Future House Farm

We have huge jugs

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 15:21:00 +0000

I wonder how many non-garden seeking hits this title will produce.

We made the first major step towards a new rain harvester. About a mile or so out of town is a Coca Cola bottling plant whose syrup comes in these beautiful 55-gallon plastic drums. They charge $10 a barrel to compensate the amount they lose from not having them recycled. We bought five.

The plan is to install the five barrels under the back deck which is just a few feet from the garden. To get the water from the harvester we'll have to rely on a small pump instead of gravity, but already we are devising a way to make the pump run on solar energy. I don't know, we'll see what happens when it happens. We're pretty stoked and we'll be sure to keep you posted.

Have a safe and happy 4th of July. Cheers.

New Lines

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 17:43:00 +0000

Our clothesline is up. This was the last major item we needed to address. Later in the season we will be constructing cold frames, but that can be put on hold for a little while. As you can also see in the photo, our plants are off to a very slow start. It really didn't help that our move prevented any planting until late May and the massive rains we've had have also brought things to a crawl. Last year the heat stuck around late in the season, so hopefully we will see a repeat of that and get a respectable amount of veggies in before winter.

We have been touring our local farmer's markets. We have gone without any grocery store produce for about a month now, which isn't all that impressive, but we are beginning to network and will hopefully be putting food by soon. We'll post some bits about this experience soon.

RIP Michael Jackson

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 23:35:00 +0000

Another Year, Another Trellis

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:05:00 +0000

Meg and I are always looking to improve our tomato trellises. Last year we did a string suspension system, which worked very well, and we will certainly try again, but at our new digs we are really aiming for space saving practices. The idea for this trellis came from some photos of the trellises over at Path to Freedom. At the moment I can't find any specific photos of their engineering, but if you hang around their site long enough, you're bound to see them.

We used some inexpensive plastic garden fence for the plants to climb. We'll have to make some of the holes bigger, but it should last us a long time.

Unfortunately the only part of the project that was made from reused material was a ten-foot piece of metal pipe we found in the basement. We'll get better with this as we learn what's available around us.

The trellis is about six and a half feet tall and each panel is four feet wide. We have a second set of panels to erect next to the ones in the photo, but we ran out of staples for the plastic fencing. We'll hit the hardware store tomorrow and call the project done.

And we're back

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly) — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 20:56:00 +0000

We have internet access and garden info.

As you all might recall, this was our back yard when we bought our new home. I didn't think to lift the screen before I snapped this photo, but we can still get the general idea (actually the idea is not exactly general; it's a flippin' yard and the photo is fine).

This little tidbit is what's available at the bottom of the first photo...

...and this is where we are now. Four of the five beds are complete. All that's left is to box in the dug up swath at the left of the photo. We have all the wood, but it hasn't stopped raining long enough to get them all done. The four beds that are complete are also planted as well. Since we missed the early part of the season, we did miss out on some greens and peas and whatnot. What we do have in are tomatoes, hot and sweet peppers, summer squash, winter squash, cucumbers, green beans, carrots, parsnips, turnips, chard, flowers, and a boat load of herbs. Most of what is in has been direct seeded, so we won't really see the patchwork for another week or so.

I don't believe it would be right if we didn't give a grateful nod to the Bethlehem compost heap. As residents of the City of Bethlehem we have free access to a mountain of organic compost provided by the borough. The materials for this beautiful resource are supplied by the leaves from Fall clean up.

The rest of these photos were taken during random stages of the dig.

Unbelievable

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly) — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 20:41:00 +0000

'Sup

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly) — Wed, 27 May 2009 21:11:00 +0000

I'm sitting in our fairly empty apartment. The move is almost over. Meg placed an order with the internet folks in our new area and they said we will be up and running by Friday the fifth (is the fifth on a Friday?). I guess that means we won't be in touch for another week and a half. Then again, we haven't been the best of blog hosts lately; have we? Our sporadic posts have not been without due cause. There has been a lot of cool shit going on around here and we can't wait to get it caught up on the ol' blog.

What's to come:
The semester has come to a successful close (it's sad, but exciting), I was in another ceramics wood firing, which I must say the results were absolutely amazing, my little brother made an extraordinary life changing decision, and yeah, for the first time ever, Meg and I are FUCKING HOMEOWNERS. So, hold on to your "oh shit" bars, because this summer ought to be interesting.

I had a run in, run around and run down

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly) — Tue, 12 May 2009 23:30:00 +0000

Bertha has joined her sisters in that great coop in the sky. She hadn't been feeling well so Meg took her to the vet where we learned the little girl had cancer. Apparently cancer is common with egg laying chickens. You gotta figure they're reproducing cells on a large scale, daily, and I guess all it takes is that one freak cell to ruin the whole works.

