Wildflowers in the kitchen

When I heard the slightest whisper from spring the inspiration to play came on full force. The violets peeked their pretty little faces toward the sunshine and I gathered a cupful for kitchen experiments.

 

Violet petals in sugar with a hint of lemon zest made the prettiest lavender sugar!

Egg white wash over whole violets, sprinkled with sugar makes for candied violets. I'm dreaming of cupcakes fit for a fairy party!

 

And because  the violet sugar was so fun, I tried the same with dandelions. I don't know if the color will keep, but I'm already thinking of what other flowers I can try!

 

 

Remembering Molly Hen

A couple weeks ago (Was it last week? Now I can't remember) I found one of our favorite hens huddled up next to the water bucket. The feathers on the top of her head were gone, her crown was bleeding a bit, and she couldn't walk. I took her inside, cleaned her up, and gave her some plain yogurt, fresh water, and apple cider vinegar.

The first 2 days she seemed to be improving but still wouldn't walk. We kept her inside, hand fed her, and changed poopy chicken towels daily. She'd stand for a minute at a time, but that was about it for leg use. The next day it was worse, and the following day she seemed to have had a stroke and the entire left side of her body was paralyzed.

She was a chicken that only had use of 1/4 of her body.


We were faced with a choice of taking her to the vet to be put down or putting her down ourselves. We were also faced with a 3 year old who has taken ownership of the chickens and is far more attached to them than even we, the ones who spent days hand feeding the sweet Rhodie Molly, were.

The next morning Mabel wanted to know why her hen was no longer in the cage in the kitchen. We talked about it and I briefly tried to cover it up by saying she went somewhere nicer and wasn't coming back. M had far too many questions for me to keep up the guise. Instead I decided maybe coloring was the answer. I drew a red hen, Mabel and I colored and talked. We thought about Molly and reflected on what a sweet pet she was. I'm still not sure how to explain that sort of loss to a pre-schooler, but Mabel took it fairly well and we have a sweet way to honor and remember our favorite red hen. 

A few more garden critters

We're finding a lot of critters in the few minutes we spend outside each week. It's so hot I have a hard time motivating Mabel to play out there and should admit that I'm pretty happy to sink into the couch for a while each afternoon, too.

We found another batch of swallowtail caterpillars, both of which are now chrysalis. Saturday night I made a sorrel tart. The sorrel, straight from the garden to the kitchen, had lots and lots of little snails which I collected in a jar. I told M we weren't going to keep them, but they're still in the jar on her work table (aka the den coffee table). I'm thinking we could become Matthews, NC's first escargot farmers.  

The pitter patter of progress

Look! Just for you I created a fun survey where you can tell me which type of column you'd like to see on our house.(Woo hoo! Lucky you!!)

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Though I'm not sure this picture says a lot, compare and contrast with this one and see all the work we've done.

Mabel went to Nana's and Paw Paw's so I thought we'd spend the weekend solely working on the columns, getting the project finished. There are, with us at least, certain methods to our DIY madness and sometimes we have to be honest with ourselves about these projects. Money is limited, and it is the facet we most often have to remember.

Despite my hope for a big unveil this morning, we had a budget set aside of less than $80. Most of that ended up going into reciprocating saw blades. We bought a $20 one meant for cutting iron which turned out to be overkill; a $3 blade for thick metal was actually the blade we needed. When you're talking about an $80 project, $23 takes a big cut (no pun intended). It didn't leave us enough to get the wood for the facade of the columns, and we decided to wait to get that wood anyway. For a nominally larger cost, we can get a higher grade board from a local lumber yard rather than from the big box store. A higher grade board will mean less knots and mars, making the finished column smoother and much prettier.

This coming weekend we'll both have paychecks to dole out for the finishing wood and trim, so until then our yard will remain (as one friend deftly put it) one trampoline shy of redneck gold. All of that is to give a glimpse inside how our renovations work: with time, ingenuity, and a little bit of spending money. Oh, and a generous Nana to keep the little one distracted and happy all weekend--essential to success.

It took an entire day to get the iron work down and the 4 x 4 (actually 2 2x4s laminated and screwed together) cores for the new columns up. That "entire workday" happened on Saturday, after I spent 6 hours volunteering at the community garden. My body still hurts.

On Sunday Charlie mended the fence while I built a small retaining wall from some 4 x 4s we had on hand. Having the dogs in the fenced area most of the time, they've created paths where they run laps around the perimeter of the space. That path, even on a gently sloping hill, has created an erosion problem which, in turn, created soil build up around the fence at the bottom of the hill. The soil build up pushed the fence every which way, making it lean and wobble. Once again the fence is perpendicular to the ground and we're already seeing and hearing the pitter patter of progress.

