I came across a link on Dr. Earth Organics' facebook page about how to grow your own ginger root. Cool! Ginger is one of the more expensive, oft-used flavors in my kitchen, so this could potentially rock for me, right?
The instructions are super easy (find them here). Essentially, buy some organic ginger and plant it in good potting soil in your container of choice. Don't let it get too hot/cold/wet/dry, and in a few months, you've hopefully doubled your initial investment. Can it really be that easy?
This is me we're talking about. Does anybody remember the re-generate your celery thing from last summer? That gave me about 3 inches of new, skinny, pale celery before it up and died. Not one of my greatest hits.
Last year's container grown spuds didn't exactly wow either. But that was owing to a few things beyond my control, like my protective bird netting being mercilessly hacked by my chickens, slugs falling from the sky, and us selling the house and moving before the spuds had rightly finished up, amounting to 2 pounds of seed/waste potatoes producing 1 lb, 13 oz of sad little micro-spuds. I guess that the slugs and the hens got the difference.
In spite of my track record, I'm going to give the ginger a shot. It sounds pretty low maintenance, which is half the battle when you're a plant/pet/hairstyle of mine.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
I've Got One Sexy Chicken!
A few weeks ago, a local author named David Toht came by to take some pictures of our animals for a backyard homesteading book that he's written, due out this December.
He got my name from my cousin who lives up the road just a piece, who's family raises goats and honeybees. David was looking for Americauna/Aracauna chickens and LaMancha goats. Bingo!
So we welcomed him over to photograph our critters, on the condition that I could photograph him, photographing our critters. Here he is at work-
He seemed especially fond of our girl, Rosie the Ameracauna Hen.
Ro-Ro in the snow, November 2010.
He also took lots of pics of Chardy-girl, and those gorgeous blue eyes of hers.
As I said, the book is due to be published in December of this year. I can't wait to see if any of our supermodels made the cut!
If you're interested in pre-ordering a copy of the book, or just checking it out, please click through the following handy-dandy link. ;)
He got my name from my cousin who lives up the road just a piece, who's family raises goats and honeybees. David was looking for Americauna/Aracauna chickens and LaMancha goats. Bingo!
So we welcomed him over to photograph our critters, on the condition that I could photograph him, photographing our critters. Here he is at work-
He seemed especially fond of our girl, Rosie the Ameracauna Hen.
He also took lots of pics of Chardy-girl, and those gorgeous blue eyes of hers.
As I said, the book is due to be published in December of this year. I can't wait to see if any of our supermodels made the cut!
If you're interested in pre-ordering a copy of the book, or just checking it out, please click through the following handy-dandy link. ;)
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Grow Your Own Challenge - The Rules
I've read and pondered and researched and thought over the guidelines of this Farmer-feed-thyself challenge that we're gearing up for, and I've whittled things down a bit. Here's where we stand now on the rules and details-
*We still haven't picked a hard and fast date to start, but with the weather we're having (another no-grow spring), I'm thinking that we'll have to wait until August before the garden is giving us much of anything. So for now, let's say August 1st.
*We have massively refined our allowances. We will include -
*Coffee (fair trade, organic)
*Oil for cooking (domestic, organic)
*Seasonings/Spices (organic, fair trade)
*What is fair game -
*Anything hunted, caught, foraged, grown or otherwise produced by ourselves.
*Honey, if I can find someone to barter with. I'm not optimistic. :(
*What we anticipate eating -
*Eggs
*Goats Milk/cheese/butter
*Salmon/crab/clams caught/foraged by Bill & I
*Fruits & veggies from the garden
*Foraged berries, mushrooms, greens, etc.
*Our canned jams & jellies from last summer
*Our homemade beer & wine
*Hopefully, our own apple cider & rhubarb wine vinegar
I just know that the things that are going to kick my butt are the minimal dairy and the almost complete lack of carbs and sugar. I am going to be one bitchy sloth the first few days of this challenge, you can count on that!
I have a feeling that my great goat milking motivator will be that morning cup of joe. I have to have cream in my coffee, ergo, I'll have to milk at least once a day for my wake-up cup. This is the aspect of this challenge that intimidates me the most. Milking has not gone well so far, and the ladies are producing less now than the last time I tried milking. This could be rough.
