Adventures in Urban Homesteading

I am still here

2011-12-04T17:01:00.000-06:00

Thanks to everyone who keeps asking "when are you going to blog again!?"

There has certainly been plenty to blog about in the past two months. The problem is our computer which is so agonizingly slow and unresponsive, spending much time on it at all leads to melt-downs. I feel that soon, I really will grab the whole thing and pitch it out the window.
I was somehow relieved the other day when my sister-in-law came over to take a look at it and agreed that it really was horribly and awful. And she assured us we really do have a good computer (it's only two years old!) and it really shouldn't be acting this way. I think we're going to need a total back-up and reload the harddrive, etc, etc. But who has time for that!? Hopefully in January I will.

So, that's mostly why I haven't blogged - it is just too painful and takes 10 times longer than it should! The picture part is the worst, so this will be a picture-less update.

I was thinking about my to-do list for this year that I made back in April. We just had a lovely snowfall yesterday and it seems likely it will stick around now until spring arrives sometime next year. So most outdoor activity will cease (unless you're Jeremy who thinks nothing of working out of doors when it's only 16 degrees out!).

Here's the list, and what happened:

- build a retaining wall on the south side front lawn. I got two-thirds of this wall done before I ran into raspberry canes that were growing in the dirt that was oozing out of the sidewalk. There were flowers and berries forming on the canes and I didn't want to transplant them then. So I stopped. I never got back to this project so I'll be finishing the last part of the wall next year.

- dig up one of the laundry line poles from the north side of the yard and move it to the south side. And then use it. For hanging laundry. Okay, so we did manage to move the pole to the other side of the yard. But we never got the line up. Which means we never hung laundry on it. One step at a time! Next year, next year...

- move our back fence all the way back to the alley as far as it will go and expand the chicken run. We didn't get to this either. There are probably going to be issues with zoning or some stupid, pointless government intervention, so we're figuring out what to do. But I think it will happen. Someday...

- finish constructing the terrace. I did make a good effort on this and got a good portion of the west side done, but it's not finished yet. Through this growing season I started re-defining what the terrace would be for. It had lots of strawberries on it but the squirrels were getting those and I couldn't protect them. I moved a good portion of those to one of our raised beds and I'll move the rest next year. Then I plan to plant more herbs and things, tons of basil, lots of chives, parsley, and other things I'm pretty sure the squirrels don't care for, on the terrace.

- dig up the boulevard strip in front of our house, build a short raised bed, and plant stuff. I went back and forth on this project several times throughout the summer. Yes, I'll put a raised bed there. No, it's a bad idea. Yes, it will be great! No, it's too much work. In the end of course it never got done. I think I've settled on a very low raised bed (for next year of course). I did dig up a lot of wild violets from that spot and moved them elsewhere. And I transplanted some of our rhubarb there. I hope they come up next year!

- I have visions of helping a bunch of people on our block also dig up their boulevard grass and plant flowers, etc. I did help a neighbor across the street with a part of their boulevard, donating lots of wild violets. We'll see how they do next spring. I think they'll need more to fill in the area.

- Plant something in the one garden bed Jeremy is leaving me, after he takes over most of the yard for mushrooms. I think we'll have room for a tomato plant and some lettuce or something. It's so funny reading this now. Jeremy changed his mind about mushrooms of course and I had all the garden beds to myself. But because of our other decision not to raise a lot of stuff from seed ourselves, we didn't have much to plant! Most of our plants came from friends and neighbors who had planted too much and couldn't fit the starts in their gardens. We ended up with 5 tomato plants from seed (and dozens more that sprouted up all over the yard all on their own), kale, spinach, leeks, spring onions, some broccoli that never made any actual broccoli, some turnips that never made it, and some beautiful parsley, sage, and rosemary.

- I want to plant a cucumber on our south fence so that it grows up the fence and then we have to use little slings to support the growing cucumbers. We did get cucumber from a neighbor which did well, but I had those in the raised beds. I put some squash of some sort on the south fence, but then it turned out that the crazy growth of weeds and flowers on the neighbors side blocked all light and nothing survived.
- After seeing a post about a giant pumpkin, I kind of want to grow a giant pumpkin. I'm not sure where to do it though... Nope, didn't do this either!

- I want to take out the ratty old dogwood in front of the house (it's in bad shape from bad pruning) and put in a fruit tree or two and espalier them. Did I even say that right? I have a lot to learn about this subject. Haven't taken out that tree yet, but I'm hoping to dig it out when the ground thaws and then look into those trees.

- and of course keep working 30 hours a week and sewing like a mad-woman to keep up with Farmers Market on Saturdays and various craft fairs and art shows! This I have certainly done! I suppose sewing like a mad woman has also taken me away from blogging. In fact, I have a big show next week - I'd better get back to sewing!

Hopefully we'll get this computer fixed soon and I can get back to blogging. I'm dying to tell more about our chickens, our brewing experiments, how the mushrooms are doing, and more!

There'll be no getting any work done now...

2011-09-30T21:54:00.001-05:00

"It's not our fault we're so adorable!"

Reminiscing

2011-09-28T21:27:00.001-05:00

I've been reminiscing about our chickens this week.

remembering them as tiny peeping fluffballs, they were so cute!

teenagers - a bit more awkward, but still cute...

figuring out how and where to sleep...

always eating!

our first egg...

feeding them messy stuff like this, and them standing in the food and flinging it all over the coop...

chicken glamor shots...

chickens in the snow...

Why the reminiscing? Well... our chickens are all gone now.
Last Sunday we put them in boxes...

loaded them in the car...

and drove over to a friend's house who was having a chicken culling party.

They had the whole set-up. A cone (for doing the deed)...

a rented chicken plucker...

and a table with knives and cutting boards for processing.

This is NOT one of our chickens! There were 8 other birds meeting their fate that day; I didn't take pictures of our girls...till later.

Lest you think I am totally heartless (and you would certainly have reason to think that!), it was a very hard day. I was sad to see our girls go. I didn't kill any of them myself, but I did end up dressing two of them (such an innocent sounding euphemism!).

Several folks at the "party" had evisceratead a chicken before, but it had been at least a year for those who had and it's not something you just remember how to do. We had Gail Damerov's book out (which frankly isn't super helpful) and one person had been to a class and she still vaguely remembered the steps. I think the first chicken took at least 30-45 minutes from killing to putting on ice! We got much faster after that - we had to with 15 birds to deal with!

It was quite an experience I must say. One interesting thing was seeing the various levels of egg development inside the birds when we took out the innards.

And the plucker was amazing! Seemed too weird to take a video of it in action - but I'm sure you can find videos online.

At the end of the day we had a basket full of 2.5 to 3.5 pound chickens, chicken feet and necks for stock, and other innards (like liver) for...whatever Jeremy is going to do with those.

This was always the plan. The decision to do it now was prompted by two things. First, we had to buy eggs at the store for the first time in two years because the girls just haven't been laying much. (Eww, that's what we used to eat!?) And second, our friends were having a party and renting a plucker! Can't say no to that. =)

Plus it was really nice to do this as a group learning exercise instead of on our own.

The girls are in the freezer for now. I think we might can them later - I've heard that can really help the tough quality of old bird.

We've been chickenless for three days and it is very strange being out in the backyard and not seeing and hearing the girls. It's time to clean out the hen house, disinfect things, and get everything ready to go.

After all, our shipment of new baby chicks arrives in two days!! =)

Hi

2011-09-13T20:42:00.000-05:00

I'm on vacation this week! Or, for a few days anyway. I'm in Oregon visiting my family (here I am on the beach!) and tomorrow I'm heading up to Seattle for some meetings.
Jeremy is home managing the homestead all by himself. Poor guy - someone should go visit him and keep him company! =)

Toads and frogs and toads, oh my!

2011-09-05T21:10:00.000-05:00

Part 1.

Out on the mushroom farm there are a lot of frogs and toads. Months ago they were tiny things, but they have gotten a bit bigger, especially the frogs. The toads are still pretty small. There are so many you have to look down while walking or you may end up stepping on them. Jeremy sees all kinds of frogs/toads when he goes out to work - sometimes they're on the logs, sometimes in one of his stock tanks full of water, always hopping all over the place.

It makes me feel like I'm way out of town, out in the country (instead of on an old nursery lot in the suburbs) to have all these frogs and toads around. I had to share some pictures. It gave me an excuse to run around catching toads - uh, not that I really needed one! No frog pictures here - those guys are way too fast and almost never out in the open.

It's very wet at the farm so the frogs love it.

Get me outta here!

So little!

It was hard to get a good face shot. For some reason the camera wanted to focus on the back legs instead of the head. Someone with an awesome camera could get some even better shots. I'd have to go back at night with a flashlight to get some frog shots. They seem to hunker down at night and not move as much, or not be as skittish anyway.

Part 2.

Yesterday I noticed the garden was looking dry. I grabbed my trusty red watering can, plunked it down under the rain barrel and turned on the tap. I filled it right up, then picked up the can and proceeded to tip it over the nearest garden bed.

Nothing came out.

Not a single drop of water. What the...!?

I tipped again; nothing. There must be debris, leaves or something, stuck in the can. I unscrewed the head of the can and didn't see anything there. Then I looked in spout part and was shocked to see this:

Sorry, that's the best I could get. It was a toad face looking back at me! I was stunned. How on earth...? It must have been in the watering can and when I filled up the can the toad must have climbed up into the spout to escape.

I figured I'd just have to push it back down the spout. I got a little stick and tried to carefully push on the toad. It closed it's eyes up tight and sort of hunched up, like it was going to hold on for it's life. I stuck my finger in there and pushed on its poor little face. I didn't want to hurt it, but how else to get it out!? And it wasn't budging.

Stubborn little bugger.

So I put the spout right under the rain barrel spigot and turned on the water. After a minute I checked and saw the toad had slid or at least backed down an inch or two. I turned up the flow of water, sat back, and waited.

Another minute or two later, and plop! Out he came:

Holy cow!! He was huge!

How the heck did he fit that far up in that tiny space!?

He seemed none the worse for wear, but was very sluggish and slow to move for about 15 minutes. I put him in a shady garden patch and checked on him every few minutes. And then - he was gone.

I have no idea where a frog that big would come from. We do have a lake nearby, but 6 or 7 blocks seems like a long distance to come. Perhaps our raingardens are wetter than we thought!

We've been meaning to take that down...

2011-08-28T18:49:00.000-05:00

Last week there was quite a storm over night. Lots of rain, not much lightning, and lots of wind. I remember the wind waking me up, and praying our roof wouldn't fly away!

In the morning, I looked out the back door to this view:

A large branch from one of the junk trees had come down!

Right into the rain garden.

Given that the branch had been growing over our roof, I was pretty happy that it blew down sideways instead of right down onto the roof.

Jeremy says it wasn't that big of a branch and our roof could have handled it, but I'm sure it would have at least mangled the gutters and maybe some of the standing seam of the metal roof.

Instead, it just smashed and ruined my whole Turtle Head Flower. Oh well, it will come back next year!

Progress, finally

2011-08-21T20:50:00.001-05:00

It has been four months since I posted my wish list / to-do list for the summer. With such a late start to good weather, and then such miserable, hot, humid weather for so many weeks, it kind of cuts into what you feel like doing. Plus, I find my plans change on a daily basis if I don't just do what I plan to do. Of course, sometimes this is a good thing!

So, what has happend since that post four months ago? Not a whole lot until recently. I did 2/3 of the retaining wall out front and haven't continued with that. There are raspberry stalks growing right in the way and moving them would mean no raspberries on that stalk. So I'm going to finish that up in the fall.
I gave up on digging up the boulevard, but plan to continue that in September or October. I did some more work on the terrace (more on that later), but it's not done yet. We still haven't moved the back fence back, but that's because there were three other projects that had to be done before that!

One of them was moving that laundry line pole.

Can't see the bottom of that concrete footing? That's because it goes down really deep! I dug most of that out three months ago and that post has been sitting just so since then. That is a heavy duty, thick metal pipe and the concrete footing is maybe one and a half feet across and about 3 feet deep. (I never really got to the bottom, so don't know!) That much concrete and the pipe is very heavy. I was imagining a large group of people trying to move it...or trying to leverage it out with ropes attached to the tree above it...or swinging a mallet at it until some of the concrete came off...or explosives! just kidding.

Jeremy had to rent a mini jack-hammer for another project (more on that later!) so he was able to get off the lower couple feet of concrete.

You might think the thing would be easier to move after this, but no! This is when we discover there are these metal pieces sticking out perpendicular to the pipe, going off into the concrete still down below (which also has thick metal wire running through it!) which keeps the pipe from moving much at all now.

I'm afraid I don't have pictures between that one and this one, where the pole is safely in it's new home:

What happened!? Well, I dug out as much loose dirt and chunks of concrete as possible so we could move the pipe a little. Jeremy came out with a Sawsall and cut through the pipe. Wish I had a picture of him lying on the ground on the edge of the hole reaching down to the bottom to cut through the pipe. But I was holding onto the pipe with both hands to make sure it didn't fall in on Jeremy!

When it was cut through I was able to pull the pipe down to the ground so that huge chunk of concrete rose up out of the hole! Or close anyway. We grabbed some 2x4s to span the hole and hold up the pipe. Then, while Jeremy dug the new hole on the other side of the yard (which took about 5 minutes!) I raked and shoveled dirt into the enormous pit under the pipe - so if it decided to fall it wouldn't fall that far.

Thank goodness for leverage and fulcrums and hand trolleys for the rest of this. It was easy enough to pull the pipe upright but it was still quite heavy and not possible to carry. So we pulled it upright and laid it back down so the concrete base was facing the way we wanted it to go. Jeremy wheeled the hand trolley up to it and I just tilted the pipe up till it was on the trolley. Jeremy rolled it to the edge of the retaining wall and then he had to pick it up and rest it on a board (to protect the rocks from getting scratched. =)

Then we laid the pipe down and rolled it down that red piece of plywood; Jeremy picked up the pipe and we slid the hand trolley under it, then it was a piece of cake to roll it over to the other side of the yard.

I'm sure that all would have made much more sense with pictures, or a video! We'll have to remember that the next time we're moving some huge, heavy, awkward thing through our yard.

So I know you're asking why we did this in the first place. Why didn't we just buy a new laundry line pole from Home Depot! Well...we like to do things the hard way, that's why!
Actually, the old pipe/laundry line didn't work in its location and it was in the way of yet another project (more on that later!) so it had to go. We could have cut it off at the base and called it done, but then we would have had to buy a cheaper pipe from some store and set it in concrete and all that - when we had a perfectly good pipe already set in concrete! If we could only move it! And you all know how determined we are (er, I am!), so that's what we did.

Now for the hardest part: putting up the ropes so we can hang laundry. Maybe we'll get that done next year?

The Feather Person

2011-07-30T16:31:00.000-05:00

Once upon a time, in a CAFO far away, I became aware of myself.

"What the heck am I doing here in this wretched place!?" I bemoaned my wretched existence: crammed in a warehouse with thousands of other birds, our beaks chopped off so we couldn't peck at each other. I knew there must be something better.

One day I saw a light at the end of the tunnel - actually a hole in the warehouse. I peaked out. Sky! Grass! Bugs! Without a thought or a look back, I high-tailed it out of there.

I wandered outside soaking in my new freedom. But I couldn't wander around outside forever: surely someone would find me and put me in solitary confinement - or worse! So I hitched a ride out of there and ended up in the nearest city, Minneapolis.

Now, I know what you're thinking. Why would I go to the big city? I heard rumors that chickens are treated pretty well in the city and I wanted to check it out for myself.

I was milling around outside a tavern, trying to figure out what my next move would be, when a tall farmer-looking man came up and caught me. He was pretty good I must admit. Must have some experience chicken wrangling.

I was deposited into a large crate with lots of straw, water, and food. I didn't really like this captivity, but I guess it was better than where I came from.

After a few days, things changed. My crate was moved and the door was opened so I could get out and scratch in the dirt. I was now inside a bigger cage.

The best part was that there were others of my kind, right on the other side of my fence! Okay, so they tried to peck at me and tell me who was boss, but I ignored them. It was nice just having them around.

I missed my freedom though, so I kept finding ways to get out. One night I escaped and was trying to get comfy in a window well before I was found - and returned to my cage.

One day there was a really loud sound that kind of scared me so I escaped and ran for it! I was found a few yards away - and returned.

A couple nights in a row I escaped (and boy escaping is getting harder - they keep putting up more fencing, with smaller holes!) and I was trying to settle down way up high on top of the wood pile. But I was found - and returned.

I understand these folks are now calling me Houdini. That's fine with me - no one can keep me caged in for long! I've escaped seven times, and I'm just going to keep doing it.

I think these people are getting it. I escaped again last night and this time they didn't come looking for me. They let me stay out all night - to sleep where I wanted and rise with the sun to peck at bugs and scratch and eat greens.

But you know, I kind of missed my chicken friends, and the easy access to food and water. So I went back. And now I'm back in my cage again.

I'm sure this is only temporary. Some day I'll find a place to call my own and live happily ever after.

(with apologies to May Sarton, who wrote The Fur Person)

A steamy update

2011-07-19T19:35:00.000-05:00

Well folks, it is hot, hot, hot, hot, hot! And really humid! We're sitting at 96 degrees and nearly 60% humidity. It feels like 108 out there. It's times like this that I feel absolutely no guilt whatsoever that we have central air and are basking in mid-70s and no humidity.

Of course, it makes it really hard to take pictures outside (or go outside if you wear glasses) because everything steams up! In fact, all the windows in the downstairs have been steamed up since Sunday.

I wiped the camera lense off repeatedly, but I just couldn't get a clear (non-romantic-looking) picture!

These are six cucumber plants we planted on Sunday - the hottest day of this humigeddon so far.

I was actually quite impressed with how they looked yesterday, one day after transplanting. Even now some of them are managing to hold up. I guess cucumbers are hard to kill? We'll find out.

This is more of my effort to get most of our plants from neighbors/strangers who planted too much and have to thin out later. Thank you neighbors!

This poor gal is a little lost chicken that Jeremy found hanging near Matt's Bar (home of the original jucy lucy!). No one has claimed her yet so she's hanging out in a dog crate in the back yard. We've got to find someone to take her. She seems to be doing well despite the heat and humidity!

Mushroom update

2011-07-12T08:00:00.001-05:00

Mushroom innoculation season is finally over! Jeremy was delayed by a month or so with having to move his whole operation and build the new shade structure and all that. He decided to call it quits at the end of June, no matter where he was at. He got through almost all the logs and there wasn't too much leftover spawn. (Posts on that if he can get those bags to fruit...)

Somehow it's more enjoyable to innoculate while wearing down coats and gloves, than to be in our really hot garage in the summer. So hopefully innoculations don't go this long next year!

