tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21591166707087742682024-02-19T06:56:42.898-08:00Every Blessed MinuteAngelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15995163580645326178noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2159116670708774268.post-24662664283175418222012-01-14T19:38:00.000-08:002012-01-14T20:31:07.074-08:00Kitchen storage<a href="http://wellpreserved.ca/2012/01/14/my-dirty-little-secret-weekend-storage-project/">Well Preserved's post about kitchen storage</a> got me thinking about ours today -- I'm actually pretty proud of the changes we've made since we've moved in. We have a long way to go, but the kitchen is a lot more usable than it used to be. We keep most of the items we use frequently in one shallow upper cabinet; I've finally managed to figure out a configuration that almost never requires moving things to get other things out:<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0Yvb-sDQNSiZ7x5jQCfVK-GDj_GhykHRmSA0rylJYWLixKOW0abDBLczB2mSOOiFZOHXam-8OiWKVwN5lakgJgHLyoi94CvphacapPshPgAETbfahSILbRdr2C5-TMclz5z4bUzdySko/s1600/2012-01-14+21.15.53.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0Yvb-sDQNSiZ7x5jQCfVK-GDj_GhykHRmSA0rylJYWLixKOW0abDBLczB2mSOOiFZOHXam-8OiWKVwN5lakgJgHLyoi94CvphacapPshPgAETbfahSILbRdr2C5-TMclz5z4bUzdySko/s320/2012-01-14+21.15.53.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5697700443254983954" border="0" /></a><br />Mug hooks are my best friend - we hang lots of things on the insides of cabinet doors. I had been thinking about how effective that is (and absolutely hating our one other upper cabinet with a passion) for a couple of years when I recently decided to redo it, and I'm <span style="font-style: italic;">thrilled</span> with how it turned out. It went from a cabinet with several short shelves that nothing much fit on to being very handy. I took out most of the shelves, moved one down to the bottom, and hung grids (purchased at Daiso <3) on all the interior surfaces.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVk_yEFd8dR-Y2xmxjk8cotijkAduxgcFhXRDbtRhwsfzU13JPwmjY-i3epzZskuM8zBrfHlCy-AzDssg20W24YVP0Zl0Uz1lZkTwgsAqKhrZXRItz7qkfHWzGNULZyCudMYuggfEpInw/s1600/2012-01-14+21.14.03.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVk_yEFd8dR-Y2xmxjk8cotijkAduxgcFhXRDbtRhwsfzU13JPwmjY-i3epzZskuM8zBrfHlCy-AzDssg20W24YVP0Zl0Uz1lZkTwgsAqKhrZXRItz7qkfHWzGNULZyCudMYuggfEpInw/s320/2012-01-14+21.14.03.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5697700446202703058" border="0" /></a>Now I can get everything out easily and get to my small pots one at a time. We hang a lot of our most-used kitchen utensils on a wall grid behind the stove...<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVQ8YLRwqQFut_fjMWNhdrA3a06jgD4eonRxB4thaAEeljuI25TbEpD0kkCGboi2E-2NSSsiyBaI0N4yX5PlHBnIqM1Xq5WGJwaDNMZHz2bsGOx-xfiIvd2u8bAYxBgxQlbGE3OdkN5qc/s1600/IMG_5372.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVQ8YLRwqQFut_fjMWNhdrA3a06jgD4eonRxB4thaAEeljuI25TbEpD0kkCGboi2E-2NSSsiyBaI0N4yX5PlHBnIqM1Xq5WGJwaDNMZHz2bsGOx-xfiIvd2u8bAYxBgxQlbGE3OdkN5qc/s320/IMG_5372.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5697708655992652978" border="0" /></a><br />...so the less-frequently-used ones (like spare canning tongs and the candy thermometer) go here, along with other things that are difficult to store, but which I didn't want to shove into the abyss of our couple of almost-useless lower cabinets (rolling pin, pastry mat, mixing bowls, etc.).<br /><br />So where do the big pots go? The ones that are fairly flat hang on the wall (either on our big grid behind the stove or from another wall shelf), but the others, we store up high. We don't have space above our cabinets, so we had to make some for the two big stock pots:<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv5gYhLHsqV6FehyphenhyphenwmXwZJhB67diGCC0z9N0OT-Mng4BtuJ3zYrNnwdrmNOw1BU2BTzG6MCZQwD5WruFD8eUct8Xe_dJIvBywubJ8KxGfEj-buFuMoQIljNrrsTx_wqRcwXBjgQjL6lRs/s1600/2012-01-14+21.18.58.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv5gYhLHsqV6FehyphenhyphenwmXwZJhB67diGCC0z9N0OT-Mng4BtuJ3zYrNnwdrmNOw1BU2BTzG6MCZQwD5WruFD8eUct8Xe_dJIvBywubJ8KxGfEj-buFuMoQIljNrrsTx_wqRcwXBjgQjL6lRs/s320/2012-01-14+21.18.58.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5697700464371915042" border="0" /></a><br />Coffee mugs (which have a high turnover) and smaller pot lids (which are currently being washed) also go on this wall. The big pot lids are stored on the pots to keep the dust out.<br /><br />Most of our bulk food goes on a bookshelf we got cheap at a church library sale (hooray for no longer being in an earthquake zone!) and painted to match the cabinets. It stands alongside the fridge in the 10 or so inches we have that don't encroach on the walkway. I'm particularly happy with the spice shelves we put in this summer -- they're a compromise. I wanted to be able to access the spices easily and see what we've got on hand, and David wanted to make sure they were stored in the dark so they didn't degrade. So we used craft wood and L-brackets to put these guys in in the empty space above the canisters on two shelves. I still have to paint them, but they satisfy both our requirements and use space that otherwise is wasted.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimSHCSEvneVm9I5DjcRxATZJfsAamaxJsdhirziu1JS2zpKH2rFvzjzYkTHBtrnRGCDcauGzObikm2sHOdWu2BHMKYL2rG69uvaLnmjLYuBpUuE9ac5RcEdvhtDw0KjShmEutd8hWpWJ8/s1600/2012-01-14+21.16.39.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimSHCSEvneVm9I5DjcRxATZJfsAamaxJsdhirziu1JS2zpKH2rFvzjzYkTHBtrnRGCDcauGzObikm2sHOdWu2BHMKYL2rG69uvaLnmjLYuBpUuE9ac5RcEdvhtDw0KjShmEutd8hWpWJ8/s320/2012-01-14+21.16.39.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5697700454726906418" border="0" /></a><br />Finally, we do have a small pantry in the kitchen (thank goodness!) that we use to store the less attractive food and our cookie sheets (they're on the same kind of shelf as the ones above them). We overhauled this recently in the hopes of cutting down on the amount of convenience food we keep in the house, so we took out some door shelves and consolidated the bagged/pouched/boxed stuff so we can get through it faster. These little $3 IKEA shelves are my fourth-favorite organizing tool (after mug hooks, grids, and mason jars) because they'll fit on the inside of even narrow closet doors.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu2cNtZaBuI5QDvqrz1u2KroFQiRDHh-nAQaGe5mZRPrCVKc6UFQw-6jBrrw7z1iIAfVceeCTi10EBVrNX5pw78CVNcFmyVdMTSpOVUj-ogyFdMNWxfk_YLHQQp45E85C_qhIm2FXGJwU/s1600/2012-01-14+21.18.17.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu2cNtZaBuI5QDvqrz1u2KroFQiRDHh-nAQaGe5mZRPrCVKc6UFQw-6jBrrw7z1iIAfVceeCTi10EBVrNX5pw78CVNcFmyVdMTSpOVUj-ogyFdMNWxfk_YLHQQp45E85C_qhIm2FXGJwU/s320/2012-01-14+21.18.17.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5697700459379632306" border="0" /></a><br />The canning jars next to the orange basket are pre-measured for our rice cooker so we don't have the excuse of not wanting to go to the basement to get rice -- this has actually turned out to be really handy, and we've definitely cooked more by adding that little extra convenience. We keep a few things upstairs from our ridiculous basement room-converted-into-pantry (below), but the bulk of our home-canned stuff stays in the dark, cold basement. It's a lot less convenient, but the food keeps much longer in those conditions, and the trips up and down the stairs are good for us.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8pWXJbeC3W_SqToGtiPU07Ms2ifZnbVf2DRC2Xjf7vBTmqVPA8iyxAPXDp05_pxDxFuPqeGOd2lDhBluy9s5LcQfB8hjAV4lrVcWo_R1y1Ik0TrHA50TIMjGJhLZKtdV5CtYIi7NDxlM/s1600/2011-11-27+19.18.57.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8pWXJbeC3W_SqToGtiPU07Ms2ifZnbVf2DRC2Xjf7vBTmqVPA8iyxAPXDp05_pxDxFuPqeGOd2lDhBluy9s5LcQfB8hjAV4lrVcWo_R1y1Ik0TrHA50TIMjGJhLZKtdV5CtYIi7NDxlM/s320/2011-11-27+19.18.57.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5697705304215511762" border="0" /></a><br />Those shelves are 18" deep and consist of virtually every piece of furniture we had for a while -- I moved 11 times between 2002 and 2009, so when I worked at Storables in Seattle I would buy a piece or two at a time of the Industrial Post shelving and carry it home on the bus because we didn't have a car. (Yeah, I got some strange looks.) We used it for everything -- desks, end tables, kitchen storage, fish tank stands, you name it. Once we finally bought a house we didn't have to worry about moving around so much, so eventually we took apart all the IP stuff we had and built this gargantuan thing. The whole shelving unit is actually interconnected, so it was pretty insane to try to figure out the order in which the pieces went together, but it's about the only thing I can think of that's actually sturdy enough to hold this many canned goods.<br /><br />One thing I don't have a picture of is some of our re-purposed grocery store display shelving behind the door in the pantry. All of my canned soup, coconut milk, etc. is actually stored in cardboard shelves. This might seem crazy, but if you look at many of the sale displays in your local grocery store, you'll see that they're incredibly sturdy -- in most cases they have to not only be strong enough to hold canned or jarred products, they also have to be tough enough to withstand shipping. I work in the corporate office of a major grocery retailer/wholesaler, so mine were sample displays that were thrown away, but you could get these by asking for them at your grocery store -- they just get recycled when they're empty.Angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15995163580645326178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2159116670708774268.post-81321475337845524792011-10-09T18:12:00.000-07:002011-10-09T18:32:09.705-07:00I wouldn't be on "Hoarders," but if they ever come out with "Canners," I'm screwed.Maybe I'm the only one, but no one ever seem to talk about what happens to your house when you spend all your time doing things like canning. Mine ends up looking rather like a tornado has passed through a farmer's market and a thrift store and deposited everything it sucked up on the way in my living room. You know you've been canning too much when:<br /><br />- You start sterilizing a couple of extra pint jars with each batch just so you have a clean dish to drink wine out of while the jars are processing<br />- Your chickens have a look of terror in their beady little eyes every time you come out with another bowl of food scraps<br />- The fruit flies now outnumber the human residents to such an extent that the bills start arriving addressed to them instead of you<br />- That strange thumping in the hall is all three cats batting around tomatoes they've found god-knows-where, and your first reaction is a flash of icy-cold terror that <i>you still have tomatoes somewhere in the house, and you don't know where!</i><br />- You're working in the kitchen all the time, but you haven't eaten anything other than sandwiches, instant mashed potatoes, or toast for the past six weeks because there's never a free burner to cook anything else.<br />- You start constructing molecular diagrams out of the hundreds of canning rings lying around just so their presence looks intentional<br />- Your efforts to disassemble the Jam Tower and actually put things away are thwarted by the city informing you that a project of this scope requires permits and a public input period.<br />- The cats are no longer afraid of the vacuum because they can't remember what it does.<br /><br />One of these years I'll get the hang of all this juggling, I'm sure. Or at least I hope so, because my other option is to simply move to a new house every November. xDAngelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15995163580645326178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2159116670708774268.post-7074315065239918262011-10-07T17:38:00.000-07:002011-10-09T17:59:17.907-07:00Photo Friday - Beauty at Rest<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi69rEPkCvnNT4hsZrjHzJxo3VuCMJGKvK41NGs_f6qTcB9vJFPlkFWS6TUNibGLGov6DSjesMQwygXH_ZN6LwLd7QYUUJuCO70yf_lAL2RPGA9-AwmOPyA-k0ohQikBw1enXzjmHoLSE8/s1600/butterfly1.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 191px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi69rEPkCvnNT4hsZrjHzJxo3VuCMJGKvK41NGs_f6qTcB9vJFPlkFWS6TUNibGLGov6DSjesMQwygXH_ZN6LwLd7QYUUJuCO70yf_lAL2RPGA9-AwmOPyA-k0ohQikBw1enXzjmHoLSE8/s320/butterfly1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5661661271326754514" border="0" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzSzSJrfGX_mrIbV5GRBMVmeT-Bz9hyphenhyphenOVsDqWhkLZDQIfz6E-7ifvBoVVzv6dZfBx6UXnDp7tlypXSpHjAXNV47Uk_9xSUNRfD2VVWSZiJ_pie5pLFHUs7-IVbSpN9m_D0szuT65mD5MY/s1600/IMG_4199.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzSzSJrfGX_mrIbV5GRBMVmeT-Bz9hyphenhyphenOVsDqWhkLZDQIfz6E-7ifvBoVVzv6dZfBx6UXnDp7tlypXSpHjAXNV47Uk_9xSUNRfD2VVWSZiJ_pie5pLFHUs7-IVbSpN9m_D0szuT65mD5MY/s320/IMG_4199.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5661659732846653890" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbKJV8V3qMHeU0-lZxYoT1XmvB4F3gYddpWYkrUg282T4I4zOwDhUy0P4SoUk1AJc25DdK-revhBAJ6u02peDyFv-pgzbEX4UKy5GeMLFfHM8NlB6q8aSBwp9QM9day2vFeSdrjBJWAx8/s1600/img_1843.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbKJV8V3qMHeU0-lZxYoT1XmvB4F3gYddpWYkrUg282T4I4zOwDhUy0P4SoUk1AJc25DdK-revhBAJ6u02peDyFv-pgzbEX4UKy5GeMLFfHM8NlB6q8aSBwp9QM9day2vFeSdrjBJWAx8/s320/img_1843.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5661660665670675378" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg14CsnGDvM-2hb11BeZKGpkL4EJ8zga7VPqREPTxjsx5QNs7Hbi9JJL-RNXXVSgOvwmi3GvriX7Wk-bm8nk4ki2CK61l4ZJ-0dAaYq1n4B9BqX5t491KsTHUDE3CqVzNJcIvW5Ss1nBdE/s1600/img_1768.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg14CsnGDvM-2hb11BeZKGpkL4EJ8zga7VPqREPTxjsx5QNs7Hbi9JJL-RNXXVSgOvwmi3GvriX7Wk-bm8nk4ki2CK61l4ZJ-0dAaYq1n4B9BqX5t491KsTHUDE3CqVzNJcIvW5Ss1nBdE/s320/img_1768.