Is there anything that I'm overlooking here? Do these guidelines sound pretty reasonable? I'm excited and nervous as hell to try this feeding myself thing. Cheer me on, friends. I need all of the forward momentum I can get!
*We still haven't picked a hard and fast date to start, but with the weather we're having (another no-grow spring), I'm thinking that we'll have to wait until August before the garden is giving us much of anything. So for now, let's say August 1st.
*We have massively refined our allowances. We will include -
*Coffee (fair trade, organic)
*Oil for cooking (domestic, organic)
*Seasonings/Spices (organic, fair trade)
*What is fair game -
*Anything hunted, caught, foraged, grown or otherwise produced by ourselves.
*Honey, if I can find someone to barter with. I'm not optimistic. :(
*What we anticipate eating -
*Eggs
*Goats Milk/cheese/butter
*Salmon/crab/clams caught/foraged by Bill & I
*Fruits & veggies from the garden
*Foraged berries, mushrooms, greens, etc.
*Our canned jams & jellies from last summer
*Our homemade beer & wine
*Hopefully, our own apple cider & rhubarb wine vinegar
I just know that the things that are going to kick my butt are the minimal dairy and the almost complete lack of carbs and sugar. I am going to be one bitchy sloth the first few days of this challenge, you can count on that!
I have a feeling that my great goat milking motivator will be that morning cup of joe. I have to have cream in my coffee, ergo, I'll have to milk at least once a day for my wake-up cup. This is the aspect of this challenge that intimidates me the most. Milking has not gone well so far, and the ladies are producing less now than the last time I tried milking. This could be rough.
Is there anything that I'm overlooking here? Do these guidelines sound pretty reasonable? I'm excited and nervous as hell to try this feeding myself thing. Cheer me on, friends. I need all of the forward momentum I can get!
Friday, June 17, 2011
And the winner of GGG Giveaway 3 is...
Commenter #5, Simcha! This loot is going all the way to Turkey!
Facebook me your mailing address, chicky, so that I can ship you your goodies. Thanks again to all who read and entered!
Facebook me your mailing address, chicky, so that I can ship you your goodies. Thanks again to all who read and entered!
The New Kid in Town
Our new roo, a white-crested black Polish, Thunder, aka Thunder-Bunder, Thunderbird.
Contrary to his tough moniker and his dashing good looks, so far Thunder has been striking out with the ladies. He is also extremely shy, and goes hauling-booty into the coop anytime anyone makes eye contact. At least he's not mean.
Our main plan for Thunder-boy is to mate him with Miss Curly, a frizzled hennie of the same breed. The literature on chicken genetics tells us that Thunder & Curl should have around 75% frizzled babies. I'm so excited! The only thing cuter than a frizzled Polish is a frizzled Naked Neck (check out the 6th photo from the top - tell me that's not freaking adorable!), and we'll hopefully get there in another year or two. ;) But our grand plans for frizzled chicks have to wait a while still, as Curly isn't laying yet, and is also still recovering from a bit of henpecking by the other girls. The lovers must, out of necessity, remain apart for the time being.
Thunder, with Curly in the neighboring run. So close, yet so far.
We put Gracie, our golden-laced Polish, in with Thunder for a little bit to see if there was any chemistry between them. THERE WAS NOT. Our mild mannered Gracie had Thunder practically climbing the walls to get away from her. Chicken-hearted indeed!
Even though he's not yet able to fulfill his husbandly duties, it has already been nice to have a roo around again. His feeble, sporadic little cock-a-doodle doo makes this place feel like a farm again. Love live the Thunder Bird!
Contrary to his tough moniker and his dashing good looks, so far Thunder has been striking out with the ladies. He is also extremely shy, and goes hauling-booty into the coop anytime anyone makes eye contact. At least he's not mean.
Our main plan for Thunder-boy is to mate him with Miss Curly, a frizzled hennie of the same breed. The literature on chicken genetics tells us that Thunder & Curl should have around 75% frizzled babies. I'm so excited! The only thing cuter than a frizzled Polish is a frizzled Naked Neck (check out the 6th photo from the top - tell me that's not freaking adorable!), and we'll hopefully get there in another year or two. ;) But our grand plans for frizzled chicks have to wait a while still, as Curly isn't laying yet, and is also still recovering from a bit of henpecking by the other girls. The lovers must, out of necessity, remain apart for the time being.