DIY Soil Amendment: Calcium

Calcium is one of those things we don't usually talk about in terms of garden nutrients, right? I mean, you buy a bag of soil amendments and the big numbers are NPK, but what about the little guys? The minerals and micro nutrients that feed soil health? I'm no soil scientist, I don't purport to be an expert, but I can recognize a deformed fruit when I see one. (Blossom end rot, anyone?) Funk lookin' fruits can be a sign of calcium deficiency. Calcium is vital for sugar production in plants, it's part of what keeps your vegetables from being bitter. 


To boost my beds with a bit of calcium I fill empty milk and dairy containers with water to rinse them, but instead of pouring the water down the drain I'll pour it on a garden bed. I'm also hoping the finished bokashi will add micro nutrients to the soil, and the addition of bokashi-composted bones from dinner should add a little something to the soil, too.

We also have a plenitude of eggshells. After a Sunday of cooking snacks for the week ahead I generally have a small pan full.Now, if you've ever thrown eggs in the compost bin you know they break down very slowly. When added directly to a garden bed they break down even more slowly, so they don't directly provide much calcium to your plants; something like Soft Rock Phosphate is better suited for that. This past winter I've been saving the shells from hard boiled eggs and grinding them up. I've also been taking the shells from other eggy exploits and sticking them in the oven to bake when I'm cooking dinner. My theory is to kill off unwanted bacteria and dry the shells out for storage. They, too, are ground up. In the end, I have something that looks like this:

The texture ranges from a fine dust to gritty bits that look like pulverized shells on the beach. Since eggshells are a good way to keep slugs under control, the grit should work double time. The powder will be more readily available to the plants and the larger grit will work as pest control.

It's not revolutionary, but I get a little excited about free garden solutions. Do you save your eggshells? What's your favorite free soil amendment?

Tincture Thyme

This weekend Mabel and I went to the community garden to do a little digging. Since I'm the newest volunteer there, I feel best about doing hard labor over planting any of the crops, at least until I get my sea legs there. That doesn't mean I can't enjoy a little of the bounty though!

It's still early in the season to harvest any veggies, but the herbs are going bonkers. I brought a couple handfuls of thyme and about a cup of chive blossoms home to make herbal vinegars.
According to TLC Family,

"Thyme has a pronounced effect on the respiratory system; in addition to fighting infections, it dries mucous membranes and relaxes spasms of the bronchial passages.
The ability of thyme to relax bronchial spasms makes it effective for coughs, bronchitis, emphysema, and asthma. Its drying effect makes it useful to reduce the abundant watering of the eyes and nose associated with hay fever and other allergies. And gargling with thyme tea can reduce swelling and pus formation in tonsillitis.
Thyme combats parasites, such as hookworms and tapeworms, within the digestive tract. It is also useful to treat yeast infections."

Chives have less medicinal value, but are high in Vitamins A and C as well as folic acid, sulfur, and iron. If you haven't tried a chive blossom before, they're in the onion family, so they have a mild onion taste, but also a surprisingly pleasant note of garlic. The chive blossom vinegar will be the perfect addition to homemade salad dressings.

It's fairly simple to make an herbal vinegar. For the chive blossoms I followed the recipe in Grow Great Grub. For the thyme vinegar I followed pretty much the same process:

1. Sterilize your jar,
2. Thoroughly wash and pat dry the herbs, stuff them into the sterilized jar. 
3. With the chive blossoms I warmed white wine vinegar and covered the chives, but with thyme I wanted to reap the enzymatic benefits of  apple cider vinegar in conjunction with the thyme so I didn't heat it.
4. Cap the jar with a layer of wax paper to prevent the metal to come in contact with the potentially corrosive vinegar.
5. Steep the herbs for several weeks. Give 'em a good shake or two each day. After at least 2 weeks you can strain the vinegar from the herbs for storage or leave the herbs and just strain off the vinegar as you use it.

Sunday Projects

When we've got projects we try to find a way to engage the kiddo. She's eager to learn and do what we do, so with a little guidance (and sometimes extra personal reminders to have patience) we give her tasks and she gets involved. Sunday morning she helped make pancakes, then later in the afternoon she helped us inoculate several oak logs with shiitake mushroom spawn.

How many 2 year-olds do you know that can already pad their resume with construction experience, chef's assistant, and mushroom grower?