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5661660658095139746" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha8GRx_jxmH4k-NRPQTi-mhyphenhyphenI908SSOh27VVqsuhfobV2THOdc9jrNnR5ozxf6viTF0JJX-c9eyLZSDS8RfPasqOu4RjKNXiQMKA0Q1amanadjBAiZgH4GmZbjKklUZUlz8jvfwmRFQlQ/s1600/img_1760.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha8GRx_jxmH4k-NRPQTi-mhyphenhyphenI908SSOh27VVqsuhfobV2THOdc9jrNnR5ozxf6viTF0JJX-c9eyLZSDS8RfPasqOu4RjKNXiQMKA0Q1amanadjBAiZgH4GmZbjKklUZUlz8jvfwmRFQlQ/s320/img_1760.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5661660649253531346" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEnyN7VSxwJqvu3uvNCiCNScdxEIGN_HMUP4bnUdeExM6SqM4m7rlJzOwilWkcZv2N6AJvn3o-KYWTXV4d-GVNniHQIfagAwpsU-hrjJlHM6kMA-Ux_HCQItSbnZcmbU22q-2h9y8xWGc/s1600/img_1753.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEnyN7VSxwJqvu3uvNCiCNScdxEIGN_HMUP4bnUdeExM6SqM4m7rlJzOwilWkcZv2N6AJvn3o-KYWTXV4d-GVNniHQIfagAwpsU-hrjJlHM6kMA-Ux_HCQItSbnZcmbU22q-2h9y8xWGc/s320/img_1753.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5661659757307202754" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_gsH6Z0g75oTQykjXAw4a0SMF1vKSW4Dp-KgH3fNHO_G1yXNqeBI6RvCGdhU7hx6nXCkVC1dKxEgQEgIYFyPGZJJ2XsC9YqCyu__tJ3_lWNFBOz0gyPioA7_XI3lpuvqy0irT3aOu1L8/s1600/img_1717.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_gsH6Z0g75oTQykjXAw4a0SMF1vKSW4Dp-KgH3fNHO_G1yXNqeBI6RvCGdhU7hx6nXCkVC1dKxEgQEgIYFyPGZJJ2XsC9YqCyu__tJ3_lWNFBOz0gyPioA7_XI3lpuvqy0irT3aOu1L8/s320/img_1717.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5661659746857220978" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAKwc_C4udnDBan8YhghusStBT0Wv_Dm5_6lSFHQ5Uw9yku70cKq4qmfr78PLgP2CtpzeZF-SKYJMkrZqw1hNk09pHA0NyTUabHTo9CbhO9lrWsMr4KGU7iWqsSkRwfsi2U1g9ZsPIOIg/s1600/img_1602.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAKwc_C4udnDBan8YhghusStBT0Wv_Dm5_6lSFHQ5Uw9yku70cKq4qmfr78PLgP2CtpzeZF-SKYJMkrZqw1hNk09pHA0NyTUabHTo9CbhO9lrWsMr4KGU7iWqsSkRwfsi2U1g9ZsPIOIg/s320/img_1602.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5661659743077863362" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq5CMY54PrAAU-4IdG6wItxhWCeoLZ8UwcB9eeDuuKJkE8ZkQfmkczCzPG7DMNjoBBRLW7IECtlKOrqKqp4UELMEsNh-3YBpPOL7cH3pQC5L4v7DNTIFKz-I754PE-TLV_S2pg0vVYe6s/s1600/img_1587.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq5CMY54PrAAU-4IdG6wItxhWCeoLZ8UwcB9eeDuuKJkE8ZkQfmkczCzPG7DMNjoBBRLW7IECtlKOrqKqp4UELMEsNh-3YBpPOL7cH3pQC5L4v7DNTIFKz-I754PE-TLV_S2pg0vVYe6s/s320/img_1587.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5661659738796618466" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzSzSJrfGX_mrIbV5GRBMVmeT-Bz9hyphenhyphenOVsDqWhkLZDQIfz6E-7ifvBoVVzv6dZfBx6UXnDp7tlypXSpHjAXNV47Uk_9xSUNRfD2VVWSZiJ_pie5pLFHUs7-IVbSpN9m_D0szuT65mD5MY/s1600/IMG_4199.JPG"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2lbFFt2kqbQdLOwRdK9Q4bBbZhZ2aZH8XnEeKGqYwBI7AwtaiqbtPYpjOk-bc3mABoncxOEb9zGrUCpzzpvHFWfEhDRFtvieK3ZC32a5KvpusjhpDqPSZReu8kBEBB1Dol4H9MhE40HE/s1600/butterfly3.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 191px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2lbFFt2kqbQdLOwRdK9Q4bBbZhZ2aZH8XnEeKGqYwBI7AwtaiqbtPYpjOk-bc3mABoncxOEb9zGrUCpzzpvHFWfEhDRFtvieK3ZC32a5KvpusjhpDqPSZReu8kBEBB1Dol4H9MhE40HE/s320/butterfly3.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5661661272170105698" border="0" /></a>Angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15995163580645326178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2159116670708774268.post-77269890492438443472011-10-03T10:28:00.000-07:002011-10-03T10:46:59.920-07:00Why We BotherIt was a light weekend so far as canning goes -- I only got 19 jars done: 13 pints of carrots, 5 quarts of sweet pickled crabapples, and 1 12-oz. jar of pickled cranberries with the leftover syrup from the apples. Of course there's more to do this week (35 pounds of grapes and over a bushel of red bell peppers to roast for red pepper spread), but we had other things to do over the weekend, so those bigger projects just had to wait. But, oh, the grape juice and pepper spread will be so worth it after I finally get around to them!<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgC4sl5KL0JUaNDNfI6SangqyFmWqk57k36QaBnWl-OVhFSKGE2VKY_3BeIS3wT14OKJ5EsT_pJbVIaNN-z4vy6OvOHVNo8AaTAOYUQgeGrH4UCJW25GtkWqMY6nKq4u9RkhwtYGorlVE/s1600/Pickled+Apples+1.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgC4sl5KL0JUaNDNfI6SangqyFmWqk57k36QaBnWl-OVhFSKGE2VKY_3BeIS3wT14OKJ5EsT_pJbVIaNN-z4vy6OvOHVNo8AaTAOYUQgeGrH4UCJW25GtkWqMY6nKq4u9RkhwtYGorlVE/s320/Pickled+Apples+1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5659320696815539618" border="0" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-tjb1MV_ZfnJe5TXXt8ArMEeNHz_IgLOHTLXmdKSkkePHmU9wTExd7HcI_H7l9uQUAwCvcuCgkl0P5lwXN5cPQTxrABDqmBUNyPQvq9XIHZe1HiiRXUBGsCEwTEfbRJhVFapr2ws3-H8/s1600/Grapes.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-tjb1MV_ZfnJe5TXXt8ArMEeNHz_IgLOHTLXmdKSkkePHmU9wTExd7HcI_H7l9uQUAwCvcuCgkl0P5lwXN5cPQTxrABDqmBUNyPQvq9XIHZe1HiiRXUBGsCEwTEfbRJhVFapr2ws3-H8/s320/Grapes.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5659320686268945426" border="0" /></a><br />One of the things we did this weekend was go over to my in-laws' for dinner. Inevitably our latest canning projects come up in conversation when we do this, and equally inevitably we get questions like, "But wouldn't it be cheaper to buy X in the store?" (My MIL appreciates the non-monetary benefits of "slow food," but I think my frugal FIL and BIL think we're nuts!) I suppose that in a culture where the primary consideration for everything has shifted to whether it's sufficiently cheap, that's a fair question, but saving money is not why we do many of the things we do. (Or at least it's not the primary reason -- there are some things, like my herb-infused vinegars (below), that are a big savings to make myself, and very pretty to boot!)<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUl-OGGth197c7YqBge5IfIBrGti8aEnuBGQJYjr9PnpS417hPVhznp8fK8ViVMM3U433PMlF2o5_6XDR_tJnB-mZeZRmvuOGKUQNnCDZv8Vf4GbFl1k9tKXeaHlRVR_Mg37CofLqvpyo/s1600/Infused+Vinegars+1.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUl-OGGth197c7YqBge5IfIBrGti8aEnuBGQJYjr9PnpS417hPVhznp8fK8ViVMM3U433PMlF2o5_6XDR_tJnB-mZeZRmvuOGKUQNnCDZv8Vf4GbFl1k9tKXeaHlRVR_Mg37CofLqvpyo/s320/Infused+Vinegars+1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5659321275776026466" border="0" /></a><br />So why do we? There's a whole laundry list of reasons. For one thing, we're trying to shift to a local diet. We're not fundamentalist about it, and we don't refuse food provided by others (we admire freegans for recognizing that wasting food in the name of a holier-than-thou food philosophy is wrong), but we've started the long process of phasing out food that can't be grown in our region and discovering new favorites that can. It's rare anymore that my grocery cart contains bananas or mangoes, or tomatoes or berries in the middle of winter, though I haven't given up on citrus as yet. We're hoping to provide our own eggs, starting buying more milk and butter from local dairies, and David is working on sourcing grains through <a href="http://www.wholegrainmilling.net/">Whole Grain Milling</a> so we can buy ingredients rather than processed foods.<br /><br />Part of this is a disillusionment with our entire food system. Both of us have spent a significant portion of our working lives working in the grocery industry in one way or another, including on the wholesale side. My father, who works in industrial refrigeration, has also been taken by his work into various parts of the industry, including slaughterhouses, produce warehouses, grocery dry goods warehouses, and large dairies, and has shared some of those experiences with us. While the grocery chain that gets food onto the shelves of your local store is an impressively efficient and accurate system, we don't really think it's equipped to face the realities of peak oil, when that really starts to hit. (And I think the way retailers have recently begun to embrace local sourcing is at least as much because they realize this as well as because of consumer demand for local products.) Nor do we entirely trust the safety of the industrial food system -- retailers, who work with customers daily, do a fairly good job of policing their shelves, and pull unsafe food quickly, but too much of the industry on the vendor side of things is under-inspected, self-policed, or just not taken to task when they do let contaminated food slip through. It's not your local grocer's fault that that lettuce or canteloupe or pork you just got sick off of was teeming with pestilence, but there's also no way for him to be sure that the food that came from Giant Industrial Farm #786700b is really safe. He can only look after his links in the chain.<br /><br />All of that is fairly easy to convey, but the other two concepts are more difficult to get across: work as leisure and the up-sides of slow food. I'll come back to work as leisure in another post, but for the up-sides of slow food...how can you really make someone who almost never eats fresh produce understand the difference between it and what they normally eat? Those grapes we bought from a local farmer, and we got them within four hours of their being picked. Just sitting in their boxes in the living room, they pervaded an entire floor of our house with their tangy grape smell. How many people who buy seedless grapes from the grocery store do you suppose even realize that grapes have a strong smell? I shared some of our salsa with co-workers, and despite the fact that we do nothing special at all to make it besides use fresh, local ingredients, people were amazed by how good it was. I can't take credit for that -- that's just the difference between a salsa made with canned whole tomatoes grown a thousand miles away and which have been sitting on a shelf for six months and one made with tomatoes that were sun-ripened and picked two days ago in a field hour outside the city.<br /><br />It's not just freshness that matters, it's also selection. Seeking out local foods gives us access to things you'll not find in a grocery store, because one of the major criteria that determines what produce you can buy is how well an item ships. Many of the most delicious foods -- tart cherries, several kinds of melons, heirloom tomatoes, many plums -- bruise easily or don't keep well for many weeks or don't ripen after they've been picked prematurely, so you'll never see them on a shelf at the supermarket. There are other foods that can be grown in our region that are scarce for other reasons: currants of all types, a native fruit, were largely eradicated at the behest of the lumber industry. They're delicious, productive, pest-resistant, and take up very little space. They're also very good for you. Lingonberries are not grown in large quantities in this country, but they're also very tasty, and are hardy down to a zone 3. Seaberries (sea buckthorn) are another hardy, productive shrub, and one of the potential replacers of citrus fruit in our diets, as its juice is tart, orange, and high in vitamin C. Mulberries and wild blackberries don't ship well, but they grow here in abundance, and are far better than the mushy, flavorless berries you get in little plastic clamshells. There are many other hardy fruits that can be grown without having to have a greenhouse or ship food from South America -- pawpaws, quince, hardy plums, honeyberries, juneberries, gooseberries, hardy grapes -- and we'd have tried almost none of them if we weren't trying to eat more locally. I don't like all of them, but I like many of them, and I would be missing out on a lot of wonderful food if I just stuck with imported bananas.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgTrZpnPbO71bBGfMWhq6G-8SvUU9l2B6VeAE2RawUuAX702i5gMPwANg2y_P3naLGSsqnh6QladETLx970X6GOWFIJslsAA-DeKJ6gd0xNWzb401FSQpDdYNEsWdW0HfCpo3Thy0yyLg/s1600/2011-10-02+15.01.31.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgTrZpnPbO71bBGfMWhq6G-8SvUU9l2B6VeAE2RawUuAX702i5gMPwANg2y_P3naLGSsqnh6QladETLx970X6GOWFIJslsAA-DeKJ6gd0xNWzb401FSQpDdYNEsWdW0HfCpo3Thy0yyLg/s320/2011-10-02+15.01.31.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5659321292204405202" border="0" /></a><br />For all the endless choice we seem to have in giant grocery stores, there's actually very little variety. Trying to eat more locally forces you to try new things, many of which you'd never encounter otherwise.<br /><br />And then, of course, there is the ethical side. We know one person who started keeping rabbits for meat because he visited a slaughterhouse and was appalled that part of his buying "normal" meat included the assumption that someone else was going to do that awful, miserable work for him. Culturally we have this huge assumption that it's okay to both demand rock-bottom prices and demand that someone else do all the dirty work of food production for you, and that doesn't sit right with me. My dollar a pound for apples grown in WA translates to rock-bottom wages and poor living conditions for farm workers, the shutdown of family farms in favor of huge industrial conglomerates, and other social issues I have a huge problem with. And the depressing of wages and elimination of jobs in favor of having a few more dollars hit the bottom line cascades through the economy, hurting us all. (A major problem I have with a lot of vegans is that they wail about the treatment of animals and then head off to the grocery store to buy vegetables and fruit that were basically produced with slave labor -- this is an uncomfortable truth of our food economy that even many of the otherwise ethically-conscious are loathe to admit.) Either I am willing to pay for the privilege of having another human being do the unpleasant parts of my food production, or I am willing to do it myself. There's not an ethical middle ground, for me.