The vet said that she had about a week to live; so a decision was made to stop the suffering and at around 11:30 today Bertha was put to sleep.

For those of you who have been hangin' out with us, you know that our chickens were all named after Grateful Dead tunes. This is the last of our three little tributes.

We're retiring the chicken tag for a while. Where we're moving (holy shit, I almost forgot, we closed on our house last Friday) chickens are on the city's "not cool" list. We still plan to build our own farm someday and when that time comes the tag will be dug out and dusted off.

Our semesters are coming to a close soon, so be prepared for a fresh new season of FHF. Cheers all.

Chicken a la Tupperware

chapstickmeg@gmail.com (Meg) — Wed, 06 May 2009 20:24:00 +0000

Bertha has been acting under the weather, so we (I) let her camp out in our bathroom for the past few days. Mostly she's been sprawled on a towel in her box, looking pathetic, but this morning I found her kicking around in her food dish. Looks like Bertha is on the mend.

Boxes

chapstickmeg@gmail.com (Meg) — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 21:51:00 +0000

We've got almost all of our books, movies, and music packed up, with just a few piles still sitting around being read/watched/listened to. The variety of Victory boxes we've managed to save up actually makes me kind of proud. We've since added an empty Storm King Stout box, and it will gather up the stragglers as we pack up the last of our stuff.

Thief

chapstickmeg@gmail.com (Meg) — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 23:02:00 +0000

We'll have a new garden just in time for planting time, so we started tomatoes, peppers, and herbs. In the 30 seconds it took for me to sneak into the seedlings' cat-proof room and arrange a photo, Lego ran in and stole a mouthful of marjoram. This tray needed to be thinned, anyway.

The Layout

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly) — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 22:28:00 +0000

The photo was taken at 11:30. The amount of shade had me a bit worried, but thankfully Meg reminded me that this is early Spring sun. The big blotch in the lower left is coming from our neighbor's house and will steadily sink into the corner as the season progresses.

The goings on

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly) — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 14:25:00 +0000

We bought a house. Our back yard is smaller than our current garden, but the sun is far more agreeable. Due to the size of our yard, and subsequent gardening space (we intend to cover every inch), Meg and I are planning a little experiment. Actually the experiment isn't exactly little, nor is it really unique.

Our goal will be to go without supermarket produce for one year. Like I said, it's not unique; there are many people out there who live and eat this way, but we want to really focus on how those with little to no yard can buy their produce locally and seasonally all year round. In order to make this happen and not starve on in the winter months, this will involve a lot of canning, freezing, and dry storage.

On a side note:
I have not forgotten about the grace in small things challenge. However, the challenge hasn't been thinking of five kick ass things from our day, the real obstacle has been making time to post about them. I think we're at forty-something. What we'll do is make it to fifty and call it a day. The challenge did refocus the way we looked at things, but we're both pretty cheery and optimistic people to begin with, so...

Happy Spring

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly) — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 21:35:00 +0000

The garlic is doing its thing. The cat got fixed. Bertha shut down the egg production again. We've been house hunting. We're still waiting for the seed order to get here. And holy shit Spring is here.

Grace in small things #43

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly) — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 18:37:00 +0000

1. Damn, it's gorgeous outside.

2. We cleaned out Bertha's coop.

3. The Pens have crawled their way back into the playoff hunt.

4. I found time to post.

5. We started talking to the mortgage people.

Grace in small things #42

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly) — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 01:23:00 +0000

1. Happy Fat Tuesday.

2. NPR's morning edition.

3. Compost. I know that sounds random, but with all the seed talk I can't help but think of the mounds of black gold Meg and I made last year. Our last spring garden will certainly be the best.

4. We got a $52 tax rebate from our local taxes.

5. Have I told you all about Deadpod? If you like the Grateful Dead, you've got to subscribe to this blog and download his podcasts.

Grace in small things #41

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly) — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 01:24:00 +0000

1. Erotic spray bottles.

2. The Dean approved my relocation to a new office space.

3. For lunch, Meg had a some leftover tuna sandwich.

4. Meg did something to my computer so I can watch YouTube videos again. It had something to do with my flash player.

5. I received a confirmation that our seed order has been processed. I have a terrible itch to grow something.

Grace in Small Things #40

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly) — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 20:48:00 +0000

The Grace in Small Things challenge is supposed to be done every day for one year. It has been fun so far and eye opening to say the least, but dammit if I didn't need to step away from the blog for a bit. Shit got a little busy around here. But, we're back.

