to thaw the uninsulated water pipe until finally calling it quits. Tad did a makeshift insulating job with some newspaper in an attempt to help move the process along, and we spent the rest of the night drinking water out of empty gallon pickle jars.

All of the taps were left open just a little, because we heard from various sources that that was the thing to do in this situation. I groggily yet gleefully woke up in the morning to the steady sound of all the faucets in the house making a chorus of drip drip drip, and I found that we had hot water, at least, flowing once again to the house. The cold water tap finally started working a few hours later.

We have been so fortunate to have a mild winter thus far, and even more so because the cold snap only lasted two days and gave way to warmer weather for which to better mend the pipes. You would think that uninsulated exposed piping under the house would be something that would show up on the home inspection report, but I guess not.

So, lessons learned:

1. Check your newly purchased, previously vacant, and foreclosed upon home for uninsulated pipes before it starts to freeze outside.
2. Keep a supply of water on hand (we will be purchasing a few gallons as a precautionary measure).
3. Make friends with your neighbors. Looking back, I know that we had many people around us who would have gladly helped us out if we had really needed it.
4. Check your well for water before resorting to drinking pond water/snow.

2012 Goals for the Farm

2012-01-07T16:38:00.003-06:00

This is the first New Years we have had on the farm, and probably because of my farm-naivety, I have a lot of big plans for this place throughout this coming year. I apologize for the picture-less post in advance.

1. Add a goat to our farm family

Originally, this was Tad's ambition, and his alone. I had my chickens; I was content. Besides, we did not even know if we liked the taste of goat milk or not. But then I started thinking about goat cheese, goat's milk soap, and goat butter! Did you know that you can make goat butter?!

So I finally became a convert to the goat idea. The only thing stopping us from achieving this goal is getting some fencing that would keep the goat(s) penned up nice and tight. Currently we only have barbed wire surrounding our pasture, and that would not be enough to prevent them from running down the road to visit the neighbors.

2. Fix the barn

The barn on our property had some damage to it prior to us purchasing this place, and then the freak wind gusts came through and broke the door to boot. I would really love to get it fixed so that we have a place to house all of our future livestock. We could safely use half of it in its current state to house some animals, but I would really prefer to have the repairs finished prior to making it a permanent residence.

An Amish guy came out a few days ago to assess the damage and we will be getting a bid on the project from them soon. Here's to hoping it turns out to be a cheap fix!

3. Expand the garden

I have big plans for the garden this year. I am constantly imagining it in my head, and let me tell you, it is glorious! We had eleven beds planted last year during the peak of summer, and I hope to add at least another four beds this spring.

Besides increasing it in size, I also want to explore with new veggies. I already started on this goal this past fall when I planted two beds of garlic. Some new veggies on the list this year include corn, potatoes, and cabbage. Hopefully I can get some failures from last year to sprout some goodies, too (I am looking at you, pumpkins, peppers, carrots, and broccoli!).

4. Stock the pond

We had planned to do this last year, but unfortunately by the time we decided what we wanted to stock, fish delivery days were long past. It is an exciting prospect to be able to grow something other than cattails and frogs in it!

5. Update the exterior of the house

Before we moved in, we scraped, sanded, and primed the porch. We had planned to paint the railing, and stain the floor boards as well... but we... didn't? It was either because we were lazy, or because we were busy. I think I will stick with the being busy argument.

I am also looking forward to adding some landscaping flowers and general prettiness to the front yard.

6. Update the interior of the house

We have painted the living room and most of the kitchen, but that still leaves three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a laundry room, and a sun room left to fix up.

7. Raise meat birds

I love chicken. I love to eat chicken. Simple enough.

8. Purchase a freezer chest

So this may sound like a silly goal, considering it is an appliance... but we are poor and unfortunately even a small-ish purchase like this is going to require some foresight and savings.
Soon we will be in possession of massive amounts of beef, and the aforementioned chicken. We need some place to store all of it.

9. Build a root cellar

Okay, so maybe this will not get completed this year... but a girl can dream, right?

10. Experiment with making more things from scratch

Pasta, soap, cheese, here I come!

11. Appreciate the life Tad and I have jumped into

Owning some land and doing the whole hobby farm thing has always been a dream of mine, even when I was young. Out here, I find that it is entirely too easy to get wrapped up in everything that needs to be done and ignore just how awesome it is to be living my dream.

Newest Members of the Farm

2012-01-02T20:05:00.003-06:00

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

The holidays sure were eventful around here. After an unplanned, extended stay in St. Louis, due to car trouble, we now have a new (but used) car and are finally back on the farm.

It has been so hectic, I have not been able to share the amazing news!

We have two lovely, yummy additions to the farm.

A friend of ours needed somewhere to harbor two calves until they were ready to be butchered. Coincidentally, we have some fenced in pasture that was sitting unused.

This was a match made in heaven.

She offered us half of the meat in exchange for them staying on our land.

They dropped them off at the farm, helped us close them in, and gave us a run-down of what we should expect... which was basically, "Water them... and call us if they get out."

For a minimum 300 lbs of local, grassfed beef come late spring... I think we can handle that.

They, being more countrified than me, named the calves. Fortunately I was not present during this part of the conversation, and I only heard about it from Tad after they had left.

"Oh, by the way, the brown one is a girl named Rosemary and the boy--" Tad tried to say, at which point I covered my ears and started singing to myself to drown out the noise.

I seem to have trouble eating things with cute animal names. So the newest members of the farm are Rosemary and Steak.

I have tried renaming Rosemary something more edible, like Hamburger, but it has not worked so far.

Browned Butter and Cinnamon Pull-Apart Bread

2011-12-17T14:02:00.007-06:00

Sure, it is a long name for just a loaf of bread.

But this is not just any loaf of bread.

This is the bread that you will want to make (and eat) for the rest of your life. Every day.

Browned butter and cinnamon sugar. Need I say more?

You should avoid taking pictures of butter and cinnamon sugar on your floor, though, if you have hungry animals in your house.

Hindsight is 20/20.

This bread is so amazing, that you may already have a loaf sitting on your table... and yet, you are drawn to whip up another one.

Don't worry, you can easily find someone to gift the extra one to. And then that person will love you. Forever.

Browned Butter and Cinnamon Pull-Apart Bread

Ingredients for the dough:
2 3/4 cups of flour
2 1/4 teaspoons yeast
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 stick unsalted butter
1/3 cup milk
1/4 cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs

Ingredients for the filling:
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
dash of nutmeg
1/2 stick of unsalted butter

1. On the stovetop, heat butter and milk until the butter is melted. Take off of the heat, add the water and vanilla extract, and allow to cool.
2. Combine 2 cups of flour, sugar, salt, and yeast in a large bowl.
3. Pour the butter/milk mixture into your dry mixture and stir until combined.
4. Whisk the eggs and add them to your dough. Stir until everything is all soupy and well mixed.
5. Add the remaining flour to the dough and stir until you have a satisfactorily sticky mess.
6. Move the dough to a well greased bowl, cover with a damp tea towel, and let rise for one hour in a warm, draft free area.

7. While waiting for the dough to rise, brown the butter for the filling, and mix the sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg for the filling together in a small bowl. Since you are probably still impatiently waiting for the dough to rise, grease a loaf pan while you are up and about. Make sure to grease the top rim of the pan as well, since the dough will rise on top of it.

8. Once risen, deflate your dough on a well floured surface and knead in a little extra flour, around 1 to 2 tablespoons.
9. Roll out the dough into a moderately rectangular shape. No rolling pin? Don't despair! Just flour the outside of a smooth, tall glass or plastic cup. Voila.
10. Brush the browned butter onto the rolled out semi-rectangle, and sprinkle the cinnamon sugar mixture liberally on top of the now buttered dough. Reserve a small handful of the sugar to top the bread with.
11. You will now be tempted to just sit back and eat the dough. Do not do it!
12. Slice the dough vertically into six strips.
13. Stack the strips on top of each other, and cut into 6 kind-of-equal squares.
14. Take these stacks and cram them into the loaf pan so that they resemble the pages of a book.
15. Scoop up all the cinnamon sugar that fell off during this process and sprinkle it over the loaf. Go ahead and also pour the extra sugar that you reserved over the top, too.
16. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees, and let the bread rise until doubled, 30 minutes to an hour.
17. Once doubled, place in the oven and bake for 30 minutes, or until the top of the bread is a deep, golden brown.
18. After removing your now deliciously smelling loaf from the oven, allow to cool slightly and then run a butter knife around the edges of the pan.
19. Flip the loaf pan upside down over a plate and gently ease it out. It may fall apart during this process, but do not worry! It is easy to reassemble.
20. Take the loaf and place onto a platter right-side up. If your bread sectioned off into chunks, just place the pieces back together like a gooey, buttery puzzle.

Yum.

Yes those are binoculars sitting on the table behind the bread. Bird watching while eating flaky slices of cinnamon bread? A match made in a heaven.

First Snow on the Farm

2011-12-06T10:56:00.004-06:00

I awoke this morning to something I had been looking forward to since moving out onto our country acreage.

Snow!

The chickens are timid of the white flaky blobs that fall from the sky.

Even when I try to lure them out with cracked corn.

The pond is mostly frozen.

And the dog is ecstatic.

She now has nine whole acres of snow to munch on.

Happiness.

Cattail Baskets

2011-12-03T12:56:00.004-06:00

In some of my previous posts, I mentioned having a pond on our property that is currently growing copious amounts of cattails. When we first moved in, the pond had a few scattered here and there... but since then, they have exploded and now take up about half of the pond's area.

Now I know most people hate the things; they think that they are invasive and are terribly difficult to eradicate. I, on the other hand, see them as an opportunity!

Cattails have many great properties, and I have been looking forward to testing out all of the different uses I have read about. Not only are they a mecca of wild edibles (the tubers can be mashed and cooked like potatoes, the young inner green shoots can be sauteed, and the fluffy tops can be ground down and used like a type of flour), but the outer leaves have been used as a weaving material.

We have not tried cooking any of the parts yet, but awhile back, Tad donned his water gear and went into the pond to harvest some leaves for me.

After removing most of the largest, unbent leaves, I placed them in our barn on raised nets to dry for a few weeks. Drying them in shade instead of in intense sunlight helps preserve the color.

Once dried, I invited my friend Anna out to the farm to embark on a basket weaving mission.

My basket... well let us just say turned out to be a crapshoot. The pieces I used were too short, and about two inches in, I realized that my beloved basket would turn out to be less basket and more... tray.

So I chucked the thing away and let my cats chew on it.

Anna's, however, turned out to be beautiful! It has given me hope that I can actually use the abundance of cattails for something more than just compost material.

If you are interested in learning how to weave baskets, there is a series on youtube by a lady called BasketMaster that outlines the major aspects. We watched about 7 of the videos... but honestly, after the first few, you should get the idea. She goes into great, great detail about how to weave over, and then under... and then over, and under... over... under.

It is super easy. You will catch on quickly, I promise.

I am back!

2011-12-01T15:25:00.004-06:00

After a long struggle with our two computers... I am happy to say that they are still utterly and completely unfixed.

Luckily my brother's girlfriend is awesome and gave us her old, but still super awesome laptop.

So now we are connected back to the interwebs, and I am free to resume my blogging!

One day, while still separated from the web, Tad and I were sitting happily on the couch. All of a sudden, our ever wary watchdog became alert and rushed towards the door. At the same time, all the cats mysteriously disappeared under the bed.

Had the zombie apocalypse finally come to fruition?!

Nope.

As Tad so eloquently stated:

"Oh, it is just a cow."

One of our neighbor cows had braved the barbed wire fence and decided to take a lunch break in our field.

I love living in the country.

Computerless

2011-11-12T21:48:00.004-06:00

Unfortunately this post is depressing in it's lack of photos, entirely due to the fact that I am typping this up on my phone, tad's computer has a broken power supply, and before we could manage to fix his, mine picked up a nasty omputer virus that gives me no access... Not even to enter safe mode to get rid of the darn thing!

I will be back to regular blogging as soon as one of the computers is repaired.... Because sheesh, typing on this tiny phone keyboard is a pain in the btt.

Many things are happening around the farm, especially with the rush to get things finished before snow starts to fall. Luckily we are still enjoy temperatures in the 60s during the day.

From receiving our fruit trees and shrubs in the mail, to Tad deciding that a car would be his best chance to get a deer this year, we have been keeping busy.Don't worry, Tad made it through his first deer accident with not a scratch, but it is a real reminder that at this time of year especially, you have to be extremely careful on any road!

Hopefully I will be back to blogging soon, but until then, everyone stay safe, and enjoy the weather while it lasts!

Dry Bean Harvest

2011-11-03T15:33:00.004-05:00

So even though one of my varieties of dry beans turned out to be a crapshoot, the other variety (Cherokee Trail of Tears) was absolutely fantastic.

Surprisingly, a lot of the people that I showed my garden to were most surprised by my dry beans. Apparently most people don't realize that those bags and cans of beans you buy in the store are just a variety of string/green beans that are left to dry on the vine.

Once they are dry, you remove them from the plant and shell them.

The seeds you remove from the pod can be used for cooking, and they can also be saved for planting again next year.

Out of the 3/8th ounce of seeds I planted this year, I yielded 1 lb and 9 ounces of beans. Not a bad harvest!

Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies

2011-10-29T17:22:00.004-05:00

I am not too much of a sweet eater. I love to bake, but generally, Tad reaps most of the reward from the majority of my baking endeavors. Occasionally I do enjoy something decadent, oozing in chocolatey and sugary perfection. But that does not happen too often.

Which is why this cookie is perfect for me. Not too sweet, but still with a yummy chocolate flavor. The batter makes it an almost cake-like cookie; it turns out to be very light, airy, and not too dense.

I may or may not have eaten half a dozen when they came out of the oven.

But that is not really my fault.

You see, my cookie jar (which I scored at goodwill for only $1.50!) can only hold so many cookies.

Therefore, it falls upon myself and Tad to save the rest of them before they go bad.

Really, it was a selfless action.

Some of the cookies decided that they enjoy a nice swim.

I agree wholeheartedly that swimming in a glass of cold milk was their true destiny.

Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies
yields approx. 36 smallish cookies

1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups flour
2/3 cup cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cup oats
(for a sweeter cookie, you can add 1/2 cup or more of chocolate chips)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Cream butter and sugar together
3. Add the eggs and vanilla extract, and beat until well combined
4. In a separate bowl, combine flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt until mixed
5. Gradually add the dry mixture to the wet mixture until all of the flour is mixed throughout
6. Gently incorporate the oats (and/or chocolate chips) into the batter
7. Use a teaspoon to drop the dough onto a greased cookie sheet, fitting about 12 teaspoon sized cookies on the whole sheet
8. Bake for 6-9 minutes, or until the edges of the cookies have firmed, and allow to cool slightly before cramming several into your mouth

They have oats, so they are good for you.

Roasted Red Peppers

2011-10-27T16:41:00.003-05:00

It seems I have been obsessed with roasting vegetables lately. But hey, the weather is cooling down, so I will take any chance I can to crank up the oven.

Since volunteering at our CSA, I have taken home a lot of old, wrinkly, blotched, and bruised peppers that did not make the cut to be given to other members. Our fridge was full to the brim with these bulky, awkwardly shaped veggies. Something had to be done, so I decided to condense them down by roasting them.

Here's how it's done:

1. Preheat your broiler. Now, I will admit to being an amateur at broiling things. I did not know that you could preheat your broiler. I was under the assumption that you click it on, and bam! Immense heat that continues until whatever you put it under has turned into a delicious, broiled mess.

Not the case. You learn something new every day.

2. Place the clean, wrinkly guys on a baking sheet and drizzle with oil. I used extra virgin olive oil, but I think next time I will just stick with a veggie oil or something with a lower smoke point since a good portion of the oil just burned under the overwhelming temperature of my preheated broiler.

3. Stick those bad boys on the top rack of your oven and wait until you start to see black splotches appear. Take them out, turn the peppers over using some tongs, and stick them back in again.

4. Once they look slightly charred on all sides, remove them from the oven, place the peppers in a bowl, and cover tightly with aluminum foil. This process helps loosen the skins on the peppers, allowing for easier removal.

5. After the peppers in the bowl have cooled, about 15 minutes, take them out and gently tug on the stem. If you are lucky, the majority of seeds will come out still attached. If you only manage to pull the stem off, do not despair! Hold the pepper with one hand while squeezing with the other hand to 'milk' out the remaining seeds.

6. When the seeds and stems are removed, place the pepper on a cutting board and, using a knife, scrape the skin off of the pepper.

7. And you are finished! You will be left with one pile of delicious, oily peppers (and in my case, some seeds that I missed) that are much easier to store in the fridge. You will also have another pile of less yummy pepper parts that your chickens will gladly devour.

I drizzled some more oil onto the peppers and popped them into the fridge where they will stay tasty for a few weeks. Putting them in the freezer will extend their shelf life even more.

It should be noted that if you are working with hot peppers, you should wear gloves during this process.

Freezing Food at Home

2011-10-25T12:40:00.003-05:00

We spent the weekend in St. Louis with my parents, which explains the absence of posts. It was a lovely time; lots of relaxing and chatting.

My favorite part about visiting home, though, is all the fantastic things I find hidden away in drawers... at which point I might pack them... forgetting to ask my mom if I can have them.
This may or may not have happened with this new book that I acquired.

A nice, old, brightly colored pamphlet with all you could ever want to know about freezing food.

Even dairy items like eggs! Who would have thought.

Complete with added in notes about freezing and defrosting fried fish, which will certainly come in handy.

A belated question to my mother: Can I please, please, please take this home! I promise to take good care of it? Yes? Yay! I love you very much.

Harvest Monday

2011-10-17T09:25:00.004-05:00

Around the farm, we have had two different harvests from what is normally shared on Harvest Monday posts.

The first one:

Eggs!

This basket has become our daily egg count. Our younger ladies have finally started laying, and we are now getting around 7 to 9 eggs a day. We had our first 'soft' egg which I cracked just from the pressure of my fingertips... weird.

For the month of October, we are sitting pretty at 87 eggs 'harvested.' Yeah, we are eating them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

And we are also luring family and friends out here unsuspectingly so that we can send them home with a dozen or two.

The other strange harvest is what is currently covering my table:

Tomatoes!

"Now wait," you think to yourself, "I thought you said you were having all of those tomato problems?"

Yes, we are, so I will admit that about 9 out of the seven thousand tomatoes occupying my table are ones that I grew. Our local CSA, where I have started volunteering at one day a week, sent a message out to all the members, about the abundance of green tomatoes on her vines and the knowledge of a looming frost date.

She said that if anyone wanted to come out and pick tomatoes for free, they could pick to their hearts content. She is tired of picking tomatoes, and the good, ripe ones that are out there are not enough to send home to her members... so basically they are going to rot and die if we did not go out and rescue them.

So rescue we did.

Ironically, we were the only people to take her up on the offer. Who turns down free organic tomatoes?!

We ended up with loads of tomatoes; we were picking them green off the vine, and ripe but somewhat bruised off of the ground (Our CSA farmer is very particular about quality control, and would never send a majorly bruised tomato home to her customers... which just means more for us!). Add in a few blushing ones that we were also given leave to pick, and you have one cramped dining room table.

I get to can tomato sauce this year after all!

Visit Daphne's Dandelions for more great autumn harvests!

Cats Love Canning

2011-10-16T18:38:00.002-05:00

Cats love canning... but mostly just the boxes that the jars come in.

Tad's grandparents picked me up a few cases of jars as a present yesterday, and I already ripped the boxes open and starting using them. What am I using them for? Well that will just have to wait for another, longer post.

Roasted Veggies

2011-10-11T12:00:00.007-05:00

Because of the sporadic tomato season, coupled with our current state of being freezer-less, I was having trouble using up all of the random tomatoes we were getting from our garden as well as our CSA share. I had really hoped to can some sauce, but unfortunately the tomatoes did not cooperate.

So there I sat, with a bunch of cherry tomatoes and a few scant larger ones, at a loss. We still do not enjoy them raw... at least not to the point to be able to sit there and snack on them. There were not enough to make a basic tomato sauce. What to do, what to do?
I found the solution.

Slather everything in oil and salt and cram it into the oven.

Seriously. This should be a motto for life.

And when I say everything, I mean everything. Tomatoes. Cucumbers. Onions. Zucchini. Squash. Garlic. Eggplant.

Everthing + Oil + Salt = Yum.

Bake it until it has given up on being a weird textured raw vegetable. Bake it until it has discovered its true purpose in life. Bake it until even the oil has given up and burned into the corners of your probably way too old baking sheet.