One big change Jeremy had to make was with his stacking method. You saw a little of his method in the last mushroom post. Turns out having your mushroom farm in a wetlands area is...wet! And too much moisture causes mold, which is bad. So he had to restack everything, getting the logs up higher and with more air circulation.

Amazingly, some of these logs - which were cut down 5 months ago and have been drilled with hundreds of holes - are sprouting leaves! I guess that means they're fresh.

These are the majority of the oyster logs. They're in bags now but will be removed from bags soon.

And here are the shiitake in the fruiting structure.

Aren't they beautiful?

(mirror image mushrooms - there isn't a mirror, one goes up, one goes down!)

Jeremy did some oyster mushrooms in drilled logs, and they are starting to come up.

He's put a lot of work into keeping the environment just right, and it must be working because he's picked a ton of mushrooms so far!

Loads of raspberries

2011-07-11T09:00:00.001-05:00

Our raspberries are doing better this year than they've ever done. They've slowly been ripening and for the past week or so I've managed to find one or two to nibble on every time I leave the house.

We recently had some good rain and then lots of warm weather and the raspberries went to town. I prefer to eat them right off the plant or pick some to have on yogurt or ice cream. I don't like to pick a bunch and put them in the fridge. They just aren't good after that.

But we had a lot of raspberries! A pound and a half to be exact:

I picked everything that seemed ripe and it was an impressive haul (for just growing them in our yard anyway - we're not a u-pick!). These are different colors because we have black, red, and royal raspberries. We also have a variety called Korean Gold but it's just sending up shoots this year, not fruiting.

I dumped them all in that baking dish, sprinkled on a tiny amount of sugar (for the few that were perhaps not quite ripe enough yet), and plopped on some biscuit dough. And out came this lovely:

After cooling a bit, we walked it a couple blocks away and surprised some friends with a dinner-ruining raspberry cobbler and vanilla ice cream snack. They didn't complain one bit. =)

Cherrypicking

2011-07-10T19:51:00.000-05:00

Our cherry trees have done very well and we decided last week it was finally time to start picking. I picked a basketfull one day (as much as a pound, I'd say), pitted them, and froze them on a tray.

A day or two later, Jeremy went out with ladders and boxes. He doesn't mess around! I picked the cherries off the little tree while he got the big tree.

This is a little over 15 pounds of cherries! I was worried we'd have less cherries this year after having to cut down the other half of the tree. But we got 18-20 pounds last year so we're practically there now. And there are still more cherries to pick.

Jeremy and his intern spent hours pitting them, which meant cherry mess all over the floor,

all over the table (and everything on it),

and all over the walls and window!

I don't think any of this batch got frozen. Jeremy has been drying them in the dehydrator, so we'll have plenty till next year for cereals, scones, and other baking projects.

Nothing like cold watermelon on a hot day

2011-06-08T08:45:00.001-05:00

Especially if you're a chicken!

Unfortunately, this watermelon snack was a couple weeks ago and we didn't have any fresh, cool watermelon to feed the girls yesterday when it soared to 103 degrees here! They panted and complained, but they survived the heat and are ready, along with us, to enjoy a bit of a cool down.

Lovelies

2011-06-06T08:00:00.000-05:00

I have been waiting for ages for my Siberian Irises to bloom. This year the leaves got much bigger than I'd ever seen them and then a couple weeks ago I noticed these purplish bumps that I realized were irises-to-be! They finally started blooming last week. I was thrilled!

Here are a bunch of them in the front rain garden:

The other three types/colors of irises have been blooming too.
Darker purple ones:

The ones that smell just like grape koolaid:

and the yellow ones in the front yard (new this year!)

Here's a shot of the back rain garden looking quite glorious with regular iris, siberian iris, columbine, phlox, and some unknown flowers in bloom - and many more yet to bloom!

Out in front, between the rows of raspberries, are the poppies. One bloomed yesterday. Then a whole bunch more bloomed over night.

This flower has moved back onto the 'unknown' list since the little identifying tag is completely blank! I guess permanent marker can't stand up to a Minnesota winter.

Lastly, another one of my favorites in full bloom now, the wild geranium:

Promises, promises

2011-06-05T19:35:00.000-05:00

The yard and garden has been making some promises to us lately.

I promise you strawberries (and bunches of them!)

I promise you cherries:

I promise you enormous garlic!

That was our garlic on May 19, 2 1/2 weeks ago. It's even taller now, I'd say three to four feet. It's twice as tall as any garlic I've seen around here. There had better be some awesome garlic down there!

Our yard is also promising lots of raspberries; but so far no blueberries, currants, cranberries, or lingonberries. I'm a little dubious about the veggies in the garden (leeks, spring onions, turnips, summer squash, broccoli, kale, spinach) but it's early yet so we'll see. The tomatoes I put in a couple weeks ago are growing now so that's promising!

Giveaway! Giveaway!

2011-06-02T16:06:00.000-05:00

If you've been drooling over one of my tea cozies but are too cheap (or poor!) to buy one for yourself, your opportunity to get your very own for free is coming up!

The blogger behind Mad in Crafts is celebrating her 30th birthday this year with a month of crafty giveaways. I donated a tea cozy to the cause which will be on the block around June 17.

I'll post again to remind folks. May the most tea-cozy deservingest (I don't think that's a word...) person win!

Paradise

2011-06-01T21:47:00.000-05:00

It's amazing what a long hard winter will do to perennials and gardens in general. Many people are talking about how much more amazing the plants are so far this year.

I have been enjoying our yard immensely. Everything is so much more lush than last year and things are growing and blooming that never have before! (More on that in another post.)

Here is the yard under the cherry tree. I took these pictures two weeks ago - everything is much taller now!

Here's a little close-up. It's all wild violets! Perhaps you can make out the mess of poppies just beyond the raspberries? They have yet to bloom.

It's amazing how much has changed in two weeks!

The tulips have done their thing and are now cut back and yellow and purple irises are taking their place. The cherry tree has cherries growing on it! The bleeding heart, rhubarb, wild geranium, and stacks of other things in that photo have doubled in size at least.
We have a comfrey in the backyard that is probably 3 1/2 to 4 feet tall. Everything is just happy, happy, happy - and I couldn't be happier about it. =)
Well... I'd be even happier if I could keep up with this blog. There are so many things to post about - but I'm taking too much time doing said things to get any computer time. =)

Compost time is happy chicken time

2011-05-20T09:00:00.000-05:00

Another project to cross off my to-do list: Digging out the completed compost and flipping the other two bins over. I've been wanting to do this for awhile, but have been waiting for Jeremy to build the raised bed in the boulevard. He's too busy with mushrooms, so I finally decided just to dump all the compost onto the beds in the back (which need to be dealt with too!)

After I dug all the compost from the middle box and dumped it in the far left box, I decided to treat two lucky chickens to the bugs and interesting bits left behind.

Ahem!

"What, me? I'm busy here!"

"nom, nom, nom"

"tasty!"

Finally I put those chickens back and turned to face the last bin. Now, I have a warning here. If you are any kind of animal rights type person you should stop reading now. Just skip to the pretty all-finished picture at the end.
As I started pitch-forking the piles of old veggies, spent chicken bedding, leaves, and chicken poop out of the last bin, I remembered that I'd seen a mouse in the compost bins. I'd especially seen it in this bin. So I went sort of cautiously. About 6 inches to a foot down, I tossed a big pile into the middle bin and a little mouse went flying. She scrambled to the back of the compost bin and gave me a look. Sort of a, "What do you think you're doing!?" look. Hmm. I kept digging out, and another foot down, way in the back, I found a nest with about five brand new baby mice. I looked at it for about two seconds, then picked the whole thing up and deposited it in the chicken coop.

Oh yes, I did. Now you all know how sadistic I am! I ran for it back to the compost bin. I didn't have many qualms about what I'd done, but that didn't mean I wanted to watch the carnage. I figured I didn't want mice in the compost, or eating the chicken food, or in the house, or anywhere around so they had to go. And the chickens L-O-V-E-D the mice. Seriously, I was a major rockstar to them for the rest of the night. Every time I got near the coop they all came running, even more excited than they usually are.

I did feel bad about it when mother mouse came back and hung around for awhile, while I was still there finishing up, staring at me from a distance with a look as if to say, "What have you done!?" Sorry mama mouse. I think she's starting a new nest in the middle bin. Grr.

Anyway, here is the all cleaned up bin!

A day on the farm

2011-05-19T20:49:00.000-05:00

Actually, several days on the farm. Jeremy has been doing a lot of set-up work at the farm since he moved his logs there a couple weeks ago.

First he had to build the shade structure. He's only built little ones in the yards he's been in and now he had to build a very big one. Looking at some of the methods out there, he went with a tensile structure. I think the architect in him is loving this.

He put in 10 4x4 posts and ran stainless steel cable all over the place, across, over, diagonal, down, etc. He used turnbuckles to tighten everything up. This is one sturdy structure.

He needed to start a pilot hole for some screws and there isn't easy access to electrical out there. Our cordless drill is crap, so Jeremy used his grandpa's "cordless" drill.

It worked pretty well and I think it's super cool.

Next step, attaching all the shade cloth together. It came in an enormous roll, all one piece, but Jeremy cut off pieces here and there to spread amongst all the yards. Now it's all in one spot and it needs to be in one piece again!

So I got to sew it together. By hand. With fishing line.

But I'm not complaining because Jeremy did a ton of the sewing himself. Truly the strangest sewing project I've had to date though.

It took a couple days to get the shade cloth up onto the structure. I wasn't there so I don't know how he did it. That stuff is incredibly heavy!

Look at all those happy mushroom-growing logs!

Those last pics were before he tightened everything up and secured the shade cloth. You can see it's just blowing in the wind.

The next step was putting up the fruiting structure. This is where Jeremy will soak and fruit the mushroom logs. Once the logs are fruiting, humidity and heat are good, but not water. If it rains on the fruiting mushrooms - well, you'll have wet mushrooms! Not so good if you're selling them.

So I got to clear this little area next to the shade structure which left me covered from head to foot in giant burrs.

Once that was cleared out a bit it was as simple as ONE

TWO

THREE!

I love putting together stuff like this, so it was fun for me. Jeremy will be putting up walls around this at some point to keep out sun.
He has been bringing home piles of mushrooms every time he returns from the farm, so I imagine full-on mushroom season will be starting any time now.

Birdwatching

2011-05-14T08:00:00.000-05:00

With all these glorious windows upstairs (and I look out of them while I'm sitting here typing) I can't help but notice all the birds. I've seen a few interesting ones that I couldn't help but try to identify.

Starting back in the winter (no, we don't have snow here...at the moment), I noticed the birds (and this ugly thing in particular) really going for the mountain ash berries. I knew they ate the berries, but this must have been a hard winter because it's the first year they stripped the tree clean.

The robins also went after the mountian ash:

Thankfully we have no shortage of cardinals all winter. It's nice to see that bit of bright color in all the whiteness.

Towards the end of January I started noticing this guy. It was very hard to get a good shot of him because he was always flitting about and energetic.

Mind you, all of these shots are through a layer of plastic on the back door, which isn't all the clean - so I'm amazed the pictures came out at all!

After pinning him down in a few photos, I am pretty sure this is a white-breasted nuthatch.

A few weeks ago while working on a project I kept noticing a bright something out of the corner of my eye. This guy (a pair of them actually) was just as flighty as the other and quite hard to pin down.

I'm almost certain this is a golden-winged warbler.

Last week we discovered we had a Veery on the premises - but only because it flew into our window so hard it killed itself. I assume that's what happened - we just found its body on the front porch.

There are apparently white-throated sparrows around too. At least that's what I think I've been hearing - I haven't actually seen them.

It's another sure sign of spring when there are so many glorious birds around and they're all chirping so happily. Which reminds me - each year a pair of sparrows of some sort build a nest on top of our power line at the back of the house. It never seems to last. According to our neighbor a crow attacks it each time to eat the eggs/babies. I'm not sure if that's typical crow behavior. I just know I've never seen it happend, but invariably I discover the happy couple dispersed and the nest in pieces on the ground. I just found the nest last week and looked through it to see if there were any signs of foul play. No eggs or shells or babies, so who knows what happened. But it was fascinating to see the make-up of this nest: grass, straw, gum wrappers, plastic, bits of cloth, and tons of chicken feathers! I'm not sure if they were from our girls or other chickens in the neighborhood.

Getting started

2011-05-13T08:00:00.005-05:00

Remember my list of projects for this year? We had approximately two nice days in April of which I took full advantage.

On the 14th I got started digging up the boulevard. I decided to start with putting some big stepping stones along the edge so people would have a place to walk when they park along this area.

That patch of ground pretty much looks the same today. I'm at the point where I really want the raised bed to be put in so I have a place to put extra dirt and so I know what areas to dig up and what areas not to. But it's hard to tear Jeremy away from mushrooms at the moment...
The most fun part of this job? The dirt was full of these big creepy beetle-like creatures that I fed to the chickens. They went crazy, of course, every time I brougt a couple bugs back.

Approximately two weeks later we had another nice day so I started on the retaining wall project. Some work has already been done in this photo, namely digging up all the dirt and plants that were sticking out in the sidewalk about 6 inches.

I have a ways to go:

I removed the chain link fence, rolled it right up, had to dig out some trees and raspberries, and then got to work carving out a space for the blocks and then putting them in place. Getting the fence off and finishing this section took about three hours.

Now, I've been saying for ages "we have tons of these blocks." Stacks of them; mounds; piles; scads; probably too many...etc. Finishing this one-third of the wall took way more than I thought, and it really should be one layer higher.

I went around and counted the rest of the blocks and there were only enough left to do the second section!

Ah, Murphy's Law. I thought for sure we had tons of these things. Later on I was in the back and realized we did have enough. At one time. Jeremy used them to build a retaining wall of sorts in the back! And he buried some around the chicken fence to keep predators out. Hmm, what to do. Still haven't figured out how to solved this one. Maybe I'll put a piece of wood in the third section.

I'm not going to get too crazy about it, because this is only temporary anyway. (Uh..as in we have a plan to do something way better, but it will probably take another 10 years till we get around to it!). But in the mean time, I don't want all the plants and dirt drooling out over the sidewalk.

So, two projects in process. (Actually, three - but I haven't got a picture of that third one yet...)

Weekend Project

2011-05-11T09:00:00.000-05:00

[Note: this was a weekend project in mid-April! I wrote this whole post and just discovered it never went live. Grr. Stupid Blogger - I'm sure I hit the publish button! In any case, though the event has passed, here's what I had meant to share!]

I won't be home this weekend so my project won't be planting beds, tending to early spring activities, digging up grass, etc. I'm heading down to Kansas City for the 10th Annual Prairie Village Earth Fair. My MIL is organizing a section for green crafts, DIY type stuff, so I've filled up my suitcase with all the recycled things I've got (shopping bags from curtains, tie pillows, etc).

On the plane, and in other spare moments, I'll be quilting this:

Looks like they allow scissors on the plane now. That will make it easier!

[Note to self: unless you fly first-class, there will never be room in sardine-class to work on a quilt! But, I did manage to get a lot of work done on the quilt that weekend and finished it a couple days after returning home. Here it is all finished, washed up, and ready to go:

Ready to go where? To some friends of ours who just had their baby a week after we delivered this baby quilt. Congratulations C & J!)

The smallest garden beginnings ever

2011-05-10T08:00:00.003-05:00

We've done less garden prep this year than any other year, even the year we bought this house and had the whole yard torn up for 6 months! (Okay, so we had started plants but they pretty much all died since we didn't have a place to put them.)

This year we decided not to start seeds indoors, just direct seed outside. I haven't even looked into that yet, when we should do it and what I'm going to plant. In the meantime, I'm taking advantage of dear friends that planted too much and they're giving away starts.

I picked up three lovely healthy looking tomato plants on Friday afternoon: a Brandywine (red), a Moonglow (orange), and a black tomato the name of which I can't remember. Throwing caution to the wind, I planted them outdoors immediately.

I know we haven't hit our last frost date, but I have nowhere to put these indoors and we don't have grow lights (since we lent them out). I was a little worried in case it got too cold at night for them (or if we have hail or something) so I needed to figure out how to protect them.

I thought of building a little green house of sorts around them, until I realized our extra glass windows are stacked around the chicken coop to make sure they have a dry area. Scratch that plan. My brain started running, thinking about what I could use to build some sort of structure, what see-through materials I had, and I struck on this idea:

I took some of that decorative green border fence stuff (we have gobs of it), cut a smallish piece and formed it into a tiny fence to go around each tomato. Then I pulled a clear plastic bag over the top and secured it on top with clothes pins. Do-it-yerself!

I'm pretty proud of myself.

So now we have in our garden a total of three tomato plants. Let the 2011 gardening season begin!

It might actually be spring

2011-05-09T08:00:00.004-05:00

There has been an awful lot of whining lately about our tardy spring in the midwest. But after the third snowiest winter on record, we demand some warmth! We don't want snow on May 1st! (which we got anyway).

I realized there is an interesting difference between Jeremy and I. He gets depressed and sad if it's cloudy and grey a lot. He needs the sun. I get depressed and sad (and lately a little angry!) if it's cold for too long. I need warmth! I don't mind if it's grey and cloudy for 6 months in a row as long as it isn't 30 degrees (or 40...or even 50).

Anyway, with that said, and despite the lingering cold, plants have been waking up all over the place and things are getting greener.

My tulipa tarda, one of the earliest blooming flowers I have, bloomed last week.

Violets are taking over the yard and starting to flower. I love all my violets!

My regular tulips have taken so long to bloom, I think our yard is in some sort of month-long lag behind every other spot in the city.
These finally bloomed a couple days ago...

But the ones in the front yard still haven't bloomed!

I think these are the only tulips in the US that haven't bloomed yet.

I was starting to worry that our cherry tree wasn't going to bloom at all but I just noticed the beginning of blossoms on Saturday. On the same day, I was at a friends' house whose cherry tree had totally blossomed! At least we'll probably get blossoms, and cherries, but not as many as last year. Notice anything about this tree?

No? Look a little closer:

Notice how some branches have leaves and buds and some don't? Those that don't are all on the same tree. The bigger of the two parts of the tree is totally dead. Jeremy will be cutting that down soon. If you look very closely in that first photo you can see a little sucker growing up between the two trunks. It's probably 3 feet high. We cut back all the rest and we'll let that one grow to replace the one we're taking down. It probably seems weird, but after all, those two big trunks were just suckers on the original tree which came down years and years ago. Perhaps the whole thing will utterly fail some day, but as long as it's producing I can't bear to cut it down!

Moving day(s) (or daze?)

2011-05-08T16:04:00.000-05:00

We aren't the ones moving; the entire mushroom operation is moving! Or at least, it has mostly all moved now.

