WENDY BANDURSKI MILLER

Red tailed Hawk. A series of images from an encounter in Ithaca NY

noreply@blogger.com (WENDY BANDURSKI-MILLER) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 13:12:00 +0000

I had the privilege of getting up close and personal with a Red Tailed Hawk in Stewart Park in Ithaca on Monday. It was one of those really moving experiences where life is real and right in your face. The Hawk was feeding on a Canadian Goose (which surprised me a little considering how large they are). I used stealth and a telephoto lens to get close. Of course the hawk knew I was there but was obviously considered small risk compared to the benefits of staying with the kill. In fact it turned out there were two separate individuals... at one stage i left to get Jye to witness the whole thing and two hawks had a screech at each other and a different (i would say female) came down to eat the second time. It was not obvious until i came home and downloaded the images that the second series was in fact a different bird. All in all it was an amazing sight and I am well pleased with the photos.

SEMPRONIUS ENTERPRISES PRESENTS: WINTER ART EXHIBITION:

noreply@blogger.com (WENDY BANDURSKI-MILLER) — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 10:42:00 +0000

SEMPRONIUS ENTERPRISES PRESENTS

“Winter Art exhibition”

Patrick Miller and Wendy Bandurski-Miller

Invite you to our fine art exhibition of paintings and photography

Saturday November 26th 4pm- late

2661 HATHAWAY ROAD SEMPRONIUS

NEW YORK

yellow two story house on the hill.

Paintings can be previewed online.

Contact Wendy for pricing at

redreamer@live.com

For online purchases look to the right and you will see the paypal option. Select the work you want to purchase from the drop down selection then click ADD TO CART.

$50

1. Redreaming Village
12 X 12 x 1 inch box canvas

2. Redreaming Growth
12 X 12 x 1 inch box canvas

3. Redreaming Connections

12 X 12 x 1 inch box canvas

4. Redreaming Dark Heart

12 X 12 x 1 inch box canvas

5. Redreaming One Tree

12 X 12 x 1 inch box canvas

6. Redreaming Two Tree’s

12 X 12 x 1 inch box canvas

7. Redreaming Mote

12 X 12 x 1 inch box canvas

9. Redreaming Ethos
12 X 12 x 1 inch box canvas

10. Redreaming Solar Flare
12 X 12 x 1 inch box canvas

11. Redreaming Leaf Love

12 X 12 x 1 inch box canvas

12. At the Edge of the Forest
12 X 12 x 1 inch box canvas

13. Redreaming Carnivale of Fireflies
12 X 12 x 1 inch box canvas

14. Outback Orange
12 X 12 x 1 inch box canvas

15. Out of the Blue
12 X 12 x 1 inch box canvas

16. Single Sunflower
11x13inch

17. Trillium
11 x 13 inches

18. Red winged Blackbird
11x 13 inches

19. Wonder

16 x 20 inches

20. Paradox
16 x 20 inches

23. Redreaming Sunshine Garden
12 x 12 inches box canvas

$100

24. Dragonfly Dreaming
24 x 18 inches

25. The Spark
30 x 18 inches box canvas

26. The Walkabout
30 x 18 inches box canvas

27. Prophesy
24 x 18inches

28. Tribal Love
24 x 18 inches

29. Tower of Laughter
20 x 16 inches

30. Lilypads
28 x 11.5 inches x 2 inch handmade box canvas

31. Green Eyes
24 x 18 inches

32. Mindscapes Walkabout

24 x 18 inches

33. Tryst
20 x 16 inches

$250. PAINTINGS

34. Towards Tomorrow
36 x 12 x 3 inch handmade box canvas

35. Redreaming Golden Valley
36 x 12 x 3 inch handmade box canvas

36. Perception Is All
40 x 13 inch on wood

37. Sempronius Hollyhocks
36 x 14 x 3 inch handmade box canvas

38. Tower of Inspiration
30 x 18 x 3 inch handmade box canvas

39. Bearded Iris

36 x 18 x 3 inch handmade box canvas

40. Flesh
24 x 18 inches

41. Redreaming Gecko
36 x 12 x 3 inches handmade box canvas

$300

42. Redreaming Antipodes
48 x 18 x 3 inch handmade box canvas

43. Frankie

48 x 12 x 3 inch handmade box canvas

Organic Apples and SNOW!

noreply@blogger.com (WENDY BANDURSKI-MILLER) — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 01:18:00 +0000

This year's apple harvest was a LOT challenging. Mostly because we have been in this place for 4 1/2 years and the apple orchard tree's were about 3 year olds when we moved in. This year they hit SERIOUS production for the first time and with some 40 tree's to pick..... i didn't really expect or plan on such a bountiful year. Very much an oversight.

