Living From Scratch

Homestead Braindump

2012-06-07T12:42:00.000-04:00

...because I'm too lazy to make multiple posts outta this stuff.

When we got home from vacation, we noticed Kung Pao was spending a lot of her time in the nest box. Eventually, we realized she was spending ALL of her time in the nest box. She got all puffy when you got near (good thing she wasn't a RIR, or we'd never have been able to get to the eggs!), she had plucked all of her tummy feathers and was VERY warm. From what I've read, the 2 best ways to discourage broodiness are to lower their body temperature and to make them as uncomfortable as possible on the nest. First, I hoped stealing her eggs would work, then I moved her off her nest several times a day, then I put an ice pack in the nest box, then we started dumping her in buckets of cool hose-water. Nothing. She is now quarantined in an elevated dog crate in the yard. It's drafty, uncomfy and at the very least will hopefully keep the broodiness from spreading. Although, nick said he spotted another of the girls without tummy feathers. ugh. This is definitely affecting egg production.

Get away from my nest!

Do I look comfortable to you?!?

Roses

2012-06-04T14:10:00.000-04:00

I am pretty darn far from a master gardener. As a matter of fact, Nick does most gardening because I KILL PLANTS. But, one thing that is my task around here is pruning all of our trees and the raspberry and rose bushes. Growing up, my parents had this really old, hardy rose bush and every "dormant season" (late fall to early spring) my dad would cut the thing to the ground, nothing left of it. And every year, it would grow back just as healthy as before and it would blossom all summer and well into the fall.

We moved in the winter and in the spring, upon seeing a rose bush, I dutifully cut it down to nothing. It grew lovely, tall stalks... too tall to support their own weight, but there was not one blossom. The next year, I refrained from cutting it and it blossomed beautifully, but it looked like this:

Summer Garden

2012-05-19T18:05:00.002-04:00

The spring portion of our garden had been in for about a month and a half and is thriving and even producing for us already but I have just been itchin' to get the real growing started. Typically we wait for Memorial Day weekend to put our warm weather stuff in, but I will have my toes in the sand by then, our tomato plants were starting to outgrow their starter dish and it's been nice and warm lately, no fear of frost.

Preserving Eggs

2012-05-19T09:48:00.000-04:00

In the fall, when our girls had just started laying, it was all we could do to get enough eggs to not have to buy more. Once they finally started to pick up the pace, the cold weather settled in and their laying stayed on at a very reasonable pace. we only had 3 or 4 extra dozen eggs all winter long. But our girls are young and now that the weather is steadily warm, it takes less than 2 days for them to put together a dozen eggs. We are swimming in them.

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Swimming in Greens

2012-05-15T11:47:00.001-04:00

Spring is leaf time, in the world of vegetannual. (Which btw, if you haven't checked out this site or Animal, Vegetable, Mineral I highly recommend them) And let me tell you, we are swimming in leaves! Mostly arugula, but some spinach too. This is the first year that we've been able to successfully grow spinach.

Ittle Bitty

2012-05-10T17:05:00.003-04:00

Two nights ago, it was raining buckets. I decided to transfer my porch hanging flower baskets to the sidewalk and let mother nature water them. I was surprised when a bird flew out at me, but it was dark and i was in a hurry to not get rained on. The next afternoon, when it had stopped raining, I realized why there was a bird in my flowers in the middle of the night.

ugh, I cant believe this new format has the same rotation problems as the old one!

The Last Day of "Winter"

2012-03-20T10:11:00.000-04:00

Well, Ikea let me down...again... (raise you hand if you're surprised!) They now say that the counters I'm waiting for will be in on Thursday. I hope it's true, but I'm not holding my breath.

Ikea aside, the last day of winter was a productive and shockingly summer-like kind of day.

I did indeed make an eggs for sale sign, and it worked too! Not 2 hours after hanging it, someone who had never bought eggs from us before knocked on the door and said "If that sign's for real, I've got $2".

Sorry about the glare, I said it was sunny yesterday!

Feet First

2012-03-19T08:08:00.000-04:00

Ok, so i stopped blogging a month and a half ago because I woke up one morning and didn't feel like it. It's my blog and my prerogative, and I really can'y provide any explanation beyond that cuz im not sure there is. Then I woke a couple weeks ago determined to start up again, but each time I sat down to type, I was kinda overwhelmed by the thought of catching ya'll up on the things you missed (not blogging doesn't necessarily mean doing nothing). Therefore, I'm just gonna jump back in feet first, no looking back. If any of the new additions wind up in future posts, I'll try to update you then.