Of course you could just eat the yummy concoction at this juncture. Maybe you take a few spoonfuls out of the pan without telling anyone.

That's okay. It will be our secret.

But how to elevate this mass of deliciousness into something more? Something you will eat for the next few days for dinner. Lunch. Breakfast!

Scrape all of that yummy goodness into a food processor. Add some basil. Whirl around. Whirl some more. Sprinkle in more salt, because you are a sodium fiend, and you are not afraid to hide it.

Dollop it. Spoon it. Or in my case, shovel it over some pasta. My pasta bowls are normally rationed out as 2/3 pasta sauce, 1/3 pasta. But hey, they are vegetables. Good for you, right?

Serve in a nice, ceramic bowl that your dad bought for you after his first dinner at your home... where you may have served him hot Polish Sausage Stew in a plastic, lime green, easter bowl that had little chicks and easter eggs parading around the sides.

And may have also had holes in the sides, perfectly designed to spill scalding hot soup on you.

Parents always know best!

Harvest Monday

2011-10-10T10:30:00.004-05:00

It has been awhile since I posted something about my harvests, but due to me losing my camera charger, I was not able to upload any pictures onto the computer.

Of course, I found my charger this morning, but now I do not have any harvests to take pictures of! Figures.

When my mom came up to visit, I managed to gift her with our two first Butternut Squash:

We have not tried them yet; I have just been leaving them out on the vine until our frost date rolls around. The ones that I picked for my mom were soon under attack by all of our animals looking for a taste of yummy squash... even our cats tried their hand at a sneak bite! So until I manage to find a good hiding/storage place, I think I will just leave them out in the garden.

My pole beans have been producing like crazy, and I have managed to can quite a few of them:

In total, I canned 10 quarts and two pints. I was hoping for more, but unfortunately our yellow was bush beans were under siege by a swarm of bugs. I saved some seeds from those plants, but I don't think I will be planting them again next year.

If you are new to canning and worried about messing things up, green beans are a great thing to try out first. You do need a pressure canner, but besides the equipment, all you need are beans and boiling water... it couldn't be any easier!

Next year I will probably try out a few more varieties of green beans... ideally something stringless. If you guys have any favorite types, I am all ears!

Visit Daphnes Dandelions for more autumn bounties.

Wind Damage

2011-10-07T09:10:00.005-05:00

I lost my camera charger, so in an attempt to blog about our farm life more frequently, here is a post about something that happened about a month ago.

Because of my background in forestry, and also my keen sense of smell, I absolutely hate Bradford Pear/Callery Pear trees. They are an ornamental variety of pear that has pretty blooms and has a consistent shape and height that made them attractive for planting on both public and private land.

But the blooms... the blooms! They smell terrible! Bradfords line the parking lot at my current place of employment (ahem, a movie theater), and every spring, the pungent aroma encompasses the whole area. They literally smell like crap.

It has also come to the attention of Missouri's Conservation Department and Parks and Rec department that the trees are hybridizing and producing invasive offspring with prominent thorns. Not exactly what you are looking for in an ornamental landscaping tree.

The other issue that I have with them is that they are very prone to wind damage. They grow incredibly fast and have extremely brittle wood. After 15 years, it is only a matter of time before one of the larger limbs comes crashing down.

Of course it was our luck to have one planted only a few feet away from our dream starter home. Once we signed the papers for our house, the first thing I said to Tad was, "We need to cut that tree down. It is going to snap and fall on our house."

Not two weeks after we moved in, a crazy wind storm blew through here.

And snap it did.
That stupid tree has been there for decades, and it decides to break 2 weeks after we move in! Luckily it blew down in the opposite direction of our house.

The other casualty of the brief but strong wind gusts was our barn door:

Which is still in this state... basically because we don't have the means to fix it right now.

In conclusion, avoid Bradford/Callery pear trees when deciding on ornamental additions to your landscape. Plant something native that would normally grow in your area. With a little research you can find some great smelling, beautiful options. Choosing to plant something from your area has the added benefit of being well adapted to grow in your climate, and will generally not decide to fall on your house.

Partners in Crime

2011-10-06T10:59:00.002-05:00

Two former foes, now standing side-by-side, brought together by a common enemy.

Dedication

2011-10-02T09:57:00.005-05:00

Living out here has made me realize just how easy it is to... well... sit around and not do anything! I mean, sure, I have all of these lists and outlines of projects that I need to get finished. But this place is like a hypnotist; one minute you are getting ready to do the dishes, and then 3 hours later you come to your senses relaxing out on the gazebo.

I was almost put under this same trance a few days ago while I was drowning in green beans that I was preparing to can. The monotony of it was making me vulnerable to the spell of our acreage. I heard whispers of, "It is time for a break. Go on, go and enjoy the view."

It almost got me, that is, until I saw this little guy:

Now that is some dedication to a cause. The little guy is clinging onto his goals in life, his future, and all with such tiny feet! How many of us would be so persistent as to remain on track after being jostled and carried into a house with three cats (who love to eat anything wiggly), dumped onto a cutting board, watching as some crazy lady with a knife as big as her head feverishly hacks and saws at the thing you are sitting on?! Especially when you blend in so well as to look exactly like the thing that you are sitting on?!

Ahem.

Suffice to say, I learned a lot from this little guy...

Mostly that I have a little too much time on my hands.

Fog

2011-10-01T09:38:00.005-05:00

Last week my mom and brother finally were able to come down and see our new house, which was incredibly exciting. I love this place so much that I just want to share it with everyone.

The day before they came down, however, it was looking incredibly gloomy outside. Remember the view from the mailbox? Well this is what it looked like at 2 in the afternoon:

Our neighbor's dusk to dawn light is already on!

And what about that picture I took near the gazebo where you could see for miles upon miles?

More like not being able to see 50 feet in front of you.

I was worried that the fog would stick around, and that the first visit they had to see my place was consumed in morbid gloominess. But the weather-men assured me it was going to be bright, sunny, and 80 degrees the next day.

So I woke up in the morning to fog and a slight mist that encompassed everything as far as the eye could see. I cursed the weathermen, for they were just liars who filled me with false hopes.

It stayed foggy until right around 10:30, right when my mom and brother came out. When they hopped out of the car, the sun started to peak out! It was perfect timing, so I apologized for my harsh words about the weather-people.

It turned into a beautiful day, sunny, a little windy, and clear skies. We mostly just sat around and enjoyed our views, but also gave many guided tours of our acreage, garden, and chicken house.

They stayed the night, so we had our first little bonfire outside, and the clear skies gave us a lovely view of the stars.

All in all, it was a perfect visit. Very relaxing, perfect weather, and good company.

Now I just have to coerce the rest of the family to make their way out into the middle of nowhere.

Painting

2011-09-27T10:52:00.004-05:00

So we are ever so slowly getting things finished around the house. We have basically moved every year on the dot for the past 4 years, so finally being settled somewhere is a great relief. Unfortunately it also perpetuates the idea that, hey, we can leave all of our stuff in boxes for however long we want!

We also had a major problem with the decor of the walls in the house when we moved in. The wallpaper was just... not us.

The living room was this burgundy, paisley, floral pattern while the kitchen was a wallpapered collection of grapes, pears, apples. Basically a wallpapered mess.

(Ignore the man's butt in this picture. Tad was apparently unaware I was taking pictures of the house and decided to walk into a few of them.)
Plus the light fixtures are extremely dim and kind of remind me of being in a Pizza Hut.

And there was this weird banister thing trying to separate the living room from the kitchen. Strange.

So before we put anything in its proper place, we decided it was time to remove the dark, sticky wallpaper and put up something more our style. Little did we know how difficult it would be to remove all the paper from the wall.

The living room was easy enough; it came off in large chunks. But the kitchen was another story. After ripping off the patterned part of the wallpaper, it left behind a fuzzy paper backing attached to the wall with loads of glue.

I spent around 20 hours scraping the stuff off of the kitchen alone. Bah.

Then of course we find out what is under the first layer of wallpaper... more wallpaper! Luckily this stuff would not come off of the wall, so we just primed really well and painted over it. Hopefully that decision does not come back to bite us in the butt; I was just tired of scraping and could do no more!

Finally, both the kitchen and the living room are primed, painted, and slowly being assembled.

I still need to finish some curtains for both rooms, and begin putting things in their proper places, but soon I will reveal the final result.

What have I learned throughout this new homeowner process?

Don't buy a house with wallpaper unless you really like it.

My Grandpa

2011-09-23T10:43:00.003-05:00

I have been a little absent around the blogosphere lately, but sometimes things just overwhelm and leave no time for keeping things up to date. (This was supposed to be a post on painting the kitchen and a visit from my mom, but it turned into something else entirely.)

The 17th of September was the year anniversary of my grandpa's passing, so the week leading up to it was emotional and left me a little speechless and unmotivated. As a double whammy, it also reminded me that the year anniversary of my grandmother's passing is also fast approaching.

This time last year is stuck in my memory. Tad and I were living in our adorable little sea-foam green rental house with a poor excuse for a garden in an all too shady area. It was my last semester at college and we had begun looking at houses to purchase.

The night that I received the phone call from my mom, Tad and I had planned to go out with some friends. Unfortunately I got a sudden, and very intense headache and Tad decided to stay home with me instead of going out, which I am now extremely thankful for. The headache passed, and as I was sitting on my bed, my phone rang.

Tad walked into the room before I answered it, strangely enough, and he was right there to comfort me as I burst into tears when I heard the reluctant trepedation and shaky voice on the other side of the phone. My mom is never reluctant about anything. I knew before she said anything.

And as if hearing her in such pain of losing her dad was not bad enough, she then put my dad on the phone. My daddy. Despite being the strongest man that I have ever known, he was heartbroken, crying into the phone and comforting me, letting me know he loved me and that we would get through this. The strongest sense of empathy hit me, knowing what loss I would feel if this important and rock-solid figure in my life had been taken away.

My grandpa was like another father to me. But he wasn't my father, and I don't know how my mom managed to pull through it.

So I sat on the phone, bawling, and we eventually hung up. I breathe.

Not two seconds later, my brother calls. And the bawling continued. My brother is not a very emotional person. He is rational and thinks things through to the end. Hearing him be as devastated as I was was heartbreaking. But somehow talking to him helped me feel a little better about the situation. He just has that way of saying things are going to be okay, and you believe him without a doubt.

The day after we heard the news, my brother and one of my cousins (who I grew up with, and is basically like another brother to me), drove down to our house from St. Louis and we hung out and played board games together. I made my first apple pie to honor my grandpa, who loved to bake.

It was a rough night, a rough few months, but Tad was there to comfort me the whole way.

And that is that. A year later.

Tad and I have a house with 9 acres, I pulled myself through my last semester and now have my degree, we got a lovely little rambunctious dog, and have expanded our family to include 14 chickens. I have a garden that my grandpa would be proud of (although I wish he were around to give me a few pointers), and I bake enough bread and treats to keep Tad satisfied. I wish he were still around so that I can share everything with him.

But the only thing to do is breathe, and keep moving forward.

Harvest Monday

2011-09-12T11:46:00.004-05:00

This week was filled with a lot of firsts from my garden, so despite the rainyness and all around gloominess, I had a pretty fantastic week. That is, besides finding yet another cantaloupe that was ravaged by the unknown wildlife.

Despite all of my pepper plants being extremely small and sad looking, they are still trying to pump out fruit. At first when they began putting out flowers, I was picking them off and scolding them fiercely. But by the end of July, they were still the exact same size (less than a foot), and still stubbornly trying to produce fruit.

So I let them go. Surprisingly, they have actually produced a teeny tiny amount!

This week we got in our first cayenne peppers. Looking at these guys is hilarious because the larger ones are, literally, longer than the plant is.

Next up we had our first picking of Alma Paprika peppers. I think this will be the majority of our harvest for this year, because each plant has only set three peppers each. Which, to be honest, is amazing considering the size of the plants.

No complaints here.

Oh and also our first picking of our Kentucky Wonder Pole beans. And of course, eggs.

Finally, more tomatoes!

I could be disappointed in our harvests... but hey, compared to last year, these harvests are amazingly abundant.

Plus there is always next year.

Visit Daphne's Dandelions for more harvest wrap-ups!

View from the mailbox

2011-09-11T16:48:00.005-05:00

After a string of cooler, yet rainy and gloomy days, the sun popped out today. It is gorgeous outside, and the normal humidity that persists in this region has abated.

I trekked out this morning to the mailbox, which is more of a walk than I am used to in order to retrieve our daily mail. So down the driveway and across the gravel road I go; forget the door to door delivery that we were spoiled with in the city. But to be honest, even when the weather was brutal outside, gathering the mail was still one of my favorite activities.

Because I get to be greeted by this wonderful view:

Oh yeah, and this one, too:

Our house sits at the top of a hill with a miles upon miles of gorgeous view of the lands below. And it just so happens that the most unobstructed view is on the walk down the driveway to the mailbox.

Sometimes I go to 'check the mail' several times in one day.

But hey, can you blame me?

Hornworms

2011-09-07T09:34:00.004-05:00

On my post of my various tomato woes, someone commented that they hoped I was giving the green alien bugs to my chickens.

Of course!

Hornworms are probably their favorite treat so far. For them, it is always a snatch and a mad dash to a corner to quickly consume the wormy guy before someone else grabs it out of your beak.

Yum!

Harvest Monday

2011-09-05T10:01:00.005-05:00

On Saturday it was 100 degrees outside without including the heat index, and last night I bundled up in fuzzy pajamas and curled up into a ball just to stay warm. Fall is on its way!

Hopefully not too soon, because some of my tomato plants are actually breaking free of blossom drop and setting fruit. I need some more summer weather.

Harvested for this week is a lovely little basket of munched-upon goods.

Another cantaloupe which the critter has nibbled on, but thankfully left mostly intact, some very munched up green beans (which I will be canning anyway), some tomatoes that were sampled by hornworms, a sugar baby watermelon (un-munched, but still split), and some wonky cukes.

Can I mention how cool cantaloupe are? There is no fussing around to figure out when they are ripe. Oh no, they let you know. Either they pop right off the vine when you pick them up, or it has already separated from the vine and some unknown wildlife critter has nudged it all the way into your cucumber bed.

Just this week we have harvested 5 of them. Pretty amazing!

Besides the cantaloupe, there was another first for us from the garden this week. Along with other tomatoes, we were able to harvest our first, and only, Brandywine!

How exciting. Now we have sampled at least one of each variety we planted. Hopefully I can get some more fruit to set, keep off the bugs, and actually can some!

Visit Daphne's Dandelions for more harvests!

Invaders

2011-09-04T19:36:00.003-05:00

The melon patch is a war zone. Leaves scattered everywhere, vines ripped off... Something smelled the sweet, sweet aroma of the cantaloupe once they were ripe. It was either a deer, judging by the bite marks, or Tad playing some sick joke on me.

There have been casualties.

Not only have two cantaloupe been completely consumed, two have been nibbled on, and one halfway eaten and left to rot in my green bean bed. Not to mention the poor watermelon that was stepped on during the thieving. I mean, come on, man. Show some respect. That melon was days away from being ripe.

Sigh.

Whatever the animal is, at least it is leaving the rest of the garden alone.

Note for next year: get a taller fence.

Tomato Woes

2011-09-02T13:52:00.007-05:00

When you put 20 tomato plants into the ground, the normal person would have it in their minds that they would be rolling in the tomatoes come August and September. Dreams of canning sauce and diced red globes, of popping open a can in the middle of winter to remind you of the sweaty days of hard labor you endured to get to that point.

But why revel in zillions of tomatoes, when you can have only a few, or hey, even none!

Here are three sure-fired steps to guarantee that your blood, sweat, and tears will result in a few scant tomatoes.

1. Blossom Drop

For us, this was as easy as pie to accomplish since we live in Misery. Oh wait. I meant Missouri. During the middle of summer we checked the weather to find that we had a heat wave that would last a few days at most, and then temperatures would level off.

Foiled, we thought! Our tomato plants will produce out the ears if weather conditions are that amazing!

Well, luckily, those 'few days' turned into a week, and then that week turned into another week... and before we knew it, we were basking in heat indexes of 115 for what seemed like an eternity! Gotta love that humidity!

The tomatoes did not have a chance. The blossoms began abandoning ship, popping off the stems left and right until we were growing beautiful, leafy, tomato bushes with no fruit in sight.

For those of you unlucky enough to live in a more temperature stable area, I recommend going outside with a hair dryer until the plants get stressed enough to drop the blossoms.

2. Blister Beetles
Now, if you don't have these bad boys in your garden, you need to pick some up! They are the most fantastic little critters. Not only will they munch all over your tomato bushes, they will also obliterate your peppers.

Two birds with one stone!

They are the epitome of gross crawly things. They swarm all over, even crawling up your legs to try to reach the topmost branches of your tomato bushes! Blister beetles are hard workers. Plus, their gnawing little jaws leave wounds in the tomato leaves, making your bushes more susceptible to blight.

Hooray!

Now in order to ensure that they stick around, do not let them get into contact with Diatomaceous earth:

That nasty stuff is lethal to them, so do whatever you have to in order to prevent it from making its way onto your plants. In my case, I had to tackle Tad who was sprinkling the powdery death all over my poor little beetles.

Unacceptable.

3. Tomato Hornworms

Be they Tomato or Tobacco hornworms (I think we have the latter), they are the cavalry you have been waiting for to decimate your crop. Since the blossom drop is taking care of the blossoms, and the blister beetles are focusing on the bottom branches, you really need a go-to guy to destroy all of those middle leaves and stems.

Enter the hornworm.

They are lovely, alien like creatures that just eat their fill, ensuring that your crop will ultimately fail. They come in camouflaged hordes, gnawing and munching their way to the top of your bushes. Even if someone wanted to go out and try to remove them, they would be hard pressed to find the little suckers. What more could you ask for?

Now some people might recommend the cutworm model to prevent tomato production:

And while I have given them a go, there is really no comparison for the hornworm. Not only are they stealthier (I mean, come on, cutworm... a brown outfit on a green plant? You are not hiding from anyone), but they also do a ton more damage.

They start out super teeny tiny:

But then eat an entire tomato bush:

And they they get huge!:

Absolutely amazing!

If you follow these three tips, you will absolutely not be drowning in tomatoes come fall. Instead, come winter, you will be rushing into the store during a blizzard to purchase an expensive, preservative packed bottle of tomato sauce.

Yum.

Harvest Monday

2011-08-29T08:16:00.008-05:00

Hello again from middle of nowhere Missouri! We are still, surprisingly, reaping the benefits of the garden we put in before we owned the property. I said I would be happy if I harvested just one tomato... so currently that leaves me ecstatic with all of the bounty we are bringing in.

Unfortunately I still cannot find my notes with my weight totals anywhere. Oh well.

This week was an amazing week for the garden. Last week we had the disastrous melon, that looked so tauntingly delicious but had a huge, bug eaten crack in it.

Well this week we had one whole, uncracked Sugar Baby watermelon.

I was not sure when to harvest it, so I googled my little heart out. From the information I gathered, I checked the tendrils closest to the melon. If dry, the melon would be ready to harvest. Dry they were, and not a moment did I hesitate to rip that baby off the vine.

I swear I went running from the garden to the house like a crazy woman, with the melon held high above my head like some precious golden egg.

It was delicious. Maybe it could have used a little more time on the vine... meh. We ate the heck out of that thing.

Another first for this year is an Amish Paste tomato! Now, I have more Amish Paste plants than any other tomato variety in the garden because I had really hoped to can some sauce this year. I don't think that will be happening due to the strife that the poor guys have had to go through (hornworms, cutworms, blister beetles, oh my! But my tomato woes will be in another post).

He was a yummy, very meaty tomato, and I hope I get 10,000 more of him before the first frost.

We have been getting 2 eggs a day steadily for the past week now, which is fantastic. Of course the ladies decide to not use the nesting boxes and instead lay in the very back corner of their shanty-coop. But man, I would crawl through mud and thorny bushes for some fresh eggs, so I probably shouldn't be complaining about an inconvenient laying spot!

Finally we have some wonky cucumbers.

I mean, really? Wonky cucumbers just love me, I guess.

Things that I did not manage to get a picture of include some green beans, more yellow pear tomatoes, and ohjeezzucchini. It may be time to make some zucchini bread. Or maybe some pineapple zucchini. Hmm.

Go visit Daphne's Dandelions for more harvests!

