Wisdom of the Moon

Joey, Kam and Raven

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Sun, 06 May 2012 19:20:00 +0000

I think, at a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift should be curiosity.
-Eleanor Roosevelt

Vegetable Grafting

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Tue, 01 May 2012 15:49:00 +0000

Early this spring I discovered a gardening technique that I had never heard of before. I'm sure most of you know about grafting with trees, but did you know you could do it with vegetables too? Tomato grafting allows you to combine the best characteristics of two types of plants into one.

I read about it over at A Way to Garden and I totally geeked out. Two parts of my personality, the avid gardener and the nerdy biologist, were jumping up and down inside my head.

Most gardeners are well aware of the tomato blight, viruses that are destroying tomatoes around the country. And it's also true that heirloom tomatoes, the best tasting kind, in my opinion, are particularly susceptible. Really, that's one of the reasons why they started breeding hybrids, to make them more resistant to these viruses. The problem is that hybrids don't taste as good as the heirlooms.

So what to do?

Armed with a razor blade and a silicone clip, you can take two seedlings and combine them into one super tomato plant via razor blade surgery. One seedling should be disease-resistant and prolific. This becomes the rootstock (the bottom half) and controls overall how the plant grows. The other seedling should produce fruit that taste really yummy. This becomes the scion (the top half) and controls what the fruit look and tastes like.

It really is just about that simple. In theory.

I especially like this picture (above) because it shows how the rootstock on the bottom is attempting to grow itself some leaves while the scion on the top is attempting to grow its own set of roots. All of these will need to be pulled off to keep that from happening. If these were allowed to grow, it would ruin all the hard work, producing grodey hybrid fruit and reducing the disease resistance of the plant.

I actually managed to create 6 successfully grafted plants on the first go. I felt a bit like a mad scientist during this entire endeavor and may or may not have had the words, "It's Alive!" go through my mind every so often.

I started with 12 seeds of Maxifort for the rootstock, which is resistant to F2 (Fusarium Wilt 1 and 2), N (Nematodes), TMV (Tobacco Mosaic Virus), V (Verticillium Wilt), PL (Corky Root Rot) and FOR (Fusarium Crown and Root Rot). I also started 6 each of Brandywine and Ace (These were the heirloom seeds that I already happened to have). With Jeff's help, I grafted 7 plants total. One of which came apart after the first day and started growing quite an impressive set of leaves from the rootstock. (I won't be planting this one.)

The silicone clip fell off of this guy (below) early on, but the two parts somehow managed to stay close enough together to fuse. It's definitely less pretty than the others that were held closer together, but I still think it's amazing.

I won't go into the specifics right now as I am miles away from being any sort of authority on the subject. Though I do promise to include more info as I figure it out. I basically followed the instructions in this video for the top grafting, not the side grafting that he starts out explaining.

If you follow me on Pinterest, you might have seen reference to this concept in my gardening board, where I hoard all my gardening ideas.

Oh, I almost forgot. I have seen grafted tomato plants for sale at a nursery or two around town. They were running about $12 for a gallon size. So depending on how many you want to grow, this might be a more economical solution for you.

Mini Murals

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 17:39:00 +0000

I finished another little painting in Joey's room. This one is from Lu and the Swamp Ghost, written by, strangely enough, James Carville.

I've done quite a few of these over the years. Luckily, Joey's still excited to come home from school and see that I've finished another one.

All of the mini murals I've done come from her favorite storybooks.

I scanned the pictures, played with them in photoshop to show as much of the basic outline as possible (I think I used the stamp effect), and then printed them up on overhead projector sheets. You can cram quite a few of them on each one.

Then I projected them onto the wall and traced them in pencil.

You can barely see the penciled versions unless you're right up close. That way, I can finish them when I have time. Though this technique may have given me way too much time, since I've been working on this project for like ever. And there are still more pencil drawings than finished paintings.

Our favorite part is deciding where to put everybody.

Like this little guy who is in the corner, behind the door.

And this bunch who are all hanging from a long rope I painted in.

I use plain ol' acrylic craft paints, thinned with water, letting it dry between coats (sometimes speeding things with a blow dryer). This allows me to more easily do shading on the sort of difficult pieces. I traced quite a few of them at the end with a super thin, black marker.

The Wild Things' hair and scales were done mostly with the marker. It gives you a lot more control that way.

People Eggs

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 16:50:00 +0000

It's almost Easter. Which, around here, means it's time to add to our collection of blown eggs.

So how about some cute little people eggs?