That being said, today has two missions:

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Chicken Update

2012-01-25T11:54:00.000-05:00

Most of our girls are holding their own against the cold, but our poor easter-eggers seem to be having a little more trouble, or at least I think it's the cold. They seem to be going bald. Not in the shaggy, messy, moulting kind of way, in the patches that look like something you got at the butcher's counter kind of way.

Tile-Time

2012-01-25T10:59:00.001-05:00

Once our counters were in, we gave ourselves a week of rest and dove into tiling. I won't lie. I was so scared silly by this project that I got quite a few quotes to have it done. In the end, the "friends and family" rate i got from one person wasn't any better than Lowe's standard rate. It's just as well. We never learn anything if we don't try it.

The first thing I did was sand the walls to scratch the paint up so the adhesive would hold to it better. Apparently, at one point our kitchen was painted purple.

Then I applied adhesive with a notched trowel. Basically you just smudge it on and scrape the wall with the notches, leaving behind just what slips through the notches.

Brrrrr...

2012-01-04T16:35:00.000-05:00

You know it's cold outside when you find this:

... in the chicken coop. And to think I just told my mom we'd never had one freeze! It's a shame the shell cracks and gets the good stuff inside dirty, or we could have eaten the thing :(.

Tada!

2012-01-03T11:01:00.000-05:00

Hey folks. Sorry for the long absence. I almost didn't realize it had been so long between the holidays and a pretty incredible head cold (which still refuses to go away).

On Thursday, after work, Nick and I removed our sink (always an unsettling prospect) and old counters. Its a little unnerving to do something that's so hard to reverse, I won't lie but being brave enough to do it is what gives us the opportunity to make things better.

One last look

You have to undo the plumbing...

...before you can remove the sink

And you have to remove the sink before the counters can come out

Naked cabinets!

Friday after work, we stuffed ourselves with Chinese take-out (no counters or sink) and set straight away to cutting our counters.

Once we installed a carbide-tipped finishing blade to our circular saw, the straight cuts were simple enough. After the primary cuts were finished, we put all the pieces in place inside.

We wanted to cut the sink hole inside because we were afraid of moving it and breaking it afterwards. We made a cardboard mock-up of the counter so we could measure and cut the sink hole without fear of destroying our counters.

Even so, we cut the hole a little smaller than it needed to be at first, and widened it from there. We drilled a hole to allow the blade of Nick's new jigsaw to get started.

Looks almost finished, right? Well, then we disassembled it all for 2 days of waterlox application. My only disappointment with the waterlox was that the lambswool applicators, which are what the can said to use, left fuzz in the finish giving it a little bit of texture, so its not totally smooth when you run your hands across it.

Yesterday, we screwed the counters into the cabinets, actually installed the sink (plumbing is much easier than I thought it'd be) and caulked the seams. Both the counters and caulk are dry, but "curing". Aka: we can use them, but are best to be as gentle with them as can be for a few more days.

Tada!

Now it's time to start learning how to tile for our backsplash!

A Christmas Flop

2011-12-23T16:22:00.001-05:00

Easter is our holiday to host. For the rest, we go to other family members homes. Being a good little girl, I call everyone to see what I can contribute to our meals.

My assignment for Christmas dinner this year is "a pie or two". I like that kind of assignment. It's specific enough that I'm not lost in my options (like if someone said dessert) but broad enough to play. Also, in most cases I can whip up a pie from stuff I have on hand.

My game plan was a persimmon pie (yay a chance to try the persimmon paste) and something more classic in case it turns out poorly or folks are leery of something new. I have canned apple filling, frozen zucchini filling and a couple cans of pumpkin left over from thanksgiving. Nick voted for pumpkin, so pumpkin it is.

Linda, neighbor and american persimmon guru, had tried the recipe before and swore it baked long enough to cook the tannins (which leave you feeling like you've eaten chalk) all the way out. Long story short... Not in my case and I was left with a pie and tart that were completely in edible. The goodish news is the chickens really enjoyed them.