Chickens

2011-08-27T11:05:00.007-05:00

While on vacation, we became more acquainted with the couple that lives right by the resort. They actually purchased the house and land from one of my relatives a few years ago, and since then we had seen them occasionally. This year, however, they invited us and my relatives on a hayride of the property, which turned out the be very enjoyable. The best part of that night, however, was finding out that they had a lot of extra chicks that they were trying to find a home for. She originally had found someone to take care of them, but that arrangement fell through.

Well, you don't say! We just happen to have 9 acres now that is in desperate need of some livestock! A match made in heaven.

So we talked with them, looked at the chicks, got a lot of good advice, and eventually came to the conclusion that we would take 10 chicks and 1 rooster off of her hands. For free. Also, because they are amazing people, decided that they could just cart them up to our neck of the woods because of a prior appointment they had made somewhat near to us.

I know, amazing, right. They are, quite honestly, some of the nicest people I have met in a long time.

We got back from vacation and suddenly had to repurpose this shack thing:

into a brand new chicken coop (I took this picture after a lot of the crap was pulled out of it).

This shanty-building was on the property when we purchased it, and since the house was a foreclosure... basically everything on the land suddenly becomes yours because there is no physical person to have remove any of the trash and junk.

So we became the owners of the lovely future coop.

This thing was nasty. Filled with all sorts of trash... a baby stroller, broken aquarium, plastic Christmas tree.. and that swing set? Had a lovely little family of wasps that stung Tad right on his ass. After being stung, the great man that he is, cleaned it all out, and then we just had to construct the chicken run.

It is my opinion that you cannot get chicken wire to be straight. At all. No matter how much I fussed with it, the stuff was all bendy and wobbly. Oh well.

When they came to drop off the chickens, we loaded them into the almost-finished chicken run and found the egg that was left for us in the truck. Now this egg was a double surprise, not only because they laid it in the back of the truck, but also because we were supposed to be only getting chicks that were not ready to lay yet.

Surprise! I told you, nicest people ever. She decided to give us three older ladies that were already laying as well, so that we would be able to get fresh eggs right away. We chatted for a little bit, but they had to be on their way, so I shoved a loaf of cinnamon pull apart bread into their hands as a thank you and off they went.

Unfortunately, when they dropped off the ladies and gents, we had not had time to put the door on yet, or netting over the top. Since moving out here, we have found that what you think will take an hour, really takes four. Or all day. Sometimes two.

But eventually everything was done, and we had a completed home for our 14 new tenants:

They are a mixture of colors and sizes. The older ladies that are laying are brown, 4 white, 4 black, one black rooster, and then two white and brown who we assume are roosters as well. I guess we will be able to tell for sure once they start getting spurs. That will be fun.

They love grapes, zucchini, and cat food. They hate okra, Shiva, and being picked up.

Shiva thinks they are best friends though. She is still pretty excited about seeing such huge birds up close. Hopefully she does not eat one.

Since we got them on the 9th of August, have brought in 27 eggs. Incredible, right? And that is with only three layers! The others will be laying in about 3 months, apparently. Soon we will be drowning in eggs.

Laundry

2011-08-24T16:38:00.003-05:00

One of the first things that we decided to do on the property was put up a clothesline. And man oh man, am I loving it.

We acquired a washer from some friends of ours, but we are going to save using it for large blankets as well as during the winter.

Instead, I load up the Wonderwash, wash, rinse, and then hang to dry! Since I am using the line to dry the clothes, and am in no hurry to get them inside, I do not even have to bother with wringing out the excess water from the clothes.

And there you go! Clothes cleaned with some homemade laundry detergent with no electricity involved. I never thought it would be so easy.

The only downside of line-drying is that it does not remove pet hair from our clothes. Some pieces of our clothing just act like a magnet when it comes to our three cats and long-haired dog. The only solution I could find was to throw the clothes in the dryer for 2 minutes after line drying unless we wanted to spend a lot of money on lint rollers.

Oh well. We'll figure it out.

Harvest Monday, and No Longer Homeless!

2011-08-22T07:37:00.006-05:00

We have been busy getting settled in here at the farm, so I have not been the best at blogging about my harvests this month. Things are calming down around here, though, so hopefully I will be able to stay more on top of it.

Who would have thought that we would be getting anything at all from our once-mobile-garden? I would have been happy to have just got one tomato, but here we are, running in cucumbers, zucchini, okra, and finally some tomatoes every day. It makes toiling in the heat of the summer (on land that was not yet ours) totally worth it.

Unfortunately I have been scribbling the weights of things we harvest on random pieces of paper and have yet to add them up. But, here are a few pictures of what I have been getting out of my first garden at my now, newly owned first house!

Now this is an exciting picture, because this happens to be our first egg. Now I know, I am a terrible person and have not gone into detail yet about getting our chickens. I just like to build up the suspense, you know? What is even better about this egg is that the silly chicken laid it in the back of the truck on their way to being transported to us. Talk about determination!

Tons of cucumbers have been gracing us with their presence, which is great for me. I cannot wait to try my hand at making some pickles!

We have also been getting an enormous amount of zucchini. We have it in every meal. Zucchini stir fry, zucchini bake, zucchini fritters, zucchini spaghetti... I know how to solve world hunger: plant zucchini. Even though my plants are littered with squash bugs, I am still bringing in pounds of the stuff!

Despite attacks of hornworms and blister beetles, we are finally getting some tomatoes in. Not nearly the amount that I was looking forward to, but hey, at least it is something. Below is a picture of the first Stupice tomato as well as the first jalapeno. Both were used in some homemade salsa.

The past two days have been extremely fun, because I brought in the first handful of green (or should I say yellow?) beans, as well as a nice harvest of tomatoes. The yellow pear tomatoes are abundant and very cute on the vine. Another stupice is also pictured below, as well as the first Cherokee Purple!

I have been harvesting the tomatoes a little before they are ripe just to keep them safe from the hornworms, but hopefully they will all ripen nicely on the windowsill.

Oh, and also a teeny tiny collection of chamomile. If that production keeps up, I will be looking forward to one cup of tea in the heart of winter. Go chamomile, go!

Finally, some tragic news. Our first Sugar Baby watermelon cracked under all of the recent rain we had. Now normally I am not one to shy away from unappetizing looking bounty, but there were bugs aplenty on the opening, feasting away, and I would rather be safe than sorry. Maybe if we had picked it right as the crack formed, but unfortunately I think it had been there for at least a few days.

The chickens, however, loved the unexpected feast:

And now we are caught up on what has been going on since we moved in. Check out Daphne's Dandelions for more harvests.

Getting Back in the Blogging Groove

2011-08-17T13:39:00.005-05:00

Well hello there!

Times have been busy around here, and after we got back from vacation at the end of July, Tad and I have been working our butts off.

Doing what, you ask?

Sprucing up the farm.... that we now own!

That's right, one house, one barn, one pond, 9 acres... after all of the bureaucratic nonsense, the waiting, the homelessness... is now ours!

I have one word to describe my emotions on the subject: fan-freaking-tastic.

We signed off on all of the paperwork the day we were heading down to our vacation spot, actually. It made that day pretty hectic, but what can I say, I was glad to be done with the whole process. What a relief to no longer be trespassing! Now that we are in, we can just laugh at the ridiculous-ness that we had to go through to get this place. But after seeing this view every night, we realize it was worth every terrible homeless moment:

We found out that there is no one living in the house that is nearest to us; the guy that owns the place is never really there. So we introduced ourselves to the next-nearest neighbor:

She, along with her son and husband, live right across the gravel road from us. They can be a little noisy, but you cannot blame them when they have a rambunctious child loping around their field all the time. Shiva has introduced herself to them on numerous occasions, and despite her playful attitude, they want nothing to do with her.

Besides the family-unit across the road, we have met a few of the locals, and they have all been extremely nice. When we first got back from vacation, we found out that our air conditioning turned on, but never got cool. Which was a fantastic thing to discover on a day that topped out at 110 degrees. We managed to get all of the worked out without fainting from heat exhaustion, so that was good.

We have been busy little bees around the property, between the garden, moving the rest of our things out of storage, stripping off outdated wallpaper, painting, fixing faucets and showers... and perhaps the most exciting of all... building a chicken coop and chicken run for the newest members of our farm.
You heard correctly: chickens!

But unfortunately that story will have to wait for another day. There's a loaf of bread in the oven that needs to be attended to, and lunch that has to be made. Hopefully we can keep our internet connection going; I had planned to make this post a few days ago, but our internet service has been out since Saturday.

I look forward to sharing all the new and exciting things we will be doing now that we are finally out here. New veggies to bring in, canning fruits and vegetables, new recipes that I have been dying to try out but have not been able due to be homeless, crocheting, remodeling. It is all new to me, and sometimes just thinking about it all is overwhelming. I mean.... chickens?! I am from inner-city St. Louis!

I do not know what the heck I am doing out here!

But I am loving every single second of it.

Tigerseye Fiasco

2011-07-24T07:50:00.000-05:00

Remember when I complained about my silly Tigerseye beans? So do you see this bean with this long vine?

What do you think it is? Yeah, my first guess would be that it is a pole bean. Maybe the Cherokee Trail of Tears variety that I planted?

Nope.

It is the ‘bush variety’ Tigerseye that I purchased. Now, so far, all of the seeds that I ordered from Seed Saver’s Exchange have been fantastic. Great germination rates, healthy plants, you know, what you expect.

Except for this packet of Tigerseye. When I specifically pick out a bush variety dry bean, I want a bush variety dry bean. Not a pole bean.

On top of the weird pole-habit of these seeds, they also have a poor germination rate. Only about 20-40% of what I plant actually sprouts. And of those that do sprout, half of them look like this:

They come up, spread their little cotyledons, and then sit there. No leaves. Just a stem. Bah.

I am guessing that the seeds I received were from a poor stock (It seems this happens to me a lot). I will be contacting them to see if they will replace it or… something. I think it would be too late in the year to plant another round of them, by the time I would get a replacement packet.

Ho hum.

Exploring

2011-07-23T16:22:00.001-05:00

I love, and I mean love exploring our property. 9 acres is like a giant play ground to me.

Every time we go out there we see something new, be it bird, reptile, insect, or plant. I wish that all of my identifying books were not still packed away in storage, because I am restless to put a name to all of the different things we are seeing.

We even found some wild black raspberry bushes in part of our woods! Unfortunately I did not have a camera to record the glorious find, but Tad, myself, and Shiva all had fun ripping the berries off the thorny vines. We ended up harvesting about a pint of them, even after all the ones we all popped into our mouths on the spot.

Our neighbors probably just shake their heads and mutter, “City folk,” if they see Tad or me tromping through shoulder-high fields of grass, exclaiming over every little thing we find.

Hehe.

My Dad has a Greener Thumb than I do

2011-07-22T07:42:00.000-05:00

Some day, I will be able to grow radishes as pretty as my Dad’s.

Remember the only one I have managed to grow so far?

Pfft.

My dad is a show off!

Flea Beetles, How I Loathe You

2011-07-21T16:02:00.001-05:00

My Rosa Bianca Eggplants are so sad. So tiny, and oh so sad.

They were doing great at the seedling stage in our mobile garden, and then flea beetles found them. I managed to ward them off with a consistent spray of red pepper flakes and garlic. The seedlings grew some new leaves and were looking great.

Then I planted them at the farm.

And some how, in all nine of our acres, and who knows how many acres surrounding us, those little beasts found them.

Why oh why do they love eggplants so much?

Every time we go out to the farm I spray them with my homemade pest-deterrent, but since we are not out there everyday, the beetles come back and chew holes in my poor eggplants.

And as they chew through those tender, minuscule leaves, they also chew through my heart.

Discount Flowers!

2011-07-19T15:40:00.001-05:00

When Tad and I drove by the hardware center that we have been buying soil and manure from, we saw that they were having a 75% off plant sale. We vowed to go back there when we got a chance.

And we did.

And it was magnificent.

A $3 rosebush? Why yes, good sir, I will take two.

So we spent $25 on random flowers, mostly perennials to plant around the garden to attract pollinators. Sure they looked a little worse for wear, but nothing our green thumbs could not fix. I mean, jeez, I am willing to put a little more effort into caring for plants when I get $100 worth of them for only $25.

Cha-ching.

Vacation!

2011-07-16T21:42:00.000-05:00

Well, I am heading on vacation for the next ten days. My family and I are going to the middle of no where Missouri to enjoy campfires, swimming, float trips, and all around laziness.

Tad and I are much looking forward to a break from the seemingly ceaseless days of work we have been putting into the farm. Our pace on vacation will much resemble that of this snail I saw at Anna's:

Hopefully the garden will survive until we get back.

I have scheduled some posts to be made, so that you do not weep over my absence.

So have fun and stay safe, everyone!

Shiva's Advenure to the Vet

2011-07-15T16:00:00.001-05:00

Shiva loves trips to the farm. She loves trips anywhere. Car rides are among her top 3 favorite things of all time, right behind trying to eat our cat’s heads and cow poo.

But once we hit the country road highways, her little nose starts twitching like it is Christmas morning. Probably mostly because of all of the cow poo.

Seriously, she cannot get enough of the cow poo.

Our most recent trip to the farm started out great. We drove down the gravel road, and she stuck her head out of the window, all floppy eared and everything.

We were doing our thing while she was doing her thing: I was tending to the garden, Tad was blazing trails (as he calls it) with his scythe, a birthday present from me and my mom, and Shiva was out adventuring.

Well long story short, the dumb dog got too excited around Tad, who had his freshly sharpened scythe resting on the ground, and she jumped on it. Right on top of the blade.

I will not forget Tad’s face when we heard her pathetic little yelp. It was pure horror. He has been trying to be so careful with the tool, and the dog goes out of her way to crash down onto it.

Well, not deterred by her now blood-gushing foot, Shiva ran towards me and her Frisbee, the latter being her utmost concern.

We broke into our not-yet-owned house, threw her in the bathtub, and wrapped up her foot with rags we had in our car. There was so much blood… she kept shaking her foot, which ended up spraying blood all over the tub, the walls, the mirror, everything. It looked like a murder scene.

I sent Tad into town to get some soap or bandages… or anything, really, since all we had was what was in the car… while I sat in the bathroom trying to stop the bleeding. Apparently foot wounds on dogs are notoriously bloody. Who would have thought.

Tad came back to the house with a bottle of dishsoap, which was all that this tiny little convenient store in our future town of 300 people had, and with info about the nearest vet in the next town over. We washed the wound, bandaged her up with one of Tad’s shirts we found in the trunk, and went outside to get a better look at the cut.

Here’s the thing about hyperactive puppies… they are hyperactive. Every time we stopped the bleeding, she would try to jump around and the clot would break, gushing out more blood. So after our futile efforts, we jumped in the car and headed to the vet, leaving the lawn littered with blood covered rags and a trail of blood leading into the house. We just hoped and prayed that no one decided to come check on the property while we were away. How would we explain that? Hah!

Well we drove there, about a 20 minute venture, and hopped out of the car and into the clinic. It was just a tiny little building, with only a few people working, but they were all extremely friendly and helpful. Of course we had to wait while the vet finished extracting semen from a bull. I guess they actually had an appointment.

They ended up putting her under and we all stood around the table and chatted as they were sewing up our dog. The doctor, two assistants, and Tad and myself all crammed into this tiny little room. We were not really sure if we should leave and let them do their thing, but they seemed fine to let us watch.

Shiva ended up slicing the back of her front right paw and cut two tendons in the process. The doctor got her all stitched up in no time and soon enough, Tad and I were breathing a little easier. As they were stitching her up, the vet turns to Tad and asks, "So she cut herself?"

Tad replies with a disheartened, "Yeah..."

And the vet asks, "So was it an axe or a saw?"

"Uh, neither. Scythe."

"Yeah," the vet says, "That would do it."

No other questions asked. Had we gone to a clinic here in the big city, they probably would have turned us into animal protection services all the while screaming, "What did you do?!?"

The clinic was a great bunch of people. I mean, how can you not like someone when you stand around and watch them stitch up your blood spurting dog’s paw while talking about hermaphroditic cows and horses they have dealt with in the past.

Tad’s long hair and huge gnarly beard did occasion the comment, “So, you guys aren’t from around here, then?”

They told us about their town, and our town, and people they knew who lived near our future house while we were waiting for Shiva to wake up. They gave us some antibiotics, and a bill that was way less than what we would have paid in the city, and sent us on our way.

Suffice to say, it was not the morning we had planned.

Turtle Hunter

2011-07-14T16:00:00.000-05:00

Now that our dog is fixed, we have let her have the freedom that she has been craving since we started going out to the farm.

She goes on adventures to who knows where, comes back covered in burrs and bugs, and sometimes she even brings us back a present.

Shiva is a fantastic turtle hunter. So far she has brought us two back, this turtle being the second one.

The first one she found was ten times better than this one, though, because it was covered in cow poo.

And if there is one thing that Shiva loves more than turtles, it is cow poo.

Mmm mmm. Yum!

Beds #7-9

2011-07-13T16:00:00.000-05:00

Yes, I am still alive, and have not been taken hostage by huge pumpkin plants in cahoots with the zucchini. One of these days, though, I am going to fall into all of their foliage and not be able to get back out.

However, today is not the day for talk about squashes. We have move beyond them and into more exciting territory.

Tomatoes.

If everything else in the garden falls victim to bugs, disease, animals (*cough* my dog *cough*), I will be happy if I can manage to salvage just one tomato plant.

I had originally wanted to space out my varieties in order to be certain of not crossing them when it comes time to save seed. But I have found that you cannot be picky when you only have 2 hours before you have to go back to civilization and you need to get your super-leggy-with-barely-any-leaves tomatoes into the ground.

So Tad dug holes and I threw those suckers in wherever I can find room. I can have a more organized garden next year… you know, when we actually own the place.

In Bed #7 we have:

Tomatoes and peppers. On the left hand side, the top four plants are Brandywines, and the bottom 2 are Stupice. On the right side, the two bottom tomato plants are also Stupice. And those random peppers that are at the top on the right hand column? Those are referred to as my unknown peppers.

You see, I was germinating all of these plants in our tiny spare bedroom back at our old rental house using a light source of two round grow-lights. Trying to grow 100 seedlings in a tiny room with only two lights is pretty chaotic, and suffice to say, there was an accident involving my first round of pepper seedlings.

I was devastated. My now unmarked babies were laying there on the floor, harshly uprooted from their warm and nurturing soil. So with tears in my eyes and curses on my tongue, I stubbornly put every single sliver of a plant back into some soil in hopes that they would live. Then I did another stubborn thing and planted a second batch of peppers. I had no hopes for my now unknown varieties of seedlings. Certainly they all would not be able to survive this traumatic encounter.

Well, of course, almost every single one of those unknown seedlings germinated and grew. And then almost every single one of my newly labeled pepper plants germinated, and grew.

Suffice to say we are going to be drowning in peppers this year. Neither of us really even like them that much. Sigh.

Ahem. After that long tangent, let us move on to Bed #8:

On the left column are three Yellow Pear Tomatoes at the top, and three Cherokee Purple Tomatoes at the bottom, with a basil plant on each end. The right hand side of the bed is planted with all Amish Paste tomatoes. Yep. Seven of them.

Since Tad and I are still a little iffy on raw tomatoes, I decided it would be best to place my bets on the tomato type that is most easily made into sauce. Which is how we currently prefer to eat those succulent red globes. Terrible, I know. But one day we will learn to like them raw, I promise!

Finally, there is Bed #9:

Which is an entire bed of Dragonstongue Green Beans. In a few weeks, I am going to plant another row in the middle of the bed so that I can continue harvesting them well after my first plantings are done producing.

And that concludes the farm plots tour. We recently finished our bed making and added on another bed of Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans, as well as a bed filled with watermelon and cantaloupe, but I do not have any photos of them.

That is probably for the best though, since this post is long enough!

Beds #4-6

2011-07-12T21:24:00.001-05:00

After the exciting reveal of the dry bean beds and the randomly assorted okra/eggplant/broccoli bed, we are moving right along through the next set of 3 beds.

Bed #4… could have been planned better, suffice to say. Why is that, you ask? Well let us take a look at what is growing there:

Black Beauty Zucchini on the left, and Amish Pie Pumpkins on the right. Now I know, what is the big deal? Well you see, I severely underestimated the growing space required for both of these guys. Sure, they are all cute and innocent in this picture, but remember that these pictures are from the middle of June.

And let me just say, they are no longer so cute and innocent. In fact, I think they are trying to take over the world. They are that huge. So let this be a lesson for you other novice gardeners: When the seed packet says to space pumpkins 6 feet apart in all directions… listen to the packet. Do not scoff at it. Do not fling it away from you. And whatever you do, do not throw 3-4 seeds in holes that are less than a foot apart.