<br /><br />Not that I really consider harvesting and canning my own food unpleasant, most of the time -- and there's a huge payback in the pride you can take in something you've made yourself. :)<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgC4sl5KL0JUaNDNfI6SangqyFmWqk57k36QaBnWl-OVhFSKGE2VKY_3BeIS3wT14OKJ5EsT_pJbVIaNN-z4vy6OvOHVNo8AaTAOYUQgeGrH4UCJW25GtkWqMY6nKq4u9RkhwtYGorlVE/s1600/Pickled+Apples+1.jpg"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaM1QYjpN8AJg-gAesLFLUPNa2ev0SUlY8OD0kye4XrrKHvmmL255w9ptdZ9rbnVEKDe0Y0jMLMXrVBRZ5a8x_YCg9P35wtzxqplTXVxskfBLG9lgidrNHYdKN4YusVy8XkF0vdQEEssA/s1600/2011-10-02+15.14.54.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaM1QYjpN8AJg-gAesLFLUPNa2ev0SUlY8OD0kye4XrrKHvmmL255w9ptdZ9rbnVEKDe0Y0jMLMXrVBRZ5a8x_YCg9P35wtzxqplTXVxskfBLG9lgidrNHYdKN4YusVy8XkF0vdQEEssA/s320/2011-10-02+15.14.54.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5659322878914235394" border="0" /></a>Angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15995163580645326178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2159116670708774268.post-66711577538369846832011-09-30T12:43:00.000-07:002011-09-30T12:50:51.584-07:00Photo Friday: Everything's Prettier in the Fall<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghRlT2fcXa5tLCtQg6I09g9bfPOh7TMFxDK3UgSKMDXLW93o-AIRWaHmQMEpzER6IIDiyvQsZQvDBRL_q7zLtc6VDxhZE97c793Jgh80RlbPCAcgKpy9qbZ6HaeVVU1QGXYCtTmFOkNdk/s1600/2011-09-10+11.37.38.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghRlT2fcXa5tLCtQg6I09g9bfPOh7TMFxDK3UgSKMDXLW93o-AIRWaHmQMEpzER6IIDiyvQsZQvDBRL_q7zLtc6VDxhZE97c793Jgh80RlbPCAcgKpy9qbZ6HaeVVU1QGXYCtTmFOkNdk/s320/2011-09-10+11.37.38.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5658241356543406082" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMUB2i4kxOPpWBpt_p3gIR57acbA_Y6qbIhbbp6Ao4epkThHv7-AP4IfCfIMWG3mJdhs8BDAGz5YDFlG3HVZlWiqCJhyXLLT41cXCfgk4r4PyJ4N6pUGvAYKeZyH70BGRJ5LiQaLDb2Qw/s1600/2011-09-10+18.43.52.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMUB2i4kxOPpWBpt_p3gIR57acbA_Y6qbIhbbp6Ao4epkThHv7-AP4IfCfIMWG3mJdhs8BDAGz5YDFlG3HVZlWiqCJhyXLLT41cXCfgk4r4PyJ4N6pUGvAYKeZyH70BGRJ5LiQaLDb2Qw/s320/2011-09-10+18.43.52.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5658241329520970338" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtyEO5PDyMQyiI7fqituFED3ow_fGD6PbjfGIuMxEkF7MizdBMYJ-aFAkk1AmwEx-gXo1tR8AIQqznm2ejF2qa6ZepwZe96BXM-ZPynVNgWZ5LOc3ZVjHd5ZqZc8Mv-TXVcapXtDNF_hg/s1600/2011-09-29+18.09.57.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtyEO5PDyMQyiI7fqituFED3ow_fGD6PbjfGIuMxEkF7MizdBMYJ-aFAkk1AmwEx-gXo1tR8AIQqznm2ejF2qa6ZepwZe96BXM-ZPynVNgWZ5LOc3ZVjHd5ZqZc8Mv-TXVcapXtDNF_hg/s320/2011-09-29+18.09.57.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5658241372954373698" border="0" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMKWxq49IKuhu1-hLQ9dZ1oQnFeK6gpZiriKvHlSioE9Yks1dy0Pj40npOnJeHwB5gWTM4bEoUWgCqDulVY1X1_1wvogy7Fr-ARFMqSzmRW7A_lADpcUzuSU8Yno5AqSqFPfeIcWwBXYY/s1600/2011-09-29+18.22.05.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMKWxq49IKuhu1-hLQ9dZ1oQnFeK6gpZiriKvHlSioE9Yks1dy0Pj40npOnJeHwB5gWTM4bEoUWgCqDulVY1X1_1wvogy7Fr-ARFMqSzmRW7A_lADpcUzuSU8Yno5AqSqFPfeIcWwBXYY/s320/2011-09-29+18.22.05.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5658241367218247346" border="0" /></a>Angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15995163580645326178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2159116670708774268.post-28912908197910730822011-09-27T12:40:00.000-07:002011-09-30T12:41:59.034-07:00Roots and FruitsSo, for the past couple of years we've just kind of been growing random things without an overall plan; we've tried out new plants and bought things on a whim and stuck plants in the ground any old place without a whole lot of planning. This is more my fault than David's -- but we've both agreed after this year that this is high on the list of skills we need to work on next growing season.<br /><br />Part of the reason for this is that we're pushing our luck on the tomatoes and peppers at this point -- we've had them in the same place for a couple of years now, and that's just asking for trouble. Another issue is that we suck at succession planting, so our harvest comes in all at once. Yet another hurdle is that there are some fairly basic things we've just not taken the time to learn how to grow properly -- like spinach and lettuce -- so things that could be an ongoing harvest have been overlooked in favor of things like tomatoes, and tomatoes are so much work that anything else that needs to be processed at the same time stands a chance of going bad while it waits for me to get around to it. And we should eat more spinach anyway, especially since I love it raw. So next year is going to be Back to Basics Year.<br /><br />This doesn't mean I'm not going to plant anything new. It does mean I'm going to reign in my tendency to purchase fifty tomato plants, though. Next year we're going to focus on growing things we eat and that store well with minimum effort, like potatoes, carrots, and onions. We're also going to work on picking up some of those basics we've not paid enough attention to, like greens. And we're going to try our hand at a few new staples: beans are a given now that we've discovered what a joy it is to harvest them dry instead of trying to consume pounds and pounds of green beans, which we're indifferent to at best; the amaranth did well enough this year that I really want to give quinoa another go next year; and we've discovered that it is possible to successfully grow sweet potatoes in our climate, as the Amish who supply them to our co-op do so. We'll still grow a few tomatoes and a lot of peppers (the bells in particular are very cost-effective!), but since we end up buying most of the tomatoes for our big processing batches anyway, we'll take a year or two off the intensive growing to reduce the risk of disease.<br /><br />The other thing we're going to do is pay more attention to our fruits. We've planted a frankly astonishing quantity of fruit on our small lot over the past three years, and we're finally starting to get harvests worth mentioning. This year we added a number of things, including two tart cherry trees and three grapevines, so next year should be even better. But at some point we need to take the time to do things like renovate the strawberry bed and learn to prune back our bramble-berries and the plum tree, so it might as well be next year. And I need to take the time to really clear out the persistent weeds sprouting around our fruiting trees and shrubs so they don't have to spend so much energy competing.<br /><br />There's a laundry list of other things we've been "meaning to get around to" that will make our garden more productive, but which have been procrastinated in favor of shinier, more exciting things like planting my herb garden or getting the chicken coop started: we desperately need to clean up the yard waste "compost pile" (which is really more of a sod graveyard), rake up the mulch around the raised beds and put in thick cardboard to beat back seven or eight trillion of the quackgrass plants, take out hundreds of pounds of extra dirt back by the alley to start new raised beds, and deal with the mess that is our post-giant-stump boulevard, once and for all.<br /><br />I feel like up until now, what I've been doing is building the bones of a great garden -- pulling out sod, planning a layout, getting a start on where things are going to eventually go, and just trying to keep it from being too hideously ugly. But at some point you have enough bones and you need to work on covering them over, or else all you have is a skeleton, a half-accomplished idea, and it's frustrating to always look out the window and see something that feels more like "incomplete project start" than "well-balanced work-in-progress."<br /><br />Even so, it's going to be tough to resist the siren call of the Baker Creek Heirlooms catalog!Angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15995163580645326178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2159116670708774268.post-47990583561724669512011-09-24T09:43:00.000-07:002011-09-30T09:47:26.477-07:00Food Swap!Okay, so we've gone a little nuts over this Food Swap thing.<br /><br />I should backtrack and explain a little. In early September I found out about something called a "food swap," which is basically an event during which a bunch of food nerds swap homemade or homegrown foods. I love barter, and thought this was a brilliant idea, but figured it was probably one of those things going on in New York or Seattle or somewhere like that, and was surprised to find out that one of the more successful ones is going on monthly, right here in Minneapolis. We seemed to be too late to get in for the September event that was happening three days after I found out about it, but at the last minute (Friday afternoon for a Saturday event!) some tickets opened up and we were able to go.<br /><br />I think we did pretty well for having so little notice -- I raided my Leaning Tower of Jam in the pantry (that's a whole other post -- the Jam Tower consists entirely of flats of half-pint jars of jam I've made since June, and it is now, while sitting on the floor, actually taller than I am!) and David whipped up some of his tasty garlic-havarti rolls; we grabbed some jars of salsa and took off for the swap.<br /><br />I was too busy during the event last month to get pictures, but the whole thing is very well-organized, and takes place in a lovely space provided by Open Arms. Basically everyone comes in and sets up their wares, and then everyone wanders around for a half-hour or so, checking out what the others have brought, chatting, and enjoying samples. Each item has a little info slip in front of it with its description, ingredients, and so on, and at the bottom are lines for folks who want to "bid" on that item to do so. So, for example, if you saw some wonderful olive tapenade (which I did, and which, alas, I did not get), you'd write down your name and what you're willing to trade for it (say, strawberry jam). While you're doing that, other people are checking out your stuff and writing their bids on your strawberry jam's info sheet. (Amounts are not as much a concern as you'd think -- David observed that a half-pint seemed to have become the standard unit of "currency" for a trade almost by default, but people weren't really crazy about sticking to that.) At the end of the bidding time, you go back and check out your offers and the swapping begins. <br /><br />The amount of variety is pretty incredible -- there were jams and jellies, spice mixes, a wide variety of baked goods from the basics to the artisan, chocolates, chutneys, fridge pickles and relishes, canned goods, homemade dog treats, salted caramel sauce, fresh herbs, and other things I've probably forgotten. The presentation blew me away -- we'd skimped on that due to the short notice, but others did not, and it was as much a feast for the eyes as the appetite. We found plenty to trade for, and while we didn't get everything we wanted (such as the aforementioned tapenade and the amazing caramel sauce), we did get a lot of great stuff to diversify our pantry and munch on for the rest of the week.<br /><br />So, not to give it all away, but this month we're anticipating bringing more of David's fresh-from-the-oven rolls, his killer homemade caramelized onion hummus, more jam, of course (for which I have more samples this time, since I've had more notice), and some of my flavored vinegars, infused with my homegrown herbs. If the hens get off their lazy fluffy butts and start laying soon, we'll have home-raised eggs for future swaps. I've made a number of things specifically for the swap -- which is where the "gone a little nuts" part comes in -- and tried some things I'd not have ordinarily tried (like the Spiced Ginger-Carrot Jelly I made the other night while I was pressure-canning pints of carrots), but I'm not normally all that adventurous in the kitchen, so maybe that's a good thing. <br /><br />Next month's swap is coming up fast, so hopefully I will remember to get pictures this time and post a recap. ^_^Angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15995163580645326178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2159116670708774268.post-37686826086276244912011-09-20T09:52:00.000-07:002011-09-20T09:53:38.849-07:00Gardening Mistakes Made This YearI'm inspired by <a href="http://www.thecrunchychicken.com/">The Crunchy Chicken</a> this morning to recap some of this year's garden bloopers, not in the spirit of self-recrimination so much as in the spirit of not making the same mistakes over and over again. So here are this year's "oopses:"<br /><br />1. Planting the wrong things. Every spring I experience a bout of temporary insanity and plant cabbage. This is stupid for two reasons: first, I could get enough cabbage to make a kiddie pool full of sauer kraut for less than ten bucks at the farmer's market, come September. Second, my yard was apparently build on an ancient cabbage burial ground full of angry cruciferous spirits, so I've never had a cabbage actually make it to maturity and remain edible. Also, I should really give up on growing watermelons from seed in Minnesota. It's mid-September and the only way I'm using watermelons is if I can them whole in light syrup...in a quart jar. Some things were just never meant to be.<br /><br />2. Getting lazy about weeding from early July through late August. When I need a saw to take down the lambsquarters, it's been too long. #1 and #2 may be related -- next year I think I'll just stir-fry the quackgrass roots and have a side salad of lambsquarter and wood sorrel and skip planting crops altogether. If you can't beat 'em, eat 'em. Well, except for the deadly nightshade.