I did the first version of this 13 years ago, when Joey was just a baby.

As you can see, I've improved on my technique somewhat. Having the Pysanky supplies instead of the crap-tastic wax crayon in the kit helps, but so does having Photoshop and my own printer. (The original was done before I had a digital camera or any type of processing software. I snapped several pictures, dropped off the film at Walgreens and used whatever came back in that envelope.)

No real tutorial on this, just some tips.

Tips
-Print out the pictures of the faces before you start drawing on the body. It really helps to get the sizing right.
-I printed one page with lots of cropped faces on it, doing several of each person because I expected to screw most of them up. Surprisingly, I didn't.

-Before I cut anything out, I lightly sprayed the entire paper with a matte fixative spray. This does two things: it sort of protects the ink and gives the paper a little more body so it stands out from the egg. You could alternately print the pictures on paper that's a bit stiffer.
-Dye the egg with little bodies and no heads.

(If this looks uber impressive to you, you have got to get yourself some Ukrainian egg dyeing supplies. It isn't difficult at all.)

-You can also put names on the back of each egg, like so.

-When they are completely and totally dry, attach the heads using hot glue or Museum Wax. You really don't want to use water based glue because it tends to warp the paper or make the dye on the egg run.

Good luck. And as usual, send me a picture if you make these yourself.

------------------------------

Related Posts-
Easter Prep (for Blown Eggs)

Ukrainian Egg Dying

Less Frustrating Ways to Dye Blown Eggs

Egg Drying Rack

Hanging Blown Eggs

Indoor Easter Garden

Day of the Dead Sugar Skull Costume

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 17:34:00 +0000

Here's something we threw together before school in like 20 minutes.

Hope you all have a fun and safe day!

My Not So New Job

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 13:56:00 +0000

Ever since I started this job, Joey's been giving me grief for not telling you all about it. I think she feels I'm somehow being dishonest for not sharing such an important aspect of my life (and the possible reason why my posts are sometimes months apart).

So what is it that I do?

I'm on the ground crew for an airline, babysitting planes and chauffeuring baggage. The pay isn't great, but my whole family (Jeff, kids, parents) and I can now fly for free. Once we can synchronize our schedules, that is. Since I got out of training 6 months ago, Jeff and I haven't had a single day off together.

(Last plane of the night, getting ready to push)

In theory, I got this job so we can fly for free. In reality, though, Jeff is the only one who's actually gone anywhere.

It does give me a chance to take pictures with my phone, most of which are of sunsets. Cause man we have some nice ones out there.

(After a particularly fierce rainstorm, when they called a ground hold for lightning.)

(Leaning out the galley door. This is the place where I most often crack my head.)

(Pulled over while running bags to photograph the sunset. Because I have my priorities.)

(While gassing up my tug. I love how the sun is shining straight through the windows on the closest plane.)

(Waiting for international bags in the bowels of the airport. Just out of frame is a family of chuds.)

Jaden and Joey

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 20:12:00 +0000

I'm not going to change the way I look or the way I feel to conform to anything. I've always been a freak. So I've been a freak all my life and I have to live with that, you know. I'm one of those people.
-John Lennon

Homemade Mozzarella

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 21:07:00 +0000

I made cheese!

And served it with the first tomato of the season.

Note- Despite a couple of hailstorms, our garden's still growing. Not going crazy or anything, yet not completely dead. And as I read about Finny's first tomato(es), I began to think that maybe I ought to be making special plans to welcome mine.

So I ordered myself a cheese kit. As one does.

When I told my brother (all excitedly I might add) that I had successfully made my own mozzarella, he asked if that was before or after the barn raising.

He thinks he's funny.

But I get it. It does seem old fashioned and maybe somewhat pointless. Cause you know, Wendy, they do sell cheese at the store.

But I have to say that as the milk transformed into actual curds it felt like magic. Like I should have been waving a wand over the pan to create such a miracle. It starts as milk, then I add a couple spoonfuls of special ingredients, wait patiently (or not very patiently, in my case) and BAM, it's cheese.

The English language (well, every language really) should have a word specifically to describe the satisfaction involved in curds/whey separation. I'm just sayin.

(this is totally what it was supposed to look like as it separated.)

It's that simple.

Except when it isn't.

(This is not at all what it was supposed to look like.)

This is one of my early attempts without the kit. The stench of failure was so great that it took me almost 3 years to give it another shot, despite a very thoughtful (and moderately optimistic) present from my love.

"One of these times it's gotta work."

