Dave and Lisa's Backyard

The Chickens are Moulting!

2012-01-10T22:49:00.002-05:00

They are actually nearly done moulting -thankfully - moulting combined with shorter days means not many eggs, but the new feathers are lovely!

Here you see one chicken mid-moult - actually she is over the hump, should have seen her last week!

The old feathers ready to go are browner - this is the last one to go then everyone will have fresh new feathers!

Chicken Fence!

2012-01-08T15:20:00.000-05:00

Well, sent out the Christmas card with the saga of the Chicken Run Fence and did not update the blog with the Saga of the Chicken Run Fence! Here are photos of the completed fence - the big, tall, built and re-built and added to to make taller fence AND solar-powered Christmas lights along the top just for fun!

The coop complete with the new motion-detection flood lights! Next will be Wi-fi and a hot tub.....(That's Ethel in the doorway, and Aggie in the foreground)

Shampoo bars!

2011-09-03T11:18:00.000-04:00

I have been loving the shampoo bar I got at whole foods, and have been using the bar with a vinegar and water hair rinse for the last 2 months. I love the way my hair feels, and the bar gives back a bit of texture to my super-uber-straight hair that bobby pins fall out of if I stick them in any other way but from the top down unless I use half a can of hairspray on it. Anyway, I made a batch of soap last month and it came out OK - so I figured I'd make a simple shampoo bar! Searched for a recipe that required no calculations and would make a small batch in case I wrecked it or I hated it (scroll to the bottom)..... Here is what I made:

I used a junk-drawer organizer thing from Target for the mold, and it was the absolutely perfect size for the volume of soap, I lined the container with parchment paper, poured in the sludge i mean soap, let it sit overnight covered with towels so it would cool SLOWLY and not leave an unappetizing white layer on top. This morning I turned it out and cut it into one inch sections - each "bar" weighs in between 2 and 3/4 and 2 and 5/8 ounces. Now it has to sit for 3 or 4 weeks then I can give it a try!Here is the recipe for a one pound chunk of soap. I found it at http://www.colebrothers.com/soap (if you leave off the "/soap" you end up looking at a ton of cool tape and adhesives!) where they have a bunch of smaller volume recipes designed to be made in a blender - I used a hand-held stick blender and it worked great.

Lavender Delight Shampoo Bar:

4 oz Coconut oil

6 oz Olive oil

6 oz Castor oil

2.3 oz Lye

6.5 oz Water

1 tsp. Lavender EO

CHICKENS!

2011-06-17T13:32:00.003-04:00

Very busy spring this year - not good for blogging. Here are two videos of the chickens.

Aggie and Ethel take a bath together on a hot June morning:

Bathing Chickens from Lisa Stockebrand on Vimeo.

Lulu, Mavis and Mini discover a new snack...

Jumping Chickens from Lisa Stockebrand on Vimeo.

Next Set of Knitting Videos!

2011-04-06T18:49:00.002-04:00

The Joys of Continental Knitting!

Continental Knitting from Lisa Stockebrand on Vimeo.

Knitting Faster from Lisa Stockebrand on Vimeo.

Knitting Backwards from Lisa Stockebrand on Vimeo.

Seeds in the Ground!

2011-04-04T11:45:00.004-04:00

Today I am home with laryngitis. Yesterday, I got seeds into the ground! Now I have to figure out how to keep the chickens OUT! Right now the seeds are covered with a cloth which is supposed to let in air, light and water, hope it will discourage the chickens! They tend not to go into the garden if the gate is closed, but it is only a matter of time - if food is involved - until they figure out that they are indeed birds and can actually fly over the fence -- shhhhhh, don't tell them!

I have been scooping the compost out and tossing it onto the beds a little at a time for the last couple of weeks and letting the chickens go at it - you can see in the left-hand bed that they do a pretty good job!

There are new pretty flowers- these are the best tulips! They are super bright, early and last!

Crocuses -

and of course, forsythia-

Can't forget the chickens - here they are in their ~~prison~~ run waiting to be let out

If you are needing a good dose of spring - go check out the Lambcams - yes they now have THREE over at Juniper Moon Fiber Farm. The babies are coming and nothing says spring like baby sheep and goats! Two cams look into nursery pens, the third (cam 2) looks out into the small nursery field. So far there is 1 lamb (bird names) and 4 kids (apple names)

What a Beautiful Weekend it Was!

2011-03-22T19:36:00.004-04:00

This was the first line-dried laundry of the season:

My plan was to begin planting, I have planting charts from the Penn State Extension Service, Burpee seeds, maps of my beds, square foot gardening plans...

My first job was to dig out the compost bin that has been sitting all winter and get a pile ready for pole beans, and sprinkle a nice coating on the garden beds etc. As it turns out the only thing happier than a pig in shit is a chicken in compost!

We don't get to see a lot of Ethel, she is a pretty independent hen, but she had just as much fun in the compost as everyone else.

But the day was so lovely I got sidetracked and while ~~I did get~~ the chickens got the compost spread, I lolled about a lot and watched the flowers!

Lenten Rose (hellebores)

Apples

Plums

We are expected to get cold and a "wintry mix" on Wednesday, so planting can wait until next weekend! Spinach, collards, peas, shallots and garlic will be the first to go in!

How to Knit: Casting On

2011-03-12T11:20:00.006-05:00

These tutorials were originally posted at the Juniper Moon Farms blog . I want to thank Susie for letting me post on her terrific blog, and encourage you to go visit it - nothing beats Juniper Moon for photos of puppies, pigs, chickens, llamas .. and if you have a hankering, they are looking for a Farm Manager......

When Susie put out the all-call for possible blog contributors, she probably figured nobody would actually volunteer to embarrass themselves publicly on video demonstrating knitting done their way! Well, I figure, what the heck! So I am here laying out my knitting skills for all of you to see – please be gentle!

I really love teaching people how to knit, but what I really like is knowing why something works, or doesn’t work. Why are there umpteen million ways to cast-on, decrease, bind off? How is knitting constructed? Why do some ways to knit work better than others? I was taught by my mom, who was taught by her Aunt Addie, when I was pretty young, I don’t remember learning. I do know that I was a very successful knitter for many, many years without being able to follow certain lace or stitch patterns before I realized I knit “backwards”. I took a class and saw how my knitting was constructed differently, and presto- a light went off in my head and I became so much more aware of how knitting was actually constructed, stitch patterns were developed and why there are really no mistakes or wrong ways to knit.

Anyway, I plan on a series of videos, hopefully one set every month, which will show you not only how to do something, but why you are doing it that way, and why that way and not another way. I hope that will help de-mystify knitting, and make you not afraid of your knitting, and not a captive of instructions.

So, here we go, with the first four videos of Knitting According to Lisa: Casting On!

Long Tail Cast-On: the basic all-purpose cast-on edge
Long Tail Cast-On from Lisa Stockebrand on Vimeo.

Crochet Cast-On: where you don’t run out of yarn and which you can also use to decorate a hanger
Crochet Cast-On from Lisa Stockebrand on Vimeo.

Knitting-On Cast-On: just how the heck do you cast on in the middle of your knitting?
Knitting On Stitches from Lisa Stockebrand on Vimeo.

Provisional Cast-On: my favorite because I tend to be hard on my knitting and this one does not fall out!
Provisional Cast-On from Lisa Stockebrand on Vimeo.

I'm a Guest blogger!

2011-03-07T19:49:00.001-05:00

If you look down my blog list over there on the right, you will see a Guest Blog post over at Juniper Moon Fiber farm, well, that's me! I am working on a series of how-to videos on knitting: "Knitting According to Lisa" and the first set of 4 - Casting On are up!