<br /><br />3. Not getting seedlings in the ground -- this was largely due to our extremely late spring this year, but it did emphasize for me the importance of having cold frames, mini-hoophouses, or row covers to protect plants so I can get them in the ground on schedule. Now that <a href="http://www.backwoodshome.com/blogs/JackieClay/"> Jackie Clay</a> has moved to Minnesota and demonstrated all this year the benefits of growing things like peppers in a hoophouse in this climate, I'm sold on the idea. It's just a matter of getting the materials together and actually building them.<br /><br />4. Forgetting that tomatoes aren't timid little shrubby or viney things; they're vegetative monstrosities capable of dismantling steel cages with their bare stems. I don't need tomato cages; I need a high security tomato lockdown facility with reinforced concrete supports, electrified perimeter fencing, and a moat. That's not to keep the garden pests out -- that's to keep the tomatoes <i>in</i>.Angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15995163580645326178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2159116670708774268.post-44280852768519087292011-06-20T08:24:00.000-07:002011-06-21T08:26:22.084-07:00Just another modest proposal from big agribusiness...Thank heavens for the internet, showing me the error of my ways -- according to <a href="http://zesterdaily.com/zester-soapbox-articles/954-eco-edge-of-conventional-farms">this fellow, "conventional" farming is better for the environment and even for animals being raised for food</a>. He suggests that caged chickens are better off than free range chickens because they are less stressed due to their confinement.<br /><br />Maybe he's on to something. If, indeed, intensive cage farming is better for the chickens because they consume fewer calories and thus resources and are not troubled by natural behaviors like moving around and establishing a social hierarchy, why not expand the concept? Why not solve this problem of expanding food needs by caging humans as well? Surely keeping humans in banks of tightly-fitting cages would be better for us, as it would eliminate such stressors as war, poverty, and competition for mates. We would take up much less space, which would be better for the environment.<br /><br />And if we went one step further and fed us recycled bits of human as they feed chickens recycled bits of other chickens, we could drastically reduce our need to raise food animals -- and thus our impact upon the Earth. Such humans might not be able to lift their arms due to the tight quarters, but in the past raised arms have been used to hold weapons and intimidate others, so it's really better if we can eliminate these types of distressing behaviors altogether. And, really, isn't the lifespan of the average human right now a little over-the-top? If we can condense all this living into a smaller physical space, we might as well do what we do with chickens and condense it into a smaller temporal space as well. Meat chickens hit their peak at, what, six weeks? It would be hard to argue that people haven't hit their peak by thirty-five or so. If we could just select for the shortest-lived and fastest-growing humans, we could streamline things to fit many more generations into a century of time. And once you hit thirty-five, you still get to give back to the community by becoming people kibble. What could be more environmentally friendly than that?Angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15995163580645326178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2159116670708774268.post-17181579962647349542011-06-13T11:55:00.000-07:002011-06-13T12:08:42.757-07:00One of the things I inevitably spend way too much time doing is weeding. Our yard was a terribly neglected weed-patch when we bought the house, and between that and the weeds you get even in the best-tended and mulched garden beds, there's a lot of ground to cover. Hunched over in the hot sun or swatting away mosquitos as I dig out roots and rhizomes, I'm inclined to curse these out-of-place plants -- but a little research and a lot of closer looking has changed my outlook somewhat.<br /><br />For all that the weeds drive me crazy, there are relatively few in my yard that are "useless," and several that are useful enough that it's astonishing that as a culture we've dismissed them so thoroughly. So this summer I want to talk about a few of these that you just might have sprouting around your yard, and even if you don't decide to eat them, you might regard them a little differently.<br /><br />Some of the plants I'm going to mention require a lot more effort to use than it's probably worth most of the time. (After all, who wants to spend hours digging, cleaning, and pounding quackgrass roots to make bread when we have far more effective ways to do it? What we might do in a time of need may not be worth it in a time of relative plenty.) But this one is easy; you can pick it as-is, rinse it off, and pop it right in your mouth, and it's delicious. It grows all over the place and isn't difficult to find or identify, so it's free...how can you beat that? :) This is wood sorrel, a diminuitive clover-like plant common in the Midwest:<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMcslzSLARcEa_ov5NyMwLeIdFTHqSgJawPgpeye9Qm-uHgQ7N_lXvfqA5Wmp2ybbt2jQLtKgyDtc_Z-ezq7wu0ZbpbQ9yDTNwFU3Q75VpnQ-d2oSUwTtTQIYGrZK94aapqmiAkCHtK-s/s1600/IMG_5878.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMcslzSLARcEa_ov5NyMwLeIdFTHqSgJawPgpeye9Qm-uHgQ7N_lXvfqA5Wmp2ybbt2jQLtKgyDtc_Z-ezq7wu0ZbpbQ9yDTNwFU3Q75VpnQ-d2oSUwTtTQIYGrZK94aapqmiAkCHtK-s/s320/IMG_5878.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5617781102563934610" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrzAPSWcm_srkFin5Yl5TWsirUVlgA3IZE9pRGKg7OtUZ2sOnoRZG6K_TMEA-0m-KCFeeOwwq6OtmQY2LOZSk4aCkh0xm3n8DIQiaVrckc5_Sudj79FoesXFOFtcmSWZ-HbGSwf1tKctk/s1600/IMG_5884.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrzAPSWcm_srkFin5Yl5TWsirUVlgA3IZE9pRGKg7OtUZ2sOnoRZG6K_TMEA-0m-KCFeeOwwq6OtmQY2LOZSk4aCkh0xm3n8DIQiaVrckc5_Sudj79FoesXFOFtcmSWZ-HbGSwf1tKctk/s320/IMG_5884.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5617781108511625314" border="0" /></a><br />This plant is not too problematic to identify, because the only thing it closely resembles is clover, which (while far less palatable) is not toxic. There are a couple of ways to distinguish it; a patch of sorrel isn't going to have clover flowers, for one! (Its flowers are the dainty yellow ones in the picture; they can also occasionally be white depending on the sorrel variety, but they don't look anything like clover flowers.) Clover also tends to have duller green leaves with lighter-colored markings on them (as in the picture below), which wood sorrel lacks. If all else fails, you can tell by taste -- a clover leaf tastes...leafy...while the taste of sorrel is hard to miss. <br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4yJx7rhQ1gzWB-uowilEbRa5m5XGCUvDTioCKYTqJW4cTzeE-dUIt3vW-uRfvj5fYuzWOPInw6dchpY_k8amZSfoDdtdSwPeuV2FGATH0ZbM8HVYH3k2xkGBe3HdhWcnF8qFQW54iDpk/s1600/clover.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4yJx7rhQ1gzWB-uowilEbRa5m5XGCUvDTioCKYTqJW4cTzeE-dUIt3vW-uRfvj5fYuzWOPInw6dchpY_k8amZSfoDdtdSwPeuV2FGATH0ZbM8HVYH3k2xkGBe3HdhWcnF8qFQW54iDpk/s320/clover.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5617781122719486978" border="0" /></a><br />Wood sorrel has a delicious, tangy, lemony flavor that will surprise you if you've never tried it before. It tends to grow in clumps, so you can gather enough for a meal in just a few minutes. I toss mine into a cup or paper bag and then rinse it out in a colander in the kitchen sink the same way I'd rinse lettuce leaves, then use in a salad either by itself or with other greens like spinach and basil. The flavor is strong and pleasant enough that it doesn't need much dressing up; I use just a tiny amount of oil and vinegar (citrus balsamic is absolutely fantastic with it; in the Twin Cities you can get this stuff cheap at Holy Land). Sesame seeds or almond slivers are good in this kind of salad, too.<br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKfzRbH86-10AjHb38YSsC2uDy9MvnIQCFiu0Lbdt2OB-LW3-vA_vyyevNWLGeall0etf20N09ZThkWDKFBAOuTaRLm346-vnJzNN32eOZlLstTuC55Poq3hRZyTFJon2XsyUEdD8rtR4/s1600/IMG_5899.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKfzRbH86-10AjHb38YSsC2uDy9MvnIQCFiu0Lbdt2OB-LW3-vA_vyyevNWLGeall0etf20N09ZThkWDKFBAOuTaRLm346-vnJzNN32eOZlLstTuC55Poq3hRZyTFJon2XsyUEdD8rtR4/s320/IMG_5899.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5617781116832716178" border="0" /></a>Angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15995163580645326178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2159116670708774268.post-52930804690256945382011-06-08T09:59:00.000-07:002011-06-08T10:13:15.183-07:00The fruits of our laborWell, if the last post was about the cold weather, this is the opposite extreme -- the temperature hit 103°F yesterday! We took the temperature in the shade after 6 p.m. and it was still over 100. This may not sound like much to those of you way down south, but we're in Minnesota, and a few weeks ago, we had snow! Fortunately, we didn't lose any chickens yesterday -- though several other people in the area did -- which was very lucky for us because ours still won't come out of the coop into the run, and as well-ventilated as it is, it was still searingly hot inside yesterday, poor things. I guess they're tough little birds. They'll have to be, in this climate!<br /><br />I've gotten a lot more planted in the last few weeks, but it seems we're doomed to have no spring at all this year, so I don't think we'll be seeing much in the way of snap or snow peas. For some reason they didn't germinate for weeks after I planted them, and now it's been so hot I can't imagine they'll be producing much. So that's a let-down. But I think we're on track for strawberries in the near future, and we even got the first honeyberries we've ever had on our bushes a few days ago. I've heard lots of people say they aren't palatable for raw eating, but the little ones at least are <i>delicious</i>, in my opinion! They're very tart-sweet and unique; the closest comparison I can make is to tart red currants, but it's different from those, as well. We've planted a lot of fruit for many reasons -- one of which is that it's one of the types of food that tends to have the greatest number of food miles, since so many of the fruits we eat are tropical -- and it's gratifying to keep finding that the fruits that grow here, which you generally can't find at the grocery store, taste just as good or better. To me it's terribly sad that we've not only not cultivated the local fruits and enjoyed them, but in some cases (gooseberries, currants), have actually exterminated them or even banned them from being grown at all.<br /><br />So far we have planted (not all this year!):<br />Canadian Chokecherry (x1, may have to get rid of due to black knot >_<)<br />Northstar Pie Cherry (x2)<br />Ben Sarek Black Currant (x4)<br />Red Lake Red Currant (x3)<br />Honeyberry (x3, 3 different varieties, but I can't recall which)<br />Gooseberry (x1, can't recall variety)<br />Mount Royal Plum (x1)<br />Junebearing Strawberries (4'x8' bed, plus where they've crept out into the yard)<br />Raspberry (x2, one red and one yellow)<br />Blackberry (x1, thornless)<br />Apple (x1, Honeycrisp)<br />Serviceberry (x1)<br />Rhubarb (x3)<br />Hardy Kiwi (x1 so far, need another)<br />Hazelnut (x2)<br />Various minimally successful attempts at melons<br /><br />On my wish list:<br />Elderberry<br />Seaberry (I am seriously coveting the ones at Egg|Plant right now...)<br />Grape<br />Lingonberry<br /><br />Not bad for a tenth of an acre lot that also has to hold our house, garage, chicken coop, and vegetable garden! I also hope to espalier some dwarf apples and more pie cherries along the sides of our house and garage once we replace our siding, and to start propagating some of the things I'm growing so I can help them get re-established in the area. I'd be curious to hear what other fruits people have tried to grow in colder climates, especially those that are less common.<br /><br />Since the weather this year has been so unaccommodating, I leave you with some pictures from last year about this time, and the hope that things will be looking as nice in the garden this year, soon. ^_^<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR-1ug5oH194-913fq3iOouHzbNP85kphjiMSGKb-r1tBmJ-D56wxLuX7ag3Ffl6FfJw7OT3YLTGA_3S4AvLZ6IC8pZOROQ-iAD3LtWjZyZXcu_SlVGpZdmSGBZdvDIldP3r6XX2hyphenhyphenDao/s1600/IMG_5174.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR-1ug5oH194-913fq3iOouHzbNP85kphjiMSGKb-r1tBmJ-D56wxLuX7ag3Ffl6FfJw7OT3YLTGA_3S4AvLZ6IC8pZOROQ-iAD3LtWjZyZXcu_SlVGpZdmSGBZdvDIldP3r6XX2hyphenhyphenDao/s320/IMG_5174.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5615897359868230658" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKO-KrTapeUwtTLTuqhsAal1sm_QND63RwUHq1n9-lPG4JbmyisiltJJnR2ZslOLvoGoeAoCELwiC8G5n144AjLem-qYgA23wrmrD7rRFsU1SCM0eoXgFpMeOBj03QJtJ6T_im3GmiR6M/s1600/IMG_5132.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKO-KrTapeUwtTLTuqhsAal1sm_QND63RwUHq1n9-lPG4JbmyisiltJJnR2ZslOLvoGoeAoCELwiC8G5n144AjLem-qYgA23wrmrD7rRFsU1SCM0eoXgFpMeOBj03QJtJ6T_im3GmiR6M/s320/IMG_5132.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5615897792113774034" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnY96bFW5ngT1OUM6nAS4pTfUOkxiGtzBte3YVzUCyVGqTXZLOdknMzRMv1NTwM6NJ0muzKqsI9TtgXeuervNsRsVzTLabsct5ks639_8MFIB21VDYHsLKn-QxkKxCxu7XVwzNvihRG5c/s1600/IMG_5136.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnY96bFW5ngT1OUM6nAS4pTfUOkxiGtzBte3YVzUCyVGqTXZLOdknMzRMv1NTwM6NJ0muzKqsI9TtgXeuervNsRsVzTLabsct5ks639_8MFIB21VDYHsLKn-QxkKxCxu7XVwzNvihRG5c/s320/IMG_5136.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5615897375863476258" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5RPqwvFzCJk9tYq3dXeLmc0gBo3DfrKvJ6jSoY2cLmwFZ0ldK5D6AYEqThCFUFPddKH3vjoB6MsJRCjP7vk_nCScNhJOoNcNZQsP5WPnpmgMQAkqFAU3Q_EsiVNBBIDACLZpVByGHuMk/s1600/IMG_5192.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5RPqwvFzCJk9tYq3dXeLmc0gBo3DfrKvJ6jSoY2cLmwFZ0ldK5D6AYEqThCFUFPddKH3vjoB6MsJRCjP7vk_nCScNhJOoNcNZQsP5WPnpmgMQAkqFAU3Q_EsiVNBBIDACLZpVByGHuMk/s320/IMG_5192.