Anyway, back to this time. The one that did work. Once it's been cut and heated on the stove, you ladle it into a bowl, heat it in the microwave and then stretch it.

And then you form it.

It looks like cheese, smells like cheese and tastes like cheese.

I'm almost entirely convinced that it was actually cheese. It may not look as smooth as what you get in the store, but it smells and tastes much better.

Next time, I plan to make at least a double batch. One for me and one for everyone else to share.

Nighttime Pictures

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 13:13:00 +0000

Joey decided to take pictures last night. Outside. In the rain. Under an umbrella.

Deconstructed Sushi Bowl

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 16:53:00 +0000

I've been reading Heidi Swanson's blog for years. And I've been cooking from her book Super Natural Cooking for even longer. And this recipe, her sushi bowl (with a few minor changes), has been in our weekday meal rotation the entire time (though, funnily enough, it was my brother in law who originally found it online, right as I was becoming smitten with her cookbook).

We have it at least once a month, if not more. Not only do the kids love to eat it, but it's also a great recipe for them to help make. My nephew Kam (4 years old) especially loves to help with the oranges.

When I started to make it for dinner last week, Joey offered to do all of it herself, if I took pictures of the process. We made a video too, but apparently none of our programs are up to the task of processing digital movies of any kind and keep crashing.

Ingredients
2 oranges
1 lemon
2 T. brown sugar
3 or 4 T. soy sauce
2 T. rice vinegar

package of extra firm tofu
salmon
canola oil (a couple of tablespoons or so)
avocado
nori (I buy the pre crushed kind at the Asian Mart, which saves the steps of toasting and cutting. Strangely, this is a favorite of Joey's friend, who is super picky, but loves this recipe anyway. Also, I can't tell you the brand, because it's written in Japanese. If you can't find this, just crumble the regular Nori you'll find at Whole Foods.)
a bunch of green onions (washed and chopped... we forgot to do those for this batch. I'm the only one who eats them anyway.)
rice (cooked however you cook it)

Instructions
-Halve and ream out all the citrus through a strainer into a saucepan. The original recipe has you first zest them (and add the zest after the sauce has cooked), but Joey prefers it without the zest and she was the one making dinner. Do as you see fit.

-Add the brown sugar, soy sauce and rice vinegar to the pan. Bring to a boil, making sure all the sugar is melted.

-Remove from heat and let cool.

-Drain and slice the tofu. (This is a great job for the kiddos, especially considering that you don't need too sharp a knife to do it. Joey, however, wanted one of the big ones.)

-At this point, we decided to put the tofu back into it's original container to hold some of the marinade (maybe a third).

One less bowl to wash.

-Then we used another third of the marinade to soak the fish in. (No pictures. I'm sure you can imagine what it looks like.)

-After a half hour or so in the fridge, we poured some canola oil over them and brought the tofu and fish to the grill.

(Oh, there's a picture of the fish in the background. Too blurry? Well, maybe just go back to your imagination.)

-Cook over high-ish medium heat, flipping once, until nicely done (and a little crunchy on the edges).

(I bought one of those little vegetable grates and it works so well for stuff like this.)

-Now spin your avocado around on the cutting board.

(I'm not entirely sure that this step is necessary.)

-Cut your avocado.

-Put everything out (including the third of the marinade that you didn't do anything with. You did save that, right? No? That's too bad. It tastes really good over the rice. Also, do I need to tell you not to eat the marinade from the fish and tofu? Cause, don't do that.) and let people assemble themselves. (I mean assemble the food themselves, not like pull themselves together. Though for some, that may be necessary, depending on how excited to eat they are.)

(Joey wanted to show the avocado half she mangled next to the perfect one she didn't. I would like to draw your attention to those little crisp bits of tofu, which I ate immediately after taking this picture. All for Wendy.)

-Eat up.

Yum.

Kenzie's Graduation Present

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 15:50:00 +0000

Among the jewelry skills that I'm learning from Jenny and our Grandpa is how to solder.

I used Jenny's camera to take these pictures as she showed me the process.

(apply flux)

(grab tiny bit of silver solder)

(place solder on joint)

(heat until it flows)

It's amazing how, if you do it well, the little piece of solder sucks right into the joint.

After we soldered all the rings, I filed and hammered them, purposely going a bit wonky because I liked the look of it. Then I created a place to set Kenzie's birthstone, an opal.

Most of the process went undocumented. Eventually I made this.

Each girl will eventually have one of her own.