Next year I will do a roadside stand...... this year i have given the apples away by the bucketful and still canned huge amounts, dehydrated huge amounts and baked huge amounts.

There are still boxes and bags of apples all over the place... moving them all down to the root cellar part of the cellar this weekend when i have young legs to help carry them.

Time to double check snow boot needs in the house! One kid down... one to go... one day THEY WILL stop growing!

Making Liquid Laundry Soap

noreply@blogger.com (WENDY BANDURSKI-MILLER) — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 11:59:00 +0000

I have been meaning to add this to my blog for over a week now and have just been too busy and have had several requests so here you go...... Part of our home school science activities was to make a supply of liquid laundry detergent that lasts 6-8 months for the time invested.....which is not a long time. Total time needed is about an hour ... half an hour to prepare the liquid recipe and about half an hour to bottle it up the next day.

Enjoy!

FALL IS COMING.... AND the first colds of the season.

noreply@blogger.com (WENDY BANDURSKI-MILLER) — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 16:05:00 +0000

So here i am feeling under the weather along with most of the family... its wet and drizzly outside and everyone has a cold and headache and generally feeling pretty miserable. So while I have a moment i thought i would take some times to create some products i have been wanting to make for a while now....

check them out... and I hope you like.

For fall i am making some new designs in clothing... hoodies and t shirts and baseball caps.... more to come as i get time... ALL products can be customized with size and colours...

REDREAMING FREE RANGE HUMAN bbcap by wendybandurskimiller

REDREAMING FREE RANGE HUMAN by wendybandurskimiller

REDREAMING FREE RANGE HUMAN jacket by wendybandurskimiller

REDREAMING FREE RANGE HUMAN tote bag by wendybandurskimiller

REDREAMING FREE RANGE HUMAN sticker by wendybandurskimiller

REUSE RECYCLE RETHINK REDREAM

noreply@blogger.com (WENDY BANDURSKI-MILLER) — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 14:00:00 +0000

Just brilliant.

Tomatoes Tomatoes TOMATOES........

noreply@blogger.com (WENDY BANDURSKI-MILLER) — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 15:19:00 +0000

This has been a brilliantly successful tomato year and i will take it!. It has also meant that i have had little time to update my blog... i have been too busy being hands on in the garden... and i am sure you understand... it is not just about the growing... it is also about the maintaining... the picking the washing the preparing and the storing of the produce to last through the winter months.

I have been dehydrating non stop for two months pretty much.... tomatoes and zucchini and herbs and summer squash... concurrent with that I have also been canning... roasting tomatoes making spagetti sauces and generally constantly washing pots and and other kitchen equipment and sterilizing jars.

Some photo's to follow...... and the only reason i have sat down to write this is because it is labour day... school starts Wednesday and life is about to get even MORE hectic at least for a little while.

New Ducklings first day out.

noreply@blogger.com (WENDY BANDURSKI-MILLER) — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 21:14:00 +0000

They were born yesterday and today they went out with mummy to explore the world.

Canning Season Begins.

noreply@blogger.com (WENDY BANDURSKI-MILLER) — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 03:21:00 +0000

12 yellow crookneck squash (Any size will do, but smaller squash have less seeds.)

2 medium onions
2 medium sweet peppers (optional)

Combine:
2 1/4 cups sugar
2 1/4 cups vinegar
2 teaspoons celery seeds
2 teaspoons mustard seeds
1 teaspoon turmeric

So with Zucchini and summer squash beginning to come into their own in the garden i went in search of a pickle recipe..... and came up with one for OLD FASHIONED SQUASH PICKLES.

Preparing the pickle ingredients... Sugar, Tumeric, Celery seeds and mustards seeds (sorta). Add 2 1/4 cups of vinegar and bring to the boil stirring constantly ... once boiled continue rapid boil for 3 minutes then turn off the heat and remove from the stove. (Smells divine).

The summer squash, zuchinni, red capsicum, and a whole medium sized onion chopped up placed under chilled water for an hour (add ice blocks).

Sterilize your jars and hot pack the drained chopped vegetables straight into them.