If you do not hear from me after this post, you know that the pumpkins and zukes have me held hostage.

Anyway. Onto Bed #5. This one is turning out to be the perfect size for what I planted in it. Granted I may take this statement back in a few weeks once it has filled out some more.

On the left is Butternut Squash, and on the right is a row of peppers. The back three pepper plants are jalapenos, and the rest are Chocolate Beauties, which are a type of green bell pepper.

Finally there is Bed #6:

On the left are A&C Pickling Cucumbers, and on the right is another row of peppers. The back seven are cayenne peppers (which are seeds shared by thyme2garden), and the rest are Alma Paprika.

Now, seriously people. What am I going to do with seven cayenne pepper plants? I was not planning on all the seeds I planted to germinate, let alone survive my mobile garden. But they did. Out of all the pepper varieties, the one type that I would have been okay having only 1 plant in the garden… I manage to grow them all.

Now a smart person probably would have not planted all seven, because jeez, you do not need seven cayenne pepper plants. But I am stubborn. I spent the time to nurture those silly things during the cold winter months, I will be damned if I just decide to chuck it to the curb!

One thing is for certain, though. I will make Tad learn to like spicy food.

Beds #1-3

2011-07-11T21:13:00.003-05:00

So after showing the overall view of our farm plots, I figured now would be a good time to dissect them and all of the different veggies that we have growing this year.

Keep in mind that these photos were taken a few weeks ago, and because of my limited internet access, I am just now getting around to sharing them with you. Soon, though, I will have more internets than I know what to do with!

Beds #1 and #2 are the dry beans. Originally I had intended to give each variety their own bed, but since this was the first bed we planted (and I was not exactly confident in growing things at a place we were not present at every single day) I decided not to put all of my eggs in one basket, so to speak. Had I planted only one variety in the first bed, and thus ended up using the whole packet of seeds, I would have no back up plan if the total venture ended up being a flop.

So in Bed #1 we have:

Cherokee Trail of Tears on the left, and Tigerseye on the right. As you can see, the Tigerseye is not doing extremely well. In fact, their germination and growth rate down right sucks. But I will leave that rant for a future post. I know, the anticipation is just killing you, isn’t it?

In Bed #2, which I have no picture of considering right now it is just an empty bed of some hands down awful soil, is the same as Bed #1. Trust me, it was no picture-worthy.

And to round out this post, what’s behind Bed #3?

Okra on the left, some very very sad Rosa Bianca Eggplants (curse you, flea beetles!) in the middle, and Calabrese Broccoli on the right.

I had started my broccoli in the still cold winter months, hoping to get a spring harvest out of it. I guess the plants had another idea in mind, since they grew incredibly slowly and are only now starting to take off. I guess fall broccoli is just as good as spring broccoli. Oh well.

That concludes the tour of Beds 1-3. Next up: Beds 4-6!

The Farm Plots

2011-07-08T12:02:00.000-05:00

Because we are crazy and homeless with nothing else to keep us occupied except for work, we have been making many trips out to the farm. While out there, we have been clearing out the garden area. We figured that by the time it was clear, we would be in the house and able to go about building beds and planting veggies.

Wrong.

So then we began building beds. We hauled out bags upon bags of manure and top soil to make that hard clay at least a little suitable to growing things. Surely by the time we had a few beds built it would be time to move in the house and we could cart our 80 seedlings out there and put them in the ground.

Wrong.

Finally we just decided to plant. It was getting late in the season, my seedlings were outgrowing their cups, and gosh, I just wanted to grow something! So we planted, dug some more holes, planted, raked up mulch, and planted some more.

And now we have 9 10x3ft beds. More recently we added a final two (as well as a fence), but I only had this picture on my camera so far, so this is where we'll start. You can also see a very wet dog in the bottom of the picture, because man, she sure does love the pond.

Speaking of ponds, the water is not turned on out there. And because we are not out there every day, we worried about the beds drying up in the heat wave that has been the month of June. So we layered a bunch of cardboard and grass clippings down around the plants in an effort to reduce evaporation. So far it's worked pretty well!

'Wait,' you are thinking. 'If the water is not turned on out there... how does she water the plants and how do they prevent overheating? I mean, they are out in the middle of the sun in June during the hottest parts of the day, building beds that ideally would have been made during the much cooler months.'

Good question! Our routine has been to wake up early in the morning at the empty house we are staying at currently and begin filling up as many water bottles and containers to hold water as we can. Then we chuck everything into the car, including the dog, and drive the half hour commute to the farm.

Once out there, we do a routine check of the plants, and then we start hauling water from the pond. At first we were just using old buckets that were laying around the property, but we got wise and grabbed some old cat litter containers that have convenient handles and are much larger. We were kind of concerned about using the pond water as a water source for the plants, since we had not done a water test on it yet. But there was not really any other option, and Shiva drinks so much of the stuff every time we go out there... and she's not dead yet, so what the hell.

The hauling and watering of the garden takes about 15 trips back and forth to the pond, and takes about an hour to complete.

I cannot wait for a hose. But at least I get to work out my biceps.

Pita Pita!

2011-07-07T08:31:00.001-05:00

Because of being homeless, I have been making many trips to my friend Anna's house to partake in some all around homemaker-y business. The house we are staying in has the utilities on and a lovely gas stove... but unfortunately all of our pots and pans... and pretty much everything else, are still locked away in storage.

So what to do when I get the urge to bake or cook? The only logical thing to do when you are homeless: wander over to someone else's house, of course!

Before moving out of our rental, I discovered the magicalness of making pita bread. It is seriously one of the easiest things I have ever baked. Sure there are lots of steps, but you can have them in under an hour.

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups flours
1 tbsp sugar
2 tsp salt
2 1/2 tbsp olive oil
1 cup of warm water
2 1/2 tsp yeast
8 pieces of foil cut into about 7 to 8 inch squares

I combine 1 1/2 cups of the flour with the salt, sugar, and yeast, and then add the oil and water. You then beat this for two to three minutes and then mix in the rest of the flour, stirring until combined.

The result is a very sticky, glumpy (is that a word?) bowl of dough. Perfect. That's what you want. When I made this recipe during the spring time, I noticed that my dough was much wetter than normal, but if that is the case, just add in a little more flour.

After mixing all the ingredients together, you knead the mess of dough for 6 minutes. Once finished kneading, divide the dough into 8 pieces, roll into balls, cover with a damp towel, and let rise for 30 minutes. The dough does not really end up rising that much in my experience, so do not worry if you think your dough balls are the same size after the 3o minutes as they were before.

While your dough is rising, preheat the oven to as high as it will go. Most recipes call for 500 or 475 degrees, but at my rental house, the highest temperature that thing would go up to was 400. I have found that the temperature of the oven does not affect the pitas, just how long it takes to get those delicious things out of the oven.

Once the dough is finished rising, roll each one out into a circle about 6 inches in diameter. Some recipes call for the dough to be a specific thickness (either 3/16th or 4/16th of an inch). But to be honest with you, I have no idea what 4/16th of an inch looks like. So I just roll out the balls until they look like they are about 6 inches in diameter and call it good.

Place each of the dough circles onto a piece of foil and place in the oven until they are puffed, or in the case of those that do not puff, are lightly browned. The time varies depending on what temperature you baked them at (at 500, they take about 7 minutes). I don't set a timer because it seems like the time varies from each batch I do. I just keep an eye on them and pull them out once puffed or browned

After pulling out the delicious puffed pitas, wrap them in foil so that as the tops fall, the dough stays moist. Cut them in half and stuff them with whatever your little heart desires. I personally have become fond of putting scrambled eggs and cheese in them in the morning. You can also wrap them in foil, bag, and freeze until you are ready to devour them. Just take them out of the freezer, let them thaw, wrap them in foil and pop them into the oven at 350 to 375 for about 15 minutes.

One of the things that I have learned after making this recipe over and over, is that no matter how hard you try, your pitas will not always puff. One will be gloriously puffed while the one sitting right next to it in the oven stays as flat as a pancake.

What to do when life gives you unpuffed pitas? Make pita chips.

Cut the unpuffed rounds into whatever sized triangles you desire. Place them on a baking sheet, slather them with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and whatever else your heart desires, and bake until they are super crisp, crunchy, and yummy.

Once you make homemade pita chips, you will understand why most recipes for pitas are all like, "Well you are supposed to do this... but it does not really matter." They all know that whatever you do, no matter how precise you are with measurements, your pitas will not always puff. And eventually you will end up trying to mess up the recipe on purpose so that way you have more unpuffed pitas to make pita chips with.

Harvest Monday

2011-07-04T06:57:00.007-05:00

Well hello there! We took a trip to my parents' house to say hello. Also to do laundry, get some free (cooked) food, sleep on a cushioned surface instead of a floor, and steal access to some internet.

Being homeless is a pain in the butt, but it makes mini-vacations to visit family all the more luxurious!

The past few weeks we have been having lots of tiny harvests out of our mobile garden. And a lot of these harvests have looked like this:

Yep, that's right. We have been rolling in the raspberries! They are so abundant, we have been having trouble consuming them all before they go bad. I mean, come on. How are two people supposed to deal with 7 berries in one day? It is just unreasonable.

We have expanded our harvest from the last time I posted; now in addition to the Jewel black raspberries, we are also getting some of the Heritage Red and Golden raspberries. The Heritage's flavor most resembles typical market raspberries, but it's like a super-charged version bursting with deliciousness.

The Golden raspberries, if I could choose a favorite, would be the front runner.

But that is probably a terrible thing to say... it is like choosing favorites between your children! I love all my canes equally, but man. These berries are so delicious, very sweet, and absolutely huge compared to the other varieties. Plus they look cool, too.

I wish my scale was not packed away in storage, but if I had to guess, we have almost harvested a pint of raspberries this year.

We have also harvested a few bowls of salad from the few pitiful plants I managed to grow.

Both Forellenschluss and the loose leaf blend are coming up with vigor, which is strange since they looked very sad during more ideal spring weather. Now that it is over 100 degrees with the heat index they are doing great and not bitter at all? Maybe this lettuce is confused and thinks it is an okra plant.

That's all for this week. Almost all of the seedlings have been ninja-planted at the farm, which we will be closing on on the 13th! Assuming no other delays, of course. It is a relief to know that we are actually getting the house that we spent so much time building the garden for.

11 3x10 beds are now in place. You heard me right. 11. Beds. On land we do not own yet. How silly.

Happy 4th everyone! Hope it is not as rainy and dreary as it is here currently. Check on Daphne's Dandelions to see how other people are doing.

Internetless

2011-06-18T14:16:00.002-05:00

Part of being homeless, if you had not guessed, is also being internetless.

Last week we visited my parents in St. Louis, and I was all prepared with pictures and blogposts already written out. That way, when I got there, I just had to make the posts and schedule the posting date to later on in the week.

I had planned to do that for this weekend since we were going to Kansas City to visit Tad's family... but time got the better of me. No pictures, no posts, no nothing.

I am still stalking around on blogger via my phone, but unfortunately making a post with a tiny little phone keyboard is too much effort.

So until I am able to find and beg someone else to let me use their internets, you'll just have to go without reading my silly posts.

Take care!

Cicadas

2011-06-15T06:00:00.000-05:00

We're being invaded. Columbia, Missouri is under attack. They are everywhere. They are dangerous. They are reckless.

They are cicadas.

The picture of my tire was taken only seconds after brushing off about 10 of them. When I brushed them off, more just flew back onto it.

With all of the moving around we have been doing, let us just say they are a pain in the butt. You cannot go outside without one flying into your face or falling onto your head. And when your hands are full carrying heavy boxes or fragile plants and one of them is on a collision course with your eyeball? You cannot do anything but suck it up and hope it just bounces off your face instead of deciding to cling on.

These photos were taken while we were still living at our rental house. I was hoping to get some neat pictures of them, but unfortunately when I stepped out onto the grass and under that tree I was forced to just shoot as many pictures as I could and get the heck out of there. They had begun making their way up my legs and were falling from the tree onto my shoulders. You cannot just kick them off either. They cling to you until you grab them with vigor and rip them off while running back into your house.

I mean, it is not that I mind insects. Or that I am scared of them or that they creep me out. No. It is just... when there are six or seven things the size of fun sized candy bars trying to climb your legs, you react.

It just so happens that my reaction is to run inside making blechhh noises.

Now Shiva? She will be disappointed to find out that this emergence does not happen every year. Before we moved out of our rental house and carted her to my parents in St. Louis so that they could babysit her (there are no cicadas there, by the way), she was so full from eating them that she refused to eat any dog food for 3 days. Be them the discarded shells or the full fledged winged beasts, she thinks they are a delicacy.

Blechhh.

Harvest Monday

2011-06-13T01:00:00.001-05:00

Well I have finally managed to harvest some things out of my garden this year. Although it is a garden in the strangest sense of the word. All of the plants are in cups, pots, and buckets, and they have been crammed into the car and shuffled around to the many different houses we have been staying at for the past few weeks.

With all of this movement and the inability to put them into the ground... or even to upgrade to larger pots since room in the car is a commodity when 100's of seedlings are concerned... I am surprised to be able to harvest anything.

Granted, there's not much. But who cares! Not much is more than nothing at all.

For this week's harvest, we managed to pluck the first Jewel Raspberries off of the canes.

This monumental event was divided between two separate harvests. The first harvest was a single raspberry, which after being photographed profusely, was divided into two halves and shared between Tad and myself.

Now the second harvest was so abundant, we each got one to ourselves!

They were delicious. Still warm from the sun, the juices and seeds were popping in my mouth, producing a rich flavor that was subtly different from the typical red raspberries I am so familiar with.

After consuming the huge meal of the duo of raspberries, we were still a little full. So when I suggested to Tad that we share a salad and cut off some of the scant lettuce leaves we managed to grow, he was reluctant. However, when I pointed out that some mysterious creature had been nibbling on the lettuce plants and that if we waited until our stomachs had settled from our raspberry feast, there might not be any lettuce left for us... he agreed.

So we harvested a few leaves and supplemented them with some grocery store lettuce that was in the fridge:

The varieties consisted of Forellenschluss, which is a speckled romaine, and a loose leaf blend that was shared with me by Minji from Thyme to Garden Now. Let me say, I could definitely taste the difference between the bland store variety and the stuff we had plucked from our pots. I never thought that lettuce could be so flavorful! It was delicious, and it made me even more jealous of those bloggers who are currently inundated with the stuff. Feel free to send some my way.

That's all for this week. If you would like to see what other people are harvesting, check out Daphne's Dandelions.

Raspberries

2011-06-12T15:00:00.000-05:00

Could I possibly rave any more about my raspberry plants? Why yes, I think I can.

I had not even expected to get fruit off of these canes this year, but it was a welcome surprise.

My Jewel variety is turning out to be the first producer of the three varieties of canes I purchased. The other two (Heritage Red and Golden Raspberry) both have some nice sized fruits but have not begun to ripen yet. Out of the three, the Jewel raspberries seem to be the smallest, so maybe that is why they're ripening so quickly.

What is even more surprising to me is that they are fruiting and ripening while still in the buckets I bought them in. Despite going out to the farm regularly, I did not feel comfortable putting them into the ground until either we have legally secured the land, or until various people (appraisers, inspectors, etc) were finished going out there to survey the property. I mean... we would risk the chance that these people would take it upon themselves to pluck the plump, brightly colored berries from the stem!

So the raspberries are growing happily in pots on the deck of the house we are staying in, which means that I am only steps away from gazing upon the beauty of the succulent globes.

This Jewel raspberry is a black raspberry, and because of this it has many different shades that the berries go through before becoming ripe:

Maybe it is a blessing in disguise that we are stuck in an empty house with nothing to do... if I had been busy with other things, I may have missed the opportunity to see them ripen. I am sure if you sat and stared long enough, you could watch as each individual berry changed to the next shade in the spectrum.

My favorite of all the colors I have seen?

Yum.

Homeless

2011-06-11T09:53:00.009-05:00

It has seemed that the past few weeks have just flown by, and all the while I have had severe blogging separation anxiety.

The lease on our rental house was up on the 31^st, so the days prior to that were spent packing and cleaning for every free moment. Then the time for moving out had come, and we had to say goodbye to our cute little seafoam green house.

This house was the first place where I had successfully gardened away from the nurturing nest of my parents’ house. It was depressing to be leaving behind the abode where all of my first solo gardening memories had taken place, both the good (first tomato harvests!) and the not so good (my oddly shaped cucumbers).

Added on top of the regret of leaving our home behind was the situation of our farm. Despite having a closing date set to coincide with the end of our rental lease, the title company could not get everything done in time so we ended up having to extend our contract and delay closing.

Homeless.

Thankfully we have wonderful family and friends who have been willing to help us out during this difficult and stressful time. I mean, what do you do when you have no where to live, 4 cats, a dog, over 80 seedlings in plastic cups, and other miscellaneous potted plants and herbs?

We placed the majority of our things in a storage facility for the month, drove the crazy dog up to St. Louis for my parents to babysit, and are currently staying at a friend’s empty house which he is trying to sell.

A major downside to this fiasco is that we threw almost everything into storage, and packed that thing so tightly with all of our junk that it is impossible to get in there to find anything. We thought we would have been moved onto the property by now (I mean, hello. 11 days after our original contractual closing date?). All books, board games, and anything else that could pass the time is all shut away in storage, so we end up sitting around with nothing to do in an empty house.

Boredom has plagued us, without access to internet, and the idleness is making us twice as fidgety because we can’t help but think how many things we could be doing if we had already moved out to the farm.

Fed up with sitting around and doing nothing, and fueled by the press of time and the need to get plants in the ground, we headed out there to start planting despite not technically owning it yet.

Yeah, we’re rebels.

Yet I am sure that if we ended up getting into some trouble with the law for trespassing on our own land, I could reasonably explain to them that if I did not plant my beans soon, they would not be dry and ready to harvest before the first frost. They would understand and everything would be fine. Right? Right.

So we weeded, and then weeded some more, and here's what it looks like now:

Pretty impressive, right? Just by looking at that picture, you can't really tell just how much work we did to clear that spot out. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture before we started weeding, so you'll just have to trust me about how overgrown it was. No one has owned lived on this property for at least 2 years, and even when there was someone occupying it, it didn't look like they maintained any of the land except for right around the house.

And this is the plan for the plot:

This is all subject to change, and in fact we have already planted some things differently than what is shown on the diagram. Most of the beds will end up being 3 ft in width by 10 ft in length, which is large, but not too large to where I cannot comfortably reach to the middle of the beds. Some of the beds on the outside might end up being a little smaller due to space constraints. Off to the right of the picture is the pond, and on the left the plot is bordered by barbed wire.

The circular beds labeled tomatoes are going to be tomatoes planted in 5 gallon containers, so we'll see how those end up doing.

We have been going out there whenever we get the chance, and have already planted two beds and prepared even more. The soil is in terrible condition: clay so thick that we could probably make some great pottery out of it! We have to soak the soil down before we can even think of digging into it, and we've already had casualties amounting to one hoe and one mini gardening rake thanks to the solid stuff. The only thing we can do is be patient, add organic matter, and hope that it's good enough to grow at least something for us this year.

Terrible Weather

2011-05-26T18:09:00.004-05:00

It always amazes me just how quickly weather can change. In Missouri, the saying, "If you don't like the weather, wait 5 minutes" is ingrained into your head before you even turn 10. That is just the way it is in the midwest.

On Tuesday we went out to the farm because we had a glimpse of sunshine and hot weather between a week filled with predictions for gloomy, rough weather. And oh wow, was it beautiful out! I even got a sunburn as we finished clearing out our garden spot and began tilling up the soil.

I cannot emphasize how excited I am to move out there. This is the view from our garden area towards the ~5 acres of pasture we will own:

And the pond that sits close to the garden area as well, which will be a fantastic spawning pool for toads and frogs. I love the little guys; not only do they eat my nemesis (slugs), but they also provide a great excuse to take a break from the labor intensive preparation of the garden. I lost count of how many times I told Tad, "Here, hold my shovel. I am going to try to catch that frog.":

It is a little... well... green right now. But we're looking for some solutions to that. Maybe a water pump? We'll see.

Tuckered out from a long day of work, we drove back to our rental house, relaxed, and went to bed. Only to wake up on Wednesday to a terrible weather outlook.