A Beautiful Saturday

2011-03-06T18:15:00.002-05:00

Yesterday was beautiful - as in yes maybe Spring is on it's way beautiful!

Forsythia buds:

Snowdrops and Hosta

Teeny Crocus

Plum

Day-lily:

Aggie on the rocks

And that Betty, such a ham - er - chicken!

Waiting for Spring - BEST tutorial ever!

2011-03-03T09:14:00.005-05:00

Check out this tutorial about making your own bias tape! It is a GREAT tutorial. Bias tape is stupid easy to make and yet I NEVER think to do it myself! Ran across this tutorial and am all inspired - in fact, so inspired I ran out and bought a bias-tape maker and whipped up this little bit here!

There are only 2 things (ok - 3 things) I would add to the tutorial (which is amazingly good!) -

First - a fat quarter of fabric makes a generous 5 yards of 2 inch wide bias strip which translates into 1/2 inch double fold bias tape.

Second - USE SPRAY STARCH when you iron the strips. When you iron fabric cut on the bias you are fighting both the warp and weft thread so you have twice as much trying to unfold on you. Ironing along the grain, you are aligning the fold with either the warp or weft so those threads, parallel to the fold, not across it, don't fight the fold, only one set fights. Starch is a wonderful thing for beating fabric into submission.

Third - pay attention when sewing the bias strips together- you sort of zig-zag them, and may have to pick and choose a bit to get the strips to fit together. Not the best activity after a glass of wine!

WINDY Weekend

2011-02-23T19:34:00.003-05:00

Check out the result of last weekend's wind-

Just peeled the plastic right off the chicken run, blew over rain barrels - not much water in it, the full ones were fine - tossed all the trash cans! We were lucky and did not loose any major tree limbs, roof bits or electricity!
The next day was lovely! The chickens were very happy to be out and about- here are one of the Bettys and Ethel enjoying the sun-

Say What?

I have added a project to this spring's list, my backyard neighbor has a great bat-house, I'm thinking of adding one to our house

There are the first signs of Spring just beginning- Lilac buds and fig buds

Faux Fair Isle with my Handspun and Napkins!

2011-02-11T11:17:00.004-05:00

I finished it and I love it! I am going to work out the "pattern" such as it is and actually measure quantities next time - I have some hand-spun and some bare wool all ready to be dyed up - I did have some help though:

All nice - I like this lower squarish neckline:

In other "backyard" news - I have ~~hoarded~~ collected a bunch of fabric for napkins -

It began with the totally cute "French" chicken fabric though - and I tried mitered corners. There are a lot of really good tutorials for mitered corners - I copied from one of my Martha Stewart books, but next time I'm trying this method from Design Sponge, or this one from The Purl Bee for beautiful hand-sewn napkins. Anyway - here is the Martha-ish way:

Fold your hems over twice and iron the heck out of them (Martha has you measure a 1/2 inch and iron it, then an inch and iron that):

Then you unfold it you will need to see your fold lines since they will be your guide for the next step:

With the right side up, keep the first fold, unfold the second one and fold the corners back so the lines match up and the fold is right at the intersection of the second fold lines - you are making a diagonal across the square made by the ironed folds which will be your sewing line:

Fold the fabric across on the diagonal, and line up the edges:

Sew along the diagonal line, trim and turn inside-out:

Sew nicely around the hem (remember to make the bobbin thread a pretty coordinating color because that will be the top of the napkin)

Voila!

For the next set I figured, heck, these are just napkins, is there a quick and dirty way to miter the corner? So for the under-patient who can over-look a bit of sloppiness - because it just is not as accurate:

Fold over the edge on all sides about a quarter of an inch:

Fold the napkin along the diagonal and ~~eyeball~~ measure about an inch (for a pretty small hem) along the diagonal from the tip of the folded bits and place a pin:

Sew a seam perpendicular to the folded middle edge of the napkin, starting at the place you marked with the pin - use the sewing machine as a guide because the whole point of doing the corners this way is because you are too impatient to mark anything!:

Clip and fold back right-side-out and fix by pressing the heck out of them!

Sew around the edges and they are done! It is REALLY HARD to get a good miter this way because when you are sewing the corner, you are sewing along the bias of the fabric and it wants to shift around. Sewing that perpendicular is harder than it looks! But hey! They are napkins!

Juicy Rovings and Giveaway Sweater

2011-02-04T21:17:00.006-05:00

2/11/11 EDITED TO ADD: It's finished!

First - I finished the body of the sweater I am donating to Juniper Moon Farms massively huge most amazing giveaway ever in support of Pete's Greens:

I am really liking this sweater - basically I used the pattern "Faux Fair Isle Raglans" from Shannon Okey's book Spin to Knit: the Knitter's Guide to Yarn Making, but I added underarm gussets, and I think I added short-rows on the back of the neck so it would not ride up.... I'll have to double-check that bit!

Rovings! Dyed rovings!

Also - I dyed up four 4 oz chunks of roving, again the beautiful Cormo from Juniper Moon Farm- the first brownish grey was sort of a voo-do dyejob. I piled up the soaked fiber and randomly poured mixed red, blue and yellow dyes.

This next I am not so excited about, though the blues are nice, but it may spin up nicely:

This one I love! I painted two of the rovings the same and they are most juicy!

Snowy Snowy Day!

2011-01-27T21:44:00.002-05:00

Chickens in the snow, snow in the backyard and geese heading wherever it is they head to this time of year.

Organic Farm CSA in Need of Help

2011-01-26T23:38:00.004-05:00

You have probably figured out that I am a big fan of local produce and sustainable agriculture, and therefore, probably are not surprised to know I get the majority of my food from my garden, our local farmer's markets, a CSA and a CSA program called Philadelphia Winter Harvest. Last week I heard through my friend Susan Gibbs that Pete's Greens, an organic farm in Vermont suffered a massive barn fire in which there was about $250,000.00 of damage, The farm has an active CSA program including not only fresh organic vegetables, but also free-range beef and pork and pastured chicken. As most farms are, it was under insured. Though Pete's farm is not a CSA I would participate in I want to help in support of the CSA movement as a whole. Susan Gibbs at Juniper Moon Fiber farm with her wealth of readers, is hosting a massive fund-raising event to help cover part of the re-building costs. In basically a huge giveaway, many artisans large and small have donated items ranging from a set of hand-made soaps, to autographed books, hand-spun yarn even a full share in Susie’s farm. To donate, or to read more about the project head on over to her blog at Juniper Moon Fiber Farm.

I have donated a hand-knit sweater which I SWEAR will be done by the time the prizes are announced! The top is my hand-spun yarn, a correidale wool, the body is cormo/mohair blend from Juniper Moon. The chest measures about 40 inches around, and it is almost of done! Really!

UPDATED - finished the body:

Kittens!

2011-01-14T20:49:00.006-05:00

What is better than 2 new kittens? Not much! Meet Albert and Ernest aka "parcel" (because he luuuurves to be held) and "nuisance" (because he is one!)

Ernest sleeping on my laptop

Bertie in a basket

Snuggles

Ernest aka "The Nuisance"

Albert

Sleepy

Chickens in Winter

2011-01-12T21:56:00.007-05:00

I have had many many people ask how the ladies are doing over the winter. Rest assured, other than complaining loudly and frequently about the snow, they are fine! Both the Buff Orpington (the fluffy caramel basket-ball chickens) and the Barred Rock (the smaller speckeled hens) are both geared to northern climates. The Ameraucanas are not as well feathered, so I am giving them additional protection. Ethel and Aggie, the Ameraucanas have not laid any eggs for a couple three weeks now, but should start up again as the daylight increases and it warms up a bit. The Betty's (Orps) are still laying, they are down to a bit less than one egg a day between the two of them on average, the same with the Rocks (Mavis, Mini and Lulu). I am getting 1-3 eggs a day, with an occasional 4th.