Fill to within half an inch of the top.

Pour over the pickling liquid still hot from the stove. To about 1/4 inch from the top.....

Wipe rims and add the lid and the band and finger tighten and put back in the water.....

I used the recipe i found HERE

It smells divine and i will be making more for winter goodness to remember summer by.

Walk around the Vegetable garden

noreply@blogger.com (WENDY BANDURSKI-MILLER) — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 13:30:00 +0000

Of Crazy Growth in the garden and a new AA Canner......

noreply@blogger.com (WENDY BANDURSKI-MILLER) — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 10:43:00 +0000

So...... with warm and wet days everything is going CRAZY in the garden growing at double speed and it is not hard to get a sense of OVERWHELMED at times..... one of the disadvantages of a large garden... you turn your back for five minutes and BAM weeds have emerged where there were none and the tiny weeds DOUBLE in size..... the potatoes all need hilling, the tomatoes need pruning before they take over the planet and i need to harvest some parsley and summer squash.... Life is good and my tailbone is sore!

Yes well i finally went ahead and bought the bright and shiny new All American Canner 921 as it is on special at the moment at AMAZON for a VERY good price. It arrived very quickly (3 days) and i can't WAIT to use it..... but I will give it a test run first to check the seal and my technique for closing it since it appears people sometimes have troubles with steam escaping out the rim..... I must say i am pretty excited about being able to do ANYTHING in cans now and not be limited to just acid based foods.

If you have never canned your own food before go HERE for a quick read up.

FOOD STORAGE LONG TERM

You tube has a WEALTH of video's on canning......go on explore a little!

Strawberry Moon

noreply@blogger.com (WENDY BANDURSKI-MILLER) — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 01:51:00 +0000

To be perfectly honest i really do have a thing for taking photographs of what i call *skyscapes* and interesting things in the sky...... so my day started super early because i happened to see the moon before it set.......

THIS MORNING

THIS EVENING

amazing the difference a cup of coffee makes..... he he.

Follow this link to the names of the full moons for each month of the year.

Full Strawberry Moon – June This name was universal to every Algonquin tribe. However, in Europe they called it the Rose Moon. Also because the relatively short season for harvesting strawberries comes each year during the month of June . . . so the full Moon that occurs during that month was christened for the strawberry!

.....did you look UP tonight?

And for those that didn't see it.... there is images HERE of the eclipse that we here in the north east did not get to see.....except online.

Baby Red Fox

noreply@blogger.com (WENDY BANDURSKI-MILLER) — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 17:11:00 +0000

This morning on the way home from the hardware store for paint i came across these three baby fox in the driveway of a neighbour.... with the help of a long lens and patience i got close enough for a good shot. They were very wary ..... as they should be.... but were warming themselves out on the open which I didn't think was good.... but also I didn't want to interfere it is a fine line. I suspect their mother has been shot.

Spring Storms...

noreply@blogger.com (WENDY BANDURSKI-MILLER) — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 00:53:00 +0000

So from my initial assessment that there wasn't much damaged... about 40% of the apples are dented ......as is my new car! GHAAAA what a pita!

Luckily the garden survived with a few holes in leaves but nothing too tragic.....
Time to sort out a parking bay for the vehicle in the barn.......

The weather this year is nothing short of EXTREME.... extreme heat and unusual storms... and the season has only barely begun.

Critters around the place..... and things start to grow.

noreply@blogger.com (WENDY BANDURSKI-MILLER) — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 01:02:00 +0000

The last week has been spent testing using the P.A.S.S. Testing materials for the boys and the tests have been sent off to be marked. Will be interesting to see how they went.

It has been a week of juggling time between the inside and outside needs of the homestead. Inside... a big clean up and rearrange... and outside planting weeding sorting and even some harvesting of herbs... drying them out in the dehydrator...at this stage focusing on the lemon balm and the catnip.

We have also had our fair share of critters..... mostly rescued from the cats or fallen out of tree's during the early in the week big winds we had here on the hill.

First product from the dehydrator is this lemon balm tea...... spring goodness packed away for winter tea.....
It takes A LOT of leaves dried to make one jar.... luckily it is now possible to do large amounts and being I started early in the season i should be able to get a decent amount put away.

The first Zucchini flowers!