No, it isn't perfect. And it came very close to being late. But I made it myself, out of love, with hands that once held Kenzie's little girl hands. At 18, she may not fully appreciate that. But I'm sure she will.

One day.

Weird Kid Wednesday- New Camera

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 18:46:00 +0000

On Mother's Day, Joey used my awesome, fantabulous present to capture this.

Which I think is a pretty great present in and of itself.

OCD Seed Sprouting

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Sat, 28 May 2011 15:41:00 +0000

When I start seeds inside in those little containers, I have anxiety. If I only plant one seed per pot, I worry that it won't germinate and I will waste space. If I plant more than one seed, I worry that they will all germinate and I will need to thin them and waste perfectly good seeds.

And so I stare at the pots for 10 minutes, trying to make up my mind, doing nothing.

But, no more!

What I tried (and had a rousing success with) this year was getting the seeds to germinate before I ever put them in dirt. Remember kindergarten when you sprouted beans in paper towels shoved in a plastic bag? Yeah, I basically used that method.

(how cute are these little boogers?)

In a seed starting tray, I put the seeds on various sections of paper towels (I bet newspapers would work too), with several layers below and just one layer over top. Then I added enough water to thoroughly moisten the paper (but not enough to pool) and put on the lid.

(this picture has the top layer pulled back for your viewing pleasure)

Keep an eye on them and as soon as they sprout, put them in dirt, either directly outside or in individual pots inside. If the seeds are big enough, you can plant them individually (only the ones that have sprouted- wasting nothing!).

Note- at this point, because the peas are legumes, I should have applied inoculant to them. But I forgot. And had to come back later and dig it into the soil.

If you can determine which part is the root and which is the sprout, plant accordingly.

If you're not entirely sure which end is which, just lay it on its side. It'll sort itself out.

(this guy grew just fine. in fact 100% of the seeds that I planted this way have grown.)

And if they're tiny, you can put them out directly, still on the layer of paper beneath them, and cover it (leaves and all) with a thin layer of soil.

In a few days, they'll have popped through.

This worked really well for my second batch of pea seedlings. I'd better get them something to climb on soon.

This method also seems to work especially well for plants that you're supposed to plant directly in the garden because they don't like to be transplanted. The problem with direct seeding in the garden is that it's more difficult to provide the right moisture and temperature during germination, which allows the seeds to germinate faster and in higher percentages.

In fact, I found this chart that shows the optimum soil temperatures for various types of plants. For example, lettuce can get a 98% germination rate at a soil temp of only 32 degrees. But it will take 49 days to do it. At 77 degrees, you'll get 99% germination, but in only 2 days.

The chart also helped me figure out why most of my spinach failed to germinate on the first go round. At 68 degrees, you can expect only a 52% germination rate and at 77 degrees, only a 28 % rate. It does best at only 50 degrees, the average temperature of our garage. Like lettuce, it will sprout at 32 degrees, but will take 63 days to do so.

So, you know, just something to keep in mind.

Kenzie

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Tue, 24 May 2011 13:58:00 +0000

Our oldest daughter, Mackenzie, graduated from high school last week.

At Red Rocks.

In a two hour ceremony.

The temperature was hovering right at about 40 degrees.

And it started raining about half way through.

Did I mention the fog?

It was wonderful.

Mexico City Style Tacos

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Wed, 18 May 2011 13:20:00 +0000

Let me first start by saying that my kids love these tacos. One day Miranda, when she noticed that I was making them for dinner, said, "Sweet, I was thinking about those today at school and was hoping you'd make them tonight."

Secondly, this is one of my less meat recipes (as opposed to meatless), though I'll give options for all versions- from full meat to vegetarian.

For health, moral and environmental reasons I try to reduce the amount of meat we consume, cooking at least one meal a week that is completely vegetarian and the rest of the time making most meals around the concept of less meat, where the meat takes up less than a third of the meal.

Quinoa (pronounced "keen-wa") is awesome for doing this. And if you've never used quinoa this recipe is a great place to start. Also quinoa is really good for you. And tastes great.

My brother in law figured out the original, full meat recipe for these, using ground pork. They are great either way.

So let's get started, shall we?

Ingredients-

-1 T vegetable oil
-half an onion (minced)
-1/3 pound of pork (you can buy it already ground or do what I do and just use one pork chop and grind it in the food processor)
-4 to 6 jalapenos, deseeded and chopped
-3 limes
-1 cup chopped cilantro
-1 and 1/2 cups uncooked quinoa (you'll most likely want to soak in cool water and drain before using... it has a coating that isn't always washed off in processing)
-3 cups water
-1 or 2 avocados
-tortillas
-optional- 1 t. bouillon or stock (I use beef Better Than Bouillon)

Note- The full meat version would use about a pound of ground pork and no quinoa, water or bouillon. The full vegetarian version would use about 2 cups quinoa, 4 cups water and no bouillon.