The coop and run have had some winterizing:

First, we are using a heater base for thier water so it will not freeze, then we wrapped the wire part of the run in plastic to cut the wind. I tossed in another 2 inches of pine bedding on the floof of the coop and we added a "sun room" to the run by installing some clear corrugated plastic roofing over the front left side of the run in front of the coop, which nearly doubles the amount of dry area for the girls. In addition, I try and toss a head of lettuce, cabbage, a handful of green beans or some other veggie into the coop for them to peck at. They are missing greens.

They are not at all thrilled with the snow, though they still adore getting outside for a brisk walk, they tend to stay on the path or under the big pine tree.

Stayin' on the path...

Movie Time!

2010-10-15T17:34:00.004-04:00

Bad blogger, bad bad! BUT here is a video of the ladies very excited 'cause maybe I will feed them some treats!

Chickens Run

Starring

Mavis, Mini, Lulu, Ethel, Aggie

and

the Bettys

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXNMJU78RrA

Dave and Lisa Leave Their Backyard and go to Pittsburgh

2010-08-22T17:19:00.007-04:00

Last weekend we got in the big white truck at 5 am and drove to Pittsburg to drop Peter off at Carnegie-Mellon. We unpacked him, made his bed, went to an orientation, ate, signed him in, toured the campus, ate agian and left him there! We have gotten several e-mails from him and he seems to be doing well and having a good time.

We took a couple of days to drive home:

Spent the first night at the Summit Inn Resort which is an old "porch hotel" on the national register of historic places. It was really nice in a sort of Stephen King sort of way! I would recommend staying there if you find yourself in that part of Pennsylvania and thinking about visiting Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater. (check out Fallingwater's webcam!)

This was the best! Classy "soap on a roap" this feature is right by the front door!

The grounds are really beautiful and there are a couple of short paths so you can go for a little hike. The place is a deciduous forest, so there is alot of dappled sunlight and interesting stuff growning:

On the road heading to York there are lots of windfarms-

Kings Covered Bridge in Somerset County

The best yarn store in all the land! The Mannings in East Berlin PA (Near York) and speaking of York, PA - the factory tour capital of the world - one cannot go to York and not tour the Harley Davidson Motor Company Plant!

All the parts for one motorcycle!

Last but most definitely not least ... how about this for kitchy!

The not so glamorous side

2010-08-14T17:28:00.008-04:00

Cleaned out the coop - about a month and a half of poop in there - eeewwwww.

Before

After

Honestly, it only takes about 15 minutes to clean out - rake the crap out the door into an old plastic toy bin, toss it into the compost pile. Takes about 3 trips to the pile, then toss in about a quarter of a bale of wood shavings. Yes, that is a colored plastic easter egg you see in the middle nest box. It functions as a clue - "lay your eggs here dear, not in the middle of the floor"

What?

Mavis (in the box) fills Mini in on just what the nest box is for.

Garden

The Garden is not the happiest of gardens. Between the heat, dry, then heat and deluge, we are not about to win any beauty contests.

Next weekend is slated for garden clean-up and fall planting. Meanwhile we had some big issues which I have a thought on fixing for next year. Squash vine borer beetles destroyed all the zucchini, my cucumbers succumbed to cucumber wilt about 3 weeks after my neighbor's - the wilt is spread by the cucumber beetle. I did get a couple of jars of refridgerator pickles out of them - Yummy!

On the positive side, neem oil and a good layer of fresh compost made the potato pots very happy and they have lots of nice new growth.

See the bean tee-pee in back there? I am definitely planting a bean tee-pee next year!

I love the purple runner beans, they are beautiful and mighty tasty!

The butternut squash is pretty happy, as is the chard.

I now know just what radishes look like if you do not pick them, I am not convinced actually repelled any bugs, but they are really nifty.

And last but not least - I got to try out my nifty harvesting apron!

Cats and Chickens

2010-08-14T12:35:00.007-04:00

Do cats and chickens get along? I guess it depends on how big your chickens are, and how lazy your cat is:

A Very Short Story of Betty

Betty's just hanging in the yard, doing her girlfriend chicken thing

Ummmm.... what's this?

It wiggles......

???????

Can I eat it?

Maybe?

Maybe better ... not.

Bad Blogger, Bad, Very Bad.....

2010-08-12T19:18:00.003-04:00

I will take photos of my goofy chickens and horribly ugly wretched garden tomorrow (if it does not pour). The garden got trammeled by heat, dry and bugs. The squash got those beetles that lay their eggs in the stem and the maggoty things grow in the stem and kill the squash. The cucumbers got a blight spread by cucumber beetles. So I will go write 100 times:

Row Covers

Meanwhile......

WE HAVE EGGS!

Yay Mavis! Mini started this week, and Lulu is right behind! The next 4 should start in another 3 weeks or so, one of the Bettys is getting close.....

Too. Hot. To. Blog.

2010-07-07T17:43:00.002-04:00

But I will take just a teensy moment to complain:

A GROUNDHOG HAS DISCOVERED MY GARDEN AND APPARENTLY 102 IS NOT TOO HOT FOR GROUNDHOG PICNICS.

ok, done.

End of the Catch-up Bit

2010-07-02T20:13:00.006-04:00

This is pretty much what we have now - from the last week of June. We are actively eating zucchini, I am organizing my zucchini recipe collection in anticipation......

We have been so dry, I have had to water quite a bit, in fact we used up the rainbarrel water about 2 weeks ago and I have had to use tap water. I have a couple of garden tasks to work on this weekend - blossom end rot seems to have set in the Roma tomatoes, probably because of the erratic watering - they kept predicting rain and it never came, so we had a drought followed by deluge scenario, the pototatoes had very few blossems, the spinach is not sprouting worth a darn, BUT I have the biggest radishes imaginable! They are not really repeling any cucumber beetles, or maybe they are and if the radishes were not there, I'd have 3 times as many! I hope they blossom soon!

A Betty

Betty, Ethel, Aggie and Betty

Aggie says "Hi!"

Mavis says "What?"

Catch-Up on Photos!

2010-06-29T21:05:00.010-04:00

Here is a recap of the last month:

"Cheater" tomatoes - mine got fried, luckily I live about 30 minutes away from Burpee's Seeds and they had some nifty tomatoes left, I picked up 2 heirloom varieties- "Brandywine" and "Rutgers" a nice "Roma" and a bush-type Early Girl. I also picked up the book "Carrots Love Tomatoes" and followed a bunch of thier companion planting guides, so there are carrots along the sides and garlic in the middle - which you can see in this picture but are all now completely obscured by the tomato jungle.

Teeny Tiny mixed greens - Planted spicy in one windowbox and mild in another - we have eaten most of it! YUM - I have cleared out the radish patch and will scatter another crop.
Teeny Tiny Bush beans!

Teeny-Weeny Zucchini companion planted with radishes - the blossoms of the radishes repel squash bugs, and they seem to be doing it so far.
Bed for the Bean Tee Pee!

We rented a log- splitter, what a wonderful machine! We had to take down a triple-trunked tree, got it all spit in about 6 hours with the help of hydrolics!

June was "play with chickens month"

Peter and Ethel
Betty on a Mission

Aggie thinks Betty is a bit of a goof.