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5615897362358344786" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicDFoIi89VdFV1FaQSFez-c7acxgwoxlq-CBBjxncAW79JaWlubtDTbZ1YVrYvoka5TPH3G3IGuilXfrRDMQzB684_F6TQS9NKq_knnaEHnb4jQL_71lXWa81aIZU1l1vkWPDvrmQQoUk/s1600/IMG_5145.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicDFoIi89VdFV1FaQSFez-c7acxgwoxlq-CBBjxncAW79JaWlubtDTbZ1YVrYvoka5TPH3G3IGuilXfrRDMQzB684_F6TQS9NKq_knnaEHnb4jQL_71lXWa81aIZU1l1vkWPDvrmQQoUk/s320/IMG_5145.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5615897381200572882" border="0" /></a>Angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15995163580645326178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2159116670708774268.post-70637946933319999362011-05-01T07:49:00.001-07:002011-05-01T08:03:48.356-07:00May Day feels more like February Day this morning...I expected to wake up to a beautiful spring day today per all the weather forecasts from the past week, but alas it's cloudy again with a wind chill of 22 degrees. This is getting really tiresome.<br /><br />That said, we did have a very busy and productive yesterday, including picking up our chickens! We now have three tiny little Silver-Laced Wyandotte hens peeping in a Rubbermaid in our extra room, out of reach of the (very curious, very frustrated) cats.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJlvtfnpjtS2tiLtFJDdGvpce7S364pSqlvNbtfXxEkyS8p0rbFACGhzgLJ5-mN_r4ITzM9EjhyC5HrNLJSJrCZHceJLBd4pJut9xxvxhE0cQK_Vkcl_1cBg_IYB0lDzxJsQjjUFwosU8/s1600/IMG_5827.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJlvtfnpjtS2tiLtFJDdGvpce7S364pSqlvNbtfXxEkyS8p0rbFACGhzgLJ5-mN_r4ITzM9EjhyC5HrNLJSJrCZHceJLBd4pJut9xxvxhE0cQK_Vkcl_1cBg_IYB0lDzxJsQjjUFwosU8/s320/IMG_5827.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5601760941501632146" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKtIFwfCb5X2qkuYta6PB7_zfV4l7lK_lEJHjQQqnaiRQRsWj9CaMxZ_vAZ1BzwhE-P34EQE-rlFEgyNoWOdZh4ZOJQCAr22KpT5uQMNPyI2jtzsxcVFMpgwVpxnlAcYm72xNMgHPxr9E/s1600/IMG_5791.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKtIFwfCb5X2qkuYta6PB7_zfV4l7lK_lEJHjQQqnaiRQRsWj9CaMxZ_vAZ1BzwhE-P34EQE-rlFEgyNoWOdZh4ZOJQCAr22KpT5uQMNPyI2jtzsxcVFMpgwVpxnlAcYm72xNMgHPxr9E/s320/IMG_5791.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5601760935532560546" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAujKggnVPU3CCzV-ri6H8IJsM452UJ9xCSzMfsrrN3-LsG3K19cXFouUPBUbTtZfGQ65FKFk7Db3hvASVMfY6UOPFwtjT8GMdE2jx3j1ZQaZDxEE8L1guQzO4KcI-PxPZOjtKa6_uVjE/s1600/IMG_5796.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAujKggnVPU3CCzV-ri6H8IJsM452UJ9xCSzMfsrrN3-LsG3K19cXFouUPBUbTtZfGQ65FKFk7Db3hvASVMfY6UOPFwtjT8GMdE2jx3j1ZQaZDxEE8L1guQzO4KcI-PxPZOjtKa6_uVjE/s320/IMG_5796.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5601760930730711634" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieRXu5iWVY45ccIvOxUttWG6Bku9Byom29f41scTAY_NpH1ahAwerf21M4wTVOml_qoc8OEuDoEqoPJPLqCyItD5vEapYdinZ6a6Py5TATI688wJtwGqzwz54-xIySn0ABMBorElZnnWg/s1600/IMG_5815.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieRXu5iWVY45ccIvOxUttWG6Bku9Byom29f41scTAY_NpH1ahAwerf21M4wTVOml_qoc8OEuDoEqoPJPLqCyItD5vEapYdinZ6a6Py5TATI688wJtwGqzwz54-xIySn0ABMBorElZnnWg/s320/IMG_5815.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5601760921947160514" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-S7ecqnsT4FhL29At2ycmUz0Pbkh01GBs2c-LMG4vo4ddWQcS2scqohl5mtu-5tuGesTu51UiArTr-byUNF5qtfbE3GDDbE3DlVJeCNSA2RjoCdEkHIvxVfF4RDCxnugFmqLdZy1HxAY/s1600/IMG_5795.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-S7ecqnsT4FhL29At2ycmUz0Pbkh01GBs2c-LMG4vo4ddWQcS2scqohl5mtu-5tuGesTu51UiArTr-byUNF5qtfbE3GDDbE3DlVJeCNSA2RjoCdEkHIvxVfF4RDCxnugFmqLdZy1HxAY/s320/IMG_5795.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5601760920269725058" border="0" /></a><br />We're scheduled to finish up the permitting paperwork this week (finally...finally...FINALLY!) and then just have to deal with the coop inspection (for which we need to finish preparing -- we are just converting the back few feet of our shed) and we should be home free. This whole process has dragged out from our attempted early start (foiled by the city) in early-mid March and has involved a fairly insane number of requirements for a couple of backyard birds, so I am incredibly glad it's almost over.<br /><br />Yesterday morning was also the first big Northside Food Resource Hub get-together since the initial meeting, including the first plant hand-out. The weather was absolutely miserable -- windy, icy-cold rain coming down hard, occasional lightning -- but the attendance when we got there just after it started was still pretty good. I imagine it picked up as the day went on.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOvSWW3hk_g6AOhuxtw0s-oh5WEcuRLb9C21zFndFWS01m200ZUMvD6ttFlte50baI5o5TuRFfJ776hZ-a3kLOtM_syNIEDE7b4nCCM_ClsCdAcvKu2JxUSlIb7Tm2RHnnK7MNyB6T2Mw/s1600/IMG_5775.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOvSWW3hk_g6AOhuxtw0s-oh5WEcuRLb9C21zFndFWS01m200ZUMvD6ttFlte50baI5o5TuRFfJ776hZ-a3kLOtM_syNIEDE7b4nCCM_ClsCdAcvKu2JxUSlIb7Tm2RHnnK7MNyB6T2Mw/s200/IMG_5775.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5601762391040805426" border="0" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRDv9cOoREcqHcktMXLae0WcoCjyVHsI9j73u0IM6i69tO3zqCvfy-rKmvi87F17JNKO8hnbn_rfKV3v9ovybTKr4hTWYi3pvQiFkjDONDGhqEdQkawfeq_3oD_DuyukBKMlbjTT1ApKg/s1600/IMG_5779.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRDv9cOoREcqHcktMXLae0WcoCjyVHsI9j73u0IM6i69tO3zqCvfy-rKmvi87F17JNKO8hnbn_rfKV3v9ovybTKr4hTWYi3pvQiFkjDONDGhqEdQkawfeq_3oD_DuyukBKMlbjTT1ApKg/s200/IMG_5779.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5601762399747094418" border="0" /></a></div><br />We got a bag of seed packets and a few cold-weather plants -- the bulk of the pickup is later in May, in hopes that by then spring will have gotten around to arriving.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrxFtRxRbVtYINXSo8dDyCUw8mlANI1QK309zSgKXhSPOaoQnjtbQWKZKP0eMvEnMMXGROPEOZwT7j9KfqrCa0V2uQ0B9RMrmtWPkA0cSy5-F2DNwT0GJ-0GO4_RoBoIQNYflsUQOsrus/s1600/IMG_5768.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrxFtRxRbVtYINXSo8dDyCUw8mlANI1QK309zSgKXhSPOaoQnjtbQWKZKP0eMvEnMMXGROPEOZwT7j9KfqrCa0V2uQ0B9RMrmtWPkA0cSy5-F2DNwT0GJ-0GO4_RoBoIQNYflsUQOsrus/s320/IMG_5768.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5601763135529545618" border="0" /></a><br />I should have more updates this week on various local initiatives, including Transition Town NE Minneapolis and the Canning Co-op I'm trying to start. Right now, though, the coffee downstairs is calling me, and then I need to get outside and work on that coop!Angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15995163580645326178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2159116670708774268.post-23185964485882873232011-04-17T15:39:00.000-07:002011-04-17T16:14:24.027-07:00Arboretum and Stinging Nettle TeaFor some reason I woke up in a terrible mood today. I'm still not sure why, but the late-morning trip we took to the Como Arboretum helped a bit.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhim-WwKdklwA-mL8vfeCkdwRs3xP9BqBAKFM4m4VLfteEh5QJpJ0fwHtnb9jM3T2eGn2jMpfQFaNwb2aHA8fXEON0Qp9zyoAchIqtcQPHhpoIP9IwoZODNE03QoKxhDEOUVGMBQHBhOHs/s1600/IMG_5738.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhim-WwKdklwA-mL8vfeCkdwRs3xP9BqBAKFM4m4VLfteEh5QJpJ0fwHtnb9jM3T2eGn2jMpfQFaNwb2aHA8fXEON0Qp9zyoAchIqtcQPHhpoIP9IwoZODNE03QoKxhDEOUVGMBQHBhOHs/s320/IMG_5738.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5596689161025050546" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj82fQ4vEcAGha8kzbLPA04_nGzuGNVkdclYI1pmPWGhT7KAbGvMxvbQkEqcbR9Ht_YhsyRbfvfAST1hRtg3kkuDiAdGk1DRtA1v9yjEJBwlo0aNaoYKF6PTmfmb4J0VSwny-ngD8-O02w/s1600/IMG_5724.JPG"><img style="display: block; 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margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp68Fu2n2d4SnUfMsCtxGBXff2-RdLt8qMLwf4Crtc0j-1ZOPIgZN4Oug5WmF_Yy8h7qubcMfNwZNXyrdDKn1fVg79LiXqY8GBlFS52smA1qLpfh8xm2E-LqyvEwAP4SyBSr6KaOqJwuY/s320/IMG_5637.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5596687425125830386" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-M9pz7U57wkuQTqZdtKkSE1swDCdIxeOr5phMrjLGRUYhAjO6UUXLce3z8WhXNE9QQnchZ6QeZPVFgDo5FkKAaFSgyljhu-88VzDKw1tAzqDCTls3lwBSqR_ZXs7pY81OLVw_E9hI2tw/s1600/IMG_5622.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-M9pz7U57wkuQTqZdtKkSE1swDCdIxeOr5phMrjLGRUYhAjO6UUXLce3z8WhXNE9QQnchZ6QeZPVFgDo5FkKAaFSgyljhu-88VzDKw1tAzqDCTls3lwBSqR_ZXs7pY81OLVw_E9hI2tw/s320/IMG_5622.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5596687415742511650" border="0" /></a><br />The weather was still distressingly un-spring-like when we got home, but the nettles at the side of the house were getting out of hand (I swear they grow an inch a day sometimes...), so when the husband announced he was going to go out and build some potato boxes, I decided today was the day to clip back the nettle patch and brew up some tea.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5zFdvyBUNKfIgc5JV4cSCpmsl5OuOQ9TZNiJAusA0KvJEpQRyeX1SsqIzRFkM8agixJ2iNqe5MTEPmD7SYfcZ96o81YMG-B52Rlf_0WtAAvmajy2EjUtuQk8bm5Q5U8IyCm-f3HaE-0g/s1600/IMG_5757.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5zFdvyBUNKfIgc5JV4cSCpmsl5OuOQ9TZNiJAusA0KvJEpQRyeX1SsqIzRFkM8agixJ2iNqe5MTEPmD7SYfcZ96o81YMG-B52Rlf_0WtAAvmajy2EjUtuQk8bm5Q5U8IyCm-f3HaE-0g/s320/IMG_5757.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5596692850889794818" border="0" /></a><br />Nettles might seem like just an annoying weed, but they actually have a wide variety of uses. They're high in many vitamins (including vitamin C) and in protein, act as a diuretic, and young nettles especially are generally good for the kidneys, skin, and hair. You can cook them up like spinach, put them in soups, make nettle syrups, or just steam them and use them in salads. They can even be used to make a yellowish dye, or for their fibers (when they're a bit larger than this.) This batch I intend to put to dual purpose -- to freeze in ice cube trays to include in soups and stocks for extra nutrition and to add to teas and use topically for my hair.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCr0M99wyMP82rZwKnTY797jtOMcmYOYtY81mpO7wjMbUc1WRdlZ3kOYXF49XzhyT7_og2STWV34cqLFVSjm34dpBoYoEasj6eM1DXsrGD9A_rjsd3drUgiwKMILOSZOCiaeLJhwSFkfg/s1600/IMG_5751.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCr0M99wyMP82rZwKnTY797jtOMcmYOYtY81mpO7wjMbUc1WRdlZ3kOYXF49XzhyT7_og2STWV34cqLFVSjm34dpBoYoEasj6eM1DXsrGD9A_rjsd3drUgiwKMILOSZOCiaeLJhwSFkfg/s320/IMG_5751.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5596692845616489842" border="0" /></a><br />Since I was picking them half to use and half to keep them from getting out of control like they did last year, I ended up gathering way too many. I added about half of them to my tea jar and poured two kettles of boiling water on top, then set them out in the sun to steep. I'll bring the jar in later and keep them steeping overnight (this method was suggested to me by a local herbalist last summer) and then strain and freeze or use.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ5QvIql0_P5SkdgbEDGTkZsJy4rd2aX5ugyzuaiMYqWxEhed9YHgUbT646msnUxerb2jzy8JZPBNZwSblbaGP0Nm4EpMNNrcJZT18TlwLDjQudHNtpgTbVepWOqYOwJgL1-Q1sDNdhNY/s1600/IMG_5744.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ5QvIql0_P5SkdgbEDGTkZsJy4rd2aX5ugyzuaiMYqWxEhed9YHgUbT646msnUxerb2jzy8JZPBNZwSblbaGP0Nm4EpMNNrcJZT18TlwLDjQudHNtpgTbVepWOqYOwJgL1-Q1sDNdhNY/s320/IMG_5744.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5596692854277223954" border="0" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLSBWahE2P7UNGwBKcYOrwSaU88TyWRs5Oy0AkJ32e0RgGipvD0M3W_urK3H7PNj28DnNpbJpciHG95J4GutDwUaqCQqaqiONbMBHelX-wrP8NoclmKuPPGNX2N4KhkOlOuIss4ehuM_M/s1600/IMG_5760.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLSBWahE2P7UNGwBKcYOrwSaU88TyWRs5Oy0AkJ32e0RgGipvD0M3W_urK3H7PNj28DnNpbJpciHG95J4GutDwUaqCQqaqiONbMBHelX-wrP8NoclmKuPPGNX2N4KhkOlOuIss4ehuM_M/s320/IMG_5760.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5596692862010881762" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBDjAMv8tX7EMLz5c8lKy7OtsQrX1jTW_S4zXnaMnmBQPoASidfFiJY4CJ35wQX2ACmUFRu8s6HPuPWXFC6amRsRujmtR2xYMgmas0VnPICN6cdsTKIPjSUILeIFzYe5939WnDZ5ZkMOE/s1600/IMG_5762.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBDjAMv8tX7EMLz5c8lKy7OtsQrX1jTW_S4zXnaMnmBQPoASidfFiJY4CJ35wQX2ACmUFRu8s6HPuPWXFC6amRsRujmtR2xYMgmas0VnPICN6cdsTKIPjSUILeIFzYe5939WnDZ5ZkMOE/s320/IMG_5762.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5596692871045044338" border="0" /></a>Angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15995163580645326178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2159116670708774268.post-76328786047316029902011-04-10T18:13:00.000-07:002011-04-11T21:23:57.234-07:00Tired, but satisfiedI wasn't anticipating being able to get out into the garden at all this weekend -- we had another conference on Saturday, and then it was supposed to storm from Saturday afternoon through Monday morning, but Sunday ended up being unexpectedly nice out most of the day. I started early (or early for me on a weekend, anyway) and got out there by ten, and kept going straight through until almost five.<br /><br />Now, I'm a pretty lazy person, and as such our whole yard has started off the gardening season in severe disarray. Somewhere around June last year I just lost my steam (the 90 degree temps, constant rain, swarms of mosquitoes, aggressively evil hive of yellow jackets living next to my back door, and sweltering humidity may have had something to do with that...last summer sucked) and the weeds launched an offensive that had to be seen to be believed. Between the 8' stinging nettles, lamb's quarters trees growing in my strawberry bed, and grassy things with a 4' diameter, there was no coming back. By the end of the summer I was so thoroughly disillusioned that I neglected to do the fall cleanup I should have done, and as a result we started off the year with overgrown, yucky garden beds. I was afraid it would be a solid month of drudgery before I'd be able to even plant anything, let alone have the yard look okay, but we've only put in about 11-12 hours of total work so far and we're in pretty good shape. Last week we overhauled all three raised beds from last year and did some general cleanup; this week we ripped out the sod for another bed, cleaned up three of the six sections of narrow garden on the other side of the sidewalk, raked a ton of dead grass out of the yard, and laid down an insane quantity of mulch. I didn't plant as much as I wanted to, but did at least get some peas and onions in the ground.