Instruction-
-If using the pork chop, cut it into 1 inch pieces and toss them in the food processor. Pulse 5 to 10 times, for one second intervals, until it looks like ground pork (cause um, yah, it is ground pork now).

-Add some oil to a pan, followed by the onion. Cook until translucent.
-Add the pork, 1/2 cup of cilantro and 1/2 cup of the jalapeno to the pan. (Save the rest of the chopped cilantro and jalapenos for serving.)
-Cook, breaking up the clumps with your spoon, until the pork is no longer pink.

-Add the juice of one of the limes. (For the full meat version, you're done. Well, except for a bit of salt to taste, which you won't need if you're adding the bouillon with the quinoa in a moment.)
-Now add the quinoa...

-the water and the bouillon. (Or for the vegetarian version, start here, adding the cilantro, jalapeno, lime juice, quinoa and water.)

-Cook at a low simmer for about 15 minutes, until the quinoa has absorbed all the water and become tender. You can tell it's done if the little curlicue part of the seeds have opened up. It will look like this.

-While it's cooking, I usually cut up the rest of the limes and the avocado and put all the toppings in individual bowls. I roll the warmed tortillas up in a damp dishtowel. Then everyone gets to make their own.

I just noticed the time stamp from this picture, where Joey's eating her first taco...

is exactly 3 minutes prior to this picture, where she's already making her second one.

Whether these are all pork, all quinoa, or somewhere in between, they go fast.

Luminarias 2.0

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Wed, 11 May 2011 16:10:00 +0000

I love my plain luminarias very much.

But change is good too, is it not?

(you wouldn't believe how many tiny maple leaves I have from yesterday's post)

I've tried all kinds of different methods of adhering these puppies. And the one that, I think, gives the best results involves melting them ever so gently with the tip of a very low temperature iron (like so low that on the scale, it's below the first number). I just hold the leaf in place with the thumb of my left hand, while I maneuver the iron with my right.

I'm not gonna lie. You will get wax on it. You probably will want to use a separate iron (hopefully found cheap at a yard sale?) devoted to crafts for this project. (Heh hem, this is definitely a case of do as I say, not as I do. I just keep wiping the iron clean with a spare rag. Jeff hasn't complained that his shirts are covered in wax yet.)

Also the plants with the little leaves are really tedious to get stuck down.

(plants, left to right: sweet woodruff, catgrass, purple vetch)

(this guy in the front is maidenhair fern)

But despite all those cons, I think the results are pretty fun.

Spring Pressed Leaves

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Tue, 10 May 2011 12:35:00 +0000

Normally I start thinking about pressing leaves in the Fall, when all those pretty leaves are hard to ignore. Though recently I realized that Spring leaves are equally lovely. And they have the added bonus of being tinier than fall leaves, just mini versions of their more mature selves, which makes them perfect for using in projects when regular leaves are just too big.

Sometimes, before the chlorophyll has made it all the way up, they're even a bit red.

For some of you this will be way too late. For some, it will be perfect timing. But don't wait too long to cut yourself a branch. In the time between when I first pressed these (4 days ago) and today, the leaves on our maple are at least 50 percent larger and completely green.

My favorite way to press flowers and leaves is in books. I've been pressing bits of nature between the pages of Little Women since I was a kid. Strangely, I've never read the entire thing. Though anytime I open it there is usually one or two folded pieces of white paper, sandwiching something or other, little presents from my past self, sent forward into the future.

Those are maidenhair ferns, a plant I have never been able to keep alive for long in our dry climate, but I do love to press them flat. Today I plan to put these to good use.

I'll be back tomorrow with pictures.

What You've Missed

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Mon, 09 May 2011 00:46:00 +0000

Whenever I see something wonderful in this world, I often think that it's a huge bummer that my mom (who passed away 14 years ago) isn't around to enjoy it.

(Yep, that's her in the middle with her head thrown back laughing. She looked like that a lot.)

(And those are my little brothers on her lap.)

It would be ridiculous to list everything she's missed. There's just too much. However, I can think of a few things she would have especially loved.

These are for you, mom.