Some of you know about our troubles with the city last summer, getting cited for the mushroom logs in our yard etc. Jeremy has been keeping logs in various undisclosed yards in the neighborhood which has sort of worked out. Imagine having your garden spread out in 5 different friends' yards, up to 10 blocks away. You have to go to every yard on a regular basis and weed, water, tend, etc. What if you have row covers on and they blow off and you don't find out till you go over and find everything scorched or frozen? It's kind of like that sometimes. A little stressful. The worst part though is the expectation that eventually we'll get cited again.

Our next-door-neighbor is moving away, but keeping the house, so he offered Jeremy use of his backyard. Excellent! It seemed so perfect because Jeremy could keep an eye on things right next door and it would be easier to get to than something 10 blocks away. So he cleared out an area, set up a big shade structure, and started inoculating some logs in there. It only took two weeks for the city to find out (or at least for the mysterious complainer to complain) and we got the dreaded citation. That meant Jeremy had to take everything apart and find another yard (more likely two or three) to hold everything that was going to go in this yard.

Aaargghhh! That's enough!!

Jeremy started looking around for anyone with a bunch of land so he could have the whole operation in one spot, and in an area where he could do it without worry about having to move the whole thing. He found a great location with a group of farmers a little ways from here. He signed an agreement to rent a space of land that was a little less useable for them (too much shade I think) and he started setting up last week.

He gets the spot that runs along the tree line:

(bees nearby!)

He had to move that big pile of brush first and rake out a lot of debris:

Wednesday was the big moving day. He had a couple helpers throughout the day, but it was a long day!

Here he is with one volunteer moving the totem logs. Totem is one way of innoculating logs - you slice up enormous logs into three or four sections and spread the mushroom spawn in between the slices (like a multi-layer ice cream sandwich). The whole thing gets wrapped in a plastic bag (ours are biodegradable!) and sits for a few months as the mycelium spreads. Then you take the bags off, water them, and big, beautiful oyster mushrooms grow out the sides (at least in the case of these ones). In any case, these logs/inoculated logs are huge and very heavy. One log per hand truck.

Jeremy rented a big moving truck for the day so he could move as many logs as possible.

Then he drove out to the farm and re-stacked everything in the new area.

He only ended up making two trips with the truck during the day. It took so long to load everything up and then to unload it all (often only one log at a time because they were so heavy). And I think he only ever had one other helper at a time. (Where's a big crop mob when you need one!?)

He was still loading up the truck for the second trip around 8pm on Wednesday night, so I volunteered to help out, even though I'm a total wimp and can hardly lift any of these things! Okay, so there are some lighter ones I can lift, and I'm pretty good at using leverage and whatever else I can think of to move huge logs without too much effort. Jeremy and a friend and I finally got the last log out of the truck close to midnight. Oh we were tired and sore!

Jeremy had to return the truck so he's been making smaller trips with a friends' van. I think almost everything has been moved now. Jeremy has also been working on constructing an awesome shade structure and that will probably be done within the week.

We are grateful that Jeremy found a place to accommodate him, that it's not too horribly far away, and that everything is in one place instead of spread out all over.

But on the other hand, I am ashamed of our city and the fact that I feel like Jeremy was chased out. It's not like he's growing pot or funny mushrooms or something! But you'd think so with the craziness this has induced. I really hope Minneapolis get its act together and that Jeremy can move back closer to home in the years to come.

Although, at this point I can't imagine hefting all those logs all over again!

Another day, another blog

2011-05-04T14:45:00.000-05:00

In the long and glorious tradition of people who have too much time on their hands (not!) I have started yet another blog.

http://fromthehomestead.wordpress.com/

This is the online presence for my sewing business, From the Homestead. It just seemed weird to announce on this blog art shows or craft fairs I'll be at - since a lot of my followers don't live anywhere near here! I don't want to get you all excited about some event you can't attend. =)

And I thought, "Hey, I've got loads of time (hah!), lets learn a new blogging tool!" What can I say, I'm crazy and a glutton for punishment.

In any case, I'll most likely still post about sewing projects on this blog (in fact, the new one is mostly made up of posts I stole from this blog), but I might go into more detail and I'll certainly let folks know about arts and craft fairs I'll be at.

So for those of you following this blog because of the sewing and you don't care at all for canning, gardening, mushrooms, etc, check out the new blog. =)

Butter, and lots of it!

2011-04-28T08:00:00.001-05:00

Have I ever mentioned how much my husband loves (loves, loves, loves) butter? I often joke that he doesn't like bread at all, it's just a vehicle for eating butter. He totally agrees with this.

We like to buy real, unsalted butter, preferrably Pastureland - but that is incredibly expensive! So we've been getting Hope butter, but that's still pretty outrageously priced (Oh, if only we had goats!).

A friend of ours recently started a Community Supported Bakery and he can get some food in bulk, including butter! So Jeremy ordered up this huge "chunk" of butter. I think it's like 25 pounds or 40 pounds, or something crazy like that.

Can't store something like that in the fridge or freezer so Jeremy cut it all up into smaller pieces.

So now we've got plenty of butter...for the next couple weeks. =)

mmm, mmm...mostly

2011-04-27T20:57:00.000-05:00

After I saw Jane's post the other day about pop overs, I had to make some! I made a batch yesterday, half in this funny cast iron pan I have and half in small muffin tins. I was amazed that they rose! I mean, there's no baking soda/powder! But I guess eggs are a kind of leavening or something. (Hey, I know baking is a science, I just don't know anything about the science!)

The ones in the muffin pans popped up and were very fluffy and tasty. The ones in the cast iron pan didn't really rise much and they were totally flat on the top. And they tasted weird. Like old cast iron pan or something. I'm not sure what happened there.

So I decided to give the rest of those to the chickens (I know they won't complain!) and I baked another batch this afternoon which turned out lovely and tasty - using just my regular large-size muffin pan.

In other food success news, I've also just made my once-yearly coconut cream pie for my friend Joseph. I make this every year for his birthday - from a real coconut that we hack to pieces on the kitchen floor! I didn't make the crust from scratch, but hey: beggars can't be choosers!

It looks beautiful and tastes fantastic - I just wish it didn't fall to pieces and slump in when cut.

First Oyster

2011-04-14T18:32:00.000-05:00

We had some warm days recently (hard to believe now that we're back to 30s and 40s and they're calling for snow tomorrow!) and warm days means the mushrooms start growing.

Jeremy has been out setting up shade cloth and checking on everything. He has found a couple tiny little freeze-dried shiitake, obviously from last season that decided to grow at some point.

But today he came home with this beauty, the first oyster mushroom of the season:

I didn't get a shot of the top of it, but this is what the top of an oyster looks like (courtesy of a nice specimen from last year):

We're looking forward to warmer weather and lots of mushrooms!

It's alive!

2011-04-08T20:10:00.000-05:00

The yard, that is. Almost all the snow has melted (except a few chilly spots) and I've been noticing green things poking their winter-weary heads up above ground. Actually, it looks like they've been doing that for awhile; it's more that they're finally getting up above the layers of mucky, compacted, dead leaves from last year.

I've spotted garlic (ALL of it came up!), peonies, tulips, columbine, wild violets, irises, phlox, rhubarb, and sedum so far. There is more to uncover. I also took a tour around our berry bushes (currant, blueberries, lingonberries, etc). Some of them made it and are starting to bud out. Others haven't started to bud and I'm hoping they'll show some signs of life soon. Still others are quite obviously dead. Bummer. I know of two or three gonners for sure right now. I'm not sure if the cranberries made it, or how long we'll have to wait to know for sure. The strawberries look fine and I'm sure they've started growing somewhere under their protective covering of straw and leaves.

I've been dreaming of the projects for this year for months now. Actually, trying not to dream too much because it would drive me crazy. Having just reached the 60 degree mark this week and a possible 70 tomorrow - all bets are off. I will be outside all day tomorrow and I'm thrilled!

So, here's a beginning list of things I hope to work on this spring & summer:

- build a retaining wall on the south side front lawn. (Dirt has been drooling out under the fence for years and now there are something like two raspberries, a rose, and a tree sapling growing on the sidewalk in the pool of dirt that has collected. This needs to stop.)

- dig up one of the laundry line poles from the north side of the yard and move it to the south side. And then use it. For hanging laundry.

- move our back fence all the way back to the alley as far as it will go and expand the chicken run.

- finish constructing the terrace.

- dig up the boulevard strip in front of our house, build a short raised bed, and plant stuff.

- I have visions of helping a bunch of people on our block also dig up their boulevard grass and plant flowers, etc.

- Plant something in the one garden bed Jeremy is leaving me, after he takes over most of the yard for mushrooms. I think we'll have room for a tomato plant and some lettuce or something.

- I want to plant a cucumber on our south fence so that it grows up the fence and then we have to use little slings to support the growing cucumbers (maybe not necessary if they aren't that heavy.)

- After seeing the pumpkin in this post, I kind of want to grow a giant pumpkin. I'm not sure where to do it though...

- I want to take out the ratty old dogwood in front of the house (it's in bad shape from bad pruning) and put in a fruit tree or two and espalier them. Did I even say that right? I have a lot to learn about this subject.

- and of course keep working 30 hours a week and sewing like a mad-woman to keep up with Farmers Market on Saturdays and various craft fairs and art shows!

We did recently make two decisions that will hopefully make things slightly less crazy. One, we're not going to get new chicks this year. It just seemed like too much work on top of already too much work. And our current girls are laying fine still, so we'll give them another year.
And two, we're not going to go crazy on starting plants from seed in the basement under the grow lights. In fact, we just lent out all those grow lights the other day to another farmer, so we can't change our minds! We're going to try a combo of buying seedlings and direct-seeding in the ground when it gets warm enough. I've heard that this method verses starting indoors weeks in advance doesn't make much of a difference. So we'll test it out!

I'm glad we've finally caught up with the rest of you (who have reportedly been enjoying spring for weeks, if not months!).

Zombie chickens

2011-04-03T18:47:00.000-05:00

Let me explain.

I make these chicken tea cozies. People love them! Well, at least they love looking at them; not buying them. Whatevs. They started out with me trying to jazz up some really boring tea cozies I'd made. Every so often I'll dig out a couple of these boring cozies and make all the parts to turn the cozy into the "excited chicken!" cozy: comb, beak, wings, and eyes.

That's been my afternoon project today (in preparation for an art show I'll be at later this month!). I like to line up the chickens and pin on all the different parts and then sew them all on at once. I just had the eyes left to do. They're made of felt so they stick to the face of the chicken - which I do just to make sure I don't cut out too many.

And I keep one finished cozy on hand to compare placement, size, etc. So I'm cutting out these eyes and slapping them on, then I look up and realize, "This looks like a band of zombie chickens about to do some harm to that poor finished chicken!"

And, of course, I had to blog about it. =)

New window

2011-03-30T19:37:00.000-05:00

These are the original windows in the garage. They were parts of double-hung windows that were just framed into the wall. They are small and scuffed and hard to see out of.

This is the awesome big window we got for our bathroom remodel. Since purchasing it (at a building materials salvage place) we totally changed our plans for the bathroom. So this window was up for grabs.

So Jeremy cut the other window out and began the process of making the hole bigger for the new window.

(uh, yeah, this was a month ago - a little more snow then!)

Here's the window today:

Looks slighly trashy with the old curtain hanging there, but it's not good to have sunlight on the mushroom logs, and there are a lot (A LOT) of logs in the garage!

So many logs it's hard to get them all in view - I had to get up against the wall behind the bikes to get that last shot. There are plenty more logs stacked behind that giant stack.
Jeremy's estimates were a bit off so it looks like he has some extra logs. So if anyone needs some logs for innoculating mushrooms, let us know!

Snow awning

2011-03-27T15:42:00.000-05:00

Some people have awnings on their homes. These are often made of fabric, sometimes of metal or maybe wood. We only have awnings in the winter. They're made of ice.

When it gets just warm enough, the sheet of ice/snow on the low-slope roof will start to slide off. Ever. So. Slowly. The sheets of ice will be sticking out one to two feet before they finally break off.

One half falls harmlessly to the ground. The other half falls onto the roof below (with a mighty crash), slides down that roof, then onto the sidewalk and plants below (thereby utterly destroying a couple of the cages around our blueberries.) We'll have to do something about that next year.

Winter doldrums

2011-03-26T11:00:00.004-05:00

After a week or two of lovely warm weather (and by warm I mean 40s!) we got another 5 plus inches of snow this week. And the temperatures have dropped back to the teens to low 30s.

It seems like everyone everywhere is talking about baby chicks, baby plants, spring, spring, spring!!

Right now, spring and summer feel so far away ... I've given up all hope of that blessed time ever arriving.

I was looking through pictures of our yard from the past two summers. So much light and warmth and so many flowers! I want a time machine so I can fast forward to June or July!

I saw this leaf in the snow. It must have been warmed by the sun and it's slowly sinking through the snow. Pretty cool.

(and by "cool" I mean: trying to find anything redeemable about having more snow! grr.)

More logs

2011-03-14T08:00:00.000-05:00

Jeremy spent this weekend getting more logs - finally! There have been all sorts of delays this year so I think he is excited to finally have another load to work on.

Van is partially emptied.

Logs are piling up.

These are much mossier and snowier than the last batch.

Now that is a lot of logs!

That is all oak. Jeremy also picked up a load of Poplar which we're storing at a friend's garage. He'll be doing totem method on those. More on that when he gets to that garage full of logs!

Fun with recycling, part 2

2011-03-13T13:15:00.000-05:00

There is a scene in the movie Never Been Kissed that has always haunted me a bit. Drew Barrymore’s character is having a relaxing evening at home, alone, working on some needlepoint. She is making a cute little pillow. She finishes the pillow and takes it to a bedroom where she sets it on the bed and admires it with love. Then you realize there are a LOT of other cute little pillows! This woman obviously has no life. On the one hand I think, “What a loser!” and on the other hand I think, “Hey, I resemble that!” It wasn’t too many years ago you could find me curled up in my one-room basement apartment, watching endless re-runs of Stargate and quilting till I had no feeling left in my fingers. Talk about nerdy. =) (Hey – I wasn’t always an urban homesteader!)

Anyway, I’ve been making some pillows and I always think of that movie and hope I’m not that bad.

I couldn’t be, because these are cool pillows! I had a bunch of leftover men’s ties from a tie skirt project and – in another flash of inspiration – realized these could make cool pillows. I was looking at the skinny part of the tie and realized here was all this fabric already in perfect 2” strips. So I made some pillows in the Log Cabin Style.

The first step is to pick a few ties. For a traditional Log Cabin you want one value for one side and a different value for the other side - light and dark, or just two distinct colors. And I pick a tie end for the center that is different from the rest of the ties.

I use a zig-zag stitch to topstitch all the ties together. Yep, the whole tie with the stuffing inside and all. It gives it a nice puffy feel at the end.

Each piece is just a little longer than it needs to be (and I cut as I go). This is because silk is shifty and sometimes you'll find it's a bit shorter than you remember!

I don't sew down the tie tip, so when you get this part hold that tip up.

and then...

...just...

...keep going!

At some point this might happen - the tie suddenly gets thicker! This is usually where I stop. But you can go ahead and sew it on; the extra bit can be trimmed off later (unless you want a really wacky shape to your pillow, which is fine).

Done!

Here are some others I made:

Even after all those, there are still lots of beautiful silk scraps to use, in which case you can try the crazy quilt method.

You just cut out random shapes (often triangular) and sew them down on a square of fabric.

Just...

...keep...

...adding!

The cool thing about silk is that it can be forced into some curves that are too difficult with cotton.

Done! (The curve in the blue tie in the upper left was a little too extreme and left a couple puckers. Oh well.)

Here's another one:

I should note that most of these aren't actually made into pillows yet - they're just the tops.

All of these will be heading to Kansas City with me (along with the bags) and if there are any left, they’ll be up on Etsy!

Fun with recycling, part 1

2011-03-09T19:46:00.003-06:00

I started making reusable shopping bags last winter when I was raising some funds to go on a trip. I kept making them for sale at the farmers market. I’ve had some success with them despite the fact that they aren’t cheap. (I can’t compete with 99-cent bags from Target!) But they are fully lined, have pockets, they’re sturdy, and they’re unique (and you aren’t acting as a walking billboard for some store!).

After making these for several months I started making smaller kid-sized ones. Might as well get kids into using re-usable shopping bags at an early age. And they need those smaller bags. I’ve seen more than a few kids helping with the groceries and dragging bags along the ground because the bags are so big!

Anyway, this post is supposed to be about recycling. Most of these bags have been made with new material and I’ve been trying to figure out how to do this more recycled. I got some great curtain scraps from a friend last year and made a couple bags out of those. A month or so ago another friend gave me a huge pile of old drapes from her house. They are very sturdy, almost like canvas, and the only sign of wearing is that parts of them are faded by the sun. I thought these would make great bags. And then somehow (I don’t know where these flashes come from) I thought it would be fun to line these with shirts!

I had gotten a small collection of men’s and women’s shirts from a bulk thrift store a year or two ago. I reasoned they would be great for fabric since people wouldn’t use them for clothes (due to holes or other problems). I sewed the fronts together, removed the buttons, and sewed the shirt together into the shape I needed for the bags. Sleeves and collars became pockets on the inside and outside.

this was a smaller fitted one, so you can see the fitted part and where the arms would be going out. This is the inside of the bag...

And here's the outside, with a bit of sleeve for the pocket.

Yes, I would have given this shirt to the thrift store too!

This pocket is part collar and part sleeve

In the end I think they turned out very well. These won’t be turning up on my etsy page just yet. I’m going to an Earth Fair in Kansas City in April. There is a group down there putting together some tables of crafts and things made with recycled materials, etc. So the bags will be there, and if there are any left they’ll be up on etsy soon after.

Snow chickens

2011-03-06T08:00:00.000-06:00

Everyone keeps asking how the chickens are doing. They're fine. I think they too will be happier when it gets warmer. I've dug out their run twice so they could have more space to stretch their legs.
Our chickens prefer not to step on snow - but they love eating it!
When Jeremy cleans out the coop he has been keeping the main door open so the girls can get out and wander around a bit.

mmmm! snow!!

hello

brr, that ice is cold on the feet!

Freezer challenge - success?

2011-03-05T12:11:00.004-06:00

Some of you may remember the freezer challenge from last year (here, here, here, here, and here!). I haven't posted anything about that recently, but I consider it an ongoing challenge to use up the things in there.

So when Jeremy said he'd be having volunteers in to help him inoculate logs, I thought this would be my chance. We have so much in the freezer! Surely there are enough beets and corn and whatever else to make dozens of pots of soups and stews and chowders.

For the first week I made borscht. That used up the rest of the cabbage we had, as well as beets from the freezer and carrots, potatoes, and onions from the root cellar.

Next I decided to make a batch of cheddar corn chowder. We didn't have any chicken broth on hand, so we dug out a bunch of carcasses and bones and chicken feet from the freezer, carrots and onions from the root cellar, and I made up a huge batch of chicken broth.