Bad Blogger - Bad, Bad, Bad!

2010-06-29T16:05:00.006-04:00

It has been a blessed coons age since I blogged here! AK! I PROMISE to blog within the next 48 hours! The garden is mammoth! the chickens are hilarious! Son graduated from High School! I have the biggest radishes the world has ever seen and if we don't get some rain my lawn will be gone!

Meanwhile! - for all my Team Juniper Moon companions spinning in the Tour-de Fleece this year, here is the animated badge you will have to only imagine on Ravelry:

It is raining so a good day to catch up!

2010-05-23T12:13:00.011-04:00

Lots of stuff this week! We rented a log splitter so Dave is out splitting as I type, Will is helping sell fresh local veggies from the Streamside Farm at Elkins Estate at the Farmer's Market this morning, and Peter is playing the piano. Dave went over to a neighbor’s house earlier this morning to cut some bamboo from their backyard for pole bean trellises so I can make a bean teepee this year. OK - I walk into the backyard to get the polls - and they are like 24 feel long! We are talking Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon bamboo! As soon as this bit of rain passes through, I will cut them to closer to 10 feet and get the tee-pee started!

Also I spent an inordinately large amount of time setting up some bird netting to protect the raspberries and strawberries. See it? I couldn't either! What a pain in the neck! I cobbled together a PVC pipe framework to hold the netting up over the strawberries a bit. For the raspberries I am not sure. The berries are small enough to poke through the netting so the netting is getting caught on them and the branches. I tied a nice rope across the top of the support trellises to hold up the netting, but I may see if I can rig some sort of PVC half-hoop to pull the netting away from the sides a bit.

Put 3 lonely tomato plants into the front gardens: yellow pear, big mama, and black truffle. I neglected to label them before which tomato was where flew right out of my head, so we will have to wait until they fruit! Picked up some sorrel from the market today. I have never used sorrel before. It needs sun so that will go in front too with the other sunny herbs.

Three tomatoes: yellow pear, black truffle and big mama, in a partially mulched garden

Dave finished an "epic" 3-section compost bin, and we shoveled the chicken poopy shavings into the third bin. With luck the little girls will be integrated with the big girls in the outdoor coop this week (if not today 'cause they are getting big and smelly!) so the last of those uber-poop shavings will go in the bin. The chicken poop has to sit for a year, so we will leave it alone until next spring, then it should be amazing for the garden!

He also got the last details of the coop finished: raccoon-proof (we hope) latching on the door to the coop and to the nest boxes.

Latch plus carbiner combo - cross your fingers!

Dyed a bunch of sock yarn yesterday. I am pretty happy with how it came out! I was supposed to be at the Farmer's Market today, but that fell apart. Next Saturday I will be at the Glenside Farmer's Market - I have a new spiffy summer set-up complete with a 10 x 10 tent-cover!

Took some photography tips from Shepherd Susie (she also has an amazing bread salad recipe over on her blog) - so here is my attempt at better chicken pictures!

Lulu

Buffy

Yodeling?

Say What? .........

I Cheated...

2010-05-14T22:45:00.012-04:00

Well, when we went out of town for a few days over spring break and all the seedlings I started, well, they pretty much fried. SO I went to Burpees seeds and picked up some nice heirloom tomatoes: 4 "Rutgers" and 4 "Brandywine" I also picked up 2 "La Roma" and some sweet peppers, "Pino Noir" and "Red Beauty". I got the last of the back gardens all planted:

I hooked a garden hose to the rainbarrels and ran it down toward the beds. I then took 2 of our 50' soaker hoses and cut them in half and added new ends to make 4 hoses, 25 feet each which I arranged and paritally buried in the beds. Now, rather than watering, I can hook the rain barrels to each of the garden beds in turn and give them a good soak as necessary. After taking the pictures, I mulched the beds with straw over top of the hoses so that should help keep moisture in as well.

Last weekend was really windy, the pear in the backyard got pushed over, so we pulled it back up and anchored it with steel cable and slid a piece of garden hose over the area that is against the tree. The next day was windy, but the cable held. Crossing fingers it works.

Chickens

The big chickens are really liking the coop and have figured out they can fly up to the perches. I have been taking the little ones out every sunny day for at least a few hours, they are almost ready to head into the coop themselves!

Mini

The Big Girls

Buffy and Bella

Aggie

Effie

More after the weekend. The agenda (subject to change without notice): last coop details, compost bin, front gardens, mulch, and ..... Boy Scout spaghetti dinner!

Gardens-

2010-05-04T21:22:00.006-04:00

Chickens

The little girls- fancy big box, they have about 3 weeks to go before they go and join the big girls in the outside coop. Check out the blue legs on Effie (black and brown in front).

In the Gardens
The chard I planted a couple of weeks ago is nice and sprouted, I planted a second row of seeds in between. This is rainbow chard so there should be red, orange, yellow and white stems which will be really pretty nice to the patio. The rubarb is HUGE and I had to cut off the flower stalk because it flopped over in the rain the other day. The pretend iron railing (plastic from Target) is a child deterrent device: do not step in the chard!

Remember the ~~butcherd~~ heavily pruned apple trees? Baby apples!
Pears in the backyard-
Plums in the front-
The roses are about to BURST! as are the peonies, I love peonies and cannot wait for them to burst!

Yarn

Dyed a bunch of sock yarn and two cormo rovings - yummy!

If you are interested in more yarn-y details, check out the yarn blog!

Coop is DONE! (ok - nearly done, close enough!)

2010-05-03T21:35:00.006-04:00

Lots of building this week and weekend - I played hookey from coop building on Saturday to go to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Fesitval which was very HOT and very wonderful! Met a bunch of great women I trade gossip with over at the Juniper Moon Farm blog and Ravelry group. It is so nice to have actual faces and people in my head! It was nearly too hot for funnel cake, nearly, we found nice shade and breeze near the 4-h barn under a big tree and indulged - it is not a Sheep and Wool festival without once a year funnel cake! My score? 2.5 pounds of lucious merino roving! Yummy stuff!

OK - back to the Backyard!

Got home on Saturday, and the coop was soooooooo close,

But on Sunday, we had the run done by about 2 in the afternoon and were able to move the girls into the run:

We needed a few more hours to finish up sealing off the inside - stapling hardware cloth all around the top air space where the walls meet the roof rafters - p.i.t.a. - hardware cloth is sharp, stiff, and unweildy! The staple gun is great but too bulky to really fit into the little spaces - so it took alot longer than we thought, but just about the time the sun was setting and the girls were freaking out with a burning desire to GET INTO SHELTER - we "finished" the inside, and stuffed the girls in. They were NOT happy, so got a cardboard box and put THAT inside the coop - they seemed happier, they are familiar with cardboard boxes after all! This morning I lifted them out into the yard - in the pouring rain - but they seemed fine, and were pecking and eating and pooping and scratching this afternoon. Stuffed them back up this evening and all is well!

Windy!

We need a lower inside perch, and racoon-proof locks on the people-access door and the nest box outer doors, (they are temporarly nailed shut) some sort of anti-slip texture on the steps, and it will be done!

Sooooooooo Close!

2010-04-25T21:07:00.011-04:00

Chickens

But today was too rainy to finish it! The coop is nearly done, really nearly! The inside needs perches, the outside got 2 coats of paint, still needs the second half of the hardware cloth and the door! - OK, and the flower pots, and the ceramic sun nailed to the wall, and the window box, and the chandelier, and the loft with a flat-screen tv......

Peter and Dave, working together!

We brought the hardware cloth down a foot below ground.