Murky mucky mud

We hadn't cleaned the pond in 3+ years, since before Mabel. Yesterday it was time. It was actually way past time, but so it goes with little ones--time speeds up and to-do lists quadruple.

Last summer the fish population peaked at 15, now we're back down to 2. Predators get them and a few times I've found a dead one floating. The floaters get buried with a little ceremony akin to Garden State.

A couple hours of later, the plants around the pond are mulched with nitrogen rich muck and the pond was refilled with rain barrel water. We've tried barley powder to keep the algae down, but I'm not great at remembering to add it weekly.  I know we need more shade to keep the bloom down, but I'm also thinking of trying bokashi ceramics like these folks did. Do you have a pond? How do you keep it biologically balanced?

New Plots and Plants

Remember when I was braggin' on my bro's amazing gardening project? I don't know if it's the early emergence of spring that got him going, or the profusion of food-based documentaries available for instant streaming, but his front yard is quickly becoming a beautiful little farm.   Todd's been sitting down after work each night disassembling pallets to re-use as raised beds. The details give them a beautiful sort of craftsman style. These beds are his newest garden addition and equal about 1/2 of their total vegetable production space. The middle rear square bed has been planted with potatoes.

{In full disclosure, I stole this pic from his facebook account; I've been meaning to take some pictures. I was afraid if I waited til that happened I'd never get to share his handiwork, and I'm so impressed with what he's done.}

As far as my handiwork? I've been great at buying plants, but that's about it for pretty stuff. I've started 2 new compost bins and cleaned up a few areas that were knee deep in leaves so we can hang swings and make play areas for the little one. The changes, so far, are very unexciting visually.

I have gotten a few new food plants as you can see above, including kiwi, pomegranate and mushrooms. I've also gotten my first kiss of sun on my nose, ant bites on my arms and neck, and a few ouchy little blisters. Although I'm reluctant to say, it seems spring is really here. 

{The images are from the links included below. Angel Red pomegranate (though I got mine locally), Anna and Meader hardy kiwi vines from Willis Orchards; reishi, shiitake and wine cap mushrooms from Field and Forest.}

Family Dinner Traditions

Family dinner is a fantastic thing. Unfortunately (brace yourself, I'm about to let you down) we don't sit at the table and have them very often. Um, actually never. We did for a while, but for whatever reason we haven't found a dining table set up that keeps that role. Instead it's covered in fabric or another project. Right now it's just sitting in a room that doesn't heat very well, so that room stays blocked off through the winter. I know, weird. Whatever.

But the past 2 nights we've made dinner as a family. That, my friends, makes for some spectacular fun while working the kid's brain and forcing C and I to maintain a steady and heaping helping of patience.

Some ground rules: Mabel isn't allowed to get near the stove. She's not allowed to use knives, either. She's a great helper with stirring, kneading dough, and, when all else fails, sweeping the floor. Inviting a toddler in the kitchen makes for messy cooking--none of that clean-as-you-go stuff. The extra bits of time go into engaging her young, active mind.

Sunday we spent the day being lazy and doing whatever we wanted,randomly convening in the kitchen to work on the simmering from-scratch chicken noodle soup. Mabel's job? Take the pasta dough and roll it into little balls, then help roll it out through the pasta roller.

So she's 2 and she's already helped Mama make buttermilk biscuits, egg pasta, and turned masa into tortillas. Now that's a family dinner tradition I think we can keep.

Not too shabby chic

Several weekends ago we trekked to Cabarrus County to pick up some rough cut lumber that was listed on Craigslist. What an adventure it turned out to be--we ended up at a farm of horses, cows and chickens, the hosts were a middle aged farming couple who raise cattle. Mabel, as you can imagine, loved the cows...but from a distance. The couple also had a few horses, all but one were rescues. Mabel and I petted horses and watched chickens while Charlie went through the attic of one of the barns picking lumber: air dried, locally milled walnut. Plank after plank of beautiful wood, thick, unplaned planks full of potential.

Not too shabby, huh?

Pretty Green

The Mr. knows the way to my heart better than any other--for mother's day he gave me a greenhouse, and for our 6th anniversary he gave me shelves for the greenhouse!

The greenhouse is much prettier when surrounded by green trees.

We took a romantic anniversary trip to Ikea for 4 Molger benches. I thought they'd work stacked 2 high and be an absolutely beautiful substitute for the more widely available metal storage shelves. In my mind 4 benches, 2 sets of 2 stacked high, would be ample work space for the greenhouse, but when I saw them in person the benches were smaller than I'd imagined. It would take 8 to fill the space rather than 4. Instead I decided Gorm would be a much better solution and that's what Sugar Daddy bought me.