But then we started digging through the freezers and discovered: WE DON'T HAVE ANY CORN LEFT! I don't know how that is even possible. I thought we had enough to survive the apocalypse. But I guess we have been making a lot of corn chowder, corn pudding, corny corn bread, soups, etc, etc. So, somehow or other we used up all the corn!

Back to the drawing board.

And back to the root cellar for carrots, potatoes, and onions!

I decided to make some chicken soup. I sauteed a couple onions,

threw in some carrots, celery, chicken (from the freezer of course),

added the chicken broth and set it all simmering. Towards the end I added the potatoes and the rest of a box of bow-tie pasta.

And it was pretty tasty!

Now I realize what I must do (and have been avoiding like the plague for a couple years now) is inventory the freezer so I know just what the heck is in there. It seems like an especially thankless and cold job to do (especially when it's not much warmer outside the freezer than inside!). But then I had a realization: I would be willing to do it for a blog post.

Sometimes boring or annoying or tiresome tasks can be made slightly more enjoyable by the thought of blogging about them. I don't know - is that just me?

Inoculations begin

2011-02-28T17:00:00.003-06:00

Here we are, videos of the inoculation process!

First, the drilling. The first year Jeremy just used our regular household drill. I think that lasted about one day. It takes a minute or two per hole! He got a high speed drill which was very nice. This year he managed to find a working adapter so he is using an angle grinder (whatever that is!) which is even faster than the high speed drill. He also uses a drill bit with a stop so he doesn't have to guess how far to drill - it just goes to 1 inch exactly and then he moves on.
(Oh, and those puffs of air are Jeremy's breath - since it was 11 degrees out while he was doing this!)

After the log is all drilled, the spawn goes in. He uses a spring-loaded tool. He stabs it into the bag of spawn to pick up the spawn, positions it over one of the holes, and pushes the plunger - moving all the spawn into the hole. (Conversation and music aren't really pertinent information - in case you're trying to understand what we're saying!)

Lastly the wax stage. Jeremy gets a huge box of wax each year. He breaks of hunks of it and keeps it melted on a little burner. I don't understand it myself, but it has to be at a certain temperature to work the best. He can just tell by the sound it makes, how it looks, etc. I'm amazed. Anyway, he's got these little daubers (a tuft of wool or something on a metal stick) and he uses those to put the wax on.

When the log is done it goes in the "done" pile. Eventually these will go outdoors - when all the piles of snow melt!

Jeremy has volunteers signing up to help him with the whole process - and learn about mushroom innoculation at the same time. I'm contributing by making big batches of soup, cookies, bread, etc to feed the troops.

I think he'll have 15 or so logs done by the end of today (he started yesterday and did two then, so not bad!)

He's hoping to do a LOT of logs, but we're on a deadline. We've read/heard a lot of different (and often conflicting) advice, but he thinks, for the best results, he needs fresh logs from trees that haven't started leafing out yet and it's best to get innoculations done by the end of April or so. You can innoculate past then, but may not have as much success. At least that's been our experience!

The logs are here!

2011-02-25T17:59:00.002-06:00

After a few false starts (delays due to machinery/broken parts and too much snow) Jeremy finally picked up the first load of logs today.

I think he'll start the inoculations on Monday!

I Am an Urban Homesteader

2011-02-22T14:10:00.003-06:00

I learned about this whole urban homestead(er/ing/etc) on Sunday and have been amazed at the progress. Anyone who is familiar with what I'm talking about has probably read plenty about this in the last couple days.

Here is a page from The Crunchy Chicken listing lots of urban (or not so urban) homestead blogs.
And make sure you join the Facebook page which has been growing by leaps and bounds since it was set up.

I've been trying to figure out what to say since this all blew up. A lot of folks have blogged (or tweeted or FB commented) much more eloquently than I can. And I agree with a lot of what has been said. But I think there are some things I can add to the mix from my own perspective.

First is my perspective as a Quaker. The D family seems to think they are the founders and creaters of the idea of urban homesteading. I think that's ludicrous, but bear with me. If they really believe that, there is a part of me that can understand why they would want to protect the term. They have a certain definition for what urban homesteading is and what if other people call themselves that but don't do urban homesteading in the same way!? This is what Quakers have been dealing with for something like 200 years (or whenever the splits started happening).

Some people say, "I am a Quaker, I believe in God, I'm a Christian, etc, etc." Others say, "I am a Quaker, there is no God or all paths lead to God," etc. A Christian Quaker looks at a non-Christian Quaker and says, "how on earth can that person call themselves a Quaker!?!" And the non-Christian Quaker thinks the same of the Christian Quaker. (Sad, but true.)
I can't imagine what would happen if one side trade-marked the term and said the others couldn't use it! So how do you work with an international population of people that call themselves by a specific term but all define themselves differently? It takes a lot of patience and love and a willingness to find common ground. The point is, it can be done. I think of urban homesteading as a process of learning, becoming self-sufficient, trying different things. It is not a list of prescribed things that you must do or not do. It does not look like one particular life-style or the response of one person or one family.

But of course this is religion which can have much more fierce in-fighting than a bunch of progressive gardeners and farmers...right? (yikes! maybe not considering some of the things I've read.)

Here is my other thought. What about the D family? I cannot help myself from thinking of the other side of the issue - I'm a bit of a peacemaker. They've just made a really bad move, made a really stupid mistake, and they are seeing a backlash across the country. People are sending them hate e/mail, unfriending them, ceasing support, boycotting them, etc.

No one can deny that they've done some incredible things on their property and, up till now, have been an incredible example. Is it possible for them to ever rejoin the urban homestead community? If they were to drop the whole trademark issue, would we welcome them back with open arms and say all is forgiven? Or would we hold a grudge and grumble about them for years to come? I wonder this because...if I had done something stupid like this I might be more likely to fight for my "rights" than back off and apologize, knowing that everyone would still hate me and my support would be vastly diminished.

I hate to see people in situations like this. I hate to see this breach in our community of progressive, earth-loving, farm animal-loving, vegetable growing peaceful folks. The D family obviously got a little too big for their britches. Couldn't that happen to any of us?

If they drop the whole urban homestead/ing trademark issue, are we willing to take them back?

In Defense of Tea Cozies

2011-02-19T11:49:00.003-06:00

I started making tea cozies a couple years ago and started trying to sell them last summer. I'm not really sure how this happened. I think I made one or two for gifts and then it grew from there. Sometimes I wonder, "Why on earth am I doing this!?" Especially when I see people responding to them.

(a "frilly" cozy)

Here's a hint: how many of you readers are thinking "what the heck is a tea cozy!?"

I would guess about half of you have no idea what I'm talking about - even if you see the pictures. That's about the ratio when I'm selling them at the farmers market. Half the people know what they are, the other half think they are hats!

(sleeping cat cozy)

So let's back up. A tea cozy is a padded cover for your teapot. It keeps your teapot, and your tea, nice and warm. If you don't have something wrapped around your teapot the tea will cool off quite a bit quicker. And, though I cut into my business by saying this, anything will do for a tea cozy! Before I made my own I wrapped a small towel around my teapot - and that did the trick just fine.

(the excited chicken cozy)

I've managed to sell half a dozen or so of these tea cozies in the last year (so obviously I haven't quit my day job!). I was thinking about tea cozies and teapots and, I admit, waxing philosophical, the other day.

(this little piggy cozy)

What does it mean to have a teapot (and hopefully a tea cozy!)? What does it mean not to have these? I saw in the answers to these questions the state of our society (remember: waxing philosophical!).

(dinosaur cozy)

We are a nation of people who desire instant gratification. We are impatient and always on the move. There is no time to make tea in a teapot, let alone boil water on the stove. We'll take the hot water dispenser or a mug of water in the microwave, and plop in a single serve tea bag. Which reminds me - we're a nation on the lookout for the cheapest price, which means there is an awful lot of substandard, nasty tea on the market. We're also a nation of individualism and isolation. Back to that single-serve tea bag in the individual mug.

(elephant cozy)

Having - and using - a teapot, means patience and taking time. I hope it also means selecting a higher quality tea. And - unless you're drinking that whole pot of tea yourself - it means sharing time with friends or family. Sitting around the table, eating tasty (homemade?) snacks, sipping hot cups of tea, and catching up on life. Doesn't that sound great?

(my first dinosaur cozy)

(Coffee drinkers - you're not off the hook! Coffee can also be made the "instant" way or made more slowly and savoured, and enjoyed with friends instead of alone.)

(another chicken cozy)

So here's your challenge: if you have a teapot, dig it out, dust it off, invite a friend or two over, and drink some tea together!

(stars & galaxies cozy - a birthday present for my brother)

Get ready...get set... wait...

2011-02-14T08:00:00.000-06:00

Ah spring. At mid-February in Minnesota it's probably jumping the gun to say spring is starting. But enjoying the 30 and 40 degree days we've had recently, many people are thinking about spring and summer. Here are a few things about spring in Minnesota.

1. There is no way 30-40 degrees felt so warm back in October!
2. Here in Minnesota, we start putting coats on when it gets down to 30 or 40; and we start taking coats off when it gets up to 30 or 40!
3. Spring in the northwest is beautiful. Flowers blooming everywhere, temperatures warming, people start planting things... There is one word for spring here: UGLY. All the piles of snow turn blackish-brown, and as they melt you see garbage everywhere, and there are huge puddles everywhere. Yeah. It is not a pretty sight.

Anyway, this post is supposed to be about our spring plans - and mostly that involves waiting around at the moment.

Jeremy has a planting station with grow lights all set up in the basement. This should be a bit easier than last year's set-up, but it's all an experiment trying to figure out where it works best, how much space we need, etc. But... who knows when we're going to get around to actually starting seeds!

Jeremy also has the chicks' brooder all set up and ready to go.

We invested in a sweeter heater which a lot of people here swear by. So we'll start the chicks out with this and move the heater (that long white box thing on top of the brooder) out to the coop when the chicks are big enough. But the chicks? Alas, we've been delayed another month because the hatchery has had trouble hatching Marans lately.

And lastly, Jeremy has been working hard on getting ready for the start of the new mushroom season. He's been tracking down new yards to store logs in; designing new shade structures; researching new varieties to grow and new methods of growing. And, he designed this sweet mushroom inoculation table:

It has several stations because he's hoping to get volunteers (especially those who want to learn about mushroom cultivation) to help him with the whole process.

All the spawn arrived a few days ago and is waiting in the root cellar.

But the logs? Jeremy was planning to start picking them up today, but it turns out the logger is delayed because of some broken equipment. So it probably won't be till Friday! Jeremy is pretty bummed about this.

So in the meantime, he's been dreaming and making plans for getting rabbits!

The dangers of snow

2011-02-13T17:07:00.004-06:00

Because we have a metal roof, the snow doesn't slowly melt off - it all slides off in great house-shaking chunks. We thought this was fun, last year, but it can be a little destructive too.

Most of our berry cages look like this. Just fine, though buried under almost 3 feet of snow.

And then there is this poor cage, which lives just under the sewing room roof, where all the snow from the second story and the sewing room roof falls off. I hope the plant underneath is okay!

The rooster that was

2011-01-25T08:00:00.000-06:00

You may remember the chicks we watched back in August, especially the one that turned out to be a rooster. It looks like I never really talked about him again, but we moved him into the chicken coop in his own sort of isolation coop under the main hen house. After several failed attempts at integrating the flock, we realized his life would be in peril if he were to be left alone with our flock of blood thirsty girls. "No boys allowed in this house!"

He had a pretty happy life, got the choice scraps all to himself, and we let him out in the yard when the girls went out. He was terrified of them though, and if one approached him he would flip out and fly halfway across the yard to escape. He was quite a handsome young guy.

Around September or so he started crowing. It was delightful actually. He generally only crowed from 7am to 8am and then was quiet the rest of the day. One morning we woke to dueling roosters: the rooster down the street would crow, then ours would, then the one down the street. It was hysterical!

The first video was taken by Jeremy, and the rooster had no problem crowing for him. The second video was taken by me. I had to film far away because every time I got close to the coop, he zipped his beak and refused to crow!

But then of course, the fateful day came.

It was starting to get cold outside for our ward, integration wasn't going to happen, and we hadn't planned to keep him anyway. So one day when I was at work my husband (plus his intern, two neighbors, and another curious friend or two!) did the deed.

And boy was he tasty!

It was a good experiment because our neighbors enjoyed having him around. So if we get roosters in the next batch we won't feel so bad about keeping them around. But I guess in the end that depends on how much they crow. Our neighbors' rooster crowed every time someone walked by the house - so he eventually had to move out to a farm because there were too many complaints. It would be nice to have a rooster on the block again though!

Getting ready

2011-01-24T08:00:00.001-06:00

Jeremy has been cleaning out the garage and organizing things in preparation for starting up mushroom logs in a few short weeks. While digging around out there, he found the pieces of our brooder box for chickens. Well, he realized, we'll be needing that again soon!

So he brought it all inside and re-constructed the brooder box in the basement. Here it is in process.

We're planning to get Rhode Island Red, Americauna, Rose Comb Brown Leghorn, and Cuckoo Maran this time. That should give us blue/green, brown, and white eggs.

And yes, this does mean our current batch of girls, in a few short months, will be made into tough chicken soup, or tough chicken enchiladas, or tough chicken something-or-other. I'm sure it will be a difficult task because some of the girls have so much personality and are so endearing (especially the speckled sussex). But, they aren't pets and that has been the plan all along. So you'll be hearing about that (and new baby chicks!) sometime in the next couple months.

Two down, one to go

2011-01-23T14:52:00.001-06:00

I got the second of three quilts done that I mentioned earlier.

I love how it turned out. Thank goodness for the women at my local quilt shop. They are so good at helping people find just the right fabrics to coordinate with any project. I found the green border color and couldn't figure out what to use for the outer border. They turned up the cute blue fabric with all the multi-colored squares. Perfect match.

Looking back I realize all I've been going on about is sewing, sewing, sewing! It must remind some of you of last year when all I could talk about was construction, construction, construction!

There are one or two other things going on around here. I'll try to talk about something else, like chickens or mushrooms, soon.

A little more procrastination

2011-01-19T08:00:00.000-06:00

I did another little procrastination project over the weekend. Not quite the same as my last one. I've been wanting to make something like this for some time.

The first Christmas present Jeremy got me was a stack of fabric and a couple ideas for quilt patterns (so sweet, isn't he!?).

I've been carrying that fabric around for years! I've been wanting to make him something out of it and recently it seemed like a good idea to make a little cover for his bedside table - to protect it from spilled glasses of water or whatnot.

Here are the pieces laid out:

And then, fast forward, all sewed together, quilted, and finished!

It looks very nice on his table - and he was very surprised when he came home and found it!

In other news, I finished one of the three quilts I was working on recently:

It's rather stunning, I think. And it's on Etsy!

Making something old, new

2011-01-17T16:28:00.004-06:00

Maybe that title should be "making something crappy, not crappy." 'Cause crappy is the nicest way to describe my ironing board. I've had it for years and it shows. The cloth is threadbare and kind of looks burned in some spots. I've accidentally cut through it in a number of spots. The batting layer (between the cover and the metal grate of the board) is threadbare itself, even though I've put in more layers. Sometimes when I'm ironing that metal grate pattern is transfered to whatever I'm ironing. Argh! And for some reason there is a huge dent in it which means I don't have much of a flat surface.

So, I drew up my plans.

First step, I had my hubby cut a piece of wood to attach to the frame.

Voila!

Next, I cut a piece of batting (the 80/20 stuff) to fit over the top.

Then I cut a piece of fabric to go over that and pinned the whole thing together. I think people often use muslin, but I had a nice big piece of white fabric so that's what I used.

I sewed around the whole thing, just to keep the two layers together. Not a pretty job, but no one is going to see it. Then I made these marks at intervals along both of the long sides.

I sewed zig-zag stitches around these to make button holes.

Then I put the fabric on the ironing board and used some old twine to lace it together. I cinched it tight so the cover won't be riding around on the board.

And, voila! A new top for my ironing board!

What is really nice about this is that I can actually iron a yard (or more) of fabric. A standard ironing board is pointed at the end (for pants or sleeves) so you really don't get that much space to iron a big piece of fabric. I hate ironing only one half of a piece of fabric, turning it over and ironing the other half.

Now my board is big enough to have some project laid out AND have the iron AND some pins or scissors or something.

Ah, the simple pleasures in life.

Presents

2011-01-15T08:00:00.000-06:00

Okay, while I was searching around for the snow picture I found the Christmas pictures, so I just had to show-off. Here is most of what I made this year:

Socks

This pair for my nephew, plus a pair each for my sister and brother-in-law (though theirs were in thick grey fleece).

Mittens

No, I do not knit! I bought a couple wool sweaters from the thrift store, cut them up, and made mittens. A fun and very satisfying project to do.

Skirt

For my niece. She loves twirling in skirts or dresses so I whipped this one up for her. I didn't get a picture of it myself, or I would have gotten a close-up of the tiny yellow rick-rack I sewed to the bottom hem. Very cute, if I do say so myself!

Table runner

This was my mom's present. It matches the one I made her for Thanksgiving. Once again, I'm glad it got there in time for the holiday!

Quilt

Jeremy's mom and her partner gave me a box of t-shirts last year after Christmas and asked if I could put them together into a quilt. That was their order for a Christmas gift. So that was one of my big projects toward the end of the year. Not the quilting though. A friend of mine did that on her long arm quilting machine, for which I will always be grateful. She did a beautiful job (if anyone needs recommendations for a quilter, I will pass her name on gladly!).

I also made an awesome set of pot holders for my brother, but also failed to take pictures. Oh well.

Jeremy even got in on the action and made these ornaments:

They're made from leftover bits of our upstairs project, flooring and trim and whatnot. We all think he should make these and I can sell them at the market. But I don't think he's into mass-producing crafts. =)

Circles, squares, and triangles

2011-01-13T16:23:00.003-06:00

I've got three little quilts in process.

The oldest is this very simple pinwheel quilt with cute little bugs. This originally started out (about two years ago) as two little pillows. But then I realized no one buys pillows, so instead of finishing them I made one more square and sewed the whole thing together as a quilt. It is quite small though - about 24" square. I had a little bug material left for a border (as you can see) and I picked up some more fabric for more borders. I have one more border to add, then quilting and finishing.

Next:

You might recognize this from last year. It's not the same quilt though. This new one is much smaller and made from the leftover scraps of the other one. For this quilt I cut squares and then cut circles out of the middle. Then I sew the opposite color into the circle. What to do with all the circles I've got left over? This quilt! Now there are left-over circles from this quilt, but I think they're just the right size for some yo-yos. I just got some border and backing fabric for this one, so that has to go on, then the quilting and finishing.