- Thanks to the internet, it is super easy to share all kinds of wonderful ideas. You can find hilarious and inspiring stuff. Like Flash Mobs. Mom, you'd totally love these. Sometimes I wonder if that's how you imagined the world to be, full of people suddenly bursting into song and dance with you. I think this one would have been your favorite.

And then there's this poem. Thank you for never implying that I would somehow be better if I were prettier.

Really.

Thank you.

- Oh and guess what, Jenny and I made babies and then pushed them right out into the world. Can you believe it? I whined a bit when I had Joey, but not overly so. And Jenny was pretty badass when she had Kam. Neither of our labors came anywhere close to your record setters of less than two hours each when you had us, but we managed just the same.

- Not only did Tommy finally come out of the closet (yes I know you probably knew he was gay even though he never said it out loud), but he marched in the Pride Parade. We were all there to cheer for him.

If given the chance, I'm sure you would have been marching along with these people.

-I know you never really got to see any of the four of us as adults. But I think we're doing a pretty good job.

We miss you, though.

Happy Mother's Day.

Kittie Proof Vases

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 18:25:00 +0000

I've found another trick in the war against kitties who like to knock things over. Simply keep everything up on the wall and out of their reach.

I used 22 gauge floral wire, two eye hooks (attached at studs) and various containers with pronounced lips on them (to loop the wire under before you twist it tightly close in the back).

One important note- the wire is one use only. I suggest that you don't go untwisting and retwisting it. I promise you. It will break. Or you could use a thicker gauge wire (which strangely has a smaller number), but even with that, I think there's a limited number of times you could do it before it looses all tensile strength.

Spring Planting in Raised Beds

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 13:35:00 +0000

Last year at this time I was publishing post after post of Easter egg tutorials. (click here, here, here and especially here to see what it looks like when I'm on my holiday crafting A-game.)

This year I have other things* going. Things which don't involve writing for this blog, apparently. Luckily, I was able to scrounge a few moments when I wasn't actually doing those things in order to write about them. And put together a video too.

I know, right?

One of the things is gardening. Which I'm basically obligated to do after last year when we built beds for the garden so late that there was no time to plant anything that season.

In an effort to reach a personal goal I set for myself (wait, I haven't written about that either! Gah.), I am attempting to grow upwards of 200 pounds of produce in our garden. In one season. It's a somewhat random number I picked out of the air, based loosely, and optimistically, on Finny's amazing harvest.

That is despite the fact that while her bed looked like the picture on the left on Feb 7, my bed looked like the one on the right on Feb 8.

California vs Colorado, no one should be surprised here.

First thing's first, we had to fill up the empty beds.

This happened back in October during a two week long burst of energy. Everything we used came either from our yard or for free from craigslist. The only thing we paid for was gas to pick it up.

And look! I put all the pictures I took back then into a real and actual video. With music, even.

The important gardening lesson I've learned in the last 24 hours is that the wind is not your friend. The wind rips covers off of cold frames and flattens seedlings.

But that's ok, because it just gives me more material for my new blog where I celebrate all the wonderful mistakes in my life and invite you to join with me.

*The other major time suck has produced no usable pictures and so I refuse to write about it until I have at least one good one. Joey has informed me that I am letting my readers down and even offered to write up the post for me. We'll see if it comes to that.

New Skill- Jewelry Making

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 14:15:00 +0000

We are especially lucky to have a family member (mine and Jenny's Grandpa, Joey's and Kam's Great-Grandpa) who makes jewelry as a hobby and generously offers to share his time and resources.

(This picture was from awhile back. Just look how short Kam's hair is.)

Between Jenny (who took a jewelry making class in high school) and Grandpa, the kids and I have no shortage of teachers. Jenny lets the kids use her wax gun to make designs, which she and Grandpa then cast for them.

Jenny helped Joey make me a beautiful and simple little ring. I love how it looks like a twig wrapped around my finger.

(As I'm looking at this picture of Joey holding my ring, I'm struck by how much her hands look like mine. She looks so grown up here. Which I realize is a strange thing to say about a picture of a hand. But it's true.)

And Kam made a design that became this necklace for his Gram's birthday.

And yes, we let the kids work with the wax gun even though it is pretty damn hot.

This is mostly because we agree with Gever Tulley when he encourages parents to let their kids try moderately dangerous activities, "Trust me, they are going to learn things that you can't get out of playing with Dora the Explorer toys." (Note- head over to that link if you want to hear his Ted talk on the subject. It's a good one.)

They also love to use the flex shaft for polishing the piece after it's been cast.