Ikea had a 30" tall unit on display, but when we got to the aisle to load them up they were sold out of that size. In it's place we bought the 68" tall unit and Charlie cut the legs in half and it actually turned out to be a better working height.

After a few seasons, some design adjustments were made, including the addition of

actual greenhouse poly-tape and poly to wood tape.

The shelves need an oil finish to get them ready to stand up to the humidity of a greenhouse, but I'm ready to do a little bit of rubbing on them.  Mr Sugar Daddy also bought me a metal pail with lid so I can put my dirt in it and keep the greenhouse all matchy matchy pretty and Martha'd out. I'm thinking some baking sheets with low lips will polish up the look even more, but maybe enameled ones so they don't scorch  the tender seedling roots. 

I've got my soil blocker ready, will pick up a few bags of seed starting medium (peat free, please) and will have my act together just in time to start my summer loving plants.

Practicing Clutter Bug Restraint

Remember this drawing? I turned it into a repeat pattern and sent it off to Spoonflower to have fabric printed. I had an idea that if it turned out OK I'd use it in the laundry room as a curtain. I picked the cotton voile and ordered 2 yards. It's sheer enough to diffuse bright light, while opaque enough to maintain a good amount of privacy.

There are still a few touch ups left to make the laundry room finished, but I'm so happy with it. I've done my best to keep the clutter to a minimum, which is not a strong point for me. This particular nook of the house gets a good amount of sun, making it a favorite napping spot for 2 little kitties, but it also heats up pretty quickly in the summer. The sheers will diffuse that heat while allowing the natural light in. Plus I think the oranges in the curtains tie the weird orange rug into the room design; it might just stay after all!

The sewing table is covered in a tan cow hide, leftovers from a reupholster project. The brown laminate top was just too industrial for the space. Leather, fortunately grips to the table so the sewing machines don't dance around while in use.


That blank wall is tempting me to hang some art, but I'm holding out, waiting on some extra funds to properly frame a photo by Abby Powell. Since we usually take on an anything goes attitude with decorating, I feel like this is the closest room I'll ever have to a Mossy Shed.

There you have it: the quietest, sunniest room in the house. Inspiring space for folding laundry or blah-blah-yawnsville?

Reading Material

Apparently when I decide to learn about something I take it on through full immersion.  I started out  asking for book recommendations about medicinal herbs and bought 2: Homegrown Herbs and The Herbal Medicine-Maker's Handbook. Then I found out about a sale in the brand new Farthing Collective store and bought 2 Raleigh Briggs titles (Make Your Place and Herbal First Aid). All the while I'd forgotten I'd pre-ordered Easy Growing. Fortunately each of these books fills in where others leave gaps. And for anyone wondering? Rodale's Encyclopedia, while the thickest book in my herbal library and brimming with information, is the last one I pick up when looking for information.

Since I'm finally starting to keep an actual garden journal (outside this here blog), I've also found it handy to rip out pages of seed catalogs, since those descriptions are what enticed me to try out those particular plants.

Maybe this will be the year I remember exactly why I was so excited about starting anise hyssop, shiso and knit bone.

What have you got sprouting in your garden plans?

Seed Bug

The bug bit and I'm ready to start planting. I bought a couple pounds of Kennebec potatoes (not from Johnny's, from a local source) to put in the ground and I've placed a seed order from Sow True seed. We had several weeks of spring like weather to tease us all into wintry restlessness, and with the return of cold now I have to sit back and wait.

Each year I go back to the Lazy Gardener's Seed Starting Chart on You Grow Girl, though some of the seeds I've ordered that aren't on the list. To fill in the blanks on the missing data, Weekend Gardener is a great resource!

Obsessiveness is borne of restlessness, and if you don't believe me you can check out my Google Doc worksheet. There are some math errors on there, I'm sure, and some dates that are off, but the good thing about planning well in advance is that I have wiggle room!

Fishing, Barbie, and GMOs

Wikipedia image by Michael Maggs

Lately there's been a lot of talk about fly fishing around the ol' homestead.  We've done a little fishing lately (Charlie much more than I), and the idea of fly fishing seems much more entertaining than sitting around with a string in a lake.

From The Essential Fly: Anatomy of a salmon fly

The flies themselves are works of art. There's a whole culture based around tying flies, and while I'm sure the people that tie them wouldn't liken themselves to the comparison, fly tying seems a lot like playing with a Barbie Styling Head.