And lastly:

This was sort of a boredom project. I needed fabric and thread for all the other projects on my plate and the fabric store was closed. And I've been thinking a lot about how to use up all the scraps and bits I've got. (Tons of scraps!) I rather like the way this turned out, though I'm still thinking about whether to make it a little less rectangular. And I don't know if it will get a border or not. I've kind of been into borders lately, so it probably will get one. And then, the refrain, quilting and finishing!

Jeremy just asked if I'd been blogging lately. Not really, was my reply. Nothing is really going on. I suppose that's not entirely true, and there are still blogs I'd like to post about Christmas presents I made and the fate of our rooster from last year, but I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

It's hard to get up the energy to do creative homesteady things when it looks like this outside:

Okay, it's not as bad as that anymore. This is from our big snowstorm last month. But still - 'tis the season for snuggling up inside with a hot drink and a good book - not working feverishly on the homestead!

Just when you thought it was safe to can your own food...

2011-01-03T19:50:00.002-06:00

This may be a tired subject for some people, but not everyone has heard about it.

So, you know about BPA? That's Bisphenol A. It's an organic compound used in a lot of products, and has been for some time I guess. Recent research has begun to show that this stuff is bad. It is banned as a toxic substance in Canada and several places ban its use in baby bottles. Yes. Baby bottles.

But my post isn't about baby bottles - because BPA is also present in canning jars. It's in the white stuff on the lid. I swiped the following quote from treehugger.com (and they swiped it from elsewhere, etc):

Jarden Home Brands manufacturer of home canning lids: Ball, Kerr, Golden Harvest, and Bernardin brands follow the same rigorous FDA standards used by the commercial food packaging industry. Like the majority of commercial food packagers using glass jars with metal closures and metal sanitary cans, the coating on our home canning lids is designed to protect the metal from reacting with the food it contains. A small amount of Bisphenol A is present in the coating. The FDA does not limit Bisphenol A in commercially packaged foods, and is aligned with the international scientific community’s position that a small amount of Bisphenol A in contact with “canned foods” is not a health concern for the general public.

Uh... not a health concern!?!? I've heard about a few studies and it's shocking all the things that could be linked to BPA. And frankly, I don't trust the FDA at all. I'd like to be in charge of what chemicals and toxins go into my body, thank you very much!

Jeremy and I started hearing about this a year or two ago and we haven't been sure what to do. Many people are shifting over to Weck jars. They are all glass (no BPA) and are fantastically beautiful. Unfortunately, they're fantastically expensive! We've got dozens and dozens and dozens of jars - we could never afford to replace them all.

So I did a little research a month or two ago and found Tattler Reusable Canning Jar Lids. BPA free! There is a plastic lid and a rubber ring that fit onto it for the lid. You can still use the same metal ring as with canning. And this lid is reusable!

I hate the huge pile of used canning lids we have that can't be used again. In fact, I think I'm going to box them up and send them back to Kerr/Ball and ask if they'd kindly stop using BPA!

Anyway, we put the lids on our wish list and got a whole box full for Christmas! Wahoo! It's pretty likely we won't be canning until this summer (unless we get the energy to can some soup or chicken broth) so I'll let you know how these work when we first use them. In the meantime, I thought this review was very helpful.

So hopefully now it is safe to can again...

2010, By the Numbers

2011-01-02T21:12:00.003-06:00

I've noticed a trend among homesteady bloggers - posting the number of pounds of produce grown, number of things canned, frozen, or stored for the winter, etc. We have a sheet with this tally and I was going to post it, but it's kind of pathetic next to some of the other numbers out there.

Afterall, Jeremy was desperately trying to finish the house this summer; I started a job and was doing the Farmer's Market every other weekend; and it was our first year with a garden at this house. I was very impressed with Jeremy's efforts at starting everything from seed though.

Jeremy is already talking about taking over an entire garden bed for mushrooms. I'm not discouraging him. With a CSA share and neighbors handing over veggies, we haven't wanted for veggies in the summer yet! We just need to decide what things we really can't do without.

So, the first Number for this post: Jeremy grew an astounding 189 pounds of Shiitake mushrooms last year! (At least, I think it's astounding!) He also got a few pounds of Oysters and almost 30 pounds of Wine Caps. He's not going to do Wine Caps again this year since they're so particular. He's pouring over his mushroom catalogs even now, planning for the new year. Such a mushroom farmer. =)

The other numbers are from me. Instead of posting vegetable totals, I thought it would be an interesting exercise (for me anyway) to post sewing totals. So, here's what I was busy sewing in 2010:

29 - the number of pants, coats, skirts, dresses, or whatever else I hemmed

25 - the number pants, shirts, dresses, skirts, etc I patched up or otherwise repaired

8 - the number of zippers I replaced or repaired in various pieces of clothing (I really thought it was more!)

6 - the number of garments I sewed new buttons or clasps onto

4 - the number of skirts I replaced the elastic in

2 - rug fixes

2 - curtains made or hemmed (one of those was a set of 6 panels made in velour!)

1 - boot repair (something to do with the laces, I can't recall now though!)

1 - coat alteration (turning a pullover into a zip-up)

1 - replacing the lining in a coat

1 - sewing reflective stripes on a biker's winter coat

1 - wedding veil

1 - wedding dress

1 - wedding bridesmaid dress

1 - t-shirt memory quilt

and one pair of stockings!

And that's not including gifts for the family (mittens, hot pads, 2 table runners, a quilt, socks, cup cozies, a skirt) and all of the crafts I've been making throughout the year for the Farmer's Market and various art sales (pillows, quilts, bags, purses, tea cozies) plus sewing table covers for my market booth; and of course the quilt I worked on for Jeremy and I. Phew!

I feel like I've been quite busy sewing this year, though for some reason this list doesn't seem as impressive as I thought it would be. That's probably partly because my records haven't been all that detailed. I'll have to remedy that for 2011 so I can give a better accounting next year.

This is as good a time as any to let folks know that I've repopulated my Etsy store. Depending on how it goes, I might let it all expire come April or May so I can take what's left to the Market. So don't delay! =)

Very Happy Chickens

2010-12-31T08:00:00.001-06:00

We've been talking about expanding the run for ages. Technically speaking, the enclosed run is big enough for our 8 girls. But... who doesn't like a little more space, right?

Our plan was to "some day" dig up the back fence and move it back to the alley which will give us a ton more space. Who knows when we'll get around to that big project though! Finally, in October, we decided to give them what space we had.

We had to move out piles of rocks, gravel, bark chips, wood, etc! But in the end, we had some very, very (very!) happy girls.

In the new year to come, may you all be as happy as chickens with a whole new run!

Basement pantry

2010-12-29T16:29:00.002-06:00

In our first root cellar at the last house, we stored all our root vegetables as well as our canned things. In my last root cellar post I mentioned that this could sometimes be a little scary if things got very cold. We didn't want our canned things to freeze - and possibly expand and crack jars.

So this time Jeremy built the shelves for the canned things on the outside. We had a mess of canned goods in various places around the basement and it was a real pain finding anything.

The week after Thanksgiving Jeremy finished the shelving...

...and about half an hour after he was done I'd organized everything!

We've got the dehydrator, canners, car boys (for when we make booze some day), and lots of canned things: pickles, peaches, pickles, relishes, pickles, pears, applesauce, pickles, chutneys, beans, jellies, chutneys, jams, apple juice, chutneys & pickles! Somehow it doesn't looke like much, but those jars are all four or five deep. Behind the concrete pillar we have the apple juice, beans, and some mystery item I can't identify in the picture.

It felt very good to get everything out and organized and take stock of what we have.

Blogging... oh yeah...

2010-12-29T16:25:00.002-06:00

It has come to my attention that my devoted fans (one of them at least) would really like it if I would post something again!

Okay, okay, I'm sorry. Things have been very, very busy for me (and I thought for sure I had posted something a few weeks ago...) but now that the holidays are over I should be back to regular posting again.

I have several now historical posts to share about things that happened months and months ago! But there isn't much else going on around here...except snow and more snow and planning for the coming year.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas, and I hope you're all ready for 2011!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2010-11-25T08:00:00.000-06:00

This is a Thanksgiving table runner I made for my mom. I actually made it for her birthday (which was last month) and I got it in the mail to her in time for Thanksgiving. =)

But the bigger gift, I think, is that I get to be home for Thanksgiving this year! Now that is something to be thankful for...

Love the material on the back of the runner:

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Apple Dumplings

2010-11-24T08:00:00.001-06:00

The apple dumpling tradition continues. This year of course we couldn't do it on Thanksgiving because I'll be home! So we invited a bunch of friends over for the Sunday before. There are so many more people in town the Sunday before Thanksgiving versus Thanksgiving day!

I think we fed 12 or 13 people. I made a double batch of dumplings, and still several of us only had halves.

There always has to be a glitch though, right? So last year it was cooking the sugar sauce till it was like toffee or hard caramel and then apples were a bit dry. This year I did the sauce right, but the oven decided to heat unevenly. And I mean really unevenly. After about 45-50 minutes of cooking I was checking an apple on the far right of the pan and it still felt hard, like hardly cooked. So I kept cooking, and cooking, and checking. Apples still hard. But for some reason I never looked over at the apples on the left side of the pan (a mere 8 inches away) until I realized they practically melted they were so cooked! And even though they'd turned to applesauce, the apples on the other side of the pan were still tough! So weird.

So for the next batch I turned the pan around three times while cooking and it worked like a charm.

Our friends came out, braving treacherous icy roads, and brought hot cider, banana bread, waffles, raspberries & blueberries with whipped cream, crustless quiche, and bacon. One of our friends brought over a new box of Yorkshire God tea. My hero!! We never buy the Gold because it's more expensive. And it's so darn good, we can't get used to drinking that and then go back to the regular. =) So I made pot after pot after pot of tea.

And of course we used Jeremy's great grandmother's china again. We ran out of chairs in the end and it was pretty packed with all of us in that kitchen.

My grandparents did up their will before my grandma died 9 years ago. I'm going to get their dining room table some day complete with leaves for extending the table and 8 chairs! It will be such a moment when all our friends gather around my grandparent's table and use Jeremy's family's china and my mom's recipe for apple dumplings.

(Of course it will also mean that my grandpa has passed which will be very sad. =( )

Anyway, here is the recipe which I didn't share last year.

Mom's Apple Dumplings

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a saucepan, combine 2 cups water, 2 cups sugar, 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg. Bring to a full boil, occasionally stirring. Set aside. (Which means turn the heat off!)

If you're sharing this task with someone else, they can peel and core 6 apples. Dip them in lemon-water or vinegar-water which keeps them from browning.

Combine 3 cups flour, 3 teaspoons baking powder, and 1 teaspoon salt in a bowl. Cut in 1 cup of shortening (butter, Crisco, etc) until coarse crumbs form. Sprinkle mixture with milk while tossing with a fork, adding enough milk until soft dough forms. (This will be between 2/3 to 1 cup of milk.)

Shape the dough into a log and cut into 8 equal pieces. (The extra pieces are for decoration.)

Roll out each piece on a floured surface – round shape is ok. Place an apple in the center of each pastry piece and you can put a littl butter in the hollowed out apple. You can put some brown sugar and cinnamon mix in the core, but you don't have to. Mold the pastry around the apple – press edges to seal. Repeat with rest of apples.

Place in ungreased pan – one big enough to fit the apples so that they don't touch each other, and deep enough so that when the sauce bubbles up it won't overflow. At this point, you can whip up a bit of egg white and brush dumplings with this. Roll out the rest of the dough and cut out some leaves, make veins with tip of knife, tip one end in the egg white and then press onto top of dumpling.
We usually do 3 leaves to an apple. You could have someone else cutting out the leaves and getting those ready while you form the pastry around the apples. When all pastry has been brushed with egg white, (and sprinkled with a bit of sugar if you want – not too much), pour the sauce around the dumplings and bake at 375 degrees for 40 – 50 minutes, until the apples are tender and the pastry is brown. If the apples are not done yet and the pastry is getting too brown, cover with a piece of foil.

Don't those just look good enough to eat!!

We usually roll up some dough for a stem in the apple, which I didn't do in this last batch. And, I've always cut out bit leaf shapes and cut in the 'veins' like my mom's directions say; but this year I used a tiny cookie cutter Jeremy got for me of an oak leaf. Took way less time!

Can't wait to have these again on Thanksgiving morning! =)

About that root cellar...

2010-11-22T18:15:00.001-06:00

....it's actually been done for some time now. I've gotten behind on my blogging!

Last time you saw the walls go up and the insulation going in. Now the insulation is all done and the sheathing is all up.

Jeremy is quite proud of the ceiling in the cellar, which he pieced together from lots of different scraps. Whatever we can do to not have to buy new sheets of wood!

Stepping in the door you see our potato box to the right (with some garlic in bags on top of it), some bags of carrots, and our onion bins.

On the opposite wall are lots of apples in boxes of leaves and I think those are some squashes on our re-purposed Ikea shoe rack. The empty boxes on the left are waiting to accept more veggies.

This is what keeps it cold: a vent through the window coming right into the room. There's a damper in there so we can adjust the flow of cold air. The glass block window also has that window-vent in the middle that we can open to allow lots of cold air in. We painted the block a darker color to keep the light out, but I think I'll have to hang a curtain there to really keep the light out.

And this is how we keep track of it. 41 degrees in the chicken coop, 43 degrees in the root cellar. The chickens are just fine, but the root cellar could stand to be a little bit colder.

What's next? Jeremy is building some shelves on the outside of the cellar to hold all of our canning things. We kept our canned goods in the last cellar, but it's really not necessary. And it left us a bit worried a few times when the cellar dropped below freezing. We didn't want to accidentally wreck our canned things!

More on this when Jeremy finishes building and I finish organizing. =)

Snow!

2010-11-20T08:30:00.000-06:00

Okay, it actually snowed very briefly a couple weeks ago and then it was one week ago when we got our big snowfall - probably around 12 inches. It was apparently the biggest pre-Thanksgiving snowfall in 30 years. And since it was so early in the season the snow was incredibly wet and heavy. A lot of people lost trees and branches as the snow kept coming down and weighing everything down.

This is the view out the window-seat window, looking into the backyard. This is what we woke up to last Saturday morning.

And the only other pic, in the side yard.

I just love how the snow sticks to every last surface. It even stuck to every bit of bird netting we have outside!

Jeremy and I worked hard the week before the snow getting the garden cleaned up and put to bed. (The chickens helped with this of course.) The last thing we did was to get some old storm windows and put them around three sides of the chicken coop and tie them down. This way the chickens still get light, we get to see them, and they are a bit more protected from snow drifts and wind.

So we're pretty much ready to settle in for the winter I guess. Just in time: it's supposed to start snowing tomorrow and Monday, and then we should be getting a bunch more snow for Thanksgiving!

Finishing the path

2010-11-19T19:00:00.000-06:00

Last fall we had a whirlwind effort to get our brick path in before the snow flew. It stretched from the front of the house, all along the side, and right back to the chicken coop and garage. But we didn't have time to do that little bit that comes from the sidewalk to the house.

It was on our to-do list all summer, and, like many projects around here, I just didn't think it would get done this year. But I kept telling Jeremy that it surely wouldn't take that long. =)

Finally one day Jeremy got out some tools and started digging up that (pathetic) pathway. The concrete was so thin he just had to bang on it with the crowbar a bit and it broke into lots of pieces.

We (mostly Jeremy) got the slabs of concrete up and moved to the back and we thought we were done. But then Jeremy brought out the shovel to start digging and hit concrete! There was a whole extra layer of concrete about 1/2 inch under the dirt for about half of the path. I don't know what people were doing or thinking way back when these layers went down...

Anyway, we now have a lot more concrete stacked up which we'll use to finish our terrace next spring/summer. For now it's just stacked on the back side of the terrace, in two layers of course.

The path was "in process" for about a week or so and getting in and out of the house was very interesting.

But finally Jeremy started putting rock down...

...and laying the brick!

It's done now and fabulous. Wonderful to see and much easier to shovel!

One part of this that was enjoyable (now that it has passed) was sifting out the rock. A friend had given us a large load of rock just as we moved in 1 1/2 years ago. The stuff sat by the fence all that time - Jeremy didn't really want to use it in the path with all the dirt there was in it. But there was nothing else to do with it and we can't really afford to buy a whole new load of rock.

The pile of rock happened to be in the newly expanded chicken run (more on that later!). So Jeremy and I painstakingly sifted out all the rock while the chickens milled around us looking for bugs and worms and creepy crawly things as they were sifted out of the rock. The chickens certainly had a blast and I think they're a little sad that we're not out there helping them dig up tasty morsels every day!

Another fix-it project

2010-11-18T21:40:00.002-06:00

An acquaintance wanted me to fix a coat she had. It was her favorite and she'd had it for years so of course it was quite worn. Actually, the outside was mostly fine; it was the lining she was concerned about. It was made of shoddy material. Here is a scrap of the sleeve lining I took out:

Threadbare and shredded on the bottom. Most of the lining was like this. Ack!

The owner had started on making a new lining but gave up. She handed over a bag of silk scraps and the partially made lining and I set to work!

Success! My favorite part was learning how to do these little pockets. I've never done ones like this before (I don't even know what the technical sewing term is for them).

Most of the repair projects I have now aren't that interesting - just patches and zipper fixes. Of course I've got other sewing projects going on - but I can't tell you about them until after Christmas!! =)

Drowning in fabric

2010-11-11T21:50:00.003-06:00

Where does the time go I ask you!?
In my case it goes to work and then as much sewing as I can squeeze in. In addition to sewing lots of things for the Farmers Market, during September and October I took on the crazy project of helping someone make a wedding dress and bridesmaid dress. I hope to post pictures soon.

I'm trying to get into sewing Christmas presents - but I've got some mending work to do first, and now I'm making a quilt for someone to give her daughter for Christmas! I'm excited because this is my first big paid project. Pics or details when I get that done.

And do you all remember that quilt I was making earlier this year? The top is finally done!

I got the top done in time for our open house last month. But then we promptly folded it up and put it away. I still have to put together the back, baste the whole thing together, then quilt it. Some day, some day...

How to (NOT) cane a chair

2010-10-23T08:00:00.000-05:00

Jeremy inherited this lovely rocking chair from his grandparents.

Actually, it's kind of a sad rocking chair. As you can see, the caning is coming out.

The arms are a bit high. And I'm not sure what happened to the rockers. It kind of looks like someone attached slightly warped boards to the bottom of a regular chair to make it a rocker - meaning, it doesn't really rock much. But hey, it's got loads of character!

We've talked about re-caning it someday, but frankly I'm not interested in spending the time/money/energy to learn that skill. (Does that make me a bad homesteader?) Besides, I've got some crazy sewing skills and I'm starting to think just about any problem can be solved with a needle and thread (or duct tape).