We put Gracie, our golden-laced Polish, in with Thunder for a little bit to see if there was any chemistry between them. THERE WAS NOT. Our mild mannered Gracie had Thunder practically climbing the walls to get away from her. Chicken-hearted indeed!
Even though he's not yet able to fulfill his husbandly duties, it has already been nice to have a roo around again. His feeble, sporadic little cock-a-doodle doo makes this place feel like a farm again. Love live the Thunder Bird!
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Bearanoia, the Raccoon Edition
Fishermen and outdoorsy folks here in the Northwest have a term for that feeling you get when you're on the trail or chest deep in a river, and you get that unmistakable awareness that something huge and toothy is eyeballing you. We call it bearanoia.
I don't know if this phenomenon is unique to the PNW/Alaska/Canada back country, but just about every fisherman I know has a story about hearing (or smelling) a suspected bear, feeling the hair rise on the back of their neck, then suddenly deciding to go ahead and call it a day. I've been there myself a few times blueberry and huckleberry picking. In fact, one of the spots where my Mom and I used to go every year to pick blackberries was a well known haunt for cougars - the big cat kind, not the mid-life tragedy kind - which for whatever reason, don't scare me as much.
Anyway, to finally wander back to my original point, I've been having bearanoia mini-episodes, featuring raccoons.
It started with a daytime sighting of a raccoon in our garbage can. The girls saw the bugger and ran straight in to tell their Dad about it. They've been given many a lecture on leaving wild animals be, especially ones that are acting out of character. A nocturnal animal out and about in the day time is basically the definition of out of character, and is usually indicative of it having a serious illness, like rabies.
By the time Bill got outside with the BB gun, the raccoon had vanished. But he came back, the bastard.
I was loafing on the couch, home alone, with the girls asleep, when I hear noises on the porch. I slink over to peek out the window and see the mother-effer looking me right in the eye and eating my goat vitamins. THE NERVE.
So, I run to get the BB gun, call Bill at work to get a quick refresher on how to load/pump the stupid thing, and charge out the front door, locked and loaded, only to find that Mr. Sneaky has left the building. I double check my critters, especially the chickens to make sure that everyone is locked up well for the night, then head in and try to go back to sleep. Yeah, right.
Raccoons, foxes, coyotes - they are my boogeymen. When I have the slightest awareness of something amiss with my farm's status quo, I go into a hyper-alert mode that is mentally and physically exhausting. And all that it takes to kick off the crazy is one coyote's yip, a fresh fox turd in the chicken's yard or a raccoon sighting. Then I'm up all night, listening for the tiniest peep or squeak indicating trouble. Worse still, when I do hear something that I perceive to be problematic, I wake poor Bill up in a panic to get him to verify or investigate. The poor man has gone coyote tracking in his bathrobe and headlamp more times that I can count, with nary a coyote bagged yet.
So I slept like crap last night, afraid that this rabid S-O-B was going to harm my kids or critters before I could get him. I finally fall asleep, and after forcing myself to wake up to take the kids to school, I pull into the driveway, ready to go back inside and catch a nap. Then who do I see scampering up a cedar tree as I'm getting out of my car? Mr. A-hole.
So like my super huntress Great-Grandma Lizzie-Belle (yep, that was her real name!), I gots my gun and a broom and decided to sit under the tree, staring at it for all I was worth, waiting for Captain Jackhole to show his annoyingly cute face. My plan was to pop him out of the tree with a BB, then once he fell, go caveman on his butt with a broom, pitchfork, rake, soup spoon, whatever.
I never did flush him out. Instead, I spent a good half an hour sitting in my driveway on top of an empty goat kennel, gun at the ready, staring up at a motionless cedar tree waiting, just waiting for that dirty sumbeech to move a muscle and reveal himself to me. Nada.