We moved the Golden Comet's down to the Summer Chicken coop.... and the settled in very quickly and we have had no trouble with the Pecking Order this time!

noreply@blogger.com (WENDY BANDURSKI-MILLER) — Tue, 31 May 2011 01:14:00 +0000

Solar Dehydrator Project: Part the Last...

noreply@blogger.com (WENDY BANDURSKI-MILLER) — Fri, 13 May 2011 18:03:00 +0000

So last job we did was make the box waterproof.... and while we only got a very thin layer of paint on since we ran out... it will help protect the wood until we get some more today. We also considered that painting it black would add to it's thermal quality and make it slightly hotter inside...

Relocated it off the veranda into it's place of function next to the kitchen garden... we wanted it to have the ability to be moveable as the sun moves when in use. We have catnip drying inside at the moment as a first trial.

Today we hit a new Maximum temperature inside the unit... :) and are still deciding if we need to add a fan to move the air around.... to even out the temperatures inside. Of course it will be solar powered. We have the panel.... we just have to locate where we put the fan...

Solar Dehydrator Project.Part Five: Making the dehydrator cabinet shelving.

noreply@blogger.com (WENDY BANDURSKI-MILLER) — Wed, 11 May 2011 18:46:00 +0000

Today the last job of all to wrap up the making the Solar Dehydrator is to make the shelving. We actually are using tomato stakes for the frames after a sanding down to remove any roughness in the wood and slightly bevel the corners for smoother gliding....

Solar Dehydrator Project.Part Four: Making the dehydrator cabinet cladding.

noreply@blogger.com (WENDY BANDURSKI-MILLER) — Tue, 10 May 2011 01:37:00 +0000

One of the first things we needed to do was as a science/mathematics home school project was measure the panel sizes to cover the framework.

We used 3 ply panelling we had left over from building the chicken house in the barn..... set up the jig saw and two cordless drills. One as a screw driver and one to drill holes. First job before cladding the framework was to put the shelf supports in so we could manoeuvre the drill without any restrictions from the outside walls. We actually used tomato stakes cut up for the job at two foot lengths.

Originally i had 5 square foot of dehydrating space in my electric dehydrator. I now have 42 square feet of drying space. No comparison... and if you grow a garden and dehydrate you KNOW that is a very small volume for when the crops are in. Therefore instead of spending a great deal of money and the ongoing cost of electricity to power it.. i thought it a good opportunity to invest time into a way to dehydrate that would be far more sustainable in the long term.

Not only that but we have also no running costs.

No electrical power needed to run this low tech way of preserving food.

Tomorrow's task is to make the back doorway and we have decided that we would be better off purchasing a piano hinge to take advantage of the large opening without being concerned with limitations to access.

Photo's to follow.

Btw we bought tomato stakes to use as shelf supports/shelf framework and total cost so far is $30.

Solar Dehydrator Project.Part Three: Making the dehydrator cabinet frame.

noreply@blogger.com (WENDY BANDURSKI-MILLER) — Sat, 07 May 2011 14:32:00 +0000

With $12 worth of pine timber we set about constructing the Cabinet for the dehydrator.

So far this is what we have.

Solar Dehydrator Project.Part two.Box Complete.

noreply@blogger.com (WENDY BANDURSKI-MILLER) — Thu, 05 May 2011 02:32:00 +0000

Half way there making the tubes out of the cans. Ours measured 8 cans per tube and we made 12 tubes..... and we ended up only needing 11 because we forgot in our estimating to allow for the intrusion of the wooden frame INSIDE the outer edge of the polycarbonate sheeting. So 88 cans in total for the whole project... collected slowly over winter... total cost.... well less than $5 if we had returned them for recycling.

ALL the cans arranged inside the frame.

Drew putting on the back of the box..... cut to the same size we reused some old plywood paneling,

Jye hammering the small nails onto the back to attach the plywood to the frame it took a bit of concentration and the nails were small.

Drew adding nails to the back too. Pretty deft with the hammer.

Here the boys are using hand files to take off any burrs left behind after cutting out the holes with the hole saw. Cutting out the holes with a cordless (WITH a fully charged battery) took a little while but we measured out the spacing and cut them out... going through BOTH fully charged batteries to do the 11 holes. It would have been better to do it using a corded drill ... but the only one we have would risk wrist wrenching its a little too powerful for the job and hole saw bits can grab unexpectedly so it was a trade off of speed for safety.

We took it outside even though it was too cold for the paint to dry .... just for the application and because of

fumes. We left it to get tacky dry then moved it under the back veranda roof in case it rained.

