Things have been pretty busy around here, which is a good thing.  Most of you who know me are aware that I have workaholic tendencies.  I’ve vowed to take some time out each day to get outside, stop and smell the flowers!  I just started doing this since the weather has warmed up. I haven’t had a chance to do it every single day, but am getting a bit better at it. My thoughts on this are “even 5-20 minutes make a difference”.

I’ve been trying to take weekends off to get beading done to restock shops and festival goods, but it’s been a difficult task to prioritize this!

My blog has been a bit neglected here so I decided to post some pictures I took on my walk yesterday.  Anyone have any idea what flower/plant this is? It was growing in the wet areas along the dirt road near my house.

Off for a quick walk!

What flower is this?

Nothing compares to the taste of home made tortillas. I can remember cooking fresh tortillas at my next door neighbor’s house as a young one.  We would  toss the tortillas right on the gas stove burner to heat them up, then spread butter on them when they were done.  What a treat! 

There was a Sesame Street episode I remember as a kid, which showed a young boy and his father cooking tortillas on a griddle over an open camp fire.  When I saw this I could actually *smell* the tortillas!  It’s a smell that I haven’t forgotten.

Later on, a great friend Robin made some fresh tortillas at our house.  I never really thought of making them home made at that point, even though I had eaten many as a child! She inspired me to make them. Thanks Robin!

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Below you will find a recipe source, my personal modified recipe and a sesame street youtube video.  I couldn’t find the original campfire tortilla episode, but a tortilla contest instead!

You may be wondering what the post title is all about.  The recipe makes 20 tortillas.  I made the 20 and then proceeded to eat one that cooked a little too long, hence the minus one.

::enjoy::

Here’s a link to the original recipe: Mexican Whole Wheat Flour Tortillas

My Modified Recipe:

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups whole wheat flour

3/4 cup butter

2 teaspoons salt

1  cup boiling water

Generous amount of flour for rolling out the tortillas

Directions:

Stir together the flour and the salt, then rub in the butter with your hands  until the butter forms tiny little bits.  Make a well in the center then pour in the boiling water.  Mix with a fork and sprinkle a little bit of additional flour if needed.  Knead until the dough is well formed and does not stick to your fingers.

Make balls a little bit bigger than golf balls, place them on a cookie sheet and cover with a towel.  Let stand for 1-2 hours. If your cast iron pan is a regular size, you may want to make smaller balls.

Heat a cast iron or frying pan over medium heat (my stove is very hot, so I kept the temp at the lowest setting).  On a floured surface, roll out tortilla with a rolling pin.  Cook them one at a time flipping them over to prevent burning.  You can roll out the rest of the tortillas while cooking.

Makes 20 tortillas

Here you can see that I’ve used quite a bit of flour for rolling.  My recipe is quite a bit more moist, which prevents the edges from tearing when rolling them out. I just add more flour to the top and bottom while rolling them flat. Before setting the ball on the surface to be rolled, I flatten the ball out a bit with the palms of my hands while spinning.  You can press in and flatten edges that look like they may tear beforehand.

Here’s a tortilla after it has been rolled out.  Don’t be afraid to get flour on your surface.  This is just the first one.  My whole counter was covered with flour by the time I was done!

Here’s a tortilla in the process of cooking. If your bubbles start to get really big, lift the tortilla with a spatula for a few seconds, which will release the air and steam from inside.

Keep your tortillas covered to prevent them from drying out. Once cooled off, put them into a bag to preserve them.  You may refrigerate the ones that you don’t use for dinner!

And now for the tortilla contest:

This dough looks a LOT more moist than what I’ve been using! I think they are doing corn, as I heard the word “masa”.  I’ve tried to do corn tortillas but every time I fail.  If anyone has any suggestions for the proper way of making them, please do share!

It’s Friday, and I’d like to get some beading done over the weekend.  This ties into special orders and trades and things of the like. So this is a little announcement for everyone who is awaiting StarSunflower beaded goods.