So I grabbed a steak knife from the kitchen and cut out the rest of the caning. (I'm sure that's how the professionals do it.)

Then I made up a canvas seat that wraps over the top on all four sides and ties together under the seat.

Flash!

It seems to work just fine. I might make a nicer one someday, but at least we don't have to worry about falling through the seat anymore!

Root cellar: day two (and three...)

2010-10-22T08:00:00.001-05:00

Way back in May when we started work on the root cellar again I never guessed it would bog down and stop after only a couple days. Sometime in the last several months Jeremy (and an intern?) put up the studs in the wall and the door. And that's where it sat all summer.

I had begun to think that the root cellar wouldn't happen again this year because there are too many other projects. But then I remembered something: Jeremy doesn't really like to work in a messy area. Its true that when doing construction things get messy. But it's different if you created the mess this morning or yesterday, versus 4 or 5 months ago. In those months, the basement got messier and messier and piled higher and higher with stuff. And the truth is, Jeremy doesn't like cleaning that much and I do.

So how do I get him interested in working on a project again? I clean things up. I spent a few hours reorganizing boxes and piles and sweeping up junk, and the very next day Jeremy started working on the root cellar again! It's like a miracle. =) (But one which I completely understand. In college, I was unable to start doing my homework until my room was clean. I know, I'm weird.)

Anyway, Jeremy put in some electrical in case we need that and put plastic on the exterior of the cellar - walls and ceiling.

This is looking into the cellar through the door. I think Jeremy is going to paint over the glass block window because it lets in a lot of light.

The ceiling:

With help from the intern, Jeremy got the sheathing up on the walls. Then comes the fun part. He's leaving a gap at the top through which he'll pour in the bags and bags of blown-in insulation we saved from upstairs. We love recycling!

These two are filled (nearly) and just need sheathing on the outside.

It's coming together quite nicely and I'm looking forward to getting some root veggies, onions and garlic, and apples to store for the winter. We're going to build a wall of shelves on the outside of the cellar for storing all our canning things, empty jars, and canned goods.

Gift

2010-10-21T08:00:00.000-05:00

A month or so ago some of our chicken-keeping neighbors down the block had to go out of town. They left the chickens in the care of their housemates. The housemates, not being used to chickens, were not prepared to deal with a case of sour crop that hit one of the chickens.

What is sour crop? Well, I'm not entirely sure, but I can try to explain it. The crop is where chickens sort of chop up and begin digesting the food they eat. Sometimes they eat too much or too fast or something bad for them and that affects the crop. In this case, the crop (which is in the chest) feels like a big squishy water balloon. With many crop issues you have to massage the crop to help food go down. With sour crop, you also have to help the chicken barf. Yes, chicken vomit.

So we went over a couple times a day over that weekend to tip the chicken upside down and see if she'd vomit, then massage her crop. We also gave her a bowl with water and apple cider vinegar to help, and no food. Don't want to add more to that mess!

Oh, I should say 'we' as in Jeremy. I watched, but he's the one that got chicken vomit on his pants, and he's the one that did the massaging. I did the...moral support. Yes, moral support.

It seems to have done the trick and the the chicken is just fine these days.

Anyway, a couple weeks ago these friends came by with an incredible gift basket! A fresh loaf of bread they'd just made, some things they had canned, and a beautiful basket. Such a great thank you gift! It's great to have so many chicken-keeping, canning/preserving, homestead-y friends in this neighborhood.

Isn't that a sweet gift!? =)

Bike bag

2010-10-20T08:00:00.000-05:00

I've been biking to work - 6 blocks, not a bad commute - but the transportation of things to and from work was a problem. I don't have a rack or basket or panniers or even so much as a milk crate for my bike, so everything had to go in the backpack strapped to my back. That gets to be a pain after awhile (at least I thought so).

So what's homesteader to do? Fall back on my sewing skills of course!

I took my beloved backpack, which I've probably had over 10 years, and made some modifications. It was an ideal candidate since both the zippers were broken and half the seams were falling out. (Hey! It was my beloved backpack!)

My beloved backpack - the front pocket has been removed. I took off all the patches and sewed them back on the smaller, new bag.

I cut the seams apart at the front and back, on either side of the zipper, half-way down the bag. I also sewed on these little velcro straps.

I sewed the zipper part closed all the way around the bag - don't need that broken zipper any more!

Now you can start to see it... the top half of the back of the bag became the flap and the zipper part was sewn together to be a carrying strap.

I think this was a sheet. I used it to make the lining for the bag.

Voila! When I'm riding I stick the strap inside the bag, then I can take the bag off and carry it by the strap. I think I want a better way to attach the bag to the handlebars, but the velcro is fine for now.

This has worked out pretty well ... though there are still times I wish I had a nice big milk crate on the back of my bike instead. =)

Making Salsa - a working girl's perspective

2010-10-18T17:40:00.000-05:00

When you have a 30-hour a week job, food preservation looks a little different.

Step 1: husband buys tomatoes, peppers, and other things at Farmers Market.

Step 2: husband cuts up tomatoes and peppers (and other ingredients I guess) and roasts them in the oven.

Step 3: Voila! Salsa!

Obviously there are many steps I missed, but I wasn't home to watch or help! This is Jeremy's favorite salsa which he made last year. It's in the Ball Canning book. Another blogger tried out a few recipes in there and recommended this one. Jeremy loves it. I think we'll (or he'll) definitely be making this one every year.

Goodbye, crappy old bedroom...

2010-10-09T09:30:00.001-05:00

... and hello brand new bedroom and office! (And hello readers - I'm back!)

We actually finished the bedroom side of the upstairs a couple weeks ago and we finished the office side just last Saturday. There has been a lot of moving around of furniture, boxes, and dust! It has been an amazing space to be in. The first day, as we were moving in and getting things set up, Jeremy said he felt like we were staying at a B&B! I'm not sure that the feeling has worn off yet.

I'm too embarrassed to show a picture of the whole room downstairs - it was so full of stuff. But you can tell we were in tight quarters.

Dismantling and moving - lots of stuff under the bed!

New bedroom, ready to receive us!

Oh you glorious closet!!

Sigh, sigh, sigh. =)

All that glorious, reachable closet space.

I've shown pictures of the nasty living room before, with a pathway down the center between piles of wood and boxes and furniture. Well that has cleared out now! All the office-type things came upstairs. Coming out of the bedroom, here is the window seat.

And the office itself (which needs a little more unpacking - and another filing cabinet!)

We put our twin mattress in there to use as a daybed. Jeremy built the desktop over the filing cabinet area and the little cd shelves. It is a cozy little spot. And the view!

And what happened downstairs? I finally got my dedicated sewing room!

Now, it's not that I've already gotten it messy - it's more that I haven't had time to get it cleaned up and organized since all this moving took place. Too much moving and too much sewing (but more about that later).

I'll get it cleaned up today though, because we're having an open house tonight! So, off the computer for me, and onto more cleaning and putting things away!
(And I promise a whole lot of updates are on the way...)

I will blog again...

2010-09-26T18:53:00.002-05:00

...some day. Things have been busy, as usual, and I have pictures and stories piling up. I've been sick for over a week (and now I have an ear infection too) and I know I haven't been resting as much as I should be. Fighting with this darn computer to post a few pictures isn't very relaxing or restful, so it will have to wait a little longer.

I hope all you readers out there are having a lovely transition into fall!

Finally, those stairs

2010-09-10T11:00:00.000-05:00

I've been meaning to post about these stairs for ages. Once again, here are the stairs before:

After looking at different paint colors we decided to go with a reddish-brown color. Just before starting, we decided we really had better prime it first. Jeremy picked up some primer and the woman at the store tinted it as dark as she could. It turned out to be a brownish-grey color. We kind of liked it.

Then it was all dry and I started painting the final coat:

And that is as far as we got with that color. One a half steps! We both looked at it and agreed it was much too dark and we liked the primer color way better! So Jeremy went back to the store and got the stair paint with as close a match as they could to the primer color.

Ta-da!

In some way, the color doesn't even matter. It's just nice to finally have the stairs in good shape and in one color! And I guess it's nice to have the drywall patches done and the trim up too.

I didn't get before pictures of the desk, but there wasn't a whole lot to show. Jeremy has been constructing the table top for a couple days. The main piece is some plywood and then he cut a groove in the edge and notch on the rounded pieces, then fit it all together and glued it.

It's pretty fantastically beautiful. Once it dries a bit more he'll attach it to the knee wall, the supports, and a leg we've got for it. Then we'll practically be done!

Finished quilt

2010-09-09T08:00:00.000-05:00

I liked the black and white thing, but it was a bit stark. I found the perfect (I think) fabric to go with it and I rather like how it turned out.

The machine quilting went pretty well. I did it all in a couple hours one night. Amazing. I think I mailed the quilt off to my friends one week after buying the fabric at the store. Incredible. I don't think I've ever quilted anything that fast, so I guess there is something to be said for the machine. But... I still kind of feel bad about it, like I cheated somehow.

Harvest time

2010-09-07T18:56:00.003-05:00

For mushrooms, that is. Way back in April I told you about the winecap mushrooms Jeremy had... planted? inoculated? ...spread around on the ground on the north side of our house. We've actually harvested some before now, but we hadn't been expecting them yet so by the time Jeremy found them they were dried out and not very edible.

Yesterday I peaked around the corner and saw the tell-tale sign of bulges in the hay. I sent Jeremy out with a basket to collect what he could find.

It was a little over a pound for this basket. Jeremy cooked some up for a quiche. How do they taste? Not bad. I don't know that there is anything I can compare them too. It's hard to pick out the flavor with so many other things going on in the quiche. Perhaps we'll try them again in something with fewer ingredients.

I'm not sure how successful this mushroom experiment was, and that's only because we didn't keep an eye on them much at all. We didn't bother to water them (just let the rain do it's thing) and we didn't do anything to protect them from cats or squirrels (both of which have been in there digging and chewing on 'shrooms). I'm sure we'll do better next year, if we decide to grow them again.

Yesterday's project

2010-08-29T20:46:00.004-05:00

A friend of mine just had a baby and I decided it was high time I got back into making baby quilts. The last one I made was in 2005! Life intervened, as it is wont to do, and I've missed making quilts for quite a few folks.

No time like the present to get started again. I whipped this up yesterday:

I decided on black & white because supposedly that's all a baby can see for the first while anyway. Maybe it's too stark though. I'm going to add a splash of color to it, just have to make another run to the quilt shop.

I wanted to make a quilt with the cirle motif and I saw a couple like this online. Most of them, however, do it differently than I did this one. They cut out a circle and, through different methods, sew it down on top of a square of fabric. I didn't want to do a ziz-zag stitch and I didn't want to mess with folding under the edges of the cirle (what a pain!). So I cut the circle out of the square fabric, placed a square piece of fabric under the hole, and folded under that circle. Does that make any sense at all? If anyone is interested I guess I can post more detailed pictures. In any case, it seemed to me to be way easier.

I think I'm going to take the plunge and do some machine "quilting" on this one. I use quotes because I just think using a machine to quilt is cheating! (And yet I am jealous about how much faster machine quilters can get their quilts done!)

I'll post a pic when it's all done.

(p.s. oops - I forgot that I have made two baby quilts since 2005 - both for my niece!)

Visitors & Visiting

2010-08-21T08:00:00.001-05:00

This summer has been overwhelmingly busy, and I know it's not just me. I've heard from other overwhelmed folks too. I'm falling behind in my blogging, and sometimes I feel like we're falling behind in house and garden work!

Leaving house/garden work aside, this post is about visitors and visiting. The visitors came last week in the form of Thea the cat and 4 chicks, ranging from baby to adolescent. Jeremy's sister's family went out of town and needed to farm out their menagerie of animals (there is a dog too, but we draw the line at dogs!).

Due to loss of one chick and some replacements, they have two older birds and two younger. But they seem to get along just fine. One of them is very large and very obviously a rooster. We heard his funny attempts at crowing a couple times while watching him. The family can't have a rooster where they live so we get to keep him. However, we'll only be keeping him till he makes a decent sized meal, another month or two I'd say.

Here they are running around outside in a pen we put up for them. I love that they're small enough to hide under the violets! Though this smallness will work against us in future days... (cue the ominous foreshadow-y type music...)

Last Friday I took Jeremy out of town on a little visit down south to a goat farm, Dancing Winds Farm. It's not really a working dairy farm any more, but Mairi still has some goats, a cute farm cat or two, and some great neighbors. In fact, it turns out her newest neighbor is someone Jeremy has known for 20 years! We had a great time relaxing, exploring the farm, chatting with Mairi, petting goats, going to a farm celebration at the neighbors, and then Mairi arranged for us to go milk some goats at a neighboring farm. Morgan and her husband have lots of goats and are milking almost 40 right now, twice a day. They sell to another local place that makes cheese which you can buy at the co-op.

Jeremy ended up milking three goats. Morgan made it look so easy it was amazing. It's definitely part science, part art, and a lot of practice! Here are some images from our trip:

Look at that milking action!

Back to that little rooster now. We returned home on Sunday and made a little isolation pen for the rooster inside our chicken coop. A guy that little would definitely be harassed by any group of chickens. So we made him a little spot with food, water, grit, a roost, and a little box to hide in (he certainly doesn't need it for eggs!).

That day we cleared out an area next to the run and fenced it in. We've been talking about expanding the run since last year, but there has been a rotating mountain of stuff stopping us from doing that, not to mention the fence there. We finally decided we might as well do with the space we had - especially since we'd just carved out 1/4 of the run for the rooster. Those girls needed more space! We secured the fence and put bird netting over the top, then Jeremy cut a hole in the hardware cloth creating a little doorway for the girls to exit the coop in the "extra run" as we're calling it. They are loving the new space.

Monday night we went for a walk around the neighborhood. We came back and Jeremy went out to close the door to the extra run. He came back inside and informed me that he could not find the rooster. He was not in his enclosure.

We both went out to look, me with a flashlight and Jeremy with his headlamp. I checked his enclosure and sure enough: no rooster. I looked all around the coop, no rooster. The girls were all innocently perched in the hen house ("what rooster? we don't know anything about any rooster"). No rooster in the hen house or the nest boxes or the extra run.

Ack! Where was the poor little guy and how did he disappear!? We were both afraid he would get eaten by some neighborhood cat or dog or racoon or who knows what. Jeremy went out the back gate looking in the alley. I started looking all around the coop amongst the piles of bricks, pavers, tall weeds, etc. Then I flashed my light over by the fence and caught sight of a fluffy whiteish bundle: our little baby rooster! He was snuggled up by the fence, his chosen sleeping spot for the night. Jeremy went around behind and caught him. We returned him safely to his enclosure where he promptly showed us how he had escaped. He jumped up and climed through a large hole in the fencing we'd used for his enclosure! Our fat girls couldn't fit through that gap, but he could. Then he simply ran through to the extra run and crawled under the fencing or found a big enough hole to jump through - again, something we don't have to worry about with our big fat girls. =)

We put some more fencing up with smaller holes so the rooster can't escape now. I sure hope we can integrate him with our girls eventually. I think he would be much happier hanging out with other chickens and not being confined to his own pen.

Okay, okay, more cute goats! Some videos I took:

My, that's a tall garden you have...

2010-08-20T08:00:00.000-05:00

I think it must be the vast quantities of compost and manure we put on the garden, but it seems outrageously tall. We’re growing the biggest marigolds I’ve ever seen and I’m almost sure tomatillos don’t usually get to 7 feet tall. Our tomato plants are pretty big, but still smaller than our neighbors. Our beans are trying to take over everything.

It's hard to see but the beans are trying to use the enormous tomatillos as more climbing support:

A couple of our raspberries have shot out new growth and are going for a second round of berries.

Unfortunately, our broccoli are mostly leaves and not much broccoli! We did harvest some earlier and it was tasty. We’ve also harvested some fennel. Our sage has turned into a jungle:

There is something wrong with the peppers and they’re turning to mush on the plant. The same is happening with our neighbor and some other folks. The diagnosis (we don’t know if we’re right) is that we've just had too much rain . It seems to be affecting the raspberries and melons too. Beautiful fruit but not much flavor. Maybe the culprit is just too much water.

What does one make with all this garden produce? A fabulous tomato-based sauce of course!

Jeremy made this with about 7 tomatoes, sage, rosemary, lemon thyme, garlic, green peppers, and mushrooms all from our yard; and local celery, onion, leeks, scallions, and ground pork (the local stuff came from our CSA and the co-op). My goodness this was a tasty, tasty sauce!

Light at the end of the tunnel

2010-08-18T16:00:00.001-05:00

It's hard to believe I've only posted about the upstairs twice in the last month and a half when so much has been going on. Well... maybe not so much, but toward the end it feels bigger because every piece you put up finishes something and you don't have to deal with it again.

After the floor there was a long list of all the final trim things that needed to be done:

The transom over the door:

(still need to sand off the wood filler from the nail holes...)

The window trim and window seat:

(Can't wait to put some books in there!)

More window trim:

(The cute little window that will one day look down into the kitchen...)

(trim done in the front window - cannot wait to tear those stickers off!)

Trim around the closet door:

And then these stairs, which we're in the midst of fixing up. Jeremy put in some new nails because some of the old ones kept coming up. I stepped on one a couple weeks ago and boy did that hurt! The stairs are so old it seems like the nail holes are stripped (if you will) so a couple bigger, longer nails did the trick.

You can see the paint job is also horrific. I'm guessing a UM fan lived here - aren't these the colors? Anyway, not only are the steps multi-colored, there are paint drips all over. The plan is to paint the whole thing one color, including the bit of trim on the sides. I think it will look fabulous.

For those wondering about the final inspection, it was actually supposed to happen last week. We were all set to do it, with a plan for getting the desk, more trim, and the railing in on time - and then we discovered the railing didn't comply with code! Grr - stupid code. So Jeremy is just going to build his own now. We delayed the inspection by a month and I'm hoping everything will get done by then! I can see the light at the end of the tunnel...

300 Posts (and I'm not talking about fence posts)

2010-08-08T08:00:00.002-05:00

300. It seems like an awfully large number. It feels like a milestone or a landmark. It's probably nothing compared to some folks' blogs. But I thought I'd call it out anyway.

I polled several people at my Meeting for an article about blogging and asked them why they blogged, why it was important to them, etc. There are as many answers as there are people I think.

This blog has come in handy in more ways than I ever thought would be possible.

- It was how we met some cool neighbors just down the street who had recently moved here.

- I've used it to find recipes I blogged about (but never wrote down anywhere else for myself)

- I've used it to remember when something happened, or when someone visited, or to identify plants

- Recently we've used the photos to figure out where the studs were in parts of our house that are now covered up (where on earth can we pound this nail in??)

- And of course we've used it to share about events, progress, new projects, problems with the city, and so forth

- And it has been a great place to keep my family and friends back home updated with what we're up to .