Bill is out now setting a second have-a-heart trap, this one right on the porch, in case the greedy little sneak comes back for a second helping of goat minerals (Seriously, raccoon? I'm pretty sure I'd eat trash first.) We are baiting with a piece of fruit leather, since my forced viewings of Billy the Exterminator - Scarlet's a superfan - have taught me that raccoons and skunks both like fruity treats. Our other trap, set up by the garbage cans, contains an aged Easter Peep. I'll be interested to see which treat he goes for.
So I'm kicking back and guzzling my coffee, well aware that I'll be up at 2am and pinging on all cylinders, waiting for my showdown with a mentally ill vitamin thief. I've got my headlamp, BB gun and pitchfork at the ready. Bring it.
Mother of five boys, crack shot, and salmon fisher extrordinaire, Great Grandma LizzieBelle and her catch of the day. Steady my hand, oh great and fearless ancestor, so that I may protect my family and flocks from harm and give that filthy raccoon whatfor.
I don't know if this phenomenon is unique to the PNW/Alaska/Canada back country, but just about every fisherman I know has a story about hearing (or smelling) a suspected bear, feeling the hair rise on the back of their neck, then suddenly deciding to go ahead and call it a day. I've been there myself a few times blueberry and huckleberry picking. In fact, one of the spots where my Mom and I used to go every year to pick blackberries was a well known haunt for cougars - the big cat kind, not the mid-life tragedy kind - which for whatever reason, don't scare me as much.
Anyway, to finally wander back to my original point, I've been having bearanoia mini-episodes, featuring raccoons.
It started with a daytime sighting of a raccoon in our garbage can. The girls saw the bugger and ran straight in to tell their Dad about it. They've been given many a lecture on leaving wild animals be, especially ones that are acting out of character. A nocturnal animal out and about in the day time is basically the definition of out of character, and is usually indicative of it having a serious illness, like rabies.
By the time Bill got outside with the BB gun, the raccoon had vanished. But he came back, the bastard.
I was loafing on the couch, home alone, with the girls asleep, when I hear noises on the porch. I slink over to peek out the window and see the mother-effer looking me right in the eye and eating my goat vitamins. THE NERVE.
So, I run to get the BB gun, call Bill at work to get a quick refresher on how to load/pump the stupid thing, and charge out the front door, locked and loaded, only to find that Mr. Sneaky has left the building. I double check my critters, especially the chickens to make sure that everyone is locked up well for the night, then head in and try to go back to sleep. Yeah, right.
Raccoons, foxes, coyotes - they are my boogeymen. When I have the slightest awareness of something amiss with my farm's status quo, I go into a hyper-alert mode that is mentally and physically exhausting. And all that it takes to kick off the crazy is one coyote's yip, a fresh fox turd in the chicken's yard or a raccoon sighting. Then I'm up all night, listening for the tiniest peep or squeak indicating trouble. Worse still, when I do hear something that I perceive to be problematic, I wake poor Bill up in a panic to get him to verify or investigate. The poor man has gone coyote tracking in his bathrobe and headlamp more times that I can count, with nary a coyote bagged yet.
So I slept like crap last night, afraid that this rabid S-O-B was going to harm my kids or critters before I could get him. I finally fall asleep, and after forcing myself to wake up to take the kids to school, I pull into the driveway, ready to go back inside and catch a nap. Then who do I see scampering up a cedar tree as I'm getting out of my car? Mr. A-hole.
So like my super huntress Great-Grandma Lizzie-Belle (yep, that was her real name!), I gots my gun and a broom and decided to sit under the tree, staring at it for all I was worth, waiting for Captain Jackhole to show his annoyingly cute face. My plan was to pop him out of the tree with a BB, then once he fell, go caveman on his butt with a broom, pitchfork, rake, soup spoon, whatever.
I never did flush him out. Instead, I spent a good half an hour sitting in my driveway on top of an empty goat kennel, gun at the ready, staring up at a motionless cedar tree waiting, just waiting for that dirty sumbeech to move a muscle and reveal himself to me. Nada.