Below is a list of seeds that were given to me by Bonnie.  I wanted to get an idea of what these all are, as I am kind of a gardening newbie.  My plant familiarity is mostly weeds, lol!  I love those native plants.  So this gives me a little information about what all of these beautiful flowers are.  I’m super excited about it. With gratitude for this awesome bounty of seed stock, I’m going to be making Bonnie a custom peyote stitch or two to put in her braids. Oh, btw…I got some cool feathers too!  They will work awesome for dream catchers.

Here’s the awesome list:

Veronica (White and Purple): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veronica_spicata

Moon Flower: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipomoea

Cleome: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleome

Shasta Daisy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leucanthemum_x_superbum

Columbine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquilegia

Balloon Flower: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platycodon_grandiflorus

Hollyhock: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcea

Black Eyed Susan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudbeckia_hirta

Russian Sage: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perovskia_atriplicifolia

Morning Glory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morning_glory

Fennel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fennel

Silver Dollar: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunaria_annua

We have a new garden friend in addition to the bunnies! After a FB discussion, our friend Betsi discovered that he’s a 13 striped ground squirrel.  Leaf took this pic with his phone while he was mowing the lawn.

We finally made it to Anderson & Girls before closing time.  This is a petting farm & gift shop that is in route when we pick up and drop off Leaf’s son  in Charlotte MI.  They have the best red kernel popcorn around!  I *just* ran out, so it was awesome timing.  We got to pet a bunch of critters.  The goats love me, lol.  I got to do some cheek scratchin’ and horn pullin’.  This just reinforces my love and desire to get some farm animals at some point.

Now I have to make sure we stop there when Jasper is here. We used to go to a place called Lewis Farm Market, which is north of Rothbury.  After we moved, it was less likely of a trip.  Anderson & Girls is right on the way during our treks to pick up Johnny, so I’m excited to have an awesome place to go to pet critters again.  Can’t beat the popcorn either.

After seeing my 10th one page website containing an autoplay featured video and some sort of “buy it now” schpeil at the bottom, I came to the realization that twitter is like Dead Tour.  Yeah.  Why it took a one page ad to come to this conclusion, I do not know.  Maybe it’s because when I was on Dead Tour there were thousands of people rubbing elbows and bumping into each other all over the parking lot.  A lot of them were selling thier goods.  One would hear “Icey cold Sammy Smiths right here!”, and “beautiful hand made patchy dresses!, or “get your phatty french bread pizza, nice and hot!”.  You’d likely hear something about sweet treat stuff like “goo balls” as well.  All the while people move in a hustle and bustle on Shakedown Street. We even came up with a one line in attempts to incorporate all of them into one long schpeil – “get your icey cold kind veggie rainbow patchwork hand made hippie stuff right here!”.

I’m facinated by twitter and enthralled with all of it’s hashtags and nuances.  I can forgive the people with the one page ads.  Everyone has something to share, wether it be goods or simple joy of beingness.  I just don’t do infomercials and uber sales mentality. Some people have to learn about really connecting. I really enjoy seeing people share thier Etsy creations and beautiful works of art. So any of you who may be reading this post who haven’t have a chance to experience the “lot scene” at such kind of events, I liken it to the twitter experience.  The masses of people pooling together in a swarm of unique beingness.  Cheers!

Photography by: Konni2727 and Sonoma Picman

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Gardening doesn’t get any easier than tossing the seeds from your produce into the soil of your houseplants while cooking dinner.  Gotta love the beauty of heirloom veggies. We planted this beauty in our kitchen last June, and haven’t done anything other than water it every now and then.  Luckily it’s in a great spot that gets eastern sunlight, even during the winter.  Don’t let the picture deceive you, the plant is much bigger than it seems.

I’d love to eventually build a greenhouse addition on the back of the house that’s next to the kitchen.  That way we could have an entire room full of lovely green growing beauties all year round!