Oh, and speaking of chickens, it appears that our 2nd Easter egger and a second Australorp are laying now. Sometimes well get 7 eggs in a day. Our Easter eggers both lay green eggs, but one lays blue-green eggs and the other lays yellow-green eggs. Crazy, no?

They've Arrived!

2011-12-16T11:19:00.000-05:00

After much anticipation, and a few estimated delivery date delays, my counters were scheduled to arrive between 8 and noon yesterday. At 10:30, I got a call saying they'd be there in 30 minutes. At 10:55, I got a call saying their GPS said they were .5 miles from my house, but couldn't get under the railroad overpass on the road they were on. Ugh, IKEA. This is what you get for sending a semi-, when a pick-up would do. I told them that I could give them directions around, but that it was by no means short. As a matter of fact, it'd be 27 miles of detour. They said their GPS thought it knew a better way. Apparently it didn't, because they wound up calling back for my detour's directions.

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Christmas from Scratch: Jar Candles

2011-12-16T10:59:00.001-05:00

Most of my projects are pre-meditated, researched... thought out at lest to some degree. Not this one. Despite all the info available on the internet, i just did it... and it took over a month because of it. Oops.

This time last year, I was given this box of barely-used, Christmas-colored pillar candles. It'd been sitting in the basement of the church I grew up in for FOREVER (probably since we had our madrigals) and they were tired of looking at it. How did I get it? Because Mrs. Campbell decided if anyone could make use of it, I could.

Countertop Sealants

2011-12-13T09:46:00.001-05:00

With our counters being delivered in 2 days, it was time to finally nail down what type of finish we're going to use . Ikea sells it's own counter sealing oil (called Behandla), which would seem to be the obvious choice but different counters have different needs, even in the confines of my own small kitchen. The "outer L", where the sink is and most dish drying happens, could benefit from some extra waterproofing. The island, where most cutting and food-prep goes on, could benefit from a coating that penetrates so that even a knife gash in the wood would still be protected.

This article from Ikea Hackers, was INCREDIBLY useful. Basically, it says that there are coating or drying barrier-like options and penetrating or non-drying potions. Most of the barrier options are not food safe, but the one that is is waterlox. It claims to be tung-oil based, but comes in a low-VOC formula (which means that the original formula isn't so low in VOCs). My guess is it's a mix between an oil and a urethane. It is the most water-proof of all the options and it's the one I've chosen for the "outer L". It comes in both Original and Low-VOC, and original, satin and gloss sheens. The original sheen is both a sealer and a finish, the satin and gloss sheens are just finishes, so you have to put a few coats of the original on no matter what. Also, if you use the original sealer, you have to use the original finish. If you use the low-VOC sealer, you have to use a low-VOC finish. This morning, my task is to order a quart of low-VOC original sealer/finish and a quart of low-VOC satin finish.

I chose the satin finish because, when the island piece is in-stock and finally ordered, I plan on coating it with mineral oil. Mineral oil leaves a satin sheen and I'd like for the counters to have similar sheens. All of the penetrating finishes (which you can cut on) are oils. Tung oil, behandla oil, mineral oil, linseed oil. There are ups and downs to each of them, but mineral oil is the least expensive, most easily gotten a hold of, and i know folks who have used it to great effect.

Oh Christmas Tree

2011-12-08T10:43:00.000-05:00

Last year, I shared with ya'll why we get a real Christmas tree. This year, I want to share with you some of our tree-oriented traditions and favorite ornaments.

Every year, we go out to a tree farm, and pick out a tree. The first year we were married, we even brought a saw and cut it ourselves. Since then, we've relied on the guy with a chainsaw and a quad. Much easier.

Deck the Halls

2011-12-08T09:57:00.000-05:00

There are a lot of awesome things about living in the country. Parades of visitors isn't one of them. As such, aside from the occasional neighbor, not many folks get to see our casa all decked out for the holidays.

Guess the bow doesn't do much to hide the ugly step-windowed door...

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More Frugal than Green

2011-12-01T21:10:00.000-05:00

Nick's work Christmas party is this coming weekend,and I didn't have a thing to wear...so I had to go shopping, darn. I tried on my new outfit and was feelin' all sexy in it... but my hair was lookin' really scraggly. That's understandable...it hasn't had so much asa trim for a year and a half (shame on me).

Sometimes blogger insists on sideways pictures. You can only resist so much.