For now, though, the adults sprew up the pieces and do the actual casting.

Yes, I too am working on some pieces, but since they're gifts, I'll be sharing them a bit later.

New Shavees for St. Baldrick's

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 13:20:00 +0000

Well, it's March. And that means St. Baldrick's! If you've been a reader for any length of time here, you might have stumbled across at least one post about this awesome organization.

(Me and Joey 3 years ago at St. Baldrick's)

No, I'm not shaving my head again. But my nephew and niece are. When our friend Raven shaved her head last year, Jenny's son, Kam, decided that he would be doing it this year.

Since then, Aurora's daughter, Jaden, joined the team, along with her friends, Sara and Maisy. All four of them will be going under the clippers this Friday afternoon. (Maisy isn't in the pictures because she decided to do it after Jenny had taken all the pics.)

A week ago Joey and the shavees got together to film the video below. Then Jenny spent a massive amount of time putting it all together with pictures she took and voice-overs that the kiddos did. I love how it turned out.

One note- The Odd Little Monkeys started as an weekly crafting group, but it's evolving in a way that lets them use their creativity to make a positive difference in the world. This is the first of their endeavors and I couldn't be more proud.

Odd Little Monkeys Presents: IT'S JUST HAIR from Jenny Gay on Vimeo.

(If, for some reason, you have trouble viewing this through Vimeo, you can see the YouTube version here.)

St. Baldrick's is a great organization that provides funding to fight childhood cancer. At last year's event, we listened as one incredibly grateful mom told the story of how her son was alive thanks to the funding efforts of this organization.

So please consider making a donation to St. Baldrick's. And if you feel so moved, we'd love it if you emailed a link to all your friends and family or posted the video up on facebook. The more people who see this, the more kids we can help!

And if they are having one of these in your neck of the woods, it's not a bad way to spend an afternoon, even if you aren't getting shaved yourself. Here are some of the pictures from last year's celebration in downtown Denver.

Homemade Peanut Butter Cups

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 14:21:00 +0000

These are so worth the effort. And what's more, they're so rich that you won't really want to (or be able to, for that matter) eat more than one.

I did these based on the recipe at Have Cake, Will Travel, but I've made enough modifications (mine are lighter on the peanut butter and heavy on the chocolate) that I thought I'd just share the recipe here.

Ingredients for Chocolate Mixture

2 cups chocolate chips (splurge here and get the good ones)

1 tablespoon natural peanut butter

pinch of salt

Ingredients for Peanut Butter Filling

1/2 cup natural peanut butter

2 or 3 tablespoons powdered sugar

pinch of salt

Instructions (Simple)

-Chocolate part

-Peanut butter filling

-More chocolate part

Instructions (specifics on what works best for me)

-Melt the chocolate chips in a glass container in the microwave for 30 seconds at a time, stirring well in between. You'll want it to be smooth and sort of thick, not too runny.

-Add the tablespoon of peanut butter and salt. Stir.

-I found that using individual silicon cups in a muffin tin works perfectly for this, but use paper cups if that's all you have.

-Using a half tablespoon measure, scoop chocolate into each cup and smooth up the side about a third of the way. This part can seem really messy, but don't panic, they'll still be pretty.

-Pop in the fridge for 10 minutes or so.

-Mix up the peanut butter, sugar and salt. I've found that these work much better if this mixture is fairly stiff at room temperature.

-When the chocolate is set, add about a teaspoon or so of the peanut butter mixture to each cup, smoothing down with the back of a clean spoon.

-Put the container with the chocolate in it back in the microwave for 10 to 30 seconds. You want it to be thin and drizzeley now.

-Using the same half tablespoon measure as before, add more of the chocolate mixture.

-When all cups have the top layer of chocolate, feel free to bang the pan up and down on the counter. It will smooth and settle all the chocolate. Pop any air bubbles with a toothpick if you're feeling overwhelmed by OCD.

-Put it back in the fridge until set.

-Pop them out of the silicon cups and give to your favorite people.

A Quandary

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 16:02:00 +0000

Note- At one point, I read the following, "Don't have anything in your portfolio that you need to make excuses for." It was from Patti Digh's book Life is a Verb. And I think it's great advice.

Sometimes.

Lately, though, I've felt that sentence hanging over me every time I work on something to post about here. And I have to say, it's caused a fair amount of creative drain, causing me to hold everything I want to post against my highest standards. I am still creating a bit, just not taking pictures and not sharing the story. And every day that passes that I don't post, the bar gets higher and higher and my creative urges get fewer and fewer.