We were able to get two more panels of hardware cloth on the coop before it got too dark to see the staple gun - whoever invented the pneumatic staple gun should get a Nobel Prize! I love the staple gun!

Meanwhile, the little chicks (who are getting pretty big) got some new digs, only the BEST cardboard box condos for my girls! I have no decent chicken pics this week, next week I promise!

Gardens
Did a bunch of garden stuff too. Put the fourth bed in place and filled it up with nice topsoil, mulched between the beds with newspaper covered with straw, re-mulched around the rasberry plants, and finished evening out the area by the stone wall where the new compost bins will go. Have been putting the chicks in a pen over the garden beds and they have been digging, pooping and scratching nicely so I hope to plant them next weekend and into the week.

Making

AND I have a new Best Crush - check out designer Alabama Chanin. I had been eyeing the Alabama Chanin Stitch Book for a couple of months, and splurged, and am hooked, completely hooked on hand-sewn, cotton knit clothing. Went thrift shopping and got this t-shirt for 2 bucks:

and I made it into THIS!:

Of course it is not as great as Alabama Chanin's corset tops, but I love it and am on the hunt for another t-shirt!

(anyone know how to do this so if you click on the picture it will go to a website? Turn a picture into a hyperlink? On Blogger?)

Chicken Coop is Getting There!

2010-04-19T19:01:00.012-04:00

Busy - lots of work this week, but we (Dave, though I did hand him several tools!) got a lot done on the coop, AND we added a 4th raised bed. The Chicks are getting really chicken-y and the back room is smelly - hopefully the coop will be done next weekend, the weather will cooperate and the big girls can head out to their new digs. Meanwhile:

Chicken Coop

Nest boxes went in, 4 is probably overkill for 8-9 hens, but while you are building...

The doors on the back of the coop to access the nest boxes, each door will allow you to stick your hand in two of the boxes - see why we did 4? Nice and symmetrical!

We got the door on, the ramp up, and began digging post holes for the outside run!

Garden

Got a 4th bed put together and dirt delivered for both the bed and under the chicken coop.

Got the winter rye turned under - I have been letting the big chickens hang out in the beds, they do a great job scratching and digging in the turned up dirt. As it turns out, winter rye inhibits seed germination which makes it a great living mulch to use in preparing a new bed, but maybe not the best for a working bed? Anyway, since our frost date is technically May 15 I am early enough turning it all under that it should be nice and composted enough by planting time.

Did plant chard seeds in the patio bed next to the rhubarb, it was so warm last week I had to plant something!

Gratuitous Chick Photos

Effie

The Little Ones First Time Outside

First Half of the Weekend!

2010-04-10T21:26:00.009-04:00

Another gorgeous day! We have been up to a great deal over the last week:

Non-Backyard news:

#1 - a NEW TRUCK! It is yummy, and we love it! Honda Ridgeline, but being a Harry Potter kind of family, I keep referring to it as the Ridgeback, which would be OK if it were green, but it is white. It had it's very first christening big ole' blob of bird poop plopped on it the other day, so it is truely ours! Why a new truck? The big Battlestar Galactica white "mini"van had a leaky head gasket, and it finally stopped running.

#2 - Elder darling son got into Carnegie-Mellon! YAY! He is pretty sure this is where he will go. We are all happy and relieved!

Back to the Backyard:

It is all chicken coop all the time! Got a ton done today:

(ignore the underwear on the clothesline!)

There are nice big screened windows, front and back. Leaning on the wall is a plexiglass window
which we will put in for the winter time and remove in the summer. The door is made, should get the second window and the door finished tomorrow, and hopefully finish the run next weekend, then I think a thrift store run will be necessary because really, such a glorious coop will need a chandelier don't you think?

While Dave was working on the coop, I started cutting the winter rye in the beds so it can lie for a bit then get turned under. I had a brilliant idea: let the chickens do some of the work! So Roberta, Mavis, Lulu and Mini got to spend the day outside in the garden beds:

They were SO happy digging, scratching, picking at bugs! They will be out again tomorrow! The little girls are not really ready yet unless it gets warmer outside than expected. They have been named. The two Buff Orpingtons are Buffy (I know, clever huh? snort!) and Bella - went with the vampire thing, the Ameraucanas are Agnes, the light one, and Ethel, the darker one. Ethel has really nice wing coloring, I am curious to see what she looks like as she grows up. Interestingly, the chickens have yellow-orange legs, but the two Ameraucanas have greyish blue legs!

Bella (smaller one) and Buffy (bigger)

Ethel and Agnes (aka: Effie and Aggie)

How about the brown shiny bits on Ethel's wings?

On the cooking front - I am having alot of fun with sourdough, so far the favorite is - waffels! I am using the sourdough starter from my new favorite book that I have a crush on: Urban Homestead, from the folks of the Homegrown Evolution blog which is my newest blog crush. The blog is really interesting, funny and chock full of information on more things than you can imagine from beekeeping to backyard eco-systems to bicycles and garden gnomes.

So - you get a quart-size mason jar and put in a cup of unbleached flour and a cup of warm water and stir it all up. Cap it loosely and set it on the counter. EVERY MORNING remove a half a cup and add a half a cup of flour and a half a cup of water. After a week or so it should be smelling all yeasty-like and be pretty bubbly. Then you can stop tossing the extra you pour off every morning and make yummy stuff with it like pancakes or waffles. I got this recipe from an old sourdough cookbook my friend Molly gave to me awhile back - Take a couple of mornings and don't pour off any starter from the jar, just add the flour and water so you have enough starter to make the waffles with about a cup left over to keep the starter going:

2 Cups starter
2 Tbsp sugar
4 Tbsp cooking oil (I used half melted butter)
1 egg-lightly beaten
1/2 tsp salt
mix these all together, (remember to add flour and water back into the starter jar) and get your griddle ready. Right before you are ready to make the waffles, stir 1 tsp of baking soda with about a Tbsp of water and stir it into the batter - don't beat it, stir it in gently so as it begins to foam up a bit, you retain the bubbles. Cook the waffles - eat them! You can use the same recipe for pancakes.

It Was a Beautiful Weekend...

2010-04-05T20:14:00.007-04:00

For building stuff!

Remember, we took off the manky old roofing material 2 weekends ago, then it rained a great deal:

This weeekend, we put nice new roofing material back on the treehouse henceforth to be called the Coop:

Then got to work on the interior:

How about that for a nice floor! The hole in the floor on the right is for chicken access. They will have a ladder/ramp up into the coop from below. The doorway will be for me to get into the coop to clean it.

The big girls got to play outside quite a bit, it has been so warm. First they hung out in a modified playpen I trash-picked, but then my friend Jude brought over an abandoned play-yard, that I think, based on the warning lables, people actually put their children in?..

Well, the chickens love it! They are so big, and really, the only one we can reliably tell from the others is Mini - she still is small, her coloring is different, she has a much lighter fluffy chest and rear end and not much of a tail. I am curious to she what she looks like when fully grown.

My other little project was a DIY chicken feeder - took a nice sturdy plastic pot bottom and drilled a hole in the middle. Got a 2 quart paint mixing bucket from Home Depot, any decently sturdy plastic tub with a lid will do for this, and drilled a hole in the bottom of that as well. I cut 6 holes out of the bottom edge of the plastic bucket with an exacto knife, the holes are about the size of a quarter, they probably could be bigger, and used the shortest bolt I could find in the basement to screw the two together:

Except for the fact that someone is generally roosting on top of it, it is working well as a mid-size feeder!