It’s been a long winter of geekery and web development for Sü this year.  I feel the calling of the beads and fabric big-time these days.  Thanks to all who have patiently waited for their custom order items. Now that these orders have been hammered out, it’s time to start working on more jewelry for the festival season. It’s been a while since I’ve actually vended, so I’m really looking forward to having a booth again.  I’ve got a brand new vending canopy and tent to boot! So far I’ve got dunegrass all set, and will be running down the list to see what other venues look like fun. The gallery circuit may have to wait.  It’s time for me to have more fun in the sun in 2010.

At some point, I’d like to expand my territory to beyond MI again.  Sometimes I really miss the vagabond tour-head lifestyle, but do love the michigan scene as well.  Floyd Fest and Ridgestock would be really cool to attend because I’d be able to spend time with far away friends and family.

We didn’t get a chance to grow a garden this year, so we let some of the weeds grow.  We now have 3 gorgeous acres to contend with, and will need to prepare our garden spots in order to be ready for 2010 planting.  The summer is flying by SO fast!!  We managed to do a little bit of container gardening which consists of a few tomato plants obtained from my dad, and several contained perennial flowers.  I still have a slew of  seeds from the spring.  I put together an order through Jasper’s school in California, but they didn’t make it here until early June.  They’re super nice heirloom varieties, so they should be ok for a few more months! I do plan on setting up some pots with soil this week so I can start some herbs that will winter over in the house.  We have a ton of nice house plants now, and they are thriving in our bay window!  Our plants have never looked so nice!  I truly believe that house plants thrive on human presence. 

So I’m sort of happy that we let the weeds grow in some areas, because it allowed me to really get acquainted with the native plants in the area.  I’ve found that hummingbirds and honeybees (I’m assuming that this is a honeybee) absolutely adore milkweed!  We have at least one hummingbird that visits the milkweed blossoms several times a day.  It’s such a pretty sight to see.  They are such beautiful creatures. It’s really cool when you can be in a three to five feet proximity from them and see

Three days before 4th of July, Leaf, Jasper and I went out for dinner at a local restaruant in the town of Remus. After that we went for a stroll through town, and walked down the “alley” behind the local hometown health food store.  I wanted to go check things out over there on foot to see what wild things may be lurking down that path.  Just prior to this I had a long family conversation discussing the alleys of Detroit.  This is where I grew up, and by the time I was a teenager the alleys were gravel and dumpsters, with a few trailing weeds/garden remnants were left here and there.  I was told by the elders in that area that in the old days the alleys were grassy with two tire tracks down the middle and neighbor’s garden bounties trailing from the back yard metal fences.  We had a little of that going on, but not to the extent of the stories that I had been told.

When we approached the greenery near Hometown Health,  we immediately noticed blackberries, catnip, a very beauteous milk thistle and some honey bees feasting on motherwort. We then turned the corner and spotted a variety of things, some of which I could not recognize.  The property next door appeared to have been vacant for a time.  The new owner of this property happened to be in the yard at that very moment and greeted with a smile.  He said “You can take any of those plants home with you if you want.  I’m getting ready to cut all of this down within the next couple of days.” He mentioned that he recently purchased the house and that it had been vacant.  So we pulled quite a few of the motherwort stalks and several other items that I couldn’t identify.  We proceeded to clear out a decent size patch and gathered the pullings into a pile as a way of saying thanks for letting us take some plants from him.

We took the plants home and broke the ground for thier new homes.  The very next day while I was looking out the kitchen window I noticed honeybees feeding from the motherwort! I’m not sure if the bees I’m seeing are wild or are possibly from people in the area who have hives. Well, I finally got into doing some research on those little critters and it appears as though wild honeybees are having a rough time right now. You can read about it in this article if you are interested: http://www.nytimes.com/1996/12/25/opinion/america-s-endangered-honeybees.html

So I’ve vowed to cultivate a native plant landscaping scene on our property next year, which would be super good for the environment and can be pretty too.  It will be a fun research project and awesome to keep a nice habitat going for the local “critters”.  I’d also like to get into homesteading with endangered/heritage breeds of farm animals, but that’s another story.  My next post will be some pictures of the local sheep farm around the corner!  Those little guys are So cute!!