<br /><br />But, you know, as disheartening as it can be sometimes when you just can't seem to keep up, there's something rejuvenating about getting out there and putting in the physical labor. I'm going to be sore as hell tomorrow, but it's really uplifting to not be able to turn over a trowelful of dirt in my garden without exposing fat, happy earthworms; it's wonderful to feel and smell healthy, loose, rich soil and know that I'm maintaining something amazing that supports layer upon layer of life, into which I can stick a pathetically tiny seed and end up with huge carrots or onions or beans or marigolds or a hundred other things. It's rewarding to see my chives and valerian coming back and to know soon there will be big clumsy bumblebees and colorful butterflies flitting from flower to flower, that soon I'll be able to walk out after an afternoon storm and watch the evening sun refract through the droplets on the lamb's ear and catnip and bounce off my bottle border and cast little rainbows.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6_qy0O3z2LSLLrrv0dXSF9GSaFAXIlwNkHv7n7Rb-wAXE1uJ0gFFx24s_HWv7rpoSZQK-aXfZinaBkjHTqLAFBxzTwq-MlJadvDkq549vxxfku12bG1r5noKpdlIkrhB9bSc-xdFqmYg/s1600/IMG_5539.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6_qy0O3z2LSLLrrv0dXSF9GSaFAXIlwNkHv7n7Rb-wAXE1uJ0gFFx24s_HWv7rpoSZQK-aXfZinaBkjHTqLAFBxzTwq-MlJadvDkq549vxxfku12bG1r5noKpdlIkrhB9bSc-xdFqmYg/s320/IMG_5539.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5594546472855564754" border="0" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqwjWbLku7KeCkQl1gUAtNbycLJOzBPHiG-gLk0kEqo-_gOuIirAc-VtMR6dfEw0nvkRoV9ca_12XQz6Xg6tJXJiqjpgvcDnQSh8-IvCwUBToC-LoiSVpweLzU_Qesvlk3iGVQuaHidVo/s1600/IMG_5540.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqwjWbLku7KeCkQl1gUAtNbycLJOzBPHiG-gLk0kEqo-_gOuIirAc-VtMR6dfEw0nvkRoV9ca_12XQz6Xg6tJXJiqjpgvcDnQSh8-IvCwUBToC-LoiSVpweLzU_Qesvlk3iGVQuaHidVo/s320/IMG_5540.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5594546478862297538" border="0" /></a><br />This year I'm growing things I haven't grown before, many of which are heirlooms or plants you don't find at the grocery store or most garden centers. And when I'm out there up to my elbows in soil, sending spiders and beetles scurrying, feeling the wind and the sun, I feel like I'm growing a connection to the past as much as I'm sowing vegetables or herbs. Those Amish tomatoes, that quinoa, those currants and gooseberries, the indigo and hyssop and feverfew -- people have been growing these things for far longer than I've been alive. And I feel like in a time and place where people just grow...grass...we've lost a vital appreciation for how amazing these other things we've found and cultivated and encouraged are. There are things in my garden that will prevent migraines. How many trips to the doctor do people make trying to figure out a way to do that? There are things in my garden that are substitutes for sugar. There's a plant that makes a natural insecticide, several that treat anxiety, and by this point more than ten that make delicious teas. Even the weeds that grow in my yard are useful -- I can eat the dandelions and lamb's quarters; the nettles are great for the kidneys and incredibly nutritious to boot; the catnip and yarrow are beautiful and medicinal. The "garbage" from weeding and cleanup can become new soil, or feed the chickens. I can even make wine out of some of it, like the dandelions or the pea-pods left over when I'm done eating our spring peas. Our old broken-down stump grows a profusion of mushrooms; even our compost pile is inevitably full of potatoes and tomatoes by the end of the summer. I don't work hard enough to earn the kind of bounty that's presented to me as if it were the most inevitable thing in the world, as if it were nothing at all.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0FfNdMfGAiozJpD0iErT32ocsmBpSPLt0XATsAEBMhjsK0uD4V3ufi1pKyV6HASZB7xCEj6jN2JOGdBoVVxeWbz6iMtRd5xd6tsYGQwWmhm79Mrym2UVJJkdijtqoRuxTPCSIQINPB1c/s1600/IMG_5545.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0FfNdMfGAiozJpD0iErT32ocsmBpSPLt0XATsAEBMhjsK0uD4V3ufi1pKyV6HASZB7xCEj6jN2JOGdBoVVxeWbz6iMtRd5xd6tsYGQwWmhm79Mrym2UVJJkdijtqoRuxTPCSIQINPB1c/s320/IMG_5545.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5594546488603502002" border="0" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPud60uMRX_vH0jVyzWEBry9PxiFD-CUEv9y2crXCtz4qJWCo9WzsniORCP5fnDc7ttDNZINpv_fUpt9eHHck_p58702x5hmPdmV-E4h2CBspSeuMqVIIazRcuMQP70gDv2R8L0DDPNak/s1600/IMG_5558.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPud60uMRX_vH0jVyzWEBry9PxiFD-CUEv9y2crXCtz4qJWCo9WzsniORCP5fnDc7ttDNZINpv_fUpt9eHHck_p58702x5hmPdmV-E4h2CBspSeuMqVIIazRcuMQP70gDv2R8L0DDPNak/s320/IMG_5558.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5594546496516408914" border="0" /></a><br />Two weeks ago it was winter, the kind of winter I wouldn't want to spend much time outside in. And tonight it will storm like crazy again, with wind and pouring rain and maybe hail. And yet I'll go outside tomorrow morning and the trees will be budding and the birds will be singing as if nothing had happened at all, and I'll remember again with relief how small and unimportant I am to a world that can bounce back from extremes that would send me diving for cover, and think that as much as I neglect things and fail and screw up, as much as humanity in general screws up, odds are a million years from now all of this will still be out there thriving, living and growing and dying and living again, as if I'd never existed at all.<br /><br />And I can't tell you how happy that makes me.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhteGa3LxBEuescRPFiYMCRTsshB0Ura-Kh-taJDdSocaEhIHAxa_GQunJ8B2eagAZ2BZ2vcxpKz9cXEl2LpCWtYcPHIwdXJXwq5d_uv45qUutEaRu6rctxhb_LUq7F_Es78AxhWxjczfk/s1600/IMG_4199.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhteGa3LxBEuescRPFiYMCRTsshB0Ura-Kh-taJDdSocaEhIHAxa_GQunJ8B2eagAZ2BZ2vcxpKz9cXEl2LpCWtYcPHIwdXJXwq5d_uv45qUutEaRu6rctxhb_LUq7F_Es78AxhWxjczfk/s320/IMG_4199.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5594547817221800082" border="0" /></a>Angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15995163580645326178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2159116670708774268.post-84370507680193183192011-04-03T16:18:00.000-07:002011-04-03T16:38:09.024-07:00First harvest of the year...Somewhat improbably, we had our first harvest of the year today!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6k19O3oaUuGshOieRUAPh2gL7-8OIZiELA7t-qdN8N2w80jkVvl25WxJckBtfLortq99LQA3kBw9x44vp1F6EYaXgu440pHyoRbgVic5hCG6BJbynk_G7XMRBhn5PfqYZPTnixI6PISw/s1600/IMG_5470.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6k19O3oaUuGshOieRUAPh2gL7-8OIZiELA7t-qdN8N2w80jkVvl25WxJckBtfLortq99LQA3kBw9x44vp1F6EYaXgu440pHyoRbgVic5hCG6BJbynk_G7XMRBhn5PfqYZPTnixI6PISw/s320/IMG_5470.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591501190103322882" border="0" /></a><br />Last winter was unusually snowy, so the carrots we'd planned to dig in early winter were buried before we could get to them. Turns out they overwintered, as we dug up a good-sized pile today. About half weren't any good anymore and went to the worms or the compost pile, but this is what was left over. We also ended up with a bunch of leeks, though the rabbits got to them earlier this week, so David replanted the roots along with some dubious carrots, and we'll see what we get! This is definitely making me reconsider the viability of overwintering crops in Minnesota, or at the very least using row-covers and mulch and planning to harvest through December at least, particularly as we slacked off last fall and didn't mulch, cover, or otherwise protect anything at all. <br /><br />It's very grey out, in that dingy early-spring kind of way -- very little color has come back to the landscape, and everything's still half-buried under last year's dried grass, rotted vegetable material, or faded mulch. But we were determined to get into the yard and get some work done today, and it turns out if you look close enough, spring is starting to show itself. The chives are coming up...<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlu_PhoAG6ZI0k0lVQZZXCjblR0OJOLMKD6eVbUAnRKShWcsXCU5uFvksL9sDuYAh1YCxHiVjmWZH4YMUTW5eTmtXDwuTgzvqe_6qVRQu_QFW1cytyNXNNmwUX6WqC6Ud6_dv1BJ6QGyU/s1600/IMG_5522.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlu_PhoAG6ZI0k0lVQZZXCjblR0OJOLMKD6eVbUAnRKShWcsXCU5uFvksL9sDuYAh1YCxHiVjmWZH4YMUTW5eTmtXDwuTgzvqe_6qVRQu_QFW1cytyNXNNmwUX6WqC6Ud6_dv1BJ6QGyU/s320/IMG_5522.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591502720308558722" border="0" /></a><br />The currants are budding...<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg17AJoJFioQTyT0Xdq5PEBpj9MaJO39khw910_pCgh668h8Lj16aZduKLttWG1EyuhkL65aZlzKeasehNSwqWI4v3jZEDSGwQp-gBlRFvFf0wvXbOF52grxhpynjYJ1FkDyZ9ZFLXT6R8/s1600/IMG_5526.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg17AJoJFioQTyT0Xdq5PEBpj9MaJO39khw910_pCgh668h8Lj16aZduKLttWG1EyuhkL65aZlzKeasehNSwqWI4v3jZEDSGwQp-gBlRFvFf0wvXbOF52grxhpynjYJ1FkDyZ9ZFLXT6R8/s320/IMG_5526.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591503066102113250" border="0" /></a><br />And one of the buckets in which I had snapdragons planted last year is full of life.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_WdLDvOZOBbJfcBj_CogOAw9bnCasA6CORqDQCjtL8CthXpWjS9yDWh1lR1xWVDIu0rWn-MA3VGU8AWOgIoXc9jUdENMiImnsjiAccQIIM97A8tM40d_e4bOvrqzNi0RVE7nUmBwt8bI/s1600/IMG_5533.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_WdLDvOZOBbJfcBj_CogOAw9bnCasA6CORqDQCjtL8CthXpWjS9yDWh1lR1xWVDIu0rWn-MA3VGU8AWOgIoXc9jUdENMiImnsjiAccQIIM97A8tM40d_e4bOvrqzNi0RVE7nUmBwt8bI/s320/IMG_5533.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591503445374077954" border="0" /></a><br />In fact, several of the planters have tiny little interesting things starting to come up.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuYMr4b84dLj7ZnPcqVPQXW6ZnYJqnAk0KGTWM_dmZoCIFHjycDnqwAnfyIIxifOBdDRqSSSU4KSGpaZ1AoM7rb9CgUqCW_giCFgt96OuB51zQSEkiaA9Zs0KY80dZZweLRJki1RXbG5E/s1600/IMG_5508.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuYMr4b84dLj7ZnPcqVPQXW6ZnYJqnAk0KGTWM_dmZoCIFHjycDnqwAnfyIIxifOBdDRqSSSU4KSGpaZ1AoM7rb9CgUqCW_giCFgt96OuB51zQSEkiaA9Zs0KY80dZZweLRJki1RXbG5E/s320/IMG_5508.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591504062054911458" border="0" /></a><br />All this was so inspiring to see that we spent about four hours working today and managed to get all three of our current 4' x 8' raised beds ready for planting. We didn't get any onion sets or peas in the ground today, but we have onions that self-seeded last year and are coming up by themselves, and we can start planting anytime this week. <br /><br />This year we'll be tearing out at least 100 more square feet of grass in the backyard for a few more 4' x 8' beds, continuing to plant the strip of garden along the sidewalk that's probably about 2.5' x 60', planting something in the 10' x 10' patch behind the shed, and tearing out grass in the front yard so I can expand my herb garden! I am going to be so sore tomorrow from the work we did today, but it doesn't matter -- I'm just glad to be able to get started!Angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15995163580645326178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2159116670708774268.post-62880317124272798922011-04-01T09:36:00.000-07:002011-04-01T09:39:52.084-07:00Thinking about goals.I've written up my goal list for this year three or four times and not been happy with it -- maybe my first goal ought to be to decide on goals!<br /><br />In the past two years, we've begun gardening, planted lots of perennial fruit plants (more on the fruit later), and ripped out much of our grass to create growing space and a permeable patio area. We've learned to can just about everything cannable (including milk and meat), dry food for later use, make basic cheese and yogurt, make candy, slaughter chickens, and bake all our own bread. We've set up a full-room pantry and begun stocking it with staples, built a vermicompost bin, and gotten two compost piles going. So I feel like we're making some good progress, but we're getting to the point where adding to our skill-set is more of a challenge.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Things we're working on now that could use some improvement:</span><br />-Cooking vegetables -- particularly greens. Both of us approach this as if they're likely to explode if we do it wrong, which is kind of silly. After all, the worst that could happen is they could turn into unbearably disgusting green slime, right?<br />-Seed-starting<br />-Trapping with snares<br />-Crocheting (Which I finally seem to have gotten the hang of, as of last night! Woohoo!)<br />-Sewing (I can do repairs and sew a straight seam fairly well, but patterns and cutting pieces out always seems to end in disaster)<br />-Cheese-making (As in branching out beyond ricotta and feta)<br />-Canning (As in planning for canning, which even though it rhymes is actually the hard part in this era of grocery-store food on demand. <a href="http://eatclosetohome.wordpress.com/2007/12/29/grandma%E2%80%99s-victory-pantry/">This</a> is a great post on this topic.)