This is actually my third blog. My first one, which I still use very infrequently, is the Vicarious Travelblog (yes, I did think I was very witty with that title). I basically use that one when I'm off on some big trip. I kept the Atomic Antelope when I was in grad school. Perhaps a more boring one than this, but it was a good outlet for talking about my experiences of grad school. I'm glad I have that now - it's fun to read back through it and remember the things I learned and the projects I did. But I quit that at the end of grad school and started this one (which many of you know used to be Northwest Meets Midwest).

And so, Adventures in Urban Homesteading continues on, hopefully with more interesting homesteady things....or really, just whatever I feel like posting about! =)

Thanks to all my loyal readers, lurkers and followers alike.

First Melon

2010-08-07T08:00:00.002-05:00

Jeremy grew a short-season melon called Minnesota Midget. I guess it has an 85 day growing period or something. We have probably a dozen or so melons from two plants (these are the ones we planted over the catfish).
Jeremy went to check on them the other day and found one was ripe. It smelled so good even before we cut into it. It ended up having a very subtle flavor, not as sweet as we would like, but not bad.

(Yes, that baby is over a pound!)

Is it weird that we ate our first melon before our first tomato? We picked this and a second tomato the day after the melon:

We’ve been keeping an eye on a few tomatoes that have been looking red and finally these two were ready. But I know people here who were picking tomatoes weeks ago! Obviously we need a sunnier spot for them. Next year…

Wenesday morning Jeremy went out and discovered half a dozen or so of our melons were ripe and ready to pick! Anyone want a melon??

The election is coming! The election is coming!

2010-08-06T08:00:00.002-05:00

I wrote this for our local paper, the Southside Pride, but they didn't have space for it in the edition that comes out for our neighborhood. It will be published next week in another neighborhood's paper. I'm kind of bummed it didn't make it in our neighborhood's edition because I want us to all get out and vote. Oh well. This is geared toward Minnesota, but I suppose it could be helpful for anyone out there.

It’s that time of year again. Political lawn signs are popping up like dandelions, our mailboxes are filling with flyers and brochures, the door-knockers are out, and the media is full of stories of who to vote for and who not to vote for. Since the “vote for me!” and “vote for him/her!” stories abound, this article isn’t about any particular candidate, but about the act of voting itself.

With the primary fast approaching (August 10) I want to share with you a list of reasons not to vote (and why I think those reasons are ridiculous).

One reason is: “I don’t have time to vote!” Yes, Election Day is only one day, but the polls are open all day, from 7am to 8pm. Also, every eligible citizen has the right to vote (see the eligibility disqualifications listed on the Minneapolis Elections website) which means your employer has to give you the opportunity to go and vote. “What if I’m going to be out of town on Election Day?” That’s no excuse either. Minneapolis provides absentee voting for just such a reason (and several other reasons). You can absentee vote in person at City Hall starting 46 days prior to any election. That means you can go and vote right now. You can also register to vote and vote absentee through the mail – without ever having to leave your home. So you see, you have plenty of time to vote!

Another reason is: “But I’m not registered to vote” or “It’s too hard to register.” That is ridiculous. Minneapolis makes it incredibly easy to register to vote and you can even register on Election Day at your polling place. Just ask the over 50,000 people who registered to vote on Election Day in 2008.

How do you register on Election Day? First, find out where your polling place is. You can find this on the City of Minneapolis elections website. If you don’t have access to that, stop in at any polling place you see and ask. The Election Judges can help you find your polling place. When you find the right place, bring a current Minnesota photo ID: driver’s license, permit, ID card, tribal ID. There are a couple other things you can bring – check the Elections website for the list. If you don’t have a current MN ID, you can bring in an expired ID and a current utility bill (as usual, see the Elections website for details). The list of approved documents and options for registering is so long, it’s almost impossible not to register! It may take a little work on your part, but it’s certainly not “too hard” to register to vote.

Another reason not to vote may be: “It’s too hard to vote.” By that I mean there are so many candidates, so many options, which do you choose!? Yes, there can be a lot of candidates to choose from and it takes some time to research all the options. If you decide to take the plunge there is help. The League of Women Voters and the League of Young Voters often publish voting guides, as do newspapers and other sources. Do a search online for voting guides and see what turns up. Think about your values and beliefs and vote for the candidates who match those (and please don’t vote for a candidate just because they’re a particular party!).

Some of you may be saying: “The elections are all rigged anyway, so why vote?” Ah the conspiracy theorists. Sometimes the evidence seems overwhelming, but I’m not going to let that stop me from voting. If we all stop voting then there will be no elections and where does that leave us? There are arguments for different kinds of government, but I’ll let someone else write that article. This is the government we have and voting is one of the ways we can participate. Until we have a different government I am going to keep voting. If you want to keep an eye on things, become an Election Judge. All those people in the polling places that help you register and vote are your neighbors.

And by the way, some of you may be thinking of skipping the Primary on August 10 because it’s “not as important” as the general election in November. Think again! The Primary will be nominating the candidates that you’ll see in the general election. If the candidate you like loses in the Primary, you won’t be able to vote for them in November!

I know some of you are using these excuses, or others, because voter turnout isn’t so good around here. Actually, Minnesota in general has some of the highest voter turnout percentages in the nation. But still, we haven’t reached 80% voter turnout in over 50 years. That means every year there are almost one million eligible voters who don’t vote (and that’s just in Minnesota!).

That’s pretty embarrassing for a country that considers our selves the “guardians of democracy.”

I admit to having a higher sense of our voting responsibilities since I became an election judge two years ago. Every election, primary and general, I sit in my assigned polling place ready to help people in my ward register and vote.

And every election I am stunned by the lack of voter turnout. People forget, they don’t care, they don’t have time, they think it’s too difficult, or doesn’t matter. Shame on us who have become so indifferent and complacent that we don’t care about voting anymore. We need a reminder of our history. It was less than 250 years ago that we were fighting to be our own nation, fighting for the right to vote, decide on our own representatives and our own laws. You women out there, we only gained the right to vote 90 years ago. Women in the suffrage movement were jailed (and worse) as they fought for the right to vote. Do we now take voting for granted?

Your excuses have been laid to rest. I hope you will join me on August 10th and November 2nd as we vote for Minneapolis School Board members, Minnesota governor, and new Representatives. (And if you want to be an election judge, check out the Elections website for details on how to apply.) See you at the polls!

http://www.blogger.com/www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/elections

What to do with ground cherries

2010-08-05T08:00:00.001-05:00

Jeremy grew ground cherries and tomatillo this year. Don’t ask me what the difference is, they look the same to me! The ground cherries have been ripening for weeks and we just have piles and piles of them lying around. Sometimes I catch the squirrels up on the terrace munching on them. (Stupid squirrels.)

I picked several containers of them last week and Jeremy convinced me to make some Ground Cherry Bars, a recipe from Simply in Season cookbook.

You need 3 cups of ground cherries with the papery husk removed.

After hours of processing (or what felt like it) I finally had the required three cups:

You mix this in a saucepan with 1/2 cup of brown sugar and 3 tablespoons of water. Bring it to a boil then reduce heat. Mix up 3 tablespoons each water and cornstarch, add to the saucepan, and heat slowly, stirring constantly. After what seems like forever, it will thicken up nicely. Just don't overcook it - the ground cherries should still be whole.

Then cream together 1 cup butter, 1 1/4 cups sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla, 1/2 teaspoon lemon extract. Add 4 eggs and 2 cups of flour to this. Pour it in a greased 10x15 jelly roll pan. I used a glass baking dish (all I've got) that's more like 9x12 so I think the bars turned out differently than they might have if they were shallower.

The directions said to score the surface of the batter into 30 squares and spoon a little of the ground cherries onto each square. I ended up just pouring the ground cherries all over the top. Same thing.

Bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes, then cool and cut into squares.

Personally, I liked the fluffy, lemony batter better than the ground cherries. They're not bad though, but an interesting taste/texture to get used to. And we'd better get used to it because we've got another 3 or 4 cups of ground cherries waiting to be eaten!

Sewing, sewing, sewing

2010-08-04T08:00:00.001-05:00

You may (or may not) have noticed things are sometimes quiet around here. It's not just that I have a part-time job now, it's that I have a full-time sewing job!
I continue to do sewing projects for friends, family, strangers, etc but I've also have a tent at our local Midtown Farmers Market.

I decided to have really low expectations (that I wouldn't sell anything) just so I wouldn't be disappointed. So I've been pleasantly surprised that I've been doing well. And by doing well, I mean I've at least paid for my fee each week. =)

I've been enjoying myself though, and getting to know some of my fellow vendors. I applied for and got accepted into the Powderhorn Art Fair this coming weekend (August 7-8). I'm trying not to have any expectations again, but it would be cool if I sold everything! Of course - then I'd have to sew like crazy to make it to the farmers market two weeks later. So maybe... 2/3 of everything? =)

Anyway, here are a few examples of things I've been making (and sometimes even selling!):

Tea cozies (they're for tea pots)

Pot holders:

Wristlets (generally fits a cell phone, keys, and your ID - for people who don't like to carry around a lot of baggage. =)

Lots of cloth shopping bags (I'm particularly fond of this one I just made this week out of a curtain or something)

Jeremy picked out the fabric for this one:

And if you remember the bag I made for my sister, I'm making those too. This is a variation in corduroy:

I quite like the little reveal pocket on the front

And of course it's got the little pocket inside.

I've also got some quilts, like the ones I posted about in March, and a few other various things. My 10-foot square tent is packed out and it looks rather like I've been quite busy. I have been! And I've mostly enjoyed it too.

I hope some of you local folks will come by this weekend to check out the fair.

Growing terrace

2010-08-03T16:45:00.000-05:00

I am so far behind on blogging I wonder if I’ll ever catch up (or what I’ll decide never to blog about anyway!). The last pictures you saw of the terrace were just after we’d planted the strawberries so it looked pretty much naked and bare.

It is looking great now. Here is what we have in there: strawberries, lingonberries, and cranberries in the terraces; rhubarb, asparagus, strawberries, cranberries, parsley, bee balm, ground cherries on the top. There are also some black-eyed susans and milkweed growing here and there.

As you know we had to dig out the back side of the terrace because of city codes. The plants seem to have survived so far and the one spreading ground cover is starting to come back.

I'm afraid the pictures really don't do it justice - or maybe I just took these on a day that was too bright. I'll keep trying and eventually you'll get to see a really good picture of it (or you'll just have to come over and visit!).

Furry visitor

2010-08-02T08:00:00.001-05:00

Last week a friend of ours rescued a bunny in the park. She and her dog were out walking early in the morning, and the tiny little black and white bundle ran (hopped?) up to her. Definitely not a wild park bunny. She took it home, put it in a box, and gave it carrots and sprouts to munch on. She hasn’t had any luck finding the owners. (I’m guessing someone got a rabbit for their kid for Easter and they finally got tired of taking care of it and dumped it in the park to fend for itself. Don’t get your kids chicks and bunnies for Easter unless you intend to take care of them for a long time!)

Anyway, our friend had to go out of town for the weekend so she asked us to bunny-sit. How could we say no to that cute little face?

We thought this would be a good trial run since Jeremy wants to get rabbits someday. It was very cute, and liked to eat all the time, but I think it had been neglected (really long nails) and maybe even abused. It was not the friendliest rabbit (at least to me!) and preferred to hide out in its box. I did enjoy setting up a comfy space for it. Our friend (who lives in a condo and doesn't have piles of wood chips and hay lying around, like us homesteaders) didn’t have any bedding in the box at all. I added a pile of hay and a little cardboard box for the bunny to rest in. She really seemed to enjoy this.

(Of course I only got a shot of her when I had the wood chips in, before I put in the hay. But you get the point.)

We thought briefly about keeping the bunny as a pet, since no owner has come forward, but we decided not to in the end. Our friend collected the bunny on Sunday night, and it still needs a home!

Summer snack

2010-07-27T08:00:00.000-05:00

Jeremy requested that I make a pound cake for his birthday. Turned out we didn't have sugar or several other ingredients so he had to wait. We eventually tracked down sugar, lemon extract, and convinced the birds to lay some more eggs.

This pound cake (recipe from Saveur) was divine.

Lemony, sweet, rich, perfect texture. It was excellent till the very last slice.

It went very well with a mountain of raspberries straight from the yard and fresh-whipped cream. Mmmmmm....

The Floor

2010-07-25T14:38:00.002-05:00

I guess I'd better get back to posting about the rest of life - it certainly hasn't ceased just because of all this mushrooms vs. the city business! (For further updates on that, you can join our new Facebook page: Save the Mushrooms!)

Three weeks ago I posted about the first row of flooring going down. Jeremy spent days coating the under-side of every piece of wood and making notations about any bit that shouldn't be used.

Then he rented a floor nailer and got to work:

He mostly finished the floor in one week - we couldn't afford to rent the nailer for any longer than that! He had a couple rows to do by hand at the end (the floor nailer wouldn't fit in those tight spots) and he just finished with that on Friday. Wahoo!

Our floor is so beautiful:

Obviously I like the closet too, and the way it seems to rise out of the floor (since it's bare wood too and everything else is painted).
Jeremy just rented a sander so hopefully sanding and coating the floor will be done in a couple days. Then he gets to work on all the trim.

This will all be done soon - our permit expires mid-August and we have to have it done by then! Yes, we could get another extension, but I won't allow it. I just won't. =)

If all goes well, we'll be moving into the upstairs by the end of August!!

Loss

2010-07-18T21:14:00.003-05:00

We had a brief glimmer of hope last week. Friday we were out running errands and Jeremy's cell phone rang. It was the mayor! He wanted to know if we were home and if he could stop by. We stopped mid-errand and went straight back home. R.T. was already there walking through the yard, admiring our chickens and garden.
We gave him some background on mushroom growing and what the city cited us for. R.T. was very supportive and said he'd do what he could. But he admitted things moved slowly. We were hoping for a reprieve, a delay, an extension, but we haven't heard anything yet.

This morning Jeremy and his intern moved all the logs and dismantled everything here. It's amazingly bare and empty looking now...

...compared to before:

(uh, make that WAY before.)

I have hope that the mushroom logs will come back and Jeremy will be able to continue his business here in our yard, and in other yards, without fear of harassment from city inspectors. But I'm sure it will take time.

There is no hope for the back of the terrace. Here's what we got cited for:

I hardly know how the inspector knew the ground wasn't level five feet away since there are so many plants back there.

Jeremy spent the weekend digging out all the plants and dirt. Our fruit bushes and various flowers and plants, refugees from city policy, are huddled in twos and threes around the yard, their roots clothed in various pots and bins, awaiting resettlement. I hope they will not be damaged too much by this mid-summer transplanting.

I don't know when or if the inspector will come and what he will say. I feel a certain dread that they will surely find something else to cite us for: like too many trees, or too many rain barrels, or not enough grass!

We'll make the best of it, and move on with different plans. Projects continue in the house, so I'll update you all soon.

A letter & a request

2010-07-11T18:04:00.002-05:00

(This is from my husband, Jeremy)

Dear citizens,

I have a small mushroom farm in south Minneapolis. I mostly grow shiitake mushrooms on oak logs but I’m growing a few oyster and wine cap mushrooms as well. The mushroom logs sit in our side yard, and some of our neighbors have donated shady parts of their yards to host logs as well. I don’t use fungicides or chemicals and the logs are sustainably-harvested just north of the Twin Cities. I sell the mushrooms to local co-ops and groceries and a couple of restaurants, all within a few miles of where they are grown.

With 350 four-foot logs and production of only sixty pounds (to date) of shiitake mushrooms, my operation is still too small to be truly viable. This business can be grown and made viable and sustainable if only the city of Minneapolis will adjust some of its policies and regulations.

As small as I am, I have already run into many difficulties with the City zoning department: they have targeted my operation as non-compliant with the current code. Early in June I had to move 125 logs from the yard of a neighbor due to non-compliance (they were seen as ‘improperly stored firewood’). Now I have received a notice of non-compliance for my own property. The notice calls attention to my storage of logs in the side yard and of the use of the shading structures that cover them. It also challenges the use of my residential property for a “home occupation business to produce vegetables for sale,” which is not currently allowed if visible from the street.

I am not averse to some regulation of my mushroom farming, but I want to challenge the code so that I will be able to store mushroom logs and run my operation in residential yards like my own – without having to hide everything in the backyard or behind tall fences. Starting a small business isn’t easy and purchasing a commercially zoned property is a luxury that most small business owners just don’t have. The city should be encouraging and helping small businesses, not discouraging them in every way possible.

The city of Minneapolis has set goals for urban food production, but these goals haven’t yet trickled down to affect city code. According to the Homegrown Minneapolis initiative recommendations: “Zoning, Licensing, and other City codes should provide a hospitable regulatory environment for local foods operations…” The City needs urban farms like mine in operation right now so that we have real scenarios for the benefits and challenges that come up for urban farmers, residents and City policies and regulations. That is the only sure-fire way to make the Homegrown Minneapolis initiative more than words on paper and to increase the availability of local foods in Minneapolis.

To that end, urban farmers like me will need more than a ten-day extension when we are served notice for a zoning violation. The City needs to push through improvements to zoning, licensing, and other codes and farmers need extensions until those improvements are made. But that doesn’t let us off the hook: urban farmers should be plugged into current efforts of the city to carry out the Homegrown Minneapolis initiative, such as development of the new urban agriculture topical plan. Everyone needs to step up and participate in this effort. If you are an urban farmer, find out how to get involved in the policy changes being discussed. If you support urban farming talk to your city council representative – email, Facebook, on the phone or in person! Let them know you support urban farming, you want to see positive changes in the codes, and you want to see some support for farmers who are struggling under the current restrictive codes – and make sure to mention me, I need all the help I can get!

Thank you for your help in making urban farming in Minneapolis possible!

Jeremy McAdams
Cherry Tree House Mushrooms

Chicken glamour shots

2010-07-06T21:31:00.000-05:00

A couple friends of ours from North Carolina visited last week. JJ brought his super fancy camera and got these amazing pictures of one of our girls. I don't know how he got her to hold still. Most of our pictures are of chicken backsides - they're more camera-shy than I ever was!

Back upstairs again

2010-07-05T08:00:00.000-05:00

When I left for my trip nearly a month ago (ack! how time passes!) Jeremy was just finishing the closet walls upstairs.

When I came back, the walls were done!

Not only that - oh no my friends, not only that - but he had moved the pile of flooring wood from the first floor to the upstairs. I walked in the house and it was like a miracle to see the floor again. I think I might have screamed. I was so shocked. It was a glorious thing to see again after 6 months!

Now all of that flooring has to be sealed on the underside before it can go down. We're working on that now and the first row of flooring has gone down!

Isn't it just beautiful?

When the rest of the flooring is ready to go Jeremy will rent a floor nailer from our local rental place and hopefully get the whole floor done in a couple days. I hope, I hope, I hope!