Bill is out now setting a second have-a-heart trap, this one right on the porch, in case the greedy little sneak comes back for a second helping of goat minerals (Seriously, raccoon? I'm pretty sure I'd eat trash first.) We are baiting with a piece of fruit leather, since my forced viewings of Billy the Exterminator - Scarlet's a superfan - have taught me that raccoons and skunks both like fruity treats. Our other trap, set up by the garbage cans, contains an aged Easter Peep. I'll be interested to see which treat he goes for.
So I'm kicking back and guzzling my coffee, well aware that I'll be up at 2am and pinging on all cylinders, waiting for my showdown with a mentally ill vitamin thief. I've got my headlamp, BB gun and pitchfork at the ready. Bring it.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Gearing up for a Challenge
Ever since reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle a few years ago, I've been mulling over trying for myself one of the book's core ideas - eating only what you yourself grow and produce (with a few guidelines & exceptions) for a specified period of time. I don't look at this like a stunt, but more of a way to challenge myself to eat better and make the best use of what I have. And what better time to start than summer, when the crops are rolling in and the goats are all well in milk?
In theory, it should be pretty easy. In theory. I have eggs for protein and fat, goat's milk for dairy/protein, a fishing fiend of a husband who brings home salmon, clams and crab, and (hopefully) a garden, teeming with fresh greens, berries, corn, tomatoes, carrots, pumpkins, potatoes and squash. I also live in an area with no less than 4 blueberry farms in a one mile stretch. I'm flush with food. Now, do I have the gumption and the willpower to limit myself to eating that and that alone for a while? This is where I get a little shaky.
Bill and I have tossed this idea around a little and come up with a few hitches and fudges -
1) Coffee would have to be permitted. I already buy organic, fair trade coffee, so I don't have too much guilt about letting this one go. And I can get my beans from a fantastic local roaster, Batdorf & Bronson. Besides, I'm planning on doing this during the summer when my kids will be home with me all day. A day without caffeine could get ugly quick.
2) We're not going to make the kids do this with us. A morning without cereal, a summer day without ice cream, we'd have an insurrection on day one.
3) We might expand our food shed area to include food produced within our city. We're talking grown, born, butchered, etc. in Olympia. No doughnuts or Chinese food from downtown, lovely though that would be.
What else are we not thinking of? We'll be doing a lot of physical labor on the farm this summer, so we've agreed at this point to only have the experiment last for two weeks so that we don't run ourselves down too much on a diet with significantly less carbs than our usual pasta and rice intensive fare. Is two weeks long enough? Does that seem too wussy? Have we made too many exceptions? Help us get this ironed out so that we can put our little farm to the test this summer! We're thinking of beginning in July, as the garden should be kicking by then. What say you to all of this craziness?
In theory, it should be pretty easy. In theory. I have eggs for protein and fat, goat's milk for dairy/protein, a fishing fiend of a husband who brings home salmon, clams and crab, and (hopefully) a garden, teeming with fresh greens, berries, corn, tomatoes, carrots, pumpkins, potatoes and squash. I also live in an area with no less than 4 blueberry farms in a one mile stretch. I'm flush with food. Now, do I have the gumption and the willpower to limit myself to eating that and that alone for a while? This is where I get a little shaky.
Bill and I have tossed this idea around a little and come up with a few hitches and fudges -
1) Coffee would have to be permitted. I already buy organic, fair trade coffee, so I don't have too much guilt about letting this one go. And I can get my beans from a fantastic local roaster, Batdorf & Bronson. Besides, I'm planning on doing this during the summer when my kids will be home with me all day. A day without caffeine could get ugly quick.
2) We're not going to make the kids do this with us. A morning without cereal, a summer day without ice cream, we'd have an insurrection on day one.
3) We might expand our food shed area to include food produced within our city. We're talking grown, born, butchered, etc. in Olympia. No doughnuts or Chinese food from downtown, lovely though that would be.
What else are we not thinking of? We'll be doing a lot of physical labor on the farm this summer, so we've agreed at this point to only have the experiment last for two weeks so that we don't run ourselves down too much on a diet with significantly less carbs than our usual pasta and rice intensive fare. Is two weeks long enough? Does that seem too wussy? Have we made too many exceptions? Help us get this ironed out so that we can put our little farm to the test this summer! We're thinking of beginning in July, as the garden should be kicking by then. What say you to all of this craziness?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)