<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Things we're not working on yet that I'd really like to learn:</span><br />-Using our greywater in the garden<br />-Shooting (I'm a decent shot in archery, but I'd like to learn to hunt in general, if I can ever afford to do so.)<br />-Soap-making (Seems easy, but I can't find lye anywhere local!)<br />-Knitting (Because I should be making all of our socks by now. For shame, Angela!)<br />-Keeping chickens for eggs and meat (I've had them before, but there's a lot of planning and city approval and such to deal with to have them here.)<br />-Keeping rabbits for meat (The fact that we refer to the neighborhood bunnies as "Dinner" and "Lunchable" depending on their size suggests we won't have a problem with this.)<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Projects that are started and not finished because I need to get off my rear and stop being lazy:</span><br />-Rain barrels<br />-Pulling out some of the shrubs our predecessors unfortunately left us with, including the evergreen that seems to be entirely composed of bird poop and ugly.<br />-Tearing out more grass so we can plant more useful/attractive/interesting things.<br />-Putting up the clothesline (though I have switched from using the dryer to hanging things up inside, most of the time).<br /><br />Of these, I think this year we can manage to finish the unfinished projects and figure out at least a couple on the "like to learn" list. Seed-starting and crocheting were both on that list until very recently, so we are making some progress. The trick with a lot of this is finding cheap or free ways to learn the skills, since we have very little funding to put toward them. I'd love to get more skill shares going in the area to barter some of that, but I'm not really sure where to start. (I always end up feeling like we don't have anything to barter in return for learning the things we don't know, since what we do know is so basic.) I tried to get in touch with a local Transition Towns group, but they never responded, so I think they may be defunct. I will have to do some more digging to see what I can find.Angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15995163580645326178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2159116670708774268.post-74960561798975143322011-03-30T19:10:00.000-07:002011-04-03T17:11:02.593-07:00Cheesemaking!I made cheese recently to use up a half-gallon of milk nearing its expiration date and thought I'd share the process in case you'd like to give it a try. It's actually really easy! Making a basic soft cheese is simple, doesn't take any special equipment, and is a great way to use up milk that's nearing or just past its expiration date.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-U33gTntZUvayZd1FJU-bIbpKGPgPefMur-xt5sZ10kQ5qytzE8pjNKtV2ODPZJfV3-ewQr_F-_L04v7bcXp14xyFLgZjoti-pk0EeKAI5wXhOBnOg6N7P82gb0citowbw5Dymhu6gEk/s1600/IMG_5372.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-U33gTntZUvayZd1FJU-bIbpKGPgPefMur-xt5sZ10kQ5qytzE8pjNKtV2ODPZJfV3-ewQr_F-_L04v7bcXp14xyFLgZjoti-pk0EeKAI5wXhOBnOg6N7P82gb0citowbw5Dymhu6gEk/s320/IMG_5372.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591509296477504066" border="0" /></a><br />There are only three basic ingredients (two if you use whole milk) -- the milk, vinegar to curdle it, and some cream for better texture. If you want to, you can make it with just skim milk, with 2%, or with whole. You can use half and half instead of cream, or no cream at all if you don't have any. This recipe is not picky at all, but the basic proportions are a 1/4 cup white vinegar to a gallon of milk. Cream is "to taste" -- the more you add, the creamier your cheese will be, but even a couple of tablespoons will improve the texture, so don't worry if you don't have much.<form rel="async" class="editForm" method="post" action="/ajax/photos/photo/caption/edit.php"><input autocomplete="off" name="post_form_id" value="bb8637220be20bc5fe9d1a38da0c67b6" type="hidden"><input name="fb_dtsg" value="84j_Q" autocomplete="off" type="hidden"><input autocomplete="off" name="fbid" value="10150121458031828" type="hidden"><input autocomplete="off" name="caption_id" value="center_stage" type="hidden"><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgumg_zeotRbsjTVnUk6UR4lMtWqF5X1oNt6xNPdfh-klVVtl1iKbdtMy9ttVU75_0UYDY8N1p3bclwhD2A9Re0z_ySbqyLatOC0m5m-2RcYszxrzJ4Vz-miBVW6psoLD6CheIqgvtiRdM/s1600/IMG_5378.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgumg_zeotRbsjTVnUk6UR4lMtWqF5X1oNt6xNPdfh-klVVtl1iKbdtMy9ttVU75_0UYDY8N1p3bclwhD2A9Re0z_ySbqyLatOC0m5m-2RcYszxrzJ4Vz-miBVW6psoLD6CheIqgvtiRdM/s320/IMG_5378.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591509305750126018" border="0" /></a><br />The equipment is likewise very basic -- some measuring cups, a thermometer, a cooking vessel to heat the milk in, a strainer or colander (more on this in the next step), and a slotted spoon.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXe1u8yxqzGDjSVTFGAy49byN5HQcyclpfM3O3qOaK7bi956zb2YjSKG0w3OKtvJO3i7iRKenUmUUBhvkIbUHPdt1asOg8qCCIVpXEZ4CuLBHTW5pqegxzWniwAk4OrTbEc882HDdK9xQ/s1600/IMG_5379.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXe1u8yxqzGDjSVTFGAy49byN5HQcyclpfM3O3qOaK7bi956zb2YjSKG0w3OKtvJO3i7iRKenUmUUBhvkIbUHPdt1asOg8qCCIVpXEZ4CuLBHTW5pqegxzWniwAk4OrTbEc882HDdK9xQ/s320/IMG_5379.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591509311647596258" border="0" /></a><br />When it comes to the colander/strainer, if yours is anything but mesh (mesh has holes that are small enough), you'll want to use a cloth to strain the cheese. You can use cheesecloth, but a clean kitchen towel is fine. I'm partial to flour sack towels because they're cheap and easy to clean, but even a clean tee-shirt or coffee filters will do in a pinch.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjifF0JbGYsvtrPgcv65DtWwnurRmr8solwdXF8LMYxoZtJLmP34PssQmRgxpln0AeGRUcVzwRZKGAPlhYVJhWvpQnNG8GZhFESm95hET9N6SSx59xwnpvRS1Axt3ZYy49k78Z4IlI3dgU/s1600/IMG_5380.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjifF0JbGYsvtrPgcv65DtWwnurRmr8solwdXF8LMYxoZtJLmP34PssQmRgxpln0AeGRUcVzwRZKGAPlhYVJhWvpQnNG8GZhFESm95hET9N6SSx59xwnpvRS1Axt3ZYy49k78Z4IlI3dgU/s320/IMG_5380.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591509316482117906" border="0" /></a><br />Now that you have everything rounded up, measure out your milk. I'm doing a half-batch here, so I've measured out a half-gallon of skim milk and poured it into the pot.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfgBua-gFKrB7AdUjDO7GJJTDm5OIqmVOgWkZqpEbITHZEjxheS3kvmz6eonSKfyFzOfvIG7AFLvIWhBsWzn1Mxo8eCdPvSk4mVnZH7aWvoedO6xmC5K8GJCJhvoDIX_W3Gp_kXCbupI4/s1600/IMG_5381.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfgBua-gFKrB7AdUjDO7GJJTDm5OIqmVOgWkZqpEbITHZEjxheS3kvmz6eonSKfyFzOfvIG7AFLvIWhBsWzn1Mxo8eCdPvSk4mVnZH7aWvoedO6xmC5K8GJCJhvoDIX_W3Gp_kXCbupI4/s320/IMG_5381.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591509323093248018" border="0" /></a><br />Since my bottle of cream was about to expire, I added a generous dollop and then turned the heat on low. Do NOT add the vinegar yet -- that comes later.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwBE545wU0wa821AyStdS91dHQ_Udt-K5hEMPvzO0ASpUJQiYyLwL4FMW_T41g0nyxff0sm5cx1l5jYNJ5mUaI4C9vLIfwmzsTskEsLhzZzQ4DDN15a3rrRvQ7C_plVWCuTjPu6FcDPOY/s1600/IMG_5383.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwBE545wU0wa821AyStdS91dHQ_Udt-K5hEMPvzO0ASpUJQiYyLwL4FMW_T41g0nyxff0sm5cx1l5jYNJ5mUaI4C9vLIfwmzsTskEsLhzZzQ4DDN15a3rrRvQ7C_plVWCuTjPu6FcDPOY/s320/IMG_5383.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591509882207673682" border="0" /></a><br />When I said low heat, I meant low heat -- you don't want to scald the milk.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXlb0O8PQEl6syCZctIlr0xi9LtQ01gkmQF4BqVUw9mwedu74d0YUwVzBJYNqi0pwUMcZI7lpfVI0v8C9o3BDl4gzoQ4Wj5QduQgCXBlb9Sf12DHrLLWCj7_eo7feqs8n1tWAyNDQv2-Q/s1600/IMG_5384.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXlb0O8PQEl6syCZctIlr0xi9LtQ01gkmQF4BqVUw9mwedu74d0YUwVzBJYNqi0pwUMcZI7lpfVI0v8C9o3BDl4gzoQ4Wj5QduQgCXBlb9Sf12DHrLLWCj7_eo7feqs8n1tWAyNDQv2-Q/s320/IMG_5384.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591509883265583746" border="0" /></a><br />Heat the milk slowly, stirring frequently so nothing gross burns to the bottom<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf-Ti9OeWNlF6Ru2Cx1QBo7auj7zVqmdEaGS61fFyIzRuT9F6OVOvPBkLdtzg0OQCvFKAk84P7yy4VwQ2D1g8BdY3FwAdXwKksqEXLgL0fIwQczNM9Kw33gPV44CjUD7kQTYu1kYPDIGM/s1600/IMG_5389.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf-Ti9OeWNlF6Ru2Cx1QBo7auj7zVqmdEaGS61fFyIzRuT9F6OVOvPBkLdtzg0OQCvFKAk84P7yy4VwQ2D1g8BdY3FwAdXwKksqEXLgL0fIwQczNM9Kw33gPV44CjUD7kQTYu1kYPDIGM/s320/IMG_5389.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591509892313238578" border="0" /></a><br />This takes a while -- 20 to 30 minutes -- so you may be distracted by the antics of a cat trying to be ridiculously, disgustingly cute. Don't be fooled. She's just trying to ruin your cheese.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqlh-Ra7hvsYtwxl9viIvvJFy3JIvPrBYU6sdFBpAPmGAZLcX63231OUrRmO2qFvck7O49HQYuKXmHpQzh6t_-80SqLNa1ONllH8dWt5o1xjdIXg7n5sv9NDs8MT01dfcmBWhYgoyt9kk/s1600/IMG_5393.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqlh-Ra7hvsYtwxl9viIvvJFy3JIvPrBYU6sdFBpAPmGAZLcX63231OUrRmO2qFvck7O49HQYuKXmHpQzh6t_-80SqLNa1ONllH8dWt5o1xjdIXg7n5sv9NDs8MT01dfcmBWhYgoyt9kk/s320/IMG_5393.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591509899734361586" border="0" /></a><br />Check the temperature every few minutes. The magic number is 180 degrees F.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXmRIlVea8E_Hx4KxoXomYsEABc3vrJjEzG78lwplTc-57DGuVMSu-z8LTzkgpbjQ7vHXYsg-2ZCvavxujFsBVQ4-NGJ9ksu6Z39KJoTYjMMqVbVOqne5kCFHxZfIPW_NtyUaDQspnYyE/s1600/IMG_5396.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXmRIlVea8E_Hx4KxoXomYsEABc3vrJjEzG78lwplTc-57DGuVMSu-z8LTzkgpbjQ7vHXYsg-2ZCvavxujFsBVQ4-NGJ9ksu6Z39KJoTYjMMqVbVOqne5kCFHxZfIPW_NtyUaDQspnYyE/s320/IMG_5396.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591509903617280066" border="0" /></a><br />Since this takes so long, it's a good time to get something else done -- whip up a batch of bread, make breakfast, do the dishes...whatever. Since David had already baked a delicious fresh loaf the night before, I settled for toast and preserves and a cup of coffee. Mmmmm.... xD<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIT-MPcZFw6Cak8YPymN1T4IBnnKg-_-uubv13BCh3lJBVTZKhUmHqODjdrnGAGs-za1jji8RMB68UYDNVACdjCo4GAIq2DXsup5R7i6kSL2y2KSgI_eQbD-rQYU282cvWlAAGg1Fw8E8/s1600/IMG_5401.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIT-MPcZFw6Cak8YPymN1T4IBnnKg-_-uubv13BCh3lJBVTZKhUmHqODjdrnGAGs-za1jji8RMB68UYDNVACdjCo4GAIq2DXsup5R7i6kSL2y2KSgI_eQbD-rQYU282cvWlAAGg1Fw8E8/s320/IMG_5401.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591510409226497746" border="0" /></a><br />When your thermometer finally tells you the milk has hit 180 degrees F, turn off the heat and add your vinegar. Yep, just dump it right into the pot.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbuWuMQjjleqzGR1fd7-egNRGM6gQ84B6E45LIpLo8qKC0dTZvIZ8mFCOzZYXY9i-gcHvXJFJ2B4gNI51YSeU6e7w8X-ofATxA3u-PwqjcHqSJ1OqiSNATRfK-cA0-ADhWYR5uPoyuiL8/s1600/IMG_5405.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbuWuMQjjleqzGR1fd7-egNRGM6gQ84B6E45LIpLo8qKC0dTZvIZ8mFCOzZYXY9i-gcHvXJFJ2B4gNI51YSeU6e7w8X-ofATxA3u-PwqjcHqSJ1OqiSNATRfK-cA0-ADhWYR5uPoyuiL8/s320/IMG_5405.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591510416274227778" border="0" /></a><br />Swish the spoon around in there a couple of times to mix it in, but it's very important that you don't over-mix -- better to mix too little than too much. At any rate, you'll notice very quickly that the milk has started to curdle, and it will start to smell exactly like very fresh buttered popcorn.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6YY_OfeiOzlMn7fUSM5LzTcdYJShfjVnzC9gD_H290oUl9Nvv_fjm2dDLEai67JdSD3KV9sqGCDgae9f3fUg_ZdvbWFJsWeoSsCuGkcFgs0N3qmlARFsbnIXeMBxm3OxZrBTeDz2inTw/s1600/IMG_5406.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6YY_OfeiOzlMn7fUSM5LzTcdYJShfjVnzC9gD_H290oUl9Nvv_fjm2dDLEai67JdSD3KV9sqGCDgae9f3fUg_ZdvbWFJsWeoSsCuGkcFgs0N3qmlARFsbnIXeMBxm3OxZrBTeDz2inTw/s320/IMG_5406.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591510420621113410" border="0" /></a><br />Let the mixture sit for ten or fifteen minutes to give the curds time to form. Then it's time to drain it.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2SFywzSRzTMAgIP2pJSaInCXiIwy7QwvAkU1Yjm9SYZyCqY8cPvigqp0yAUK9n9NJNWHS5UkgWa0Dah78lCbgtQAHPs8t3T7mmYZZImwOXpYTnjxxjbb3X2v943CIfeHG0B3sQrRPmhk/s1600/IMG_5410.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2SFywzSRzTMAgIP2pJSaInCXiIwy7QwvAkU1Yjm9SYZyCqY8cPvigqp0yAUK9n9NJNWHS5UkgWa0Dah78lCbgtQAHPs8t3T7mmYZZImwOXpYTnjxxjbb3X2v943CIfeHG0B3sQrRPmhk/s320/IMG_5410.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591510428025032450" border="0" /></a><br />There are a bunch of ways you can do this, from using a slotted spoon to ladle out the bigger curds into the colander/strainer to just pouring the whole mess. Either way works, although depending on how tight the weave is on your straining fabric, you might get better drainage with the former method.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0ufByzXfgcUQmCLY4LWkEOPxiU0Z_er39BIj4b_ixVJmjBtcLWvsyj3mRFqcZLInIrTzu1e_JLRJD7g2If8NTHwn5KSJy0AlW1VN_nKue94lF3INf0ckOJsqi_tGDSh6opkgOt5PBBI0/s1600/IMG_5419.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0ufByzXfgcUQmCLY4LWkEOPxiU0Z_er39BIj4b_ixVJmjBtcLWvsyj3mRFqcZLInIrTzu1e_JLRJD7g2If8NTHwn5KSJy0AlW1VN_nKue94lF3INf0ckOJsqi_tGDSh6opkgOt5PBBI0/s320/IMG_5419.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591510434825912770" border="0" /></a><br />I promise this is way more delicious than it looks at this point!<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2Nmk0MM0FZhUUvd233vCHQCZU-EDdp5kfJKWSlJEHyfV9NcCWQTViReqL7tctrg_tBNUD3TJp7zJ5hEHHipfse57O8UhCqJrWxB30_WbUMt-qH8xSkRgOrkSa6upPjWnzne5wlQD_Z5o/s1600/IMG_5420.