12 teeny chicks came in the mail

2010-03-31T11:34:00.007-04:00

Here is how they arrive, the post office calls you and you come and pick them up in this nice sturdy box, the cat is interested.

When you open the box...one dozen assorted chicks! One day old. They are all huddled together (the white pad is a tiny warm pack) and peeping, so you have to quickly scoop them into a nice clean warm box with food and mostly water.

There are 4 white leghorn chicks (the classic easter chick looking chicks) 4 assorted silkies (the teeny fluffy ones with teeny fluffy bits on their feet ooooooooooo I wanted to pop them in my mouth they were soooo cute!), 2 buff orpingtons (larger carmel colored fluff balls) and 2 ameraucnas (one dark and one light, they lay the blueish eggs). The leghorns and the silkies left my care last night for their proper home.

I am left with four teeny ones, which brings my chicken total to 8.

Buff Orpington Chicks

Ameraucna Chicks (Easter-Eggers)

The big girls are so BIG!

Sprouted!

2010-03-24T19:49:00.004-04:00

Baby Plants! Turned on the overhead flourscent light, put it on a 16 hour timer - tomatoes and squash, the problem is the kitty sat all in the squash so I am not sure if these are pumpkin, ornamental or butternut! Maybe I will just start some more squash seeds to be sure, since they are going in three different places!

Found a new thrift store yesterday, and it is right near "The Furniture Lady" which is a sort of thrift sort of furniture store. Got the three metal vases from her, the cloth is really cool - two pieces from New Life Thrift, they are each about 3 yards long and I have no idea what they will turn into, but I love the pattern!

From the the newly discovered thrift store Bryn Athyn Thrift Shop, this is probably the least amount of money I have ever spent in a thrift store, 25 cents each, all Easter decorations were 30% off, two tiny chickens for 35 cents! They are meant to hold an egg.

Busy Weekend, Another Chick Video

2010-03-22T19:53:00.011-04:00

The weekend was so beautiful! No clouds, 7o degrees! A really yummy weekend! AND the perfect weekend to start the- - - -

Chicken Coop!

Dave and I had date-night on Saturday night, very exciting it was too, we went to Home Depot! AND he let me push the cart! We spent Saturday afternoon figuring out exactly how to transform the playhouse into the combination Taj Mahal/Fort Knox of chicken dwelling. We spent some time browsing a bunch of great chicken coop sights - Back Yard Chickens has a gazillion coops to look at, and ordered plans from The Garden Coop - this was the coop we thought we would go with, until it occurred to us that we have this great structure already in the backyard.

Playhouse

So we sat and figured it out, with lots of help from the Garden Coop plans, made a list and went to Home Depot. The present plan is to take the playhouse, and add fencing around the bottom, extending 4 feet out in front and to the side (under the tree) of the coop. This will be a bit over 100 sq. feet of chicken run, about half of which will be covered (under the coop, and we will put a fiberglass roof over the part that goes under the tree). The existing ladder/steps will end at a door which is where the humans will go shovel the chicken crap and other inside the coop stuff, the chickens will have a ramp under the coop so they will come up through a hole in the floor. We are planning 4 nestboxes inside the coop, with two doors outside to access the nest boxes for egg retrieval (assuming the chickens actually use the nest boxes!) The open areas on top will be filled in, with windows on either side for air. There is a gap right at the ceiling which will stay open (but covered with hardware cloth) for ventilation.

Step one - replace the roof shingles

We got the roof stripped, the yard cleaned, and fresh tar paper up on Sunday - good thing since it started raining on Sunday night and is not due to stop until Tuesday. Next weekend will hopefully be decent enought to get the outer roof material on. We would have had to do this anyway if we kept the structure as a play house, the roofing material had pretty much crumbled away from the south facing side of the roof.

Also, I cooked alot this weekend, got caught up on bread, granola (Sheherd Susies Terribly Inconvenient Granola - the best - but I use sunflower seeds instead of sesame seeds) and I found this recipe for candied ginger - which I love - from David Lebovitz's blog
(OMG yummy beautiful food) and tried it. It came out great and was pretty easy! I saved the syrup and put a spoonful of it in a glass with seltzer - it was OK, but when I added the juice from half of a lemon - YUM! Very refreshing! I didn't think to save the water from the initial boiling of the ginger, next time I will because it should be great in iced tea (or hot!)

Candied Ginger

(not as nice as David Lebovitz's photo)

Speaking of Shepherd Susie and the Juniper Moon Fiber Farm, she has had 2 of her nannies give birth to twins - the goatlings are named for Muppets so the first set of twins, a boy and a girl are Gonzo and Camilla. They had their first day outside of the nursery pen and the video is so fun - if you have never seen a baby goat, go look at this video, they BOUNCE just like Tigger! Twin boy goatlings, Statler and Waldorf came into the world this weekend. There are great photos on the farm blog, and a live "lambCam" focused on the nursery.

Chicks

"But," you ask, "What about the chicks?" Well here is a video! Watch Mavis NOT escape!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71HkMPKTAEk

New in the Backyard - Laundry!

2010-03-18T20:16:00.009-04:00

The first load of laundry to dry on the line!

Actually, I have been sneaking the sheets onto the line on and off during the winter, mostly off, but I did get a few decent days for sheets, but this is the first regular load, AND I will get to hang more up tomorrow. There is something just so nice about hanging clothes out on the line. They smell great, they feel great, the towels are scratchy at first but they absorb water so well. The only things I don't like on the line are sweatshirts, they take forever and take up alot of space, but I usually hang them out anyway!

The chicks are entering the manky teen-age stage - this is Mavis, she is pretty scrappy looking!

Manky Mavis!

Mavis

They have changed so much, check out her neck! Mini is definitely a few days behind, she is still pretty tiny, and has slightly different coloring than the other three - They are all still peeping!

Mini

How Do You Know When it is Spring?

2010-03-17T19:21:00.003-04:00

Lilac Buds

Lenten Rose

Snowdrops

Crocus

Big Fat Kitty in the Sun!

Having Trouple Keeping Track of the Seeds...

2010-03-16T14:23:00.012-04:00

But I know why-

I am working on a fix. Plan A was to make a sort of temporary greenhouse of PVC pipe, but it seems they do not make a corner joint for 3 pipes to come together in the 1/2 inch size. The best I could find was two 1" coming together at right angles with a threaded 1/2 inch sticking up to make a corner, but 1" is total overkill. Plan B is to tape clear vinyl to the light fixture and staple the bottom edge to a piece of wood so it stays put and stays flat and I can roll or un-roll the vinyl as needed when I raise and lower the light. Will keep heat in and help keep kitty out. The other trick is to hook up the kitty-cat HD bazillion-pixel TV in the window next door!

Cat TV

Here is the "greenhouse". All the vinyl is just taped ( I love tape), we will see how it works this year, and will work out a sturdier solution for next year. What are the chicks up to? They are GROWING! They have graduated to a bigger cardboard condo - they are complaining due to lack of view, though the headroom is necessary because, well, they can fly!

Roberta

Chick Video! Greens!

Minnie

2010-03-11T19:08:00.003-05:00

Mini

Will soon have to move the girls to larger quarters - caught one on top of the water jar this afternoon!

Chicks on Film

2010-03-10T22:22:00.005-05:00

I figured out how to post a video - so......

Gratuitous Chick Video!