Wikipedia image by Michael Maggs

Not that I think we'll go salmon fishing anytime in the near future, but I've been especially intrigued with salmon flies.  Partly it's the actual flies, partly it's because I've been thinking about what a GMO salmon fly would look like. Let's just file that under "inspiration marinade" for a while.

And yep, I mentioned Barbie, fly tying, and GMO in the same post.

A weekend of progress

This is how we started off on Saturday. Pulling down the old ceiling which was water damaged from a roof leak and a couple of tiles were actually falling down.

Inspired by Abbey's ability to get stuff done, I set a goal to finish the room this weekend. So what if it was totally unrealistic? By 7 PM Saturday the room looked like this. (We're waiting to see how much/if the bead board will settle before trying to pull it flat around the edges.)

Then on Sunday morning I woke up at 6:30 while the other 2 2-leggers in the house slept for.another.2.hours. and touched up the paint, moved the orange rug back in and did a little bit of laundry purging.

When we demoed the closets to make the laundry area we saved the wood from the shelving. My granddad built the shelving from construction scraps and old army crate wood. I liked the idea of reintegrating them into the house somehow--you know, keep his industrious spirit a part of the place. The legs to this low table came from some of those shelves. I asked Charlie to make me a 56" long x 22" wide shelf in different types of wood so we wouldn't feel obligated to make it all matchy matchy.I like how it's rustic. Add a few houseplants on it and then we're really talking!


So maybe it's not totally finished, but it's so much better than this, right?

Still to do: Add ornamental trim around the door area to the washer/dryer to keep the look of woodwork uniform with the rest of the house;
hang bi-fold doors to hide the washer/dryer area;
paint trim white;
add sewing table top;
replace blinds with something (anything!) more attractive;
change the rug - I don't want to keep the orange rug, but since we already have it (no more money to spend on this project), for now it stays.

Gardening Chit Chat

My oldest brother reminded me that it's a good time to pick up some soil sample kits from our local cooperative extension office. Consider this an annual PSA: send off soil samples now, so when the ground thaws you'll know what you need in order to balance your soil nutrients!

Those of you in Mecklenburg County can pick up soil sample kits at these fine locations.

While discussing gardening, I read a few articles on the topic yesterday:
Poisonous food and how agricultural chemicals hurt people at every point in the growing process.
Seeds, who owns them and what you can do with them.

Both articles strengthen my resolve to produce more of our own food this year. If you're new to gardening and interested in a super easy way to get started in filling your belly with homegrown goodness, check out Biophilia {images from Biophilia's site}. 

Biophilia is Danielle, a NC-based permaculture designer. Her shop makes it easy to jump right into a more sustainable lifestyle through gardening and producing your own healthy food.

Oh, this new old thing?

I spent a little time over the holiday break working on home projects that weren't on the agenda. This particular one started by cleaning out a closet, finding a piece of upholstery that was about 7 yards long and wondering what I'd  bought it for. I couldn't and still can't remember. Surely it was a great price, though? As far as the fabric goes, I think it's a polyester faux brown pony hide sort of texture, but it's soft and almost velvety. Very very comfy.

Like all good procrastinators tend to do with all the more important things needing to be done in mind, I set out to make a slip cover for our hand-me-down sofa. If you couldn't tell which is the better version of the sofa, it's the velvety brown version on the left. I promise the slip cover is an improvement from the worn fabric of its bygone days, despite my lack of photography skills. I didn't have enough fabric to do the pillows, so I'm still deciding what to do about them. Even before the new look we'd just keep them in a pile somewhere in the corner of the room and use bed pillows for a little extra comfort.

I'll save reupholstering those for the next bout of major house projects...you know, for when I need another excuse not to do something.

We've been enjoying the new old sofa quite a bit  since winter weather has moved in. Lots of TV time and family snuggling, plus it's nice to have a cover that can be tossed into the washer when a certain little someone decides to try out a glue stick on the furniture! Best of all? It didn't cost a new old dime!

New Old News

We're doing a little bit of homework these days. M is getting a "big girl" room since she never really took to the nursery. It's given me a good excuse to do some crafting, too! Most of the furnishings are things we already had and thought they'd work better in her space than how we were using them. The light fixture was a Craigslist find, the curtains were made from an Alfred Shaheen vintage floral pattern reissued that I found at Hancock Fabrics, and we did buy a new comforter/sheet set from Target. We also have a pale salmon Milk Paint for the walls, but that might be a ways down the road.
There are still a few messes in the room--things that need a proper place; the toy shelves actually look bare thanks to a post-Christmas purge. Anyone with kids knows that won't last for long.