Then the trim, the inspection, then finally moving in!

Even more berries!

2010-07-04T08:00:00.001-05:00

Our raspberries are doing very well this year. I think we've picked somewhere around 2 pounds of raspberries. Our records aren't very good though because every time I leave the house I grab a few, or when we're picking some I eat half as many as go in the little boxes.

In any case, we've got black raspberries, two different red kinds, and the Korean gold which is very tasty. Here's the haul from a few days ago:

The Korean Gold is in an off-year. Given how many stalks it's sending out it should be incredibly prolific next year.

The ones we haven't eaten went into the freezer to make jam later. I insisted on this because I want Jeremy to get back to work upstairs!

Last week Jeremy and his intern went out strawberry picking and brought home about 50 pounds of strawberries. Yikes! They were processing them for days. After freezing tons of them and making some jam, there was still a bowl left so Jeremy decided to try his hand at a strawberry pie.

He's quite the pie maker!

Apparently it didn't taste quite as good as it looked. I didn't try any. The very idea of a strawberry pie - blech! Not sure how to improve on the taste, but I know Jeremy will figure it out - if he decides to make a strawberry pie again...

Garden update

2010-07-03T08:00:00.000-05:00

It's been a month since I showed you the garden. It has exploded of course. =)

The beans are reaching out desperately for something else to hold onto. Must grow higher - must grow higher!

What's hiding in there?

Tomatoes:

Little baby broccoli:

Giant beans:

Little baby peppers:

And some other things of course!

This is the other garden bed, with more beans and the two squash plants.

Yes, nearly everything you see in the foreground are those two squashes trying to take over the world - or at least break out of the confines of our squirrel-proof bird-netting fence.

Jeremy was quite pleased with this salad he made for us the other day. I think some of the greens are from our garden, as well as arugula and nasturtium flowers, our dried cherries, our shiitakes, and some foreign walnuts. Love eating out of our yard!

We are under attack.

2010-07-02T18:45:00.003-05:00

Not from slugs or bugs, but from the city.

We feel a little like Joel Salatin who wrote "Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal." This excerpt in particular caught my attention:

Every time a letter arrives in the mail from a federal or state agriculture department my heart jumps like I just got sent to the principal’s office.
And it doesn’t stop with agriculture bureaucrats. It includes all sorts of government agencies, from zoning, to taxing, to food inspectors. These agencies are the ultimate extension of a disconnected, Greco-Roman, Western, egocentric, compartmentalized, reductionist, fragmented, linear thought process.

He's talking about the difficulties of farming out in the country. We're just beginning to get a taste of the difficulties of farming in the city. It's bad enough that land is hard to come by, plots have to be smaller, it's hard to get compost and manure, and most city dirt is contaminated. No, we also have to contend with a city government that just doesn't get it. Worse, they pay lip service to understanding all about local foods and urban agriculture, but their policies do not back it up. People in other cities and states think we've got it made because we have Homegrown Minneapolis. Do not be fooled. That sweeping piece of work has not made many (if any) changes on the homefront.

Okay, I'm a little cynical. But you would be too if you'd been cited by the city four times in a year! Those of you who read this blog regularly know the incredible amount of work we've put into our house, yard, and landscaping. It's not like we're burning furniture in the front lawn or something!

Sometimes I think the city would prefer it if we razed everything to the ground and put in a nice normal chem-lawn - and then never stepped foot outside our house. That's the kind of citizens they want. Not us trouble makers.

We have two issues to deal with at the moment.

The slightly less complicated one is that we aren't allowed to have our "pile of dirt" in the backyard because of some zoning regulation. The "pile of dirt" being our terraced hill, which I haven't posted pictures of in so long (it doesn't look anything like this anymore).
It turns out there is a rule that you can't have any "obstructions" in your yard within five feet of the property line. I guess a tree or a garden is fine, or you could have a 6-foot privacy fence, but you can't have a terraced hill growing fruits, vegetables, herbs, nuts, and flowers. Because someone, someday is going to need that access space. For something. I don't know what or why. But there it is.
So we're supposed to dig everything out five feet away from the fence line and put in a retaining wall. Yeah. Our neighbors are going to love that. I'm hoping we can get a variance or appeal or something.

Now to the bigger problem. Some of you know that Jeremy has been keeping logs in neighbors' yards because we have too many to fit in our yard. One of our neighbors got sited for "improper storage of fire wood" so Jeremy had to move all the logs elsewhere.
Last week, along with the notice about the "dirt pile" we were cited about the logs in our yard. So, we aren't allowed to have the logs or screen structures (the shade cloth Jeremy uses) in the side or front yards. We also cannot use the yard for storing any logs, etc for the purpose of producing and processing food. In addition, our home occupation must be located within an enclosed building so no one walking by can see what we're doing. "Nor shall any home occupation be visible from a right of way." I'd love to know how that law got into the books. Basically, we are not allowed to grow mushrooms outside in the city.

The really ironic thing? We looked into purchasing a property earlier this year so Jeremy could build something to grow mushrooms indoors. The city wouldn't allow it because of zoning issues.

So they won't let us grow mushrooms indoors or outdoors!!

The problem with the building solution is location and money. The ideal property for us is located across the alley, two houses up. It's a vacant lot (they razed the house earlier this year). It's zoned residential and I guess the only use other than a house there would be a community garden. Never mind the fact that it's Cedar Avenue and NO ONE is going to buy a vacant piece of land and build anything there (they'll never get their money out of it) and the fact that half of Cedar is commercial anyway. Jeremy's mushroom building would be perfect there. The lot is probably going for 20K anyway, which we can't afford. But that's way more affordable than a commercial lot would be. And there aren't any commercial properties anywhere near us. For us, "near" is within two or three blocks. When Jeremy waters the logs he has to go over every 30-40 minutes to move the sprinkler around and this goes on half the day. It would not be cool if the logs were 20 minutes away.

Jeremy thinks he's going to have to move out to the country so he can keep doing this. But of course, as an extrovert, he'd go stark raving mad. So that's not really an option.

There is a small ray of hope in the log business. After demanding action from our city council person (who still has yet to acknowledge this) and some other folks, someone from the city said he'd work with us on the issue and try to get this sort of urban farming into the topical plan (or something like that). The inspector who cited us says this process will take a long time and probably some businesses [like ours] will just die in the meantime. Thanks a lot Minneapolis! Way to be supportive of urban agriculture! Geez.

Cherries, cherries, cherries!

2010-07-01T20:53:00.000-05:00

When I got home last week from my two-week trip I was amazed to see how overflowing and abundant everything was. The cherries, hard little greenish blobs when I left, were ripe and ready to pick! The daisies are blooming, there are raspberries to pick, the beans are 6 feet or taller, and everything else looks huge.

If you want to see dramatic change in your yard or garden, just leave home for a week or two!

Jeremy and his new intern have picked almost 20 pounds of cherries. We still have several bags of frozen cherries from last year so Jeremy is experimenting with drying most of these.

This is the "fruit roll up" batch. Later batches look much better!

I decided I had to make my tart cherry muffins. And then I had a brainstorm and decided to throw in some cocoa to make them chocolate cherry muffins. Holy cow! So tasty!

The cocoa is my addition, but I got the recipe online from some place called the Cherry Hut. Here it is:

The Cherry Hut's Tart Cherry Muffins

3 cups flour (about 1/4 cup less if you use cocoa)
3/4 cup baking cocoa
3/4 cup sugar
1 ½ Tbsp baking powder
¼+ tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. cinnamon
2 eggs, beaten well
1/4+ cup oil
1 ¾ cups milk
2 cups tart cherries, pitted and chopped

Mix wet and dry ingredients together. Add cherries. Pour into greased muffin pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 18 minutes. (Makes 48 muffins.

Originally it was a pretty runny batter - but with the addition of the cocoa it firmed up and did very well. Those muffins were gone so fast...

Summer storm

2010-06-25T22:07:00.002-05:00

A rather huge storm moved through here today. Jeremy sent me down the street to arrange the shade cloth for his mushrooms. He had heard some rumblings of thunder and wanted to make sure the shade cloth was up to allow more air movement. So I had to get over there before it started raining.

The sky had a very ominous look and there was a lot of rumbling up there. I passed by one neighbor's house and he said there was a front way up high, with winds at 60 knots or something, and they were expecting to it to come down on us pretty soon.

I got back home just as the rain was starting to sprinkle down and there was a crack of thunder. I ran inside to get the camera, hoping to get a good video of some thunder and lightning. What happened instead of lightning was a wall of water suddenly came down and then it got incredibly windy and blew all the rain right at me! I was drenched straight through in an instant and the poor camera got it too! It was incredibly windy and then the rain just started pouring down faster than anything I remember seeing.

I went out to check on the backyard and the entire rain garden was flooded and overflowing into the yard. The rain barrels were shooting water out their tops and water was pouring everywhere. I noticed that the strong wind had torn one of our bean trellises down.

After things calmed down I went outside to take a look - as did nearly everyone on the block! The intersection south of us was flooded and water was up over the wheels of cars. Kids were splashing, more like wading, through the street. Three houses up from us half a tree had come down across the street. I thought it lucky that there wasn't a car there - but it turns out there was a motorcycle there!

One of our neighbors came out with a little chainsaw and set to work cutting away the branches while other neighbors hauled them away, and the motorcycle owner kept an eye on her bike. It was the first time she'd ever parked it on the street! After a short while she was able to ride it out from under the branches and it had only sustained a bent handlebar.

Minutes later another deluge hit. I filmed the thunder and lightning this time, and luckily no wall of water came out to drench me! It's kind of a boring video I guess, mostly just continuous sheet lightning. But there is one bright flash at the end followed by some thunder (which of course set off someone's car alarm). More exciting to be in it I guess. =)

We only had a little bit of hail, though I hear there was hail 2-4 inches in diameter in other areas. And I heard of at least one tornado that touched down. Crazy midwest weather! =)

Pacific Northwest Quaker Women's Theology Conference - Seabeck, Washington

2010-06-21T20:30:00.000-05:00

Yes, that is a mouthful. The PNWQWTC has been around for a number of years and brings together Quaker women in the northwest United States and Canada for worship and conversations. I just attended this conference last week and had an amazing time. I was asked to be on the epistle committee, this time as the clerk. There were just three of us on the committee and we had much more time to work on the epistle. I really enjoyed working with Erin and Iris.

I guess I'm not comfortable sharing my own personal experiences of the conference in such a public space. If you're interested, drop me a line or ask me in person. The epistle does a pretty good job, as it should, so here it is:

To our Quaker family,

Surrounded by the waters and wildlife of Hood Canal and the snowy peaks of the Olympic Mountains, sixty women gathered in Seabeck, Washington from June 16-20, 2010 for the eighth Pacific Northwest Quaker Women’s Theology Conference. Begun fifteen years ago to promote dialogue and build relationships among different Quaker traditions, this conference continues to be deeply Spirit led and enriches the lives of women who attend.

Though we represent different backgrounds and branches of Quakerism, the lines between these seemed very thin and blurred. No one avoided talking about her home meeting or church, but our membership didn’t have as much weight as our personal experiences shared in love. Even as we attempted to be open and accepting, at times we misstepped and unintentionally hurt each other. Many of us felt broken open and left this conference changed.

Through reflection papers we wrote, plenary sessions, home groups and discussion, we each connected personally with the theme, “Walk With Me: Mentors, Elders, and Friends.” Each plenary brought us back again and again to the awareness of the need for support and mentorship in our lives. We identified places in which we are being accompanied and are accompanying others and places where we feel the absence of that loving presence. Many of us made commitments to seek those relationships in our meetings, churches and beyond.

Despite colds, more serious illnesses and concerns for the health of loved ones, we drew strength, support, and encouragement from one another. Many think of the Women’s Conference as a reunion and newcomers found they were welcomed into the family with open arms.

In keeping with the testimony of community, we opened ourselves to another group, Interplay, also staying at the conference center. We described the kind of work that we each came to do, invited them to join us in worship, and likewise were invited to experience their ministry and we shared grace together before meals.

We celebrated the gifts of many through plenaries, workshops, singing and readings by several published authors. During one plenary session, several young adults shared personal experiences of their ministries in relation to the theme of the conference. We were thrilled to hear stories of women being supported and held sacredly in their ministry. However, we were deeply saddened to learn that some are not empowered or recognized in their ministries. We were thus reminded of the reality of sexism in the Society of Friends. Encircling the young adult women, we joined together in heartfelt prayer and were moved by its healing and supportive power. This experience deepened our worship and fellowship together. We challenged ourselves to be aware of internalized sexism, as well as the sexism in our churches and meetings, and to work toward true equality.

During business meeting on Saturday, we reaffirmed the work of this body of women and our leading to continue meeting together as an intra-faith group. We look forward to the next opportunity to join in fellowship.

Young Adult Friends Conference - Wichita, Kansas

2010-06-20T20:09:00.003-05:00

I'm not back to Minneapolis yet, but I've got some free time at the end of my visit here in the Northwest and figure I'd better get started posting so I don't feel as far behind when I get home. Thus follows a couple posts that are not about urban homesteading!

I attended a conference over Memorial Day weekend for young adult Quakers, or Friends. YAFs, as we're called, are generally defined as 18-35. The range varies, and obviously there is a huge range of experience there!

For those not in the know, Quakers ARE still around (we're not extinct and we're not Amish or anything like that - and we don't own the oatmeal company either). There are several different branches of Quakers, some more Christ-centered and some less. It's all very complicated and you can read about it elsewhere. The point is that there are differences amongst us and that makes some different kinds of Quakers very uncomfortable with each other. There are efforts, like this YAF conference, to get Quakers of various backgrounds together to talk and build relationships.

I kind of wanted to go to this conference but didn't think it would be possible. At practically the last minute I was asked by Friends Journal to attend (they made it financially possible for me!) and write an article about the conference. I was very happy to oblige! (I'll post a link to that when it's published online.)

It was an interesting experience. I missed the whole first evening because I got stuck in a layover at the airport. I missed one worship time while I helped wash dishes in the kitchen. And it felt like I was "missing it" during the worship I did make it to. Several people talked about the Spirit moving and it being a great experience, but I wasn't getting it. I guess that happens to everyone now and again.

I decided to join the epistle committee, partly to get a better idea of what was going on for everyone. Quakers have a practice of writing a letter during each event which sums up the spirit of what happened, the activities, the decisions, etc. The letter is generally written by a committee, approved by the whole body, and then sent out to the wider Quaker world.

I like the idea of epistles and this was the first time I'd volunteered to be on the committee. Ours was perhaps unusual in that it was so large. I think there were 7 or 8 of us! I really enjoyed the process we went through, how respectful and worshipful it was, and in the end I really liked our epistle.

For your reading pleasure, here is the epistle from the conference:

Dear Friends everywhere:

We send greetings from the Young Adult Gathering held at University Friends Meeting and Church in Wichita, Kansas, Fifth Month, 2010. Present were roughly 73 young adults from all branches of Quakerism, and 23 yearly meetings.

One of the great elements of this gathering was serving one another in hospitality, as we prepared our own meals and cleaned up the kitchen. We labored together outwardly and inwardly, seeking our common experience of God and Love.

We came to a place that was difficult to reach. We came to the center of this country, hoping to be brought to our Center as a faith community. It is an ongoing challenge to unite as a corporate body, and we grieve that not all felt able to participate. We struggled to hear one another and to understand one another. We struggled to speak our truths and to understand each other’s truths. We encountered differences between the branches of Friends, and within our own yearly meetings. But we came forward into worship willingly, vulnerably, and trusting in God to lead us. Despite and through these hardships, we were carried into an ongoing relationship with Love.

In our time together, God met with us, just as we asked. In our struggles and our joys, God was there, loving us. In studying Scripture together, we learned from Jesus’ example that Love requires crossing borders, going to places that are strange, foreign, and that seem dangerous. Now, like our Friend, we too are crossing borders. Jesus took risks, and now we are taking risks. But those risks are worth it because we are seeking Truth in Love, and when we find Love we are going to find God because God is Love, and that Love waits to be awakened in all of us.

The seeds that were planted this weekend must be tended and nurtured, or they will not grow. We look forward to the joy of continued labor, and to the fruit that our branches will bear. Before these seeds could be planted, we had to be plowed up through striving and struggle. We had to be broken and made tender. We were. We ask God to continue to break our hearts from all that breaks His heart, to continue to open our eyes. We have begun.

Hiatus

2010-06-07T11:06:00.002-05:00

Hello dear blog friends,

It's been a little silent around here, but not for lack of activity! Progress is being made upstairs, the garden is growing, the mushrooms are growing, and the girls are laying lots of eggs.
I got a job (yay!) and I attended a great conference Memorial Day weekend which I hope to post something about eventually. Now I'm headed off to the Northwest to visit friends and family, see my brother graduate from college, and attend the Pacific Northwest Quaker Women's Theology Conference. I'll be back home in two weeks, and I'm sure there will be many updates forthcoming. So have patience and I'll be back soon!

3 - 2- 1 - bloom!

2010-05-30T08:00:00.000-05:00

It seems like everything has bloomed in the last week or two, although really things have been blooming for months now.

Mystery flower in the back is doing very well and much healthier than last year:

The purple and white phlox are starting to bloom. They'll just slowly keep blooming for the rest of the summer:

This is a bit washed out, but these flowers are kind of bright pinkish-purple. They're on stalks probably 5 feet tall! They remind me of phlox, but they don't look the same quite. I don't remember them being here (in the front yard rain garden) last year. Volunteers I guess.

Another mystery flower. I think I might have gotten this from a neighbor and it was very small last year. This year it is quite large and spilling all over the bank into the rain garden. The flowers are like fuchsia or fluorescent pink. They are stunning.

Lots of Cranesbill (ie wild geranium) and it's flowering a lot this year.

I've been calling this wild geranium, but it looks nothing like the one above! Maybe it's just a different kind? I'm confused. I guess it goes back on the long mystery list.

Speaking of mysteries, these are the plants I swiped from the community garden path. They get tons of these little blue flowers and I just love them!

I have a million big purple irises that came from our neighbor up the block. The only ones blooming are in the back rain garden. They smell just like grape juice!

These are the columbines from our neighbor's mom. Very different from the ones I normally see around here. I can't remember if this is the "wild" variety or what it is that makes them so different.

The poppies started blooming a couple days ago. There are even more now - maybe you can see how many fuzzy buds there are in there. They don't stick around for long though. I don't think a bloom lasts for more than a day.

They are glorious:

More to come! Our peonies are going to bloom any day. Yay! Transplanting didn't kill them or make them stop flowering. Our rosebush just burst into bloom today. The yarrow is going to bloom any day. No sign of impending coreopsis blooming or coneflower or many of the various others. But I guess I wouldn't want it to all bloom (and fade) all at once anyway!