1. I gained a valuable lesson in humility. Remember that grant I was working on and thought was a shoe-in for approval? Well turns out our project was a little too big for the grant cover. The news was a kick to the stomach, but I must admit that I was getting a bit overconfident. It is a great project that we proposed, though, and I won't let the grant denial stop me continuing the research.

2. Friday was the end of a week of one-on-one conferences with my students. This was the first of three solo meetings I will have with them, but the first is always very rewarding. I think that it's important for students to have a bit of quality time with their instructors. It gives the opportunity to get to know each other a little better and it also gives us time to make sure we are on the same page.

3. Raisins for my oatmeal.

4. Today is laundry day. This is a grace.

5.We just put in a strange seed order. Since we won't be here for the entire growing season, we are limited to early Spring crops only. This means a great deal of leafy greens. We still plan to start tomatoes and peppers, but they will be a lot fewer than in previous years.

Grace in Small Things #39

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly) — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 01:06:00 +0000

57. Michael Perry strikes again. For those of you who have been with us a while, perhaps you will recall a post we did in review of Michael's book, Truck: a Love Story. Well, the other day we received this gem (pictured) in the mail from his publishing company. It was pretty cool that they thought of us and sent a galley copy. The actual release date will be April 21st in hard cover. Hopefully I'll have the time to read this copy over Spring break. If so, we'll be sure to post another review.

8. To make a book theme of today's post, we also have a copy of Vanished Gardens, a book about Philadelphia, by Sharon White who is a professor at Temple University. This book is in the queue to be reviewed.

13. The book list goes on. Meg's former writing center director at Moravian College, Joyce Hinnefeld, published a book this past Fall titled In Hovering Flight. Meg said that she is just about finished reading it and will be sure to post a review.

4. I've been working on my own bit of fiction. It has two narrators who exist in each others' subconscious. I think I'll leave it at that.

8. This weekend has been consumed with reading student essays. I must say that I have been privileged this semester with some very creative students.

Grace in Small Things #38

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly) — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 23:34:00 +0000

1. We met Kate and Tom from Living the Frugal Life and had lunch at Victory. Our conversation revolved around gardening, food, sustainable living, and beer. This was the first time we have ever met someone from the blogosphere and we had a blast. Thanks for the visit, guys.

2. For the first time in a while I had eggs for breakfast.

3. Ben and Jerry's put out a new flavor of ice cream.

4. Home made tomato sauce with ricotta cheese.

5. There were free pottery books at the studio.

Grace in Small Things #37

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly) — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 00:47:00 +0000

1. The ground thawed enough to harvest some carrots.

2. Meg got an iPod shuffle.

3. We made some beef and barley soup.

4. This warm weather has given us the gardening bug in a big way.

6. For breakfast I had a peach muffin that was absolutely fantastic.

Grace in Small Things #36

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly) — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 00:56:00 +0000

1. Deconstruction

2. Meg cooked us up some tortellinis for dinner.

3. I cooked us up a cocktail to go with dinner.

4. Bertha got to play in the mud.

5. Have I told you how badass my students are?

Grace in small things #35

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly) — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 23:37:00 +0000

1. Meg saved Bertha from a possible hawk attack.

2. itunes u. If you've never heard of this, and you value education, you gotta check this out.

3. Cabbage and Potato Soup.

salt
olive oil
garlic (none of that jarred shit)
1 part cut onion
2 parts sliced potato
2 parts chopped cabbage
2 parts water

sweat garlic and onion in hot olive oil
add potatoes, water, and a bit of salt
bring to light boil
cook until potatoes are mashable
mash in pot
add cabbage and cook over medium heat for a little bit
serve

Sorry for the recipe delay, Local Zone.

4. The Honda's washer fluid is full.

5. It was warm enough today that I could drive with the windows cracked.

Grace in small things #34

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly) — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 21:29:00 +0000

1. hulu

2. I am finally starting to putz around with podcast subscriptions and I've got to tell ya that they are pretty damn cool.

3. My little brother turned 23 the other day. 23 and 30 were my favorites.

4. The cat got a new scratching post. I hope she uses it and leaves the furniture alone.

5. It's in the 50s today.

Grace in small things #33

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly) — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 23:31:00 +0000

1. Six'burgh. Oh boy was that a good game. Meg's dad, Mick, was giving me hell this afternoon for slouching on the graces, specifically with the opportunity provided by the huge win. I think he's a closet Steelers fan.

2. We've had some gorgeous snow falls.

3. The other night the Pens had a huge overtime victory against Tampa.

4. Bertha's laying eggs again.

5. It is impossible to fall from the face of the earth.