After the Joplin tornado, everyone in the state has been on high alert in regards to watching the skies. A tremendous storm started blowing through, and a tornado did some damage in Sedalia which is only a little bit west of where we live. So after much debate... maybe not so much debate as me screaming at Tad to get in the closet and him aptly refusing... we finally gathered up the cats, brought the stray cat inside, moved a very sedated dog (did I mention she had just been spayed?) and hunkered down in the closet when the radio started declaring that their was rotation and funnel clouds in our city.

The whole predicament resulted in Tad making the incredulous statement that, "Maybe we should be a little more prepared next time." Nonsense! Why would throwing 3 cats that are very temperamental, a dog that despite being groggy still had the desire to put the cats' heads in her mouth, along with two adults in a tiny closet be a bad idea?

Maybe he was right. The cats got a little angsty and may have ended up scratching Tad to pieces. So they were evicted from the closet with very harsh words to them that they could fend for themselves when the tornado came. Once we were finally settled in the closet, it was basically time to get back out. At least we know what not to do next time.

There were no tornadoes that touched down in our area, but a few to the south and east of us. Including baseball sized hail throughout the state, even in metro St. Louis where my parents live.

Shortly after the storm passed, the sun popped out and I went to check on my plants. Luckily none had taken any damage since I have been sheltering them under our porch roof from all of the rain.

Some parsley which I have finally managed to grow from seed:

And a yellow pear tomato I'm growing for my parents, with a backsplash of a million pepper plants:

Everything is growing very slowly here, but I am not surprised considering the limited sun we have had recently. This is my first time growing most of these plants from seed, and I can't help but feel that they are far behind from where they should be at this time of year.

So after all of the drama of yesterday, everyone and all the plants in this household are fine. Minus the cat scratches all over Tad. But he'll be okay.

Mammatus Clouds

2011-05-22T20:45:00.003-05:00

Tad and I had been wanting to go visit the house - the farm, as we started calling it around here - today and finish clearing out our garden spot (secretly and covertly since we're still haven't closed on it. boo.), but unfortunately the esteemed weather.com predicted thunderstorms throughout the day. So we hung about our rental house in the morning. After looking outside at around 11 and seeing nothing but blue skies, we checked the forecast again. Apparently there was supposed to be a thunderstorm right on top of us, and a tornado watch to boot!

So off we headed to a garden center to pick up some things under threat of hail and tornadoes from a clear, cloudless sky.

After returning home with all of our purchases, Tad hung up the hammock and I transplanted some seedlings while the sky remained a treacherous shade of crystal clear blue.

Finally, finally, after postponing our trip to the farm and sitting around looking dumbly upwards waiting for the tornado to touch down, a storm came out of nowhere at 7:00pm. After passing, the sky was a brilliant shade of burnt orange. Upon going outside to take a gander at the sky, I discovered one of the most interesting cloud formations:

Mammatus clouds! Unfortunately my little point and shoot digital camera probably doesn't do this formation justice, although a quick google image search will leave you in awe, promise!

I think they're the coolest looking formations, like cotton balls falling out of the sky. Don't feel bad if you are not as naive-minded as myself (Tad) and are thinking, "Well I guess they look like cotton balls... but I orginally thought they looked like breasts." Scientists thought so, too, but instead of calling them boob clouds they just made mammary clouds sound more professional.

The last time I saw this formation was in the summer of 2006 when I was on vacation:

Hours after taking this picture, my dad (who was in St. Louis and thus 3 or so hours east of us) called and told us that a tree had fallen on our house. So. Dear Mom and Dad. I hope the rest of the maple tree is still standing upright and not through your living room window.

On a completely different note, while taking the pictures of the Mammatus clouds in 2006, I also captured evidence of an alien space ship:

Tiny, triangular speck appears in the middle of the clouds not even a minute after the first shot!? Definitely aliens.

Anyway, my next post will be about gardening and not nonsensical ramblings.

Raspberries!

2011-05-17T18:27:00.005-05:00

So I know I said I would be posting about all the different veggies we're growing. Well, when I went outside to grab some photos of all the little seedlings we had sprouting up, I came across something so delicious I started salivating on the spot:

Baby raspberries!

Can you believe it!

And we haven't even put the buggers in the ground yet! We picked the pots up at a little Amish (or was it Mennonite?) farm with my aunt and uncle when we were visiting their lakehouse. Not only were they much more appealing than the bareroot sticks we would have gotten if we had ordered them online, but they were also much much cheaper! I love saving money.

I ended up buying three canes. In addition to the Jewel Raspberry pictured above, I also got one each of Fall Golden:

And Heritage:

We're still trying to decide where on our new property we will be planting all of our berries. The plan was to take them out there and plant them on Thursday when we were going to visit and explore the acreage again... but I'm not sure if I should stress them out with transplanting while they are fruiting. Guess I'll have to do some research.

I am off to fawn over the little babes, and next time I will be posting about everything we're planning to grow this season. In the meantime, this is what the front of our house looks like:

Of course, Missouri weather has to be crazy and it ended up frosting two nights ago, so all of those seedlings had to be brought inside and put back out. At least I'm getting a workout moving them all around (Kidding. I just ~~make~~ ask Tad to do it for me.)

Yep.

2011-05-13T14:13:00.000-05:00

Hasn't it been awhile? It's been months, in fact!

Sometimes life takes you down a strange path that you didn't see coming. And sometimes that path is the most terrible thing you have ever experienced. And sometimes that terrible thing makes you go into a slump for months, where everything you used to enjoy becomes painful and gut-wrenching.

When that happens, you just need to take a break and let other people take care of you.

Then one day, it gets better. Nothing's back to normal, in fact, when you awake from your stupor you find that pretty much everything has changed.

What am I babbling about?

Not even a month after the loss of my grandpa, my grandma also passed away. She had broken her hip and was recovering from an infection that had occurred after her surgery. I had a few years to come to terms with the eventual loss of my grandpa, because it had been obvious for awhile that his time was coming. But my grandma... not the case with her.

She was an extremely positive maternal figure in my life. She helped raise me, my brother, and my cousins, and I know that whatever influence she had on me only made me that much of a better person. I would be proud just to end up being half as friendly, silly, and loving as she was at the end of her life.

After her passing, it made me sick to look at the plants that I was growing. I didn't want to think about cooking, and anything beyond sitting on the couch made me burst into tears and run to Tad for comfort. Luckily he is the greatest man in the world and put up with me while helping me through it all.

During all of these months, I kind of just sat around while nearly everything in my life changed. Of course all of this new drama came up in my last semester. But hey, I made it! Now I am all graduated and stuff... but still can't find a job in my field. Oh well. (I talked Tad into using baking soda and ACV on his hair since he decided to stop cutting it, and of course now his hair always looks better than mine!)

A new member was adopted into the family, Shiva, to help fill the void in my heart... even though she had some 'crazy eyes' (as my mom called them) I still fell in love with her immediately:

Right after getting her, we got pounded by 9 inches of snow, which she took to instantly:

And then a blizzard resulting in 20 inches:

So that meant going out into the craziness every 15 minutes so the stupid little fluff ball could empty her stupid little puppy bladder:

Also there was endless worrying about the other new addition, the stray we named Henry:

Finally it seems that winter is over here in Missouri. After weeks of cold, wet, windy weather, this whole week has been in the upper 80's. And Shiva has turned into an amazing little dog who no longer has 'crazy eyes':

Which is perfect weather to go and enjoy the house that we recently purchased on 9 acres (secretly enjoying it though, since we haven't closed on it yet. shhh!):

It has the most amazing view:

Yeah. Basically everything in my life has changed to some degree in only the past few months, and I am finally clawing my way out of the rut I got into. I wish my grandparents were still around to witness all of these new things in my life and so that I could share it all with them. I know what I am doing now would make them extremely proud.

This is a long enough post for now. But I have thoroughly enjoyed writing it, and am glad that I forced myself to sit down and get it over with! I'll be posting again soon to go through all the little seedling guys I have started and what veggies we'll be attempting to grow in the coming months.

Harvest Monday

2010-10-11T19:47:00.005-05:00

Well hello, long time no see!

I took an unintended break from blogging. However, after some chastising and encouragement from my mom, I've decided to get back into the swing of things.

I wanted to thank everyone for their kind words in both the comments and emails I received regarding my grandpa's passing. I was and still am amazed at the amount of compassion shown to me by people I've never even met. It meant the world to me and it's something I'll never forget.

The harvests lately have been slowing down, and unfortunately what I have harvested I didn't really photograph. The end of the green beans, our first five peas, various herbs, and lots of marigold heads have been harvested since the last post.

This first photo is fuzzy because it was taken from Tad's phone, but it shows how large these cherry tomatoes are in comparison to my hand. I am still amazed at the strange size! These came off of the unidentified variety given to me by my dad.

This second photo shows probably the last harvest of the aforementioned cherries. There are still a few left on the plant, but the temperatures here are dropping fast. By that, I mean it's been getting down to the 40's at night, but somehow still tops out in the high 80's during the day, so maybe they still have a chance!

The largest one on the far right is one of the patio tomatoes. I cannot praise these guys enough. Their taste is amazing, and their flesh is surprisingly meaty - more like a paste tomato than anything else. Both plants are still fruiting, and I hope to bring them inside once it starts getting colder. They are in small buckets so it should be easy to find a place to put them.

All of these went into a nice big pot of Polish Sausage Stew.

Ingredients
1 lb Kielbasa, diced
1 large onion, diced
2 carrots, diced
2 celery stalks, diced
2 - 3 cups of potatoes, diced
2 cloves garlic, diced
Chicken broth (I use two of the small cans and then fill the pot up the rest of the way with water, because I never have too much broth on hand. But you can use all broth if you're afraid of the water toning down the dish)
Salt and Pepper to taste
1 1/2 tsp. dill
1 1/2 tsp. parsley
1 bay leaf
Any leftover veggies I have on hand (like the tomatoes!)

Saute the onion until it gets transparent, then add the kielbasa. Continue sauteing until heated through and the kielbasa absorbs the yummy onion flavor. Toss in the garlic for a quick exposure to the heat, about 30 seconds. Add the broth, water, veggies, and seasoning and bring to a boil. Cover and reduce to a simmer for an hour to an hour and a half.

I like to leave it on a little longer, because it seems like the longer a soup cooks, the better it gets. We top ours with a dollop of sour cream and a sprinkle of grated cheese. Yum! And leftovers taste even better! It's a really easy and delicious recipe, and normally I have everything I need on hand. Who could ask for more?

To bring this post to a close is a photo of my mom and dad's harvest monday, which she emailed me to help me jump back into blogging (and make me envious of all their lovely produce!)

They harvested some green beans, tomatoes, radishes, pinched tops of their basil, and some lemon thyme. The large green tomato was found on the sidewalk on the side of the garage, and they're not sure how it got there. It's larger than any of the tomatoes that they have managed to grow this year, so they think the squirrels felt bad for them and brought them a present.

My dad did a second planting of green beans about a month ago and was worried that they wouldn't produce before the frost came around. Looks like he didn't have to worry at all since those green beans look amazing!

Head on over to Daphne's Dandelions to see what other gardeners are growing!

Harvest Monday

2010-09-20T13:17:00.005-05:00

Well to start things out, let's just say that this has been a difficult week.

I found out that my grandfather had passed away on Friday due to complications from Parkinson's. It's been difficult coming to terms with, mostly because I have never experienced death of anyone close to me, but luckily I am surrounded by many strong and wonderful people. Looking back, my grandfather was a great influence to me and has definitely helped to mold me into the person I am today.

He was a great gardener and a fantastic baker, and I know that whenever I become involved in these tasks, he will be on my mind. I decided to go into a baking frenzy last night because I thought it might help me feel better. Tad helped me make a batch of sugar cookies, and I also made up a loaf of bread and a load of hamburger buns. The kitchen was almost unbearably hot, but remembering the times when I would help him bake was well worth it.

Anyway, enough with the updates. Harvests!

Another handful of green beans were picked and then frozen for future use.

Another marigold for drying... and yes, you're seeing that correctly. Another wonky cucumber! In fact, it looks like all of my cucumbers are turning out this way. They bulb on the end, and then it just seems like the plant has put forth all the effort it can, and the cucumber stays this shape and size no matter how long it is left on the vine. Looks like I'll be buying a different variety for next year since, at this rate, I'll never get enough to make even one pickle!

This was an exciting week for tomatoes. The largest is my first fruit off of the Patio tomatoes, which is only about a foot and a half tall with many more fruits starting to ripen on it! The smallest one is the first of my Tiny Tim tomatoes, and this little guy was found on the ground. He probably got knocked off during the rainstorms that blew through Missouri the past few days. These cherry tomatoes plants just amaze me! They are only 8-10 inches tall and are just loaded with these marble sized fruits! The middle sized tomato in the picture is off of my Unknown variety given to me by my dad early in the summer.

No, I am not growing pumpkins and so technically this isn't my harvest. But I did harvest it off of my friend's stove because it was getting kind of squishy and he said he wasn't going to use it, so I acquired it! He inherited a community garden plot from his old roommate, and apparently they are growing pumpkins there. I wonder what I'll end up doing with it?

And finally, devastation. Remember my watermelon that I was excited about? I guess it just got too wet out there, and the poor little fruit just couldn't fend off the BER anymore. I noticed that it was plagued a little while ago, but left it on the vine because I was upset and didn't want to deal with it. The other vines are still trying to pump out more tiny fruits, so maybe I'll end up with one that matures before becoming diseased. A girl can hope, right?

Want to know what it looked like inside? Yeah, I did, too.

It had started becoming slightly pink! There are a bunch of seeds, as well, but I'm not sure if they would produce anything if I saved them. I will probably try it out just because I am curious.

Because I was feeling adventurous, after slicing off the rotted end, I took a tiny bite of the pink flesh. Wouldn't you know, it tasted like watermelon! Granted, not a very sweet watermelon, but still kind of tasty! I might slice up the usable parts and save them for smoothies.

That about wraps up this week's harvest. If you are interested in seeing what other people around the country (and world) are growing, check out Daphne's Dandelions!

Harvest Monday

2010-09-13T17:33:00.006-05:00

I have had trouble with the motivation to both garden and blog due to a combination of school, work, and procrastination. However, I have vowed to try to devote more time to this hobby, because quite honestly, it is fun and I love to do it. I have found that it is also a great way for my family to keep tabs on me, and my parents love to see how their nurturing has shaped me into the wacky individual I grew up to be. So why shouldn't I put a decent amount of effort into it?

Anyway. Harvests!

I would be fooling myself if I said that these were my tomatoes. I wish! Our plants are still producing, but the cool weather we have had has not aided in ripening their green flesh. This is actually a photo of the tomatoes I picked while I was visiting the parents. They didn't have much luck with larger varieties, but their smaller types were especially bountiful, with many more on the way! I sneakily tucked these guys away into our bags shortly before we left.

While not technically my harvest... I did harvest them myself. So they're being included in this post, because let's face it, my harvests are not much to brag about and need all the help they can get!

Now these, these are mine and mine alone! The first harvest off of the green bean plants has yielded a nice handful of these tasty looking morsels. There are two varieties shown here: Blue Lake and Burpee's Tenderpod if I remember correctly. I am probably wrong, but I don't have the original seed packets to look at since my dad gave me these seeds after he was finished planting for the season. Either way, they are both yummy bush types that have produced equally since being direct seeded. The only discernible difference that I could tell was that one has purple flowers, and the other has white.

Pictured above are the herbs I harvested today. It was time to pinch the tops off of my basil plants, and I decided to prune the rosemary bush a little. The rosemary will most likely be used in a tea later on, because I have found that drinking the concoction helps relieve my headaches. Who would have thought! The lemon thyme was picked to be used in dinner for tonight, and that is where the basil will be put to use as well.

Speaking of dinner:

All of the above items (except for the rosemary) were used to make this yummy vegetable soup. I made some turkey stock the other day from the turkey bones my mom saved from dinner while we were visiting, and the stock was used as the soup's base.

It was time to pop off the marigold blooms, which will be dried and used for... something. I have read that they make a yummy tea, but apparently people who are allergic to ragweed should be wary about ingesting them. I think I am allergic to that, so we'll see how my endeavor to consume these will turn out!

These marigold plants grew incredibly fast - they were direct seeded in late June and are already 3 feet tall or more. One of the pots has two plants that only had one head on them each, but the other pot had two plants that both developed multiple heads and looks like these will be giving me more than one bloom per plant. I wonder, since I pruned off the blooms, if the plants that only had one head on them will continue to grow and sprout more? I hope so!

That's all for this week. If you would like to see what a more experienced gardener is able to produce, check out Daphne's Dandelions. It is fun to daydream that someday, my harvests will be just as bountiful!

Peas

2010-09-08T18:24:00.003-05:00

After a lovely stay at my parents' over the holiday weekend, I was anxious to get back home to see how things were looking in the garden. We had a cool front move through the past week, but come Sunday and Monday, things started to heat up again. It was risky enough in the first place to try a fall garden because of Missouri's weird shifting weather, but I decided that I was too anxious to wait for spring for another round of plantings.

The task of taking care of the peas has been all up to Tad. I was sure that once we got home, all of Tad's labor would be crispy and dry. I'm happy to say that I was completely wrong!

Our first baby Amish Snap Pea has emerged after only being direct seeded a month ago. I was not expecting a result so quickly, but these plants have been making some headway on their trellis. It seems like a new flower pops up every time I go outside.

Our Green Arrow shelling peas are another story. They took longer to germinate compared to the snap peas, and their growth rate is also much slower. Maybe the hot temperatures affected them more than the snap peas, or maybe they are just slow growers. Who knows. Certainly not me.

I can't wait to saute this one up with a little bit of butter! If I can time it right, perhaps I will be able to savor it all by myself and not have to split it with Tad.

Watermelon Update

2010-09-04T08:57:00.006-05:00

What a productive morning I have been having! Beans are soaking in a pot for some veggie soup for tonight's dinner, a half-batch of granola is in the oven, and some hamburger buns are rising on the counter. It's not even 9am yet!

On the list for today was also to make a blog post, and since I am feeling so productive, I decided to hash this thing out before I have to go into work.

My watermelons. I haven't updated on them in awhile, basically because of the dreaded three word term that tends to send gardeners into a frenzy of tears and profanities.

Blossom End Rot.

Now, I thought that this disease only affected tomatoes and peppers. This was obviously mother nature's way of instructing me of my error. I would have just believed her had she sent me a nice note, or maybe a phone call... she didn't have to let me experience it for myself!

Awhile back I mentioned that I had three lovely little melons that had been painstakingly hand pollinated. I went outside to check on my little ovals of joy only to find them all separated from their vine or just barely clinging on. Of course, they all had little black butts to indicate what had happened.

Enter devastation.

After some researching, I read somewhere that a fellow Missouri gardener had had trouble with BER and their watermelons as well. Their fix? Stop watering them. I didn't understand how this would help, but I was so upset at my little guys having their lives cut short, a solution that involved no effort seemed like a good idea to me.

I mulched the plants just to make sure they didn't dry out during the 100 degree temperatures we'd been having, and then I ignored them. I was so disgusted, I didn't even stop to check on them for two weeks.

After my mourning period had passed, I happened to notice while mowing the lawn that the foliage was looking great, and that they were vining in every direction. With feigned interest, I poked and prodded around the spirals.

I found four pollinated fruits, all of which were larger than the first round of diseased babes.

Above is the largest of the four, and this one keeps growing every day.

Grow baby, grow!

Harvest Monday

2010-08-30T07:56:00.005-05:00

I had a varied harvest this week - 3 different types of veggies!

Now, I didn't say it was plentiful. Just varied.

This is the last of the tomatoes from my sad little tomato plant that could only handle three fruits on it. The others went on top of my zucchini-ricotta-tomato galette, but I'm not sure what to do with this guy. I need to decide soon, because he's getting kind of squishy!

The first green bean of the year has arrived, but only as a casuality. I found him on the ground when I was taking my morning walk through the garden. What am I supposed to do with one green bean?

And then there's the cucumber. A very, very confused cucumber. Perhaps it thought it was supposed to be some sort of gourd? I went ahead and picked it because it has been this size and shape for the past few days, and the poor plant it was growing on is all shriveled from the effort of producing it.

So what to do with a squishy tomato, a tiny green bean, and a misshapen cucumber? Maybe a dysfunctional salad of sorts?

Tad and I also harvested some sunflower heads yesterday. They were not completely ready yet, but I've seen the birds eyeballing them for a few days now and I wanted to beat them to it.