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2Nmk0MM0FZhUUvd233vCHQCZU-EDdp5kfJKWSlJEHyfV9NcCWQTViReqL7tctrg_tBNUD3TJp7zJ5hEHHipfse57O8UhCqJrWxB30_WbUMt-qH8xSkRgOrkSa6upPjWnzne5wlQD_Z5o/s320/IMG_5420.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591511134806825042" border="0" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji03iPHZlfnna0hrBYSUYPkUxf9U3gwDhdOERshqZ8Np8cmWywyWNRUVNx7lFO-dg5xBXTrgwUK8SPZKA-DLVZgDHxOqOQ_iZJNVPw3AIbKJ75oEFbu0xwCv_hOEybjLiCnSLP1_yjT5w/s1600/IMG_5421.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji03iPHZlfnna0hrBYSUYPkUxf9U3gwDhdOERshqZ8Np8cmWywyWNRUVNx7lFO-dg5xBXTrgwUK8SPZKA-DLVZgDHxOqOQ_iZJNVPw3AIbKJ75oEFbu0xwCv_hOEybjLiCnSLP1_yjT5w/s320/IMG_5421.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591511139129909362" border="0" /></a><br />When you're done ladling/pouring, you'll have a gloppy cream-colored mess that will need to sit and drain for a while before you can do anything else with it. How long you leave it depends on what kind of consistency you want to end up with. A long draining period will leave you with a crumbly dry cheese you could use like feta. A short draining period would be ideal if you want to end up with a cheese spread.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM7BURnYPNL62P1quqjiw5rkj5F5dx7m9hvaIeqjwAPADkgR63RzMOIQtOf5o0jTRDl_2uMzB626VazSjp4QS5eHZMJ7sHAZkdDTCo2EnEhjQTADyohFviJtY8RGTrPxOtVJmMRfVop1s/s1600/IMG_5424.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM7BURnYPNL62P1quqjiw5rkj5F5dx7m9hvaIeqjwAPADkgR63RzMOIQtOf5o0jTRDl_2uMzB626VazSjp4QS5eHZMJ7sHAZkdDTCo2EnEhjQTADyohFviJtY8RGTrPxOtVJmMRfVop1s/s320/IMG_5424.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591511143000259650" border="0" /></a><br />Set the draining cheese colander somewhere convenient -- such as back on top of the vessel you heated the milk in, or in the fridge if you're germ-phobic or leaving it for a long time. I usually cover it with a pot lid or by folding the cloth over to keep any unwanted dust out.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW7fWgnRunpvVeye2XucluJxqzMmqLfX60-hKoTUAwFnBhKinmSsEP7DsjxK3hPk-YcsS6acBa4BZy9wgmieHRpXa6-wXlpS9x_RT3cKy31Qg8m0jVrk8ELKZRuRjqcnRW1Bxv_cHLW5c/s1600/IMG_5427.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW7fWgnRunpvVeye2XucluJxqzMmqLfX60-hKoTUAwFnBhKinmSsEP7DsjxK3hPk-YcsS6acBa4BZy9wgmieHRpXa6-wXlpS9x_RT3cKy31Qg8m0jVrk8ELKZRuRjqcnRW1Bxv_cHLW5c/s320/IMG_5427.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591511145958949330" border="0" /></a><br />Wait a while, and then -- ta-dah! Cheese! I wasn't pleased with how quickly it was draining after a couple of hours, so I switched to the mesh strainer, which sped things up.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi93hWEjfm6J285GfcmL-JuxV-67m_hy2TtDkvXZ9aclRYKJQ3i4DsF9gqc41NcXR6RQo9j4INqwsGi-OSWxS_ccfevOmnGTOL0yf4_5zX2QzIRYDvLWuVJzJnerYI43VWmdFo16tZ-V9U/s1600/IMG_5446.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi93hWEjfm6J285GfcmL-JuxV-67m_hy2TtDkvXZ9aclRYKJQ3i4DsF9gqc41NcXR6RQo9j4INqwsGi-OSWxS_ccfevOmnGTOL0yf4_5zX2QzIRYDvLWuVJzJnerYI43VWmdFo16tZ-V9U/s320/IMG_5446.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591511155842763970" border="0" /></a><br />Scoop your cheese up into a blob and transfer it to a container, preferably one in which you can both mix the cheese and store it -- a good-sized dish with an airtight lid works well.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSkay8FZGbnshKHSqUqVCangXgP-x8AIQrLNOfcCi6efDKc01Hiv9AFLhzSjGRNGtHnncJowduaujaCEYf0N5OnVE4EzeHS0KPRkrw17q-2wcc-KikYKl_YpT0zSJayebMCyhzEvde9lo/s1600/IMG_5447.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSkay8FZGbnshKHSqUqVCangXgP-x8AIQrLNOfcCi6efDKc01Hiv9AFLhzSjGRNGtHnncJowduaujaCEYf0N5OnVE4EzeHS0KPRkrw17q-2wcc-KikYKl_YpT0zSJayebMCyhzEvde9lo/s320/IMG_5447.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591511779597432034" border="0" /></a><br />This is the fun part! The sky's the limit with the cheese at this point -- you can make it sweet, savory, flavored, plain, whatever. However, before you add anything else, I recommend stirring in a fair amount of salt, or it'll be pretty bland. Kosher salt works well -- just keep adding some to the top and mixing it in with a fork, then sampling it, until it tastes about right to you.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCzxJC5pnC73X56lbIwUXNdZ1KeYkwOzKGmpYs8w1GcSQbFlq7H9m2JcOt-O_NdOqbWzxYQoUyveuTcmWEgcKoJISC5LJSd4ODo3KxwUsZO_ncCy7dh4-QgKpA98doPBaz1LSsdVOQagM/s1600/IMG_5448.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCzxJC5pnC73X56lbIwUXNdZ1KeYkwOzKGmpYs8w1GcSQbFlq7H9m2JcOt-O_NdOqbWzxYQoUyveuTcmWEgcKoJISC5LJSd4ODo3KxwUsZO_ncCy7dh4-QgKpA98doPBaz1LSsdVOQagM/s320/IMG_5448.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591511787558886706" border="0" /></a><br />As I said, you can add just about anything. Some batches I leave plain and only add salt, and they're great with crackers. You can add just about any spice or spice blend you might want -- chipotle is fantastic, although you'll need more than a little for the flavor to come through. It can be fun to divide your cheese into several containers and try a bunch of different flavors. This is also a great thing to bring to a potluck or party along with some bread or crackers.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhepIelUo3NAdA3bZtQBCfnSoBJRHODrOUSsOU0g-OdIIugtwx_ZSBh9eeN3sNzcd0HPzPi0tWkRk-WH3OzG2_EKcV4X9Jt1NsrNbOwtyk0hVv7Qx8w_E5EY6m6TCrMaFqbSvs5TLF3Xps/s1600/IMG_5449.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhepIelUo3NAdA3bZtQBCfnSoBJRHODrOUSsOU0g-OdIIugtwx_ZSBh9eeN3sNzcd0HPzPi0tWkRk-WH3OzG2_EKcV4X9Jt1NsrNbOwtyk0hVv7Qx8w_E5EY6m6TCrMaFqbSvs5TLF3Xps/s320/IMG_5449.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591511790673228066" border="0" /></a><br />You can add larger ingredients like chopped peppers or sweet fruits as well.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM1L5YHcQEEkhwB4DxCEgbvCmhp17ZjXdpdyGRve6BK8eTV-pCqFSUescANB_5l-BEn0JxadHKnbZ0IeITHpWGCxEJg5n2y6DkvNTQ0kDAIsDOrM-k3lUoKnOGfE08_UggYKqX9SaKgCE/s1600/IMG_5450.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM1L5YHcQEEkhwB4DxCEgbvCmhp17ZjXdpdyGRve6BK8eTV-pCqFSUescANB_5l-BEn0JxadHKnbZ0IeITHpWGCxEJg5n2y6DkvNTQ0kDAIsDOrM-k3lUoKnOGfE08_UggYKqX9SaKgCE/s320/IMG_5450.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591511798405865026" border="0" /></a><br />We decided to use some really excellent balsamic vinegar we had around and make a dip. It doesn't usually change color much as you add flavors, but as you can see this is pretty dark, so the end result, while delicious, was not the most aesthetically pleasing food on the planet. Usually it looks more like the portion of cheese without the vinegar on it!<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5Fw1c0wK1YCK7SFsq__h8mou9j2PyqJg6LnYp6kIX_TOxbBAsIXLyXHMMzJHbzFUurEXRK5LJ1q-UH1ZhVkUIUCcRrD4x8axnDMS-k-QP3QDgjb1XwAdrSieQRxzDufmxpgDQ-WBnnDM/s1600/IMG_5451.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5Fw1c0wK1YCK7SFsq__h8mou9j2PyqJg6LnYp6kIX_TOxbBAsIXLyXHMMzJHbzFUurEXRK5LJ1q-UH1ZhVkUIUCcRrD4x8axnDMS-k-QP3QDgjb1XwAdrSieQRxzDufmxpgDQ-WBnnDM/s320/IMG_5451.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591511803879403250" border="0" /></a><br />When you've reached a flavor profile you like, you can put the lid on and keep this in the fridge for at least a week -- I've had it last longer depending on what I mix in.<br /></form><input name="charset_test" value="€,´,€,´,水,Д,Є" type="hidden"><input autocomplete="off" name="post_form_id" value="bb8637220be20bc5fe9d1a38da0c67b6" type="hidden"><input name="fb_dtsg" value="84j_Q" autocomplete="off" type="hidden"><input autocomplete="off" name="feedback_params" value="{"actor":"500506827","target_fbid":"10150121458031828","target_profile_id":"500506827","type_id":"7","source":"2","assoc_obj_id":"","source_app_id":"0","extra_story_params":[],"content_timestamp":"1301360818","check_hash":"2b649d743ec75cd5"}" type="hidden"><span class="UIActionLinks UIActionLinks_bottom" ft="{"type":"action"}"><span class="fsm fwn fcg"><a class="uiLinkSubtle" href="http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150121458031828&set=a.10150121453406828.288855.500506827"><abbr title="Monday, March 28, 2011 at 8:06pm" date="Mon, 28 Mar 2011 18:06:58 -0700"></abbr></a></span></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXbirMSmfd2-8SNDtFQpH_w0BRK_9Ute0fJPhNFd7cnAhAiaoCFoyLiDMfpPYVxwWnzQDP_tOr9XA_dU87VLLWpoa1DC0ptdrzhyHV1McdNXCGaJnqBPK8O5edCP_j551-KYmeS9YCKLY/s1600/IMG_5452.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXbirMSmfd2-8SNDtFQpH_w0BRK_9Ute0fJPhNFd7cnAhAiaoCFoyLiDMfpPYVxwWnzQDP_tOr9XA_dU87VLLWpoa1DC0ptdrzhyHV1McdNXCGaJnqBPK8O5edCP_j551-KYmeS9YCKLY/s320/IMG_5452.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591512284821181970" border="0" /></a>Angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15995163580645326178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2159116670708774268.post-39181995899841925812011-03-26T17:18:00.001-07:002011-03-26T17:45:31.218-07:00Waiting for the thawSo much for spring! We got another 5-6" of snow in the middle of the week, which even aside from the 3-hour commute it caused, was pretty soul-crushingly depressing. But it looks like things will finally start thawing out by next weekend. Given that there's only one month in which there's never been snow here, that's not a sure thing, but it's a bit less dubious in April than in March. Also coming up shortly -- and this is definitely a sign of spring -- is the 2011 Friends' School Plant Sale catalog. I am volunteering again this year and am very excited to see what kinds of things they'll have, as this was a great experience last year! If you've never checked out the Plant Sale, I highly recommend it. It's Mother's Day weekend at the State Fairgrounds -- more details can be found <a href="http://www.friendsschoolplantsale.com/">here</a>.<br /><br />I started some of my tomatoes and peppers today; I've never done these from seed before and it will be interesting to see if I can manage it, particularly since I've gone the heirloom/unusual route this year instead of just ordering from one of the big garden stores. Among the varieties I'm growing are <a href="http://newworldcrops.com/wp/shop/f2f3-tomatoes/">"Dancing With Smurfs"</a> from New World Crops and <a href="http://rareseeds.com/vegetables-p-z/tomatoes/red/big-month.html">"Big Month"</a>, <a href="http://rareseeds.com/vegetables-p-z/tomatoes/red/jersey-giant-tomato.html">"Jersey Giant"</a>, and <a href="http://rareseeds.com/vegetables-p-z/tomatoes/red/amish-paste.html">"Amish Paste"</a> from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. We use tomatoes mainly for sauces and canning, so these seem like better bets than the tomato plants I'm able to find locally. I'm also really excited to have FINALLY been able to track down urfa pepper seed this year.<br /><br />If you aren't familiar with urfa/isot peppers (and in my experience, most people aren't), they're what's used to make the #1 favorite spice in this household -- <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urfa_Biber">urfa biber</a>. We discovered this wonderful spice by accident at the World Spice Market when we lived in Seattle and immediately realized that it's good in pretty much anything. It's fantastic on eggs, meat, and adds a delicious depth of flavor to sauces, and can even be used in brownies or other sweets. It's got just enough spice to be interesting without the heat crowding out the other flavors, and it has a nice undertone of sweetness. We put it on almost everything, but I'd searched for years for seeds so I could grow the pepper, to no avail. This year I finally tracked them down, and while they're pricey (roughly $0.40 a seed), if I can manage to grow the peppers and save seeds from them, it'll be totally worth it, as there's absolutely no local place I can get this spice -- I have to order it online from all the way out in Seattle.<br /><br /> It's probably a good thing I got motivated to start another batch of seeds today...I could wait until next weekend, but I'm thinking with all the upcoming garden resource fairs (the next two Saturdays are taken up by them) and other springtime activities, things are going to get a lot busier very soon. That's what always thwarted my seed-starting in the past -- I'd get too busy during the three or four weeks I should have been doing most of them, and by the time I stopped to think about it, it would be too late. This year we don't have the money for plants, so I don't have much choice. But that may be a good thing, anyway, as starting things from seed is a skill I should have developed by now.Angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15995163580645326178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2159116670708774268.post-43517978889975060592011-03-20T18:34:00.000-07:002011-03-20T18:50:23.671-07:00Starting out...I hear we are due to have more snow this week, but the past few days have felt like spring. Most of the snow in our backyard has melted (no minor thing when you consider we had four to five feet on the ground at one point!), it's been warm enough to go out without bundling up, and it just <span style="font-style: italic;">smells</span> like spring. And while usually I love winter, this year I'm more than ready.<br /><br />Maybe it's just that we got spoiled last year with weather good enough to do yard work in Minnesota in early March. Maybe it was the absurd amount of snow we had this year, and the fact that I'm commuting 20+ miles each way to work. Or maybe doing all the things I've been doing over the past few years has just gotten me more in touch with the seasons in general. Whatever it is, I feel like it's time for things to get moving again. I want to be planting onions and peas and heading to the farmer's market and to garage sales. I can't wait to throw open the windows and feel some moving air again.Angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15995163580645326178noreply@blogger.com