Next Step is to add the polycarbonate cover and the base plate....which means another 11 holes to drill tomorrow which will be the last major task..... we had to wait for drills to recharge but all in all it was a productive day. The cold damp weather is making drying of glue a little longer than might have been usual.... today it was 33f ALL DAY.

and today we added the polycarbonate top and the air out frame.

We are VERY VERY happy with this result....... Now to build the cabinet for the dehydrating.... Stay tuned.

Sustainable Chicken Grit.

noreply@blogger.com (WENDY BANDURSKI-MILLER) — Mon, 02 May 2011 00:30:00 +0000

One of the things about sustainability is that you reduce waste and reduce inputs and re purpose waste as a positive element in the system of whatever it is you are doing.

One of the things we do with our chickens is save the eggshells and when baking in the oven we add a tray of used eggshells to bake out any moisture and dry out the shells. Duck or chicken it makes no difference.

So after we bake the eggshells in the oven....... this is what they look like. The next stage is to put them in the mortar and crush them and fit about 8 egg halves into the mortar........

Then with the pestle we crush them to make them palatable for chickens and ready to add to their food.

Solar Dehydrator Project. Part One....

noreply@blogger.com (WENDY BANDURSKI-MILLER) — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 14:49:00 +0000

Homeschooling Science and Language Arts Project for the term is to create a solar Dehydrator. We have an electric one but we need greater capacity and saw no reason to spend lot's of $$ when an effective efficient free dehydrator can be made at home with recycled materials. So far eveything we needed to use has been recycled from our stored bits and pieces.

This video was part of the inspiration to create our own solar dehydrator... originally our plan was to make the heat box element as a portable extra heat source for the chickens during winter and our idea evolved from that. Essentially we are making a larger heating box than the one in the video... we can use it for dehydrating in summer and heating a spot area in winter... It is designed to also fit over the bulkhead doors into the cellar and can be used to heat the front mudroom which is currently unheated Even raising the temperature 20f will extend our growing season. Well that is the plan. We collected soda can's over winter and the project got a real kick start when Patrick brought home a rear projection television for the boys to take apart for the Fresnel lens.... and realized that we also had a large sheet of polycarbonate salvaged from that project too. So we began by grinding off the bottoms of the cans using a belt sander upside down on a bench (we put screws into the bench to secure it from moving forwards). It was noisy to sand aluminium cans but otherwise with safety glasses it worked well.

Sanding the cans to remove the bottom.

Taking any sharp bits off the cut edge with a Dremel

Cutting fins in the opposite end and twisting the metal .

Cans laid out ready to be glued into tubes.

More to come as we progress. Why don't you have a think about doing something similar yourself?

Of Straw and Manure and Chicks.......

noreply@blogger.com (WENDY BANDURSKI-MILLER) — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 12:41:00 +0000

The weather here in the last two weeks has been either cold or very wet and windy or all three. Not conducive to gardening.... though i have managed to get a few things done..... but the persistent cloud cover and darkness is not hurrying spring along much at all. Talk about a holding pattern. New Silver Sea brights in the chicken coup and a dozen Golden Comet chicks... so far added to the flock this year.

New Straw Bale raised garden with manure and garden goodness from a local horse stall over the top of a layer of rotting wooden logs...... more straw going on top and then I am heating it up before planting to make sure we get no unwanted weeds...... I did manage to get some time in the garden yesterday and started terracing the back of the kitchen garden...... but no outdoor planting yet.. I hope to get potatoes and onions in this weekend.... we will see. It is blowing 40 mile and hour winds at the moment and pouring..... let's hope the afternoon is a little calmer.

The Great Awakening.

noreply@blogger.com (WENDY BANDURSKI-MILLER) — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 21:19:00 +0000

As the spring begins to manifest it becomes clear that the small changes I see herald warmer days are getting closer... there is much dripping and melting and the bare ground is more prevalent than the snow covered ground.... at least in the open areas.

Today we lit the outside fire again to process more Maple Syrup and enjoyed cleaning up wind fallen branches and burned them to good effect while also cleaning up the yard in the process. One thing about the first weeks of spring is the sense of messiness the place seems to have.... without the green grass and lush vegetation everything looks dead on first glance... but there are bugs... there is new growth and budding... there is baby rabbits.. and evidence of life if you sit still and just absorb what is happening around you for a moment.

It is very heartening.