We're apparently supposed to hang them to dry in a well ventilated area before we roast them. We'll see how it goes! If anything, the hanging sunflower heads sure do tease the cats to no end; they swarm around underneath it, stare upwards, and meow pathetically at the taunting, swinging object. This, of course, provides great entertainment for us!

Some random herbs were picked, as well, but only in the middle of cooking so no pictures were taken.

The first marigold has bloomed, and I have been looking for something to do with it. I know that most people don't actually use them for any sort of recipe... but hey, it's edible, and I grew it, so why not try to use it?

Although, I was under the impression that they were more orange in color. This plant keeps surprising me. I thought that it was a parsley plant when I started growing it from seed up until it was about a foot tall. Then I visited my parents and my mom pointed out her marigolds growing in some containers, and I said, "Hey, those leaves look a lot like my parsley leaves!."

Once that came out of my mouth I realized my mistake. Yeah, I really need to start labeling my seeds better when I start germinating them.

Thank goodness for moms, though. Because otherwise I would have made this post and said something along the lines of, "I didn't know parsley had flowers like this!"

Want to see more bountiful harvests? Head over to Daphne's Dandelions to check them out.

Homemade Yogurt

2010-08-29T09:06:00.005-05:00

So I took a little hiatus from blogging (and from gardening, too). My last semester started up on Monday, which has taken a good chunk of free time away from me. I also came down with a pretty nasty cold, which of course had to arrive on my days off. The cold is almost gone, but tomorrow is already another start of a school week. Looks like I'll just have to start waking up a little earlier so that I don't neglect all of my plants!

Anyway! Yesterday was a busy day for me. Homemade yogurt, deodorant, and hamburger buns were all on the agenda, and I must say, they all turned out fabulously. Rest assured, I will be blogging about all of these attempts in due course. For now, however, we will focus on the yogurt.

I was a little intimidated by this endeavor, although I am not really sure why. Maybe I felt a little iffy because it involves heating milk and leaving it in a warm cooler for a few hours? Or maybe because I might do something wrong, and the bacteria cultures would go from being nice and healthy and turn into evil bacteria and end up killing me?

Yeah I don't know. But it ended up being really easy. I even screwed up a little, and the good bacteria remained good bacteria. Who would have thought.

Ingredients:
1. Milk
2. A cup of plain yogurt.

Equipment:
1. Jars, either mason jars or some jars that you saved. I use two mason jars and two old salsa jars, and they both turned out well.
2. Thermometer. I used a meat thermometer and it worked beautifully.
3. A cooler.

Yeah, that's it. Add in about 15 minutes of effort, a few hours of sitting around waiting while it incubates and then chills, and voila! Yogurt.

(I had to taste it before I could photograph it! Hence why two of the jars have some missing.)

Here is what you have to do:

1. Sterilize the jars you are using. We don't have a dishwasher, so I went through with this step. If you do have one, I'm not sure this would be absolutely necessary. It's best to err on the side of caution, though.

2. Warm the milk to around 185 degrees Fahrenheit. I did this over low heat because I didn't have a heavy bottomed pan and was worried about the milk sticking to the bottom. How much yogurt you want to make will dictate how much milk you will use. I used a half gallon of milk (8 cups), but I will probably do a little less next time.

3. Once it is heated, let it cool to 120 degrees Fahrenheit. I just moved the pot off of the heat, but if you are in a hurry, I assume you could use some sort of cold water bath in your sink.

4. When it is cooled, stir the yogurt into the milk, making sure to incorporate it well. If this is your first time making homemade yogurt, you have to use a cup bought from the store (it should be plain and contain active/live cultures). However, once you make this recipe, you can just use a cup of your own yogurt as a starter. All of the recipes I have looked at suggest using a cup of starter per gallon of milk, so if you are only doing a half gallon, a 1/2 cup should be fine.

5. At this point I added a 1/2 cup of sugar and a few teaspoons of vanilla because I wanted something a little sweeter than plain yogurt.

6. Pour the milk into your jars and place in a cooler.

7. Heat a gallon of water to 120 degrees Fahrenheit and pour this water into the cooler.

8. Close the lid and let sit for 3 hours.

9. Remove to the refrigerator to chill.

10. Pop open a jar, spoon into a bowl, and top with some homemade granola and honey, perhaps? Yes please.

Some comments:
I will admit, I messed up a little. Have you read any of my attempts at recipes? This was inevitable. One day, I will make something perfect on the first try! I heated the water for the cooler too much... maybe by... I don't know... 70 degrees? Eesh. It turned out fine though, just not as thick as it should have been.

Speaking of thickness: I used whole milk. Most of the recipes I have read suggest using whole milk, which I assume is because any reduced fat milk will yield a thinner consistency. If you need to use a reduced fat milk for health reasons, you might try adding some powdered milk to help it set up.

One of my jars turned out to be a little loose, and I am not sure why. I might try to make some greek yogurt with this jar by straining out the liquid through a towel for a few hours. I am not sure if this will work since I added sugar to the yogurt, but we shall see.

Making homemade yogurt is a big money saver, and it also reduces the amount of trash that you go through. You are also able to control the amount of sugar and added products that go into it, which is always a positive. I can't wait to try this our with some raw milk, because I assume the results will be amazing!

Zucchini and Ricotta (and Tomato) Galette

2010-08-20T11:09:00.006-05:00

Around the time I was drooling over that breakfast pizza which turned into an odd concoction of salami and other random items, I found this recipe over at smitten kitchen. I had some leftover ricotta that I needed to use up and I had been wanting to try something vegetarian besides pasta, so this looked like the perfect thing to attempt to make.

Now, it was especially intimidating considering I am not even sure how to pronounce 'galette', but I did not let this deter me (edit: someone asked her how to pronounce it, and apparently it rhymes with 'smurfette'). I carefully followed all of the prep directions unlike last time, and I had everything cooling and draining right on time.

I made two changes to the recipe: Because I had some tomatoes that I really wasn't sure what to do with, I sliced them up, sprinkled them with salt, and let them drain with the zucchini (only after did I realize that I had not taken pictures of that tomato harvest yet!). I also used more cheese and less zucchini than the recipe called for, just because I did not want to over do it on the vegetables and have Tad not like it.

And then I made my only mistake, because even though I try to read all the directions... sometimes it just doesn't work out. I set the oven to 300 and not 400, and only realized this after 35 minutes of baking. This didn't mess anything up too badly - the zucchini were not as wilty as they should have been, and the top was not as puffy or as golden brown as in the original recipe.

It should also be noted that you should not try to assemble this thing on a baking sheet that is on top of your preheating, 1970s stove because the dough begins to melt and it becomes a hugeee mess. Whoops.

And look, it's round (as Tad aptly noticed when I presented this to him)! I made it a little smaller than the recipe called for so that it would fit on my baking sheet and be round at the same time.

It was delicious, absolutely and completely. I found that the zucchini had a really subtle flavor that was kind of overwhelmed by the flavor of the cheeses, but that was probably my fault for messing with the quantities. The tomatoes were fantastic and delicious! I think I might try this again using tomatoes as the main ingredient. The dough was buttery and flaky and... man, I don't think I'll ever buy puff pastry dough from the store again!

This seems like it would be a great way to use produce from the garden, because so long as you make sure to drain the veggies prior to baking, I think anything you put in that heavenly dough would be delicious.

Harvest Monday

2010-08-15T23:54:00.009-05:00

By reading through some blogs, I found out about this Harvest Monday shindig going on over at Daphne's Dandelions. Not only will participating in this provide me with motivation for taking pictures of my harvests, I can also indulge in garden envy by seeing how much better other people are doing with their gardens. I love living vicariously through others. :)

(Sneaky cats like to run in and get in the middle of camera shots. They also like to pretend they are innocently sniffing tomatoes and before you know it, they have one in their mouth and are trying to sprint off as fast as their furry feet will let them.)
(Which is why I took my second picture outside. I will not have my harvests, however minimal, to be commandeered!)

Anyway. This week, we have been rolling in the tomatoes! Cherry tomatoes #3-7 are pictured above, while #1 and #2 of the season were hastily popped into mouths.

Other than that, I have just been harvesting herbs (basil, rosemary, lemon thyme, and spearmint) for use around the house.

It feels like I am a little behind in what I should be harvesting, but I am not fretting too much. Why? Because I know I have more good things to come:

This is my first patio tomato plant that has survived my woeful attempts at growing from seed. It has its first little tomato, and I couldn't be more proud. I am wondering how large the fruit will get, considering the plant is not very large.

Pictured above there are two of my three unknown 'large' variety of tomato I received from my dad earlier in the year (I never remember to ask him what kind they are). The plant itself stopped growing at only 4ft, maybe to put all of its efforts into its... three... fruit? I don't know. It's a silly plant, but I am glad it's giving me something!

Green bean flower. I love how delicate they look.

A pollinated baby cucumber on the left, and an un-pollinated, shriveling cucumber on the right. I have been trying to hand pollinate every single one of my baby cukes, and I am saddened at the casualty. I go through pickles like it's no one's business so I want all of the tasty things I can get! (Those huge gallon jars you see in the bulk section? Yeah, that would take me a week, tops, to polish off.)

One of three baby watermelon that were successfully pollinated. After accidentally assassinating the first one (I didn't think I poked it hard enough to fall off the vine!), I haven't been taking any chances with these guys. I have been laboriously hand pollinating each tiny girl and then taking a serious hands off approach.

I have high hopes for the upcoming few weeks, but man, I wish that watermelon was ready right now.

No More Shampoo

2010-08-15T10:33:00.005-05:00

Awhile ago I made a super lengthy post discussing the ingredients found in my shampoo and conditioner duo, and I was horrified at what I found. I wasn't going to attempt this endeavor until I had used up the untested chemicals, but after researching I decided to go full steam ahead.
For the past ten days, whenever my hair needed to be washed, I would go through the following regime:

(Fuzzy cats like to intrude upon my picture taking)

1. Measure out 1 tbsp of baking soda and 1-2 tbsp of apple cider vinegar. I have been using 1 1/2 tbsp of ACV to start out with. The site instructions I was following said to add to both of these one cup of water, but I only added that much to the ACV. Because I have long, thick hair I decided to make the baking soda into a paste, so I only added a very small amount of water.

2. Brush your hair before hopping in the shower. Seriously. I cannot emphasize how important this step is (at least to me). When using commercial products, I would never have to brush prior to shampooing and conditioning... I don't know why, I just didn't need to. I forgot to do this the first time I attempted the baking soda, and man was it tough to work through my tangly mess of hair. Brushing also helps dislodge some of the dirt and grime from your scalp, making the baking soda's job a little easier.

3. Pour the baking soda solution over your hair and work it in all over, doing this for about a minute. Because I was using a paste and not a watery solution, I made sure that my hair was extremely wet before applying the baking soda.

4. Pour the ACV rinse over your hair slowly. Initially I just had this in a cup, but eventually I found that putting the solution into an old lemon juice squeezy bottle worked wonderfully - it doled out the solution in small amounts, making it easier to completely coat my hair.

5. Rinse hair to remove any residual baking soda granules. I had to do this because I was using a paste, but I'm not sure it would be necessary if you were just using a watered down solution of it.

In ten days I have done this regime three different times. At first it is a little tricky to get used to, especially with my shower time limit going on, but it eventually becomes a routine.

What do I think of this undertaking? I love it.

My hair is healthier, shinier, and so much smoother than when I used the commercial products (and when it is this humid outside, having hardly any rogue frizzy strands is quite an accomplishment).

Now for some random comments:

The ACV smell, although pungent at first, dissipates very quickly after being used. Don't worry, you won't go around smelling like vinegar.

Some people go through a greaseball period where their hair overproduces oils when they stop using the commercial products that are constantly stripping oils from the hair. I went through a short period of this, but it is short, and it will stop. It should be noted that during this time, you should not over-wash your hair with baking soda to get rid of the excess oils. Instead, you should just ride it out and wash on a regular basis.

Apparently as you become more used to this regime, you will only have to use the ACV rinse every other, or even every third, time you use the baking soda.

Also, once past the greaseball stage, most people average washing their hair with the baking soda 1-2 times a week or less (the lower end being in the cooler months and the higher end of the spectrum being in the warmer months).

Some people end up overdoing the baking soda. Well don't. I only used a tbsp each time, and I was extremely sweaty, extremely dirty, and my hair is both moderately long and rather thick. Despite all this, the 1 tbsp was more than enough.

Don't use other commercial products (like smoothing serum, hair spray, etc) with your hair that have long lists of ingredients you can't pronounce. They probably contain many of the same ingredients in shampoos and conditioners, and by using these products, you will undo what benefits you were gaining from the baking soda and ACV combo. You may be tempted to slather on some things during the first week, but don't. You can persevere!

If you do want to style your hair, this site has a nice list of homemade hair gels and sprays that are made from natural ingredients.

I haven't tried flat-ironing or blow-drying my hair after using this technique, but I wouldn't advise it. It can be damaging to your hair, and who wants that after all the hard work you put towards making it healthier?

All right, end of instructions. I can't tell you how happy I am with how this project turned out: not only am I feeling more confident about my healthy hair, I am also saving a boatload of money by not buying expensive commercial 'haircare' products.

Pizza!

2010-08-14T12:47:00.005-05:00

So, this started out when I found a recipe for breakfast pizza. I don't know why, but the thought of a fried egg on top of a pizza just made my mouth water. I decided that we were going to have this bad boy for breakfast in the morning.

I mixed up the dough in my breadmaker at 10:00 pm (which was right around the time I decided to make it the following morning). The breadmaker cycle for dough is only an hour and thirty minutes. That's how long I had to stay awake.

By 10:10, my eyes were falling. There was no way I was going to make it, so I did what any sensible person would do: go lay down and take a nap, setting an alarm for 11:30 so I could get up, remove the dough and chill it.

Now, when I fall asleep, I'm asleep. There's nothing else to it. I don't hear alarms, but for some reason at 10:10pm with drooping eyes, I thought I would. When I lived at home with my parents and they weren't around to wake me up for school... I wouldn't wake up. The alarm would go off, and I guess I immediately just turned it off without awaking from my blissful slumber. Most people hit the snooze - not me. I go straight for the off button. I don't mess around with my sleep. It got to the point where I would have to put the alarm halfway across the room so that I would eventually hear it and have to remove myself from my comfy bed to turn it off. A few times even this tactic didn't work, and I'd find myself with blinking, gunky eyes at 3:00pm.

Anyway, what does this anecdotal story have to do with my pizza dough? Yeah, you guessed it, I didn't wake up. I rolled over at 3:00am because a cat jumped on my head, and through my slitted eyes I saw that the light was on. In my sleepy state, I wondered, 'Why is the reading light on when its 3:00am?'

I jumped out of bed. Luckily I had decided to keep the light on when I laid down as a poorly planned secondary tactic when I inevitably didn't wake up to the alarm. That way, if I happened to wake up a little, I'd wonder why the light was on, and ding! I would remember the dough. This is what you are reduced to when regular alarms fail.

I didn't even put my glasses on, I just ran into the kitchen, unplugged the machine, and hastily tried to remove the gluey mess from my bread machine. I managed to get most of it out, but some large portions I had to compost because they were all dried and crispy. Shoving the stupid dough in the fridge, I went back to the bedroom and set the alarm for 6, so I'd have enough time to make the pizza, have breakfast by 7 and be out the door for my doctor's appointment at 8.

This might be a good time to say that I don't really read recipes. I mean, I skim them, get the general idea, and go from there. I really wished I would have read the dough recipe, or at least the part that said, "Move to a warm place 1-2 hours before baking to let it rise."

I wake up at 6:30am, no thanks to the alarm. Thankfully Tad started getting fussy and woke me up to tell me to go make the breakfast pizza. I decided to re-skim the recipe just to make sure I wasn't missing anything, and lo and behold I found out the tragic news of the rising time.

We had eggs for breakfast.

Cue the following night, with a very determined psuedo-cook who wants to use her dough that she had to wake up at 3:00am for.

I was so proud when I laid this badboy out on the table to show Tad, and you know what the first thing he says is?

"Uh... why is it that shape?"

Seriously?! My first homemade pizza, topped with some things fresh out of the garden, with the crust I woke up for at 3:00am, slaving over the hot 450 degree oven when it's equally as hot outside?! And you're worried about the shape?

I angrily explained that we don't have a pizza stone, only a baking sheet, which is rectangular. Then I grabbed my huge knife and began to threateningly cut the stupid, delicious thing (a knife because we don't have a pizza cutter, either).

I should say right now that, just like my inability to read recipes or to wake up in the morning, I also lack what is known as foresight. It was when I took the dough out and began to let it rise that I realized we didn't really have anything to top it with. So I improvised.

Both sides had olive oil, parmesan and mozzarella cheese, and onions. Tad's side had salami, cream cheese, and basil from the garden. My side had sliced zucchini and two cherry tomatoes from the garden.

I know, weird. But it was completely delicious for the first try at pizza, and I know I can make it better. Tad's looking forward to my attempts at stuffed crust... we'll see how that goes.

I still really want a breakfast pizza though. But that can't happen until we invest in a pizza stone, because someone around here is unusually picky about the shape of their pizza.

The Front Flowerbed

2010-08-13T08:33:00.009-05:00

When we moved here in April, the first project I tackled was clearing out the front flowerbed that was basically weeds, mulch, and soooo many rocks. I am still confused as to what used to be there... a rock, wood chip garden? Makes sense.

I spent hours outside in the cold removing a foot and a half of wood chips and around 30 rocks the size of my head. When everything was cleared out, I dug up the earth with a spoon because I didn't have a hand shovel yet. It was grueling work, but I was determined to have flowers!
My dad gave me some canna bulbs, and I had some leftover sunflower seeds from a few years ago. I toiled with my spoon and eventually had bulbs and seeds all planted.

And then the next day it torrentially rained.

Because I was digging with a spoon, I decided not to plant the sunflower seeds as deep as I should have. What can I say? Spoons give some nasty blisters. A lot of the sunflower seeds got washed away, but I still had a few that sprouted!

The picture above was taken in early May. You can see cannas lining along the cement bricks, with sunflowers sprouting behind them. I also lined the sidewalk with some containing a random assortment of plants.
The above photo is from early June. Some growth but not enough to brag about.

Because I forgot to take a picture early in July, this next snapshot is from late July. Yay blooms! You can also kind of see some of the additions I made to the front (besides the haphazardly placed cement blocks). In front of the cannas I have two cantaloupe, two container tomato plants (I ran out of containers), and four basil plants.

And now a snapshot of this morning. You can kind of see that my sunflowers have all nearly bloomed, and there a few droopy heads in the back. Unfortunately all the sunflowers face away from the streetview, but oh well. That just means I get to look at them more. It's amazing to look at progression pictures, because you notice the small things more. Like the fact that in two weeks, some of the sunflowers have grown over a foot... some of the cannas, too!

The sunflower furthest to the left is a little cutie. He's a 1/4 of the size of all of the others, and his stalk is about the width of my finger.

The cannas are fun to watch while they are blooming. There will be an inconspicuous stalk amidst the large leaves:

And poof: vibrant red blooms. The hummingbirds love them.

When our lease is up I'd really like to leave the bulbs in the ground, but I'm not sure if they'd be able to survive the frost. I'm also unsure if it is a good idea to save their seeds. My dad never does - he just digs the bulbs up in the fall and he always has more than he initially planted, so growing from seed might be an unnecessary hassle.

Looks like I need to do some research.

Peas

2010-08-11T11:15:00.007-05:00

This all started when Tad told me he wanted to try planting dried beans when I discussed this whole 'fall crop' thing. I readily agreed - soup is probably my favorite meal to make, and my mouth started watering when I thought about using my own beans in some of my favorite recipes. We'd be able to cozy up on a cold winter day with a steaming bowl and a nice chunk of homemade bread.... And then my daydream ended when I found out how long they take to mature. My future plans of soupy bliss were foiled! Oh well, next year.

In my search for fall crops, I was trying to find something that Tad might like to grow instead of dried beans - the hard part was trying to find something he might be excited about eating. I finally settled on peas and added them to my virtual shopping basket over at the Seed Savers Exchange. I figured that its a vegetable Tad will tolerate and I could put it in soups and stews during the winter. Double whammy!

Now, this 'fall crop' fiasco eludes me. My parents only ever planted for a summer harvest, so the idea of harvesting crops in the later months is a foreign concept. You're also supposed to be planting things that thrive in cooler weather... well, I'm not sure how well this is going to work with Missouri weather. Sometimes there are no in between seasons for us, just summer and winter. It will be 100 degrees in the middle of October, and the next day, bam! Snow. Quite honestly, August so far has been even hotter than July was.