When Green Doesn't Fit

2011-12-01T10:44:00.000-05:00

From it's outset, this blog has always been about my journey to make a positive, healthy impact on my life. Every time I switch a product or a way of doing thins, I carefully weigh it with what fits into our budget and lifestyle. Sometimes, that leaves me with better, but still middle-of-the-road decisions. I'm okay with that. I never set out to be the ideal greenie, and I never will be. I set out to make a change. Sometimes, though, for better or worse, there is no middle road.

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And so it begins

2011-11-28T21:05:00.000-05:00

My poor, neglected kitchen. When we finished the wood floors and rearranged closet space, the pantry door never had it's handle re-installed and the whole wall has been in primer for the last two years. When we took out cabinets to make our bookcases and replaced them with shelving, they only ever got primer too. There are swaths of all sorts of paint colors, many of which i discounted some time ago, all over the walls. The counters don't match. The shims under the ceiling fan are visible. The walls are in need of some serious sanding. I could really use a new oven. The dishwasher doesn't coordinate. The island stools are so bulky they have to be rearranged to fully open the door. The screen door blocks half of the natural light potential in the room.

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Pumpkin Pie: Theme & Variations

2011-11-27T19:51:00.000-05:00

I've been enjoying my holiday festivities to the detriment of this here blog lately, sorry. Last year, if you remember, I baked up an incredible storm! This year, our festivities were a little more spread out and my assignments a little easier. We ate with my dads family on Thursday and we were asked to bring wine and 2 pumpkin pies. Friday, we ate with my mother-in-law's family and I was asked to bring cookies. Today, we're ate with the in-laws and had (ugh) family pictures... I brought pierogi casserole.

For Thursday, my grandma had initially requested that I bring Brussels sprouts. I protested, not wanting to become the person who always has to bring the same thing every year. Bad idea. I was all but verbally stoned, and made to promise that I'd bring them for Christmas. Anyways, I wound up with the pumpkin pie assignment. For the sake of tradition and crowd pleasing, I wanted to stick with a classic pie, but for the sake of my ego and boredom, I wanted to jazz up my pies.

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Christmas from Scratch: Record Bowls

2011-11-18T10:05:00.000-05:00

The only thing better than being frugal and green, is being frugal, green, and on trend. These little buggers are all of the above.

Recovering a Stew

2011-11-14T11:34:00.000-05:00

Nick likes to eat hearty, beefy, filling things. Man food. The kind of food I only consent to making in the winter. Usually I send his 2 favorites (shepherd's pie and Brunswick stew) to hunting camp with him. Unfortunately, his new job has made it impossible to make it this year. As such, I'm consoling him by making it for eating here.

Unfortunately, I found that my recipe card was missing and I hadn't given the recipe out to anyone else. I got the recipe from an older woman at a church I worked at in Ohio. I dawdled and dawdled, but finally decided to just call her for the recipe. Unfortunately, when I googled her, I found she had passed in April 2010. Ugh. I had no option left but to try to remember the recipe.

Persimmon Paste?

2011-11-12T09:48:00.001-05:00

Remember all those persimmons I picked before they were ripe? Well, they never did ripen :( But my neighbor Linda (who told me about the persimmons in the first place) picked more than she could deal with and she gave me the extras.

She also lent me her food mill, which turned out to be a kinda bad idea. The skins & seeds clogged it and it literally took a week for Nick to get it clean. It turns out, the best way to extract the pulp is to put the fruit in a mesh laundry bag and twist 'till you can't twist anymore. It took me a while to figure that one out tho and it made a mess in the mean time.

American persimmons aren't edible when raw. It won't kill you or anything, but the tanins will mess your tongue up pretty thoroughly. Everything I've read (and my neighbor Linda) said that if you cook them, they'll be edible.

I was really surprised when i put the gelatinous pulp in a pot and it quickly became the consistency of thick mashed potatoes or paste. It smelled great though, so i took a nibble and, while it was better than raw, it still did a number on my tongue.

Honestly, I'm not sure what will happen if I put the stuff in a recipe. Linda's been on vacation, so I can't ask her yet. In the mean time, I have a pile of freezer jars full of paste that'll make ur tongue feel crazy. Guess everything can't work out like you hope.

Oh, and have a cute pic of the chickens, courtesy of instagram and my new iPhone.