Thrift, Chicks and Fiber

2010-03-08T16:22:00.004-05:00

Gratuitous Chick Photos for Today

I came home from Monday's morning errands which, to make it fun, included a stop at our local 2nd Ave Value Store. I am pretty sure this is a for-profit "thrift", they grew out of the "Village Thrift" stores. (I see a lot of bags and boxes marked "purple heart" in the back store room.) The prices are great and Sundays and Mondays are "customer appreciation" days and everything in the store is an additional 1/3 off. Today I scored a purple linen shift from Nordstroms for $4.83 - and some more boring stuff - but the best part was coming home to a big box of cormo/kid mohair roving on my doorstep from Juniper Moon Fiber Farm the best fiber farm in all the land! If you need a spring break - check the "Lambcam". You can watch the Nanny Goat Maternity Ward - there are 3 of Susan's nanny goats ready to kid. Tiny prancing goatlings any day now!

Beautiful Day for Pruning!

2010-03-07T19:31:00.009-05:00

Chick Photo of the Day!

It was lovely today! The sky super blue, warm, someone had a fire lit someplace so there was a hint of smokey smell in the air. Just lovely! Perfect for pruning the heck out of our old mis-managed apple trees. I took a pruning workshop at Primex, one of our local nurseries, and got advice on how to prune many things, even old neglected apple trees. Our pruning expert said to have at it, basically cut out anything sticking up, anything sticking back into the hedge, anything dead, dying or broken, choose and cut out one of any crossing branches, and leave the centers open. Do not be afraid. So we went at it!

Before

After

I am heading out to Primex again, armed with a set of my after photos because I have a couple of questions still - some knobby bits, a crossing to choose a branch on, but basically they are cut. Hopefully we will get some apples. I also learned to pick off a significant portion of your apples. A tree will begin with a lot more fruit than it can support. After awhile the fruit will just drop. If you pick before, you can control the amount, location and quality of the fruit.

Chicken update:

The chicks are growing so fast! They are getting chickeny looking, actual necks and all! There are two who are clearly a day or so ahead of the other two. All four are getting wing tip feathers, and the more advanced two are getting noticeable tail feathers. They are still really cute and fluffy!

DS 13 and a chick!

Started Seeds Today

2010-03-04T17:51:00.010-05:00

First of all, a gratuitous chick photo:

Planted seeds today.

This is the first time I have tried to start them this early using flourescent lights. We are using regular flourescent lights, not special grow lights, and I am putting them on a 16 hour timer.

So, I have these big windows in the back which get pretty good light since they face basically south. Dave got a light fixture and we hung it from chains so I can raise it up as the plants grow. The pans are plastic boot pans that are supposed to go by your front door for shovels and snowy boots and the like.

I made the pots from wide strips of newspaper. I found the instructions last year, and there are as many ways of making these as one can imagine! Next time I will use a bigger can instead of the jam jar, but these are pretty good.

Take newspaper (try and not use colored ink but it is getting harder) and cut it in half then half again so you get long strips about 5 - 5.5 inches wide, and the length of the paper, about 22-23 inches.

Roll the jar/can/glass (be sure the sides are straight) up in the paper, leaving about 2 inches hanging over the open end of the jar.

Tuck the paper into the jar in 3-4 big sort of pleats and crease it pretty well using the lip of the jar.

Pull out the jar, flip it and stick it back in using the flat bottom of the jar this time to mash the folded paper flat.

Fill with dirt and plant your seeds!

Last year I made a dozen of these using a full half sheet of the newspaper folded in half and it was overkill - the paper took a very long time to break down in the soil and I ended up cutting it out after a couple of weeks.

CHICKEN TIME!

2010-03-03T21:14:00.006-05:00

Well, I succumbed:

My intention was to check out 2 feed stores, and get a set-up together for chicks. My plan was to get together with a couple of others and go in on an order of chicks so we could each get a varitey of chicks but not end up with 25. The idea was to get everything set up before hand, since I have cats, and need to ease DH into the idea. But, there you go, I was unable to pass by the bin of 75 tiny fluffy bits of fluffy-ness! SO we now have 4 teeny weeny Barred Rock chicks!
Soooooooo cute!
For the next couple of weeks they live in a plastic box with a heat lamp. They will not be so cute and fluffy for long, so I will be taking lots of pics!

I am still hoping to do a little chick trading so I end up with 4-5 chickens of 2-3 breeds. Barred Rocks are really pretty black and white speckled chickens, they lay brown eggs and tend to be friendly calm chickens. Here is a sweet pic of my interweb friend Suzie's 2 barred rocks:

More later - tomorrow I am not going to any feed stores! I am staying home and getting some seeds started!

Found the Snow Photos

2010-02-26T16:29:00.005-05:00

The house from the street - first big snow

Closer to the house - this is before shoveling the driveway, just a path from the street to the door for the mailman.

Camera on the ground - the canyon that is the freshly shoveled sidewalk!

The next day -

The Second Two Feet:

While it was snowing....

The view from the street - after shoveling - the mounds of snow are huge, taller than me anyway!

Here are my neighbors - they are standing on the sidewalk, the snowbank is what has been plowed from the street - would you let your child walk on these sidewalks? Seriously, if the snowbank fell they would be covered, it's over 3 feet tall!

The side yard - we had to dig out the trash can.

Not shoveled yet - almost........

And we had more snow last night! Not much - yay!

FINALLY!

2010-02-26T16:03:00.005-05:00

Well, it is about time for a new post don't ya think? So, for Valentines day I made really fun tasty treats! Got vanilla heart Peeps and dipped them in Ghiradelli chocolate - easy peasey and yummy!

Then it SNOWED, and SNOWED and SNOWED some more.... Then it started to melt and we got amazing icicles.....we are so getting a plow (which will of course guarantee no more snow ever). I took a bunch of photos, but can't find them! I must have downloaded them to a strange location, but meanwhile here is the set for Dr. Zhivago:

Here is the front of the Apartment, this is after several days of hacking away at the ice - you can see how thick it is where we didn't shovel - that is all ice, not snow piles

Wrapping a fig...

2010-01-19T16:55:00.007-05:00

OK - so what DID we do with the fig? I bought it, planted it and actually got it wrapped BEFORE christmas, though I am posting now!

Here is the little bare naked tree, and a wood frame I did not use:

I pulled an old pillow case over the tree-

Cleverly wrapped chicken wire in a circle, cutting flaps on the top and bottom. The bottom flaps flip out and are anchored with a couple of big rocks, the top flaps will fold inward to make a "roof"-

Fill the chicken wire with leaves and straw, wrap the whole thing in a blanket!

THEN be unable to find a tarp or other suitable wrapper, remove EVERYTHING you just spent the last hour making, and use a plastic compost bin! It fit generously over top of the tree, filled it with straw and leaves! Will see what happens in the spring.

On a similar note:

I planted winter rye in the beds - here it is right before christmas:

Ramble Comes to Visit!

2009-12-06T21:07:00.000-05:00

Well, we have had a swell time with Ramble! He is quite the helper I can tell you - we did not get out much, but he did add a certain flair to Thanksgiving!
On his first day here, Ramble came along with me as my friend Amy's show-and-tell at the Jenkintown Nursery School. Amy is an art teacher, and the teachers had read the story "Charlie Needs a Cloak" to the 4-year old class, so Amy brought in me, my spinning wheel and some wool. Of course Ramble came along too! Unfortunately I cannot post any pictures from the pre-school, but here is Ramble all ready to go:

Later that evening, since he had been to school and all, he helped my son with his homework. See them here working on a project for the "Future Cities" team. Amazingly, Ramble is a very good speller.

Thanksgiving dinner was at my house this year, Ramble helped with the cooking, added to the decor, bonded with the turkeys and was generally sociable, contributing many interesting opinions to the dinner conversiation.

After dinner, he and my older son enjoyed some cats, a fire and a good book.