For all of the above reasons, I am unhopeful for any cool weather loving plant to thrive. But that doesn't mean I am not going to try! A list of seeds bought for this new frontier (and also for the spring when all of the seedlings end up choking on the heat that exists in August) include: Turnips, Swiss Chard, Kale, Amish Snap Peas, and Green Arrow Shelling Peas.

On the 2nd of August, Tad and I began constructing trellises to support these vine-y crops. A recent trip to the store indicated that if we were going to need a trellis, we sure as hell were not going to buy a pre-made one (those prices are outrageous!). Luckily, Tad's Dad had some old mini gardening fences that, with a little ingenuity and some twine, became outlandish creations that will supposedly hold up the vines:

After trying to cooperate and build these things together, we both agreed that the other had nooo idea what needed to be done. Contest time! I snagged some fencing and told Tad to go off and do his own thing with the remaining fencing, and we would see in due time whose idea was better. In the picture above, my design is on the left, and Tad's is on the right (which is actually being suspended from the tree next to the porch).

While building these... things was fun and drove our creative processes, we needed more. I need peas for winter, and two measly trellises that might work was not going to cut it. What next? Well, we had an abundance of sticks piled up next to our house. We also had twine. The tree trellis was born:

More sticks will be added to the top as the plant grow, because it isn't quite tall enough yet. Only one of the branches reaches 6 feet. But hey, it's sturdy and whimsical... and boy are we glad we decided the best place for peas was in our back yard. I don't even want to know what the neighbors would have thought if we stuck that thing in the middle of our front yard. In case you are curious, the snap peas were planted by the garden fence trellises, and the shelling peas were planted around the tree trellis.

The cost of these trellises? Free! This makes my poor college self one happy camper.

I also decided to do an experiment with the peas before planting: I had heard that soaking peas prior to planting made them germinate faster, so I wanted to test it out. I plopped five seeds of each variety into a bucket of water to soak the night before we were going to plant them, and left them in the water until they were ready to go into the ground. I also plopped another five seeds of each variety into the water and let them soak for the night before, and then removed them a few hours prior to planting to let them dry a little. Then we had five seeds of each variety which was used as a control group - no soaking, planted straight from the package.

Planting happened on the 2nd of August, and germination of the presoaked seeds (both those that were left in the water until planting and those that had a drying period) occurred on the 6th. Nearly all of the presoaked plants have begun poking their heads up. Up to this point, we only have two unsoaked seeds germinated, which happened on the 9th and 10th.

I guess I'll be presoaking my peas prior to planting from now on!

Despite the heat, the little troopers are chugging right along. Hopefully the temperatures start dropping soon instead of just increasing. I want peas for winter!

We're Being Invaded!

2010-08-10T11:50:00.008-05:00

I walk out into the humidified heat wave that the Midwest is currently experiencing (come on, really? 110 degrees outside when last week it got down to 88?), and do my daily routine of watering and weeding.

In-between my rounds, I made a pitstop at the compost bins that are near our garage.

Until recently, I've only had one compost bin (the white lidded one). However, I realized that if I just kept adding more and more materials, I would never be able to let the whole bin mellow and do its thing. I had been waiting for it to get full, but we don't produce enough scraps to ever fill it completely before it decomposes enough and makes more room. I ended up converting the ex-potato bin into a new composting unit so that I could have one bin decomposing and another for putting my kitchen scraps.

It was about time to turn and stir its contents, so I cracked off the lid and began poking around inside with a stick, looking at the progress. And man, let me tell you, the bin was doing great! I had only recently stopped putting scraps in there, but I couldn't even find evidence of any scraps throughout - only paper products. Now, this is extremely surprising for one main reason: I am lazy. I don't crumble or chop my kitchen scraps into tiny pieces. I just chuck them in there and hope for the best.

Mentally patting myself on the back, I secured the lid back on and flopped the bin on its side. Then I saw these:

My jaw dropped. There was an army of worm-maggoty-aliens covered in mud. And they were huge!

I snapped a few pictures, trying not to get too close to them for fear that they would crack open any second and spew forth whatever horrible concoction that this was the larvae form for. Then I ran inside.

I was convinced these things were evil and that I would need to eradicate them from the bin the preserve what little compost I could. After googling something along the lines of "huge evil looking maggot larvae that moves like a worm in compost bin," I discovered these to be black soldier fly larvae (I'm still surprised that I was able to find any results with my obscure search words). And what do I find out about my evil looking friends? That they are extremely beneficial.

So I set down my pitchfork and burning torch, and tried to calm my angry mob mentality.

Apparently these guys are voracious eaters, and they love them some nitrogen-rich waste. They are only present during the warm months, and despite some nasty rumors that they eat and ravish worms in compost bins, most people recommend trying to keep them around. The adult form is a large black fly that resembles a wasp, but unlike the common housefly, does not carry or transmit any diseases.

So even though I will now shudder every time I go to flip my bin around some, I'm glad to have those soldiers stationed in my compost.

But is there such a thing as too many? Blech (Sorry for the blurriness... all of these little buggers squirming around made my camera freak out and not focus. I took a video of their slimy bodies all writhing around, but I won't post it for fear of inducing nightmares).

Sunflowers

2010-08-09T13:12:00.005-05:00

My cousin and brother visited us this weekend; we had a great time and enjoyed the change of pace. I made dinner one night consisting of stuffed pasta shells in a tomato sauce. I got to use basil and rosemary from my garden, and the leftover tomato sauce I made for the first time from scratch that was sitting in my freezer. Yum!

Tad and I harvested our first two cherry tomatoes - they were huge! We don't have any pictures of the monumental occasion because my camera charger had not arrived yet, but it was memorable nonetheless. Now, it must be said that Tad and I do not care for raw tomatoes... at all. We love anything involving cooked tomatoes, but the texture and supposed taste of them raw has always deterred me. Because we're growing them, we have become determined to learn to like them.

We went out and picked one ruby globe each, rinsed them off, said cheers, and popped them into our mouths with low expectations. Tad was not expecting them to be so juicy, and when he crunched into his, juice projected out of his mouth and onto the table which had a card game set up. Whoops!

I was surprised at the taste - a little tart, very juicy, mildly acidic, and very tomatoey. The skin was pretty chewy, too, which was unexpected. All in all, I would say our first adventure to liking raw tomatoes turned out to be a positive. They were relatively tasty (we didn't spit out anything, although I saw Tad take a big drink of water afterward), and I have heard that sometimes the first tomatoes off a plant aren't the best flavor wise. We shall see!

My camera charger arrived in the mail over the weekend, so I have many new pictures to post in the following days.

I leave you now with images of my sunflowers. These are older pictures, and the head that is shown below is now droopy and heavy with the weight of its seeds. Tad's determined to save the heads for some homegrown sunflower seeds, and I wished him good luck. My parents have been trying to save their sunflower heads for years, but the birds always beat them to it.

Peek-a-boo

I see you!

Sir, there's something strange in my soup.

2010-08-05T13:59:00.016-05:00

So. I still don't have a camera charger. And it's killing me.

Sunflowers are blooming, tomatoes are blushing, and baby cukes and watermelon are emerging. All these 'firsts' and I cannot take pictures of them! Oh well, soon.

Since there are no pictures to upload and I still wanted to make a blogpost, I decided to start my adventure of going shampoo free.

Why? Take a look at the ingredient list on your shampoo and conditioner, do a little googling, and you'll soon fine out why.

I love my hair, and up until recently I was just like other people... thinking that spending more money on hair products would ensure a better result. Being an environmentalist had its affects on my decisions, in that I would always excitedly try new products that were 'natural' or 'organic.'

I had always thought something was strange about commercial products, because I could not understand why the shampoos were so harsh that my hair would be extremely dry if I didn't smother it in conditioner immediately after. If I forgot to condition, I would find myself caking my hair in body lotion while thinking, 'I had oil in my hair before, then I washed it away, and now I am adding more oil to repair the damage of washing?'

This has always perplexed me.

Fast forward to last night, when I looked at the back of my Pantene Nature Fusion Shampoo and Ice Shine Conditioner bottles. What I saw was a giant list of chemicals I would not even try to pronounce because I would end up looking like a fool. I googled these ingredients, and here is what I learned from my hard work (it's long and probably boring, I don't blame you if you skip past it):

Nature Fusion Shampoo
Water

Sodium Laureth Sulfate – detergent and foaming agent that dissolves oils on the skin which can lead to drying. It is shown to be an irritant and contains low levels of carcinogens (known as 1,4-dioxane). The FDA recommends that 1,4-dioxane be removed from products but it is not required by law.

Cocamidopropyl Betaine – foaming agent and penetration enhancer which allows the other chemicals in the shampoo to get into your skin more readily. There are numerous conflicting results regarding toxicity.

Sodium xylenesulfonate – thickener that has not been assessed for cosmetic use. It is possibly linked with liver failures at high doses.

Cocamide MEA – thickener and foaming agent. It is used as a ‘safe alternative’ to Cocamide DEA which has been cited as being cancer causing. This chemical has not been tested and is said to have the possibility of reacting with other ingredients and subsequently form DEA. It is a restricted chemical and cannot be used in products that are airborne because the vapor is extremely toxic

Cassia Hydroxypropyltrimonium Chloride – extract from a seed’s cell walls and turned into a large chemical compound.

Bambusa Vulgaris Shoot Extract

Vitis Vinifera (Grape) Seed Extract

Persea Gratissima (Avocado) Oil

Panthenol – moisturizering agent that is converted to vitamin b5 in the body. Conflicting information: this chemical either has been shown to be toxic in high doses to animals, or is removed from the body too quickly to be toxic in any dose. May cause slight irritation or gastrointestinal distress.

Panthenyl Ethyl Ether – moisturizer or anti-static agent. Likewise with above, conflicting information either saying it has been linked to organ system failure in high doses or that is has not been shown to cause complications.

Citric Acid – preservative added to keep the pH down.

Dimnthicone – anti foaming agent that helps reduce tangles, also coating the skin and preventing things from going in or out (like plastic). This chemical is a silicone emollient, and others like it are known tumor promoters and are non-biodegradable. It is also contained in creams, but expectant mothers or breast feeding mothers should consult a physician before using.

Fragrance

Sodium Benzoate – preservative that kills bacteria and fungi, known to cause asthma and has been linked to skin allergies. Children are more susceptible to its effects.

Disodium EDTA – alters the skin structure and makes it a penetration enhancer. Animal studies involving this chemical have shown brain and nervous system effects, cancer, organ system effects, endocrine disruption, and effects on reproductive organs. It is also used to maintain color in frozen white potatoes and in some varieties of canned beans. In the recommended doses of shampoo this chemical is reported to be fine, but this ingredient can react with unstable properties in food and produce benzenes which are known carcinogens. Widespread use of this chemical has made it become a persistent environmental pollutant.

Methylchloroisothiazolinone – preservative with antifungal and antibacterial properties. Prolonged exposure of this chemical to pregnant women can cause abnormal brain development in the fetus. It is also known to attack the nervous system which, over time, may be linked to Alzheimer’s disease. There are conflicting results regarding its link to cancer. It can cause chemical burns, so it was removed from cosmetic products except those that were rinsed from the skin quickly.

Methylisothiazolinone – preservative that has been linked to nerve cell death in some studies (these were later refuted, saying that the doses in cosmetics and shampoos were too low to cause damage).

Sodium Citrate – used as a buffer to keep the shampoo acidic.

Ice Shine Conditioner

Water

Stearyl Alcohol – thickener and emulsifier. In large doses has been shown to cause tumors.

Cetyl Alcohol – historically was created by sperm whale oil, but is now either an end-product of the petroleum industry or produced from vegetable oils. It is used as a surfactant in shampoos (reducing the surface tension of the water so that it allows for easier spreading). It is also an irritant, but there is no information regarding links to cancer or changes in reproductive organs.

Stearamidopropyl Dimethylamine – anti static agent. No evidence of harm to humans, but thought to be an environmental toxin. This chemical has not been assessed for cosmetic safety.

Bis-Aminopropyl Dimethicone – couldn’t find much information, other than that it is ‘new’.

Panthenyl ethyl ether - Listed above in shampoo ingredients.

Panthenol - Listed above in shampoo ingredients.

Glutamic Acid – MSG. Apparently. Who knew? This is a naturally occurring amino acid found in proteins. It is non-essential for us (we make our own), and we can control the amount of it that our body receives when we are eating protein. However, those amino acids that are produced chemically are ‘free,’ which apparently means that the body has trouble regulating it. It is known to cause adverse reactions like migraine headaches, asthma, brain damage, endocrine disturbances… the list goes on.

Benzyl Alcohol – fragrance and preservative agent. It is linked to neurotoxicity, cancer, and effects on reproductive systems in high doses.

EDTA - Listed above in shampoo ingredients

Cirtic Acid - Listed above in shampoo ingredients

Sodium Chloride – table salt, which is used to help with the thickness of the shampoo and as a cleanser

Methylchloroisothiazolinone - Listed above in shampoo ingredients

Methylisothiazolinone - Listed above in shampoo ingredients

Now this list may seem like I am trying to play up the toxicity levels, but the truth is that there is not even enough information to begin understanding what these chemicals are doing to our bodies. A large majority of these ingredients were not even tested for safe use in cosmetics!

For ingredients that were known to be somewhat toxic, the excuse was used that the concentration amounts used in cosmetics were not enough to cause harm. But what if people are using these products every day, or twice a day? To be quite honest, that is not worth the risk for me.

"It's safe, I promise! Just, uh... don't use too much of it."

No thanks.

After looking at these ingredients and their possible consequences, I stumbled across The Story of Stuff which happened to have an episode about cosmetics. It's interesting, so you should check it out.

So I know what you're thinking - everything causes cancer, doesn't it? There is just no way to avoid all of these chemicals, because they are in everything.

Wrong.

The site above has a tutorial on how to take care of your hair using three ingredients: Water, Baking Soda, and Apple Cider Vinegar.

I was going to wait until I ran our of shampoo to begin trying this out... but I think it's better to stop using the commercial stuff as soon as I can. Updates soon!

The Sink Bowl

2010-08-01T23:51:00.006-05:00

I have been realizing that I waste a lot of water for daily tasks that don't necessarily cause the water to become very dirty or unusable. For instance, waiting for the water to get hot to do dishes, or rinsing off hands or vegetables. While I wouldn't drink this water, I could certainly still use it on my garden.
Because my camera's charger is currently indisposed, I made some drawings to go through the step-by-step process of installing the ridiculously complicated under-the-faucet-bowl:

Below is a diagram of my sink. I drew it and knew I would be lying to myself because of how clean it looked, so I made it more realistic and added a pile of dirty dishes. Please note the water going down the drain:

Next is how to combat this problem of wasted water: the bowl! Leaving it underneath the faucet will allow me to catch the water being used to rinse the veggies and reuse it for something else:

What will I do with my bounty of saved water?

Don a purple dress and go water my tiny yellow flowers!
I guess I need to start growing tiny yellow flowers to complete this goal. Also a purple dress.

Garden Critters

2010-07-29T15:25:00.004-05:00

Phew. The past few days have been busy with catching up on things from while we were away (both gardening wise and other things) and Starcraft II, so there hasn't been a lot of time for blogging.

Vacation was fabulous! Lots of relaxation, camp fires, yummy food, fishing, swimming, family time, and board games. I was so busy doing nothing, I did not even take any pictures this year! What is wrong with me? Bah.

I always hate leaving, but the whole time I knew I was purposely suppressing worries about home. Would I come back to no tomatoes? Did all my plants shrivel up and die from no water? Are the cats okay? Are the cats ripping things to shreds?

Once we pulled out of the resort and got on the highway, I was anxious to get home. There was no need for worrying though, everything was fantastic. Our friend did a fantastic job of holding down the fort.

There is a lot of exciting stuff going on in the garden right now. Beets and beans are sprouting, tomatoes are getting larger, sunflowers and mint are blooming, and my first baby cucumber has emerged (I suppose this last thing is a large disappointment seeing as how there are no male flowers yet). Unfortunately you will just have to take my word for it because my camera charger is refusing to do the job it was made for.

Due to this inability to take new pictures and get old pictures off of my camera, today's post is dedicated to some critters I find running around in the garden.

This one hung out on our garage door for at least 5 hours, in that exact same post. We looked away for a second and poof! It was gone:

At first I had been at war with ants because they were all over my sunflowers, but after researching, I found out that ants are just an indicator pest. Apparently them being around means that there is something else that is harmful. The picture below is an underside of a sunflower leaf. The ants are all freaking out over these tiny little bugs that are slowly eating away the leaf. Are the ants eating them? Hell if I know. It just looks like they run around on top of the tiny bugs saying, "Hey, whatcha doing, can I look?"

After many hours of observing, there is a progression to this madness: This armored looking bug comes first and sits on the underside vein and slowly nibbles. When the vein is almost split, these little tiny bugs show up and start munching (Does the armored bug reproduce to make these lil' guys? I have no clue!). Then the armored bug leaves and the ants show up and are either very happy or very confused.

I have a lot of time on my hands:

Finally, the most abundant creature in my garden, showcased by Tad holding it on a rock:

Ick. I found this party happening underneath some stones. Salt showed up uninvited. The rest is history:

When Tad came home he was mortified that I had salted the creatures. "How would you like it if someone a million times your size poured salt on you?" he asked me.

Hey now, I would like to come to an agreement with these guys. But no. They eat my foliage, threaten my canna lilies and vegetable plants. I just can't sit back and watch as they lay waste to all of my hard work!

Birthday Extravaganza

2010-07-16T08:36:00.004-05:00

The 14th was Tad's birthday, and he turned the ripe age of 24. Old fogey.

I have not been able to order him a birthday present yet - I know what I am getting him but since we are going on vacation for 10 days starting tonight, I did not want to have the package sitting on our porch for the duration of our vacation.

So instead my presents were in the form of food!For breakfast we had peanut butter and banana stuffed french toast with bacon.

This was extremely easy to make and a yummy change from plain french toast. All I had to do was slather a piece of bread with peanut butter, sliced bananas, and drizzle some honey. Then you smack another piece of bread on top to make a sandwich, dip it into your egg mixture, and cook until golden brown. The banana was ooey and gooey and just fantastic.

For dinner, Tad requested that I have a go at making homemade sesame chicken, which is probably one of his favorite things to eat in the entire world. I found a very simple recipe here. However, we went to Walmart to buy some random ingredients, and we could not find the Chinese Five spice powder or sesame seeds, and their ginger was $7 for a teeny-tiny little bottle. So what I ended up making was less of a sesame chicken and more of just a honey-teriyaki glazed chicken, but it still turned out yummy.

(I'm not sure why this picture turned out so grainy. Hm.)

I only added the veggies for myself because I did not want to force vegetables down his throat on his birthday. I used one bell pepper and some leftover broccoli from the night before, all served over brown rice.

And for dessert (we also had a slice for lunch, too!): Peanut Butter Cheeseca ke.

Oh my. I am not a huge peanut butter fan (Tad is), but I really liked this. I even made my own whipped cream to put into the filling! It was a lot of whisking, but the stiff peaks that developed onto the end of the whisk when I was done looked like majestic mountains of success!

I took the advice of the reviewers for the crust and changed the amounts a little. It had initially called for 2 1/2 cups of rice krispies and 1 cup of chocolate chips, but I modified it to be 1 3/4 cups of krispies and 1 1/2 cups of chocolate.

The crust was still relatively thick in spots, but that's my fault because I am apparently not very good at making an even layer. Also, man was that sucker hard to cut! Next time I might cut it in the middle of the freezing process just because it was such a pain once it became a solid mass. That or let it thaw for 15 minutes prior to trying to cut it. I did like the taste of the crust, but maybe next time I'll just stick with a cookie crust.

Well, I have procrastinated long enough by blogging - I really need to start packing. 10 days of swimming, fishing, campfires, floating, and napping? And I get to see my family? Yes please! A friend of ours is going to be looking after our cats, and he said he would check on my plants when he visits the house. A heavy weight has been lifted from my shoulders, especially since the 10 day forecast for Columbia says no rain. Oh well.

Shower Length

2010-07-11T11:07:00.004-05:00

I have decided to start taking a little time out of every week to post about some of the changes I am trying to make in my life either to save money, save energy, or eliminate unnecessary wastes. I have an ongoing list of things I want do, and I realized the other night that the list keeps growing without having anything come off.