Which is sad because my underlying goal here is to encourage people to try things. To start badly and then improve. To do it for the thrill of making. Of trying. Luckily I found this post by Paul Overton reminding us of the importance of not being too attached to the wonderfulness of what we produce. Noah Scalin referred to it as "letting go of preciousness."

So what follows will not be that wonderful. It isn't a helpful tutorial or a rousing tale of success and it only has a couple of pictures, way down at the bottom. It *is* a little story about me trying something new. Which might be just as worthwhile.

I recently figured it was time to knit a sweater. I realize that not everyone comes to this decision at some point in their lives, but well, I have.

Up until now I mostly knit just for the sake of knitting. I actually enjoy the feel of making the stitches. I just rarely make anything practical (other than the odd giant headband). Just knitting and frogging, over and over.

Weird. I know.

So after hours searching on Ravelry, I finally found a pattern and yarn. Yarn, it turns out, that no one carries in an actual store in my neck of the woods. So I chose something else because the idea of buying yarn that I hadn't been able to rub against my face just seemed crazy. Yes, I am that weirdo next to you at the store who cuddles with the merchandise.

The process of buying yarn was so involved (should I get this one? yes. no, wait. how bout that one? ya know, I think I like that first one after all) that by the time I'd left the store and walked to my car I felt like punching my fist into the air like Judd Nelson as if to say "Take that, yarn store! Your plethora of choices and lack of what I'd actually wanted to buy did not defeat me!"

I didn't do it, but I wanted to. As I drove away, I wasn't even dismayed at the immense distance between the thousand or so yards of fiber in my bag and the sweater I would be attempting to twiddle it into with a couple of bamboo sticks. Clearly I was delusional. But I'd at least managed to procure the raw materials for the project.

Surprisingly, the knitting gods were smiling on me (well, other than the wreck I created while trying to wind my first center pull ball, but I'll get to that). I cast on the right number of stitches on the *first try*. And my stockinette stitches were nice and even and also (get this) the correct gauge right off the bat, even though I forgot to knit a test swatch.

Now normally I knit like a child, handing it over to a more experienced knitter (my little sister, actually) whenever I mess something up. I'd recently joined a knitting club in which other grown women do this same thing with no embarrassment whatsoever.

But this project would be different. *I* was going to do it all by myself. And I knew that if I dropped a stitch, I would pick it up myself.

Unfortunately when I dropped that stitch, I'd been drinking a bit. And the alcohol made it difficult to understand the video I found here about how to remedy the situation. I would watch it a couple of times, hold my work up to the monitor and completely fail to see how the two were related. (Turns out I was looking at the purl side and merely needed to turn it backwards.)

I also realize that this is quite possibly the lamest drinking story ever told.

Eventually, I simply put my work on a shelf in the closet, next to my first attempt at winding a center pull ball, which was currently a knotted up pile of sad.

(right side= nicely wound center pull ball, left side= complete rudding mess that I can't even bear to look at. I will work on it when I have run out of the rest of the yarn.)

But boy howdy, the next day? The next day I pulled that sucker out and fixed it! Yes, I realize that using a crochet hook to pull a couple loops of yarn through other loops of yarn probably doesn't necessitate the exclamation mark. But this image from this post came to mind and I cracked up because I felt the same sense of purpose and accomplishment.

This is what I have so far. About a hundred yards of yarn fooled into thinking it's a 1 x 2 foot piece of cloth.

Now if I can just convince that cloth that it's a sweater.

So, what do you think? Do you prefer finished projects with lots of pictures or did you enjoy this glimpse into the crazy?

In My Life

noreply@blogger.com (Wendy) — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 20:36:00 +0000

In lieu of the ubiquitous Best Of post, how about a mind-blurring, possibly twitch-inducing video of all my flickr pictures (made over at Pummelvision). Which, ya I get it's still a Best Of of sorts. Just a recap of the last 5 years of my life (actually now that I think about it, some of my pictures are over 10 years old, but really there are some scanned pictures of my mom's from before I was born).

The first time I watched this I actually got a bit teary. In a good, I-really-like-my-life sort of way. It goes way too fast to focus on much of anything, but I think I like it like that. And each time I watch it something different catches my attention. Like in the letter from my mom, I can see the word "stubborn" very very clearly. It makes me smile.

Has anyone else tried this? I'd love to see yours if you do.

Update- I took the liberty of making Jenny's pictures into one of these too. Unsurprisingly there's more of me in this one.

Peace out, y'all.