The holiday ended and I had some work to do - Ramble helped weight packages for shipping, and of course we had to weigh Ramble tipping the scales at 11.6 ounces.

He is ready to roll, and will head off to his next stop tomorrow. Watch for his new holiday bling!!
Cheers!
Lisa (lasdcm)

Made a Pie and Cleaned the Garden!

2009-11-08T19:22:00.008-05:00

Pie:

I just love pie, made the first apple pie of the season (yes, I know acorns don't come from maple trees, but those are the cookie cutters I found!) I had some dried cranberries, so I took about 2/3 of a cup and cooked them in about 1/3 of a cup of apple cider until they absorbed most all the cider, I also used maple sugar in both the crust and the filling - yummy!

Gardens:

We pulled the trellis out of the garden beds and dug out all the plants except the beets. I raked the beds, then sprinkled some winter rye and winter pea seeds, raked them in gently then mulched. We raked the lawn and took most of the backyard leaves, piled them and ran the mower over them a couple of times. Will got to mow, he was very excited, his first mower experience! Then took the chopped leaves and spread them over the beds. Hopefully the rye and peas will grow then we will chop them up and turn them under early in the spring.

One day it will not rain

2009-11-01T23:11:00.001-05:00

Some day this week I will put the garden to bed! If it stops raining! The plan is to plant a cover crop of winter rye.........

Halloween!

2009-11-01T22:43:00.006-05:00

Peter made his Halloween costume this year out of a big sheet of paper - we bought a roll and he taped 4 sheets to make a 10' by 10' square, then he folded it into a walking man - he spent about 2 hours one evening and about 4 hours on Saturday to finish it up. It was beautiful - unfortunately it pretty much melted in the rain, so we are going to get another roll of paper and try it again! Will had the opposite costume! He was "The Blob". We made it out of 3 contractor trash bags and 8 helium balloons! It was great - next time I will use much thinner plastic bags so it is more floaty. Also - FYI - duct tape does not stick really well to plastic contractor trash bags, packing tape is much better! More photos on my flickr page if you want to see more!

Here is the big sheet, and the first couple of folds

The folding continues.........

Beginning to take shape........

The Walking Man - stick holding up the head like a puppet, the walking stick part of the paper - here balancing across the ladder - is actually taped to a real stick so it can be carried around.

Done! It Works!

The Blob! He Lives!

Trick-or-Treat!

The Glamourous life I lead!

2009-10-20T21:07:00.004-04:00

So, how did I spend my day? Well, yesterday I thought I would finally tackle the boys Nintendo Lair which is full of old toys, legos, games, cat fur, granola bar wrappers ets. I have been wanting to tackle this room for a long while, and this week was the week. So I cleared, edited, tossed, scraped, washed, vaccuumed, plumped and found not one, not two or even three but FOUR boxes of lego that the cats had PEED in, and the boys had stuck lids on and stuffed in the back of the closet - UGH!

SO - while the boys sorted a box of junk I mean precious relics, I cleaned Lego, lots and lots of Lego:

I Made Bread, Yogurt and Got a Haircut!

2009-10-13T20:21:00.011-04:00

It was a beautiful bread day!

OK - I doubled the recipe, reading very carefully to be sure I was doubling a one-loaf recipe and not a two-loaf recipe. It was a new recipe, and boy did it rise! So I checked again - yes "shape the loaf" - singular, one loaf.

So I shaped, and baked my two loaves -

Two HUGE DAGWOODIAN sandwich loaves - so I went and triple checked - recipe makes one 9x5 free-form loaf, so next time I will double it for three! Meanwhile it is huge and yummy!

Yogurt

- here is how I grow the culture in a cooler with a bottle or two of hot water inside to provide the warmth. I usually make a quart of milk at a time, and fill the empty bottle with hot tap water then place it in the cooler while I heat and cool the milk. Using a bit stainless steel pot, I heat the milk to 180 then let it cool to about 110. The heat kills off any existing bacteria in the milk. Then I stir in a heaping spoonful of yogurt from the last batch, (or if I ate it all, I use plain Stonybrook farm or something with live cultres) and pour the culture milk into 2 or 3 pyrex containers. When I put the containers into the now warm cooler, I re-fill the bottle with hot tap water and close everything up (make sure your yogurt containers fit into the cooler along with the hot water) then I cover and let it sit, usually it takes overnight. In this photo, you can see I did not check for fit first, so I used 3 of those rubbermaid drink bottles instead of the quart milk bottle.

Haircut

- I have been growing my hair out because I am lazy and cheap, then figured I'd really grow it while I was at it and donate the hair to the Pantene Beautiful Lengths program, I grew 15 inches:

Before:

after:

One 15-inch Ponytail!

Trellis for the Brambles

2009-10-04T16:48:00.011-04:00

Done! Trellises are made and all the briars are pulled through the fence and stuck up through the wires - I added a string on the bottom to lift the smaller canes up so we can mow underneath - I did a quickie seminar at the local garden center all about fruiting things: apple trees, peaches, pears, plums, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, pretty much everything but figs (and she handed out a pamphlet on figs!) so I followed the directions. Of course the nice neat line drawings on the handouts only vaguely resemble the rangey canes of my berries! But next summer should be a big crop of berries! Yum! Next we attack the apple trees!

We are still getting green beans - we already have about 15 bags in the freezer!

Here are the two latest butternuts: Larry and Moe!

I Love Thrift Stores!

2009-10-03T20:56:00.005-04:00

I really, really do - Went to Impact! thrift today and got:
1 pair Lee jeans - $3.59;
1 pair pinstripe Lee pants - $3.59;
1 dark grey/forest green wide whale corduroy light jacket from Edie Bower - splurged at $5.99; and...
1 black leather "Fossil" shoulder bag - a little one - $1.00

On the garden front - Dave made a trellis for the raspberries and blackberries, I will post a photo tomorrow, but I had to brag about the thrift store today!

Also, found a very cool website of all things Halloween - and they have a whole section of paper toy templates you can print out on card stock and put together, be still my heart! So I made up the Hidden Cemetery and added a Hearse from the Hearse Playset! I have still to make Ravensblight Mannor to go next to the Cemetary and Ohhhhhhhh - I am going to make the Mechanical Bat too!

Potato Blight! ARGHHH!

2009-09-24T16:59:00.010-04:00

Actually, the potatoes were A-OK, but the tomatoes were a mess so we pulled them all up, and harvested the last of the potatoes as well just to be sure The garden looks quite naked, and WOW are the beans big! So, I planted too much, they are such tiny little things when you put them in the ground and they look so lonely so you give them friends which is OK but you must cull them! So cruel!

Garden in early-ish morning

The tomato trellises look like matress springs don't they? They are made of conduit pipe and nylon netting, then a piece of rebar into the ground and slid the two trellis ends over top, clever huh? stole it from "Square Foot Gardening"!

The beans that took over

Blue potatoes - yummy!

JAMMIN"

2009-08-06T20:05:00.003-04:00

Went From These:

To These:

OK - so there are a couple of pints of spiced blueberry preserves thrown into the mix, it is not ALL plum, but there is alot of plum there! Now waiting for tomato season!

Some Garden Pics!

2009-08-04T19:25:00.007-04:00

Here is a view of the squash and pumpkins taken june 26, and again here:

The enlarged garden - before and after big tree limb removal:

First Post

2009-07-30T13:18:00.001-04:00

So much gardening and so little fibering, so I am creating this blog to focus more on the backyard, the gardening, the fruit trees, the food, more of a diary of our house to keep it separate from the fiber.

Here are some photos of the garden this year