To kick things off, I decided to try and tackle one of the items on my list that I have been dreading thinking about: my showers. Now I have been a little iffy about posting this, because showers are a very private time, ya know? But who am I kidding - the only people that read this are my mom and Tad!

I have been on a crusade lately to minimize our water use (like choosing a WonderWash instead of an old washing machine and placing makeshift rain-barrels under our gutter to help with watering the garden). However, I have known for awhile that a big area of my life that needed to improve was my showers. I resisted and fell back into a state of ignorant bliss.

I should admit here, even though it may tarnish my reputation as being a clean individual, that I do not shower every day. Sure, I shower if I am dirty from working in the garden or from exercising, but who am I kidding. If I go to work, I sit in a tiny box that is a constant 68 degrees and then I come home and plop down on the couch and sit in front of a fan. Why should I shower after a long day of sitting in temperature controlled environments? Did I exert myself to the point of perspiring? No. So I shower when I need to. There. It's out in the open.

This is probably the main reason why I take really extravagant showers whenever I do need to. I guess I feel like I deserve it since I do not waste water everyday by needless cleansing. What a load of crock! But hey, I never said I was perfect.

After finally conceding that something needed to change in my shower ritual, I figured that today would be the day that I would do a baseline test to see what my normal shower rituals were and how long they lasted. Ugh. How depressing.

1. Enter bathroom, turn on light, disrobe, enter shower.
2. Stand around and wait for the water to warm up enough to not give me a heartattack when it comes out of the showerhead.
3. Pull the stopper and dash like mad to the other side of the shower to avoid the initial cold spray.
4. Soak down hair, mess with the temperature some more, scrub head with shampoo and rinse. Condition and rinse.
5. Scrub down face with loofah. Wash face with soap. Rinse face.
6. Scrub down body with loofah. Lather body with soap.
7. Shave underarms and then entire legs. Rinse off soap.
8. Stand around and daydream.
9. Since it's summer, I always mess with the temperature some more near the end of the shower to make it crisp and cool. Then I stand around some more and daydream.
10. Stop water and dry off.

25 minutes. Oh the humanity. Now, I must admit that I knew I was on the clock, so I did rush through my normal tasks and did not take as much daydreaming time as I normally would. Because of this, I would assume my average time is more like 30 minutes for a normal shower where I wasn't trying to beat the clock. Ugh.

Insert attempts to justify the time here: "I am a girl. I take longer than guys." "I have long hair, it takes longer to wash." "I don't shower everyday so it's excuseable."

No. No. No. There are many areas that I can obviously improve upon to reduce the amount of time in the shower and thus reduce the amount of perfectly good water I am wasting.

I found out today that our showerhead has a low flow option which would really come in handy. I feel like I need the higher pressure to wash all of the soap out of my hair more effectively, but switching it to low flow when I am done with hair and onto body seems like a good idea.

I don't need to wash my face in the shower. I just stand there and let the water run without using it. The only time I do use it during this phase is to rinse the soap off my face... but it would be much more efficient if I did that at the sink where I could control when the water is on and off.

Likewise, I don't need to shave my legs in the shower. I just stand there with all the precious water running carelessly down my back, and like with my face washing, I only actually use the water to rinse.

I'm not even going to get into when I decide to brush my teeth in the shower. That will never happen again.

I normally do not take extremely hot showers and I actually prefer taking them lukewarm (or even downright cold in the summer), but when winter comes, it will definitely be a challenge to not crank up the hot water to maximum.

Stop daydreaming. Finish showering, dry off, and then go sit outside and daydream.

Finally, something that has nothing to do with water: I don't even need to turn the light on. I always shower during the day when there is plenty of light flooding through the frosted window in there.

In conclusion, I am ashamed and appalled by my waste of water. I know it is going to take a lot of discipline, but I hope to take my time down from 30 minutes to 5-6 minutes. I know it will be possible, but it's going to be difficult to tear me away from my luxurious shower habits.

Some Tragedies and Achievements

2010-07-10T12:10:00.009-05:00

As with all gardens, mine is filled with highs and lows. I feel very emotionally attached to the things that I (try) to grow, and I am therefore affected by the course of events that take place. I put so much effort into the plants that I have almost a bond with them - I'm happy if their happy, I'm distressed if their distressed. It may sound odd, but you develop a connection when you spend hours of your week dedicated to making things grow and thrive.

With that said, tragedy has befallen my garden. I knew the time would come, but knowing did not make me any less sulky. Only days after the happiness of finding this potato seedling growing in my compost:

Weather reared its ugly head. Storms came and along with them, high winds.

I had assumed the damage was restricted to the snapped limb shown above, but the next day, the rest of the potato plants were becoming droopy and some were even losing their leaves. Upon further investigation, I found that all of the plants had snapped limbs under the surface of the mulch.They were young and deserved a much longer life filled with many weeks of potato-producing happiness.

Only the good die young.

I finally had the motivation to empty out my potato bucket, and allotted the excess soil I had to repotting some other plants. The old potato bin will now become my second compost bin, which I have been needing desperately.

I have been damning Missouri weather for the past week, and my heart is still heavy with loss. But you need to live and learn, I guess. I will try potatoes again next year, but I think I will use soil instead of mulch for mounding to give the spindly stems some extra support.

I think the rest of the garden sensed the loss of a dear friend, because it seems like all the other plants are trying to cheer me up.

I got impatient with my slowly growing radishes and decided to pluck one. My first harvest away from the nest! Exciting!

Despite how large it looks in the first picture, it was really only the size of my thumbnail. These radishes have been in the ground forever. They didn't seem to like all the rain we were getting earlier in the year, and as a result, the skin is not as sleek and shiny as it would normally be.

However, I was not to be deterred! I grew it, so I damn well was going to eat it! I sliced the little sucker up and snacked away. Oh man, was it hot, but delicious at the same time. This was actually my first time eating a radish, so I'm glad I liked it.

Other good news in the garden is this:

Tomatoes! At least 7 of them with more on the way! This was the waterlogged plant I received from my dad, and it's looking like a cherry tomato plant with the way the fruit is shaping up. Homemade salsa here I come.

Another surprise was seeing that one of my container variety tomatoes is already flowering at 5 inches tall. I'm not sure what the little bugger is thinking - if it tried to produce fruit, the fruit would be larger than the whole plant itself!

I know that as the summer goes on, more tragedies will rear their ugly heads. All I can do is be thankful for what mother nature chooses not to destroy and learn from the hardships I endure to make next year's garden that much more successful.

Watermelon

2010-07-10T11:29:00.008-05:00

The past week has been a busy one, that's for sure. We went to St. Louis to visit my family for the 4th and had a wonderful time. I was able to satisfy my 'harvesting itch' because my dad's tomatoes and greenbeans are already producing like mad, so I ran around and picked things. Even if I wasn't the one to grow them, harvesting is still my favorite gardening activity.

I brought them a few presents - a loaf of bread, some chamomile plants, a few basil plants, and some cantaloupe plants. And in return they gave me a bunch of seed packets! This morning I spent some time out in the garden and planted some beets and greenbeans. I'm not sure if the beets will do very well considering how hot it is supposed to get, but we'll see.

This upcoming week will be spent laboriously preparing for our 10 day vacation. I am still trying to figure out how to make sure I won't have any casualties when I come back. I am hoping for strategically placed days of rain just so all my little babies don't shrivel up on me, but we'll see!

And on to the main part of this post: my watermelon plants.

Tad and I were out shopping one day, and I maneuvered us into the plant section. I was hoping to find some strawberry plants, but unfortunately they didn't have any. What they did have, though, was a pot of watermelon plants for $1.50. All of the other pots only had 1 pathetic looking seedling, but what caught my eye was the one with 4 very healthy looking plants. The smart thing to do would have been to think, "What will two people do with four watermelon plants that are supposed to produce three 25lb fruits each?"

But I'm not smart. So I bought them.

I potted them up and let them develop some true leaves before placing them into the ground. I also spent this time trying to figure out where I would plant them - since we rent, I have no idea what areas in the yard get what kind of sun. After spending days staring outside and watching the shadows come and go, I came to the conclusion that nowhere in our entire yard gets 'full sun'. I ended up walking around with my shovel and picking a spot at random.

There were stacks and stacks of these cement blocks on the side of our house, so I decided to border all the watermelon plants with them.

Well, as I would soon find out, our entire back yard turns into a swamp if it rains for longer than 5 minutes. Obviously when it rained for a week straight, the poor guys were not too happy and turned an ugly yellow color for quite some time. Leaves were dying back and I assumed that my endeavor to grow watermelons had ended in defeat.

But then the sun came out! The oh so glorious sun! My watermelon seedlings were rescued from their soggy conditions, and surprise surprise, they started producing tiny male flowers.

And now here we are a few weeks later, and they are beginning to spread in their vine-like way.

I'm so proud of my little troopers. They've been through a lot, but I have hope for them!

Wouldn't it be so perfect that after this impulse buy, not only do I find out the sheer volume of fruit that they are supposed to produce, but also that Tad doesn't like watermelon all that much?
Hah!

WonderWash

2010-06-28T16:41:00.003-05:00

Because Tad and myself both need to work on the weekends, we decided to sync up our schedules so that we both had Mondays and Tuesdays off. So, in essence, today was the beginning of our weekend.

A storm blew through last night and knocked out our power a few times, and unfortunately one of the kitties scooted my camera near one of the open windowsills and it got rained on. It wouldn't turn on, but I'm giving it a chance to dry so I'm hoping it will be in working condition soon. During the storm, I was running from window to window, watching as all of the plants swayed until I knew they were going to snap.

As I was fretting over my swaying sunflowers, I went to look in the backyard - the tomato plant that had my first ever baby tomato was laying limp on its side. Running around like a maniac and screaming at Tad to find some string, I ran out into the torrential rainstorm to find something, anything, that I could use as a stake. I grabbed a fallen tree branch and jammed it into the ground next to the plant and fastened the plant to the makeshift support. Luckily, the stem wasn't cracked, and hopefully the lil' tomato will make it through. I got soaked, but I'll be damned if some rainstorm robs me of my baby tomato!

The storm passed (there was one casuality - a potato plant whose stem cracked) and today has brought nothing but pleasant weather. Only a high of 85! Tomorrow is only supposed to get up to around 80, so I'm leaving all of the yardwork for tomorrow morning.

Instead of gardening, today we focused on the inside of our house - we were cleaning machines! Our laundry had started to pile up, so I decided to pull out Sputnik. What is Sputnik, you ask?

This is Sputnik, which I have taken to calling it since to me, it looks like a jenky spacecraft. It is also known as the WonderWash. I yanked this picture from their website since my camera is currently out of commission.

The house that we are now renting came with a dryer... but no washer. They supplied the dryer because this house is old and had hookups for a gas one, which is apparently difficult to find. Since we had no washer, we either had to go to a laundromat or wait until we visited my parents and do laundry there. Well, we had a little extra money, so we started looking around for a cheap used washer. As I narrowed down the search, I realized that if we tried to stick a washer into our tiny little 'laundry room,' there would basically be no room for anything else in there.

So the search ended for awhile - we didn't really need a washer anyway. And besides not having the room for it, I couldn't find anything the fell in line with our meager budget.

One boring day, I was googling laundry alternatives, and I came across the site laundry-alternative.com which was selling this satellite-looking non-electric hand crank washing machine. I was intrigued, since it claimed to use much less water and detergent than one of the old top-loader models I was looking to buy. I was extremely skeptical, however, so I did a bunch of research on it. After about a week, I was swayed, and I bought it for $50 including shipping - not a bad deal for what it claimed to do.

Well, it is actually quite amazing. It cleans our clothes just as well as a normal washer, holds the equivalent of small-medium sized loads of dirty clothes (I tend to cram the clothes in there, though, so I end up fitting a little more than the 'recommended' amount), uses much less water than a conventional washer, requires only 2-3 tbsps of detergent per load, and all in all takes around 5 minutes to wash and rinse.

You fill it up with hot water (how much depends on the amount of clothes you need to wash), add the detergent, and then the clothes. Snap on the lid, screw in the pressure knob, and crank away! It takes about 2 minutes to wash the clothes, and then you attach a drainage valve to the bottom. At this point, you take off the lid (which makes a 'pffft' noise as the pressure is released), and let the dirty water drain. Then all it takes is a little cold water, putting the lid back on, and cranking the handle for 1 minute while the clothes go through their rinse cycle. Then it's back to draining.

There are only two downsides to this machine:

- It doesn't have a spin cycle like a normal washer, so you have to squeeze out excess water by hand.
- It's a little messy, so you have to use it someplace where splashing a little water around doesn't matter (I do it in our bathtub).

Of course, you still need to pretreat clothes if they are heavily stained, but you'd have to do that with a normal washer anyway. This probably wouldn't be a good product for a large family, but for two people who don't go through very many clothes and have a limited space for storage, this little Sputnik-look-alike is ideal. Maybe someday we'll splurge on a tiny little spin dryer that they also sell on their site so that I wouldn't have to wring out the clothes by hand, but eh, it's not that big of a deal.

All in all, I did around 3 loads of laundry today and it took about 30 minutes total. Not bad! I didn't wash any sheets though - I'm saving those to bring to my parents' house when we visit for the 4th. I mean... if I didn't bring any laundry, it just wouldn't be the same!

Cooking Experiments!

2010-06-26T19:54:00.004-05:00

Not only do I love to make things grow, but I also love to create things in the kitchen. Since I moved out of the college dorms and was forced to feed myself, I have been experimenting with flavors and techniques ever since. I still anxiously await the times when I get to go home and devour the food that my mom and dad make so masterfully, but I like to think that what I cook up is at least somewhat palatable. Tad eats it, but he's probably just afraid of the consequences of disliking it!

I have been trying to be more responsible in using the things that I have - that is, trying to make the most out of the things I have on hand, both for monetary reasons as well as a sense of responsibility I have for the environment. Why throw something in a landfill if I can find a use for it? This outlook has definitely been affecting the way I have been cooking lately.

After reading the back of the cereal box, I was horrified at what I saw on the ingredient list. So, off I went to find a solution. I had been wanting to try to make my own granola for awhile, and I came across this blogpost as I was trying to live vicariously through other people's successful gardens. It was the exact recipe I had been looking for, and to boot, there's a picture of kids devouring it! Tad has the tastebuds of a five year old, so I figure if a kid will eat it, so will he. I am always looking for ways to make recipes more 'child friendly,' like hiding bunches of vegetables in meatloaf, or baking secretly healthy banana muffins. *cackle*

I ended up changing the original recipe around some, mostly just omitting things like flax seeds and sesame seeds. After mixing all of the ingredients, I baked it until golden brown, let it cool, then broke it up into millions of tiny little pieces. Oh man, did that make a lot of granola! I made it almost 3 weeks ago and we've still got one huge tupperware container full of the stuff. The only thing I need to change for next time is that I didn't add as much honey as the recipe called for, so it was not as sweet as it should have been. I liked it a lot, but I think Tad is still dreaming about his beloved sugary Cookie Crisps.

In addition to the two containers full of yummyness shown below, another container and a full bag of the stuff got devoured before I got around to taking pictures of it all.

Next on the list of cooking experiments was what to do with all the bones I had leftover from this guy:
This little guy was a beercan chicken I was BBQING (along with some packets of potatoes, carrots, and onions slowly roasting over the coals, if you are the curious). After carving, I had the bones left, so I threw them in some bags and stuck them in the freezer. I know my mom would sometimes make stock and then make soup with it, but all I remember is that she boiled stuff all day long, and wasn't sure on the specifics.

So I called her up. Apparently that's all you do - boil it all day long, along with whatever veggies I had on hand.

So that's what I did. I boiled it all day long. And then when it reduced too much, I would add more water. And then I'd boil some more. I was pretty sure there was something I was missing, 'cause this was way too easy. If it was that easy, why didn't everyone do it? That's a question I have been asking myself a lot lately.

Finally, I figured I had boiled enough, so I strained it all and let it cool. When it cooled I put it in the fridge to cool some more.

And then Tad came home.

After wooing him with some banana muffins I had made in the middle of me staring at a chicken carcass boil, I pulled out my precious chicken-water that I spent all day making.

After I skimmed the fat off of the top, I went to stir it a little with the spoon and found that in just a small amount of time, my beloved broth had turned into jello.

"Uh, is it supposed to be like that?" was what he said with some muffin stuffed into his mouth.

So I call my mom again. When I told her what happened, she squealed with delight and congratulated me on a job well done - apparently it's supposed to be jello, and once I heated it, it would become more soupy. I mean, I understand that gelatin is in animal bones, and if you boil bones for 15 million hours, then the gelatin is released... but... the broth in the cans isn't jello.

Despite what my mom said, both Tad and I were a little skeptical. But hey, I spent so long making it, I sure as hell was going to use it in something!

I decided on chicken and dumplings (Look at the dumplings and not my dirty stove!):

Oh. My. God. It was delicious. The broth was magical! I called my mom again to tell her that she was right - the stock turned out great, and what do you know, it did get thinner as it was heated. I ended up having to add a can of broth to the soup anyway because I didn't have enough stock from only using one bird carcass and a scant handful of declining veggies. But man. I'm never throwing bones away again!

Potatoes

2010-06-20T11:11:00.009-05:00

Oh Missouri weather, how fickle you are sometimes.It has been raining. And raining. And raining. Our backyard is a swamp-land, and this plot that I thought was on level ground:

Was actually in the absolute lowest area of the entire back yard. I spent hours bailing out the plot with a coffee mug and carted off gallons and gallons of water to the front of the house. Of course, all my neighbors just had to be outside as I was doing this... Man, did I feel like a crazy person in my flipflops and shorts, absolutely covered in mud as I slowly tried to salvage what I could of the plot that had taken so long to dig up. I finally threw in the towel; there was no use. For every gallon I removed, two more came pouring in. The rain flooded the top right quadrant and there was nothing I could do to save the poor cucumbers and cantaloupe seeds that I had just planted there. I doubt anything else I planted here made it through the storms we had, and I haven't seen anything germinate yet, but I will hope!

The storm we had yesterday was more wind than anything else, and while I was at work watching and waiting for one of the Bradford Pear trees outside to bend so far that they just snapped, I could only imagine what was happening to my plants back home. Well, nothing ended up snapping, but the wind had some effect on my potato plants.

Now. I had no hopes for these potatoes - and still have no hope for them. I'll be honest and say that I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. We were out shopping when I saw a bag of seed potatoes on clearance, and I had just been talking to Tad about how I would like to try growing them sometime. The potatoes looked pretty beat up, but they were sprouting so I spent the dollar and brought them home. I cut them up into pieces that had at least two eyes on them, and stuck 6 of them in a tub after poking holes in the bottom for drainage. I covered them up with soil, and placed them on the side of the house.

I was checking on them every once and awhile, and I had noticed a large amount of spider webs along the surface of the dirt. Silly me, I thought I just had a large amount of tiny little spiders that got stuck in the tub and I thought nothing of it. Then, one day, I saw a sprout! I was admiring it and just about to reach into the tub and lovingly pet my tiny little spud plant when I noticed this guy inches from my hand:

He was huge! As if my neighbors needed any more proof that I'm absolutely crazy, I screamed for Tad and ran inside to have him come out and see the new resident of the bin. I didn't want to kill him, but Tad was not too keen on me just throwing him out in the yard. So, I marched off, grabbed my shovel, and decapitated him. *sigh* Looking back on it, it was probably the best thing to do. With my luck, if I had just thrown him out in the yard, he would have snuck his way into our house and eaten one of my cats.Three of the six seed potatoes I planted actually sprouted, which was 3 more than I thought would sprout. In just a week, I had three stalks like this peeking out of my bin:

Crazy!

Now, I read online that you have to begin covering up the stems with soil or straw once they reach this height, so off I went to gather some dried grass I had been saving and mounded it up around the three stalks. At this time, I also went ahead and plopped three more seed potatoes in the areas where the others refused to grow. As I mentioned earlier in my post, it has been raining for almost two weeks straight. Every time we'd get a little sun poking through, I'd run outside and pull up some grass and set it on the sidewalk to dry out so I could use it to cover the potatoes some more. And then it would rain again. So currently my potatoes have been a little neglected, and with the wind storm last night, they're no longer all tall and straight. In fact, they're quite spindly:

Currently, I am patiently waiting for the heat to kick in and dry out my plants since it finally stopped raining today! And boy, is it going to be a hot one:

100% humidity is not my friend. But, at least this will give my grass clippings a chance to dry so that I can give my potato plants some much needed TLC. To be honest, I still don't think that they'll actually produce anything, but just having the stems grow so much when didn't even think they would sprout is reward enough!