Trading my Hoe for a Hook

We slipped away from Ye Olde Farm for a few days, up to the beautiful and serene Camano Island. Did I knit while I was away? Yes. Did I knit more baby hats per my one-hat-per-day schedule to meet my goal of knitting 30 hats in 31 days? Err... no.

I'm still determined to meet my goal, I just needed a wee bitty breather from hats and the color purple. So instead I made Scarlet a beret and shawl for her American girl doll, and started a lightweight scarf for Olivia. When and if I get these badboys up on Ravelry, I'll post a link.

Besides knitting like a maniac, I also spent my farm-free vacay fishing and crabbing in Puget Sound. Our little family of four purt-near cleaned the Pacific Sanddab aka "soft flounder" out of Elger Bay. Over three days fishing, we caught something like 18 or 20 of them. We were knocking them dead when our bait wasn't being stolen by bullheads and dogfish. The sanddab average about 1/2 pound each, and are really more bones and guts than meat, but we managed about 6 pounds of fillets, and the remainder was/will be used as crab bait. We are very careful to use every last bit when we harvest an animal, and fish are no exception. We chowed down on our fresh catch nearly every night that we were camping, but we also socked some away in the freezer, to enjoy another time.

We also scored a few good sized Dungeness crab - yum, yum, yum! Though crab are traditionally and most commonly boiled, we prefer to grill them. Bill dispatches the little guys, cleans them then throws them on the bbq, still in the shell. I like to sprinkle a little beer on them while they grill. When they're done, we serve them with seasoned, melted butter, lemon and generous sprinkling of Old Bay. Smokey, sweet, salty - goooood stuff!

We also tried for some pink salmon, but they don't seem to be in the Sound in large numbers yet, so the fishing is very slow still. Bummer, that, because I wrangled the kids into picking me a couple cups of salal berries, and had visions of grilled salmon with a red wine/salal reduction. Alas it was not to be. Bill is going after the salmon again tomorrow, this time in a different area that supposedly has better fishing. We shall see. I may get my salal salmon dinner yet. ;)

Fishing/Crabbing totals-
*8 Dungeness crab
*15 lbs +/- Pacific Sanddab (about 6 lbs cleaned)

An Americauna Pullet's first egg!!

My first ever guest-post, written by my amazing, beautiful, creative, chicken-wrangling 11 year-old, Olivia. :)



This is Olivia , Michelle's daughter and the family "bird nerd". I love chickens and I am honored to tell you that one of our americauna pullets laid her first egg.

We noticed our first egg yesterday when we were doing critter patrol. It was much smaller than the other eggs, and we were anxious to find out who laid the egg. We're still not sure who has laid the egg yet, but I suspect it's Creampuff, because she is the oldest and when you try to pick her up, she goes into chick-protection position. It might not be, but I have those tiny pieces of evidence that made me guess. We remain curious of who laid the egg, but whoever laid it, we're proud of her. :)

We were able to tell that the egg was from a pullet because it was smaller than the others. It was bluer than the older americaunas, really pale too. If you don't look at it in good light, it looks white! When I went inside after we did critter patrol to ledger the eggs, I thought today when I ledger the eggs, I thought I would write the date and a footnote at the very last page saying: "Our americauna pullet's first egg!!"

I am very happy that one of our pullets gave us something in exchange for those hundreds of dollars spent on feeding them, and buying waterers, feeders, and the wood, nails, the pneumatic stapler and nailer, the brads, staples, metal, screws, the air compressor, and all the blood, sweat, and tears that went into the work of their home. Although that gift is small, and the amount we spent is big, and the egg is so small, we will forever be grateful for our americauna pullet's first egg.

Pictures: Above: the eggs we gathered yesterday. Below: A comparison between the pullet egg and an older hen's egg.

Knitting Like There's No Tomorrow

But there is a tomorrow! And if I don't finish at least one hat before then, I have officially fallen behind the curve to reach my goal of 30 hats in 31 days. I'm about 7 1/4 to the good. Here are the finished (but not tucked) seven -


Simple cables, stripes, the eggplant, preemie ribbed stripes, purple knot-top, simple two-color, lavender and navy stripe

I'm having a bit of trouble making primarily purple hats that look suitably boyish. Any thoughts?

Are you knitting, crocheting or sewing along with my challenge? Show us your hats! :)

Knitting for Babies - 30 hats in 31 days?

Since our Farmer Feed Thyself Challenge has been indefinitely postponed due to underwhelming garden production, I've decided to take on a different challenge for the month of August. I'm going to try to knit 30 newborn baby hats in a month.

Why, oh why would I want to knit my ever-loving booty off in the middle of summer, you ask?

I'm knitting hats as part of a newborn hat drive for an educational campaign called The Period of Purple Crying.

The organization's goal is to educate new parents and caregivers of infants about a normal developmental stage (from about 2 weeks of age to 4 months) in which babies cry more often and more intensely, which they refer to as "Purple Crying". Knowing that this is a normal behavior, and knowing how to properly cope with the frustration that a wailing baby can cause is a critical step in reducing instances of Shaken Baby Syndrome and Abusive Head Trauma in infants.

The little purple hats will go home with newborns, along with information on identifying and coping with Purple Crying. The idea is to have a reminder right there on your sweet baby's noggin that his or her crying is ok, and like all developmental hurdles, shall pass in time.

Knitting is my therapy anyway, so knitting to save a life is practically nirvana in my book. ;) I encourage you to join me in making as many wee little hats as you have time to make - knitted, sewn or crocheted. The guidelines for the hats are as follows -

•Caps should be made using clean and NEW YARN any shade of PURPLE yarn. Other colors of yarn may be incorporated into the cap, but a shade of PURPLE should encompass at least 50 percent of the cap.

•Yarn and thread labeled, as "baby friendly" should be used for caps.

•Infant heads come in a variety of sizes. As a general rule, caps should have a circumference between 10.5 - 13.5 in. and a height of 5-6 in.

•Please refrain from including “pom poms” or any type of strap to secure caps to baby’s heads. These pose a potential choking and/or strangling hazard to babies.
You can find patterns for PURPLE Caps at www.clickforbabies.org under the Knit Section.

Finished hats can sent to any of the hospitals listed on the clickforbabies.org website. Mine will be divvied up between Legacy Emanuel in Portland, where a family member works, and Mary Bridge Children's Hospital in Tacoma, where my oldest was born. Please knit, crochet and sew along with me and use your creative energy to change lives!

FYI - I'm starting early. 3/4 of a hat done so far. 29 1/4 to go! :)))

Cue the Banjos

Guess what the girls found today?



MORE BUNNIES!

Five (we think) teeny, little, incredibly inbred bunnies. Unless Prince Charming's neutering didn't take (how could it not? His huevos are gone), these are the children of Cinderella and Leap, her son that we'd thought was a daughter. Keeping in mind that Cinderella and Prince Charming are brother and sister, and that Leap is the product of their "union", with Leap then going on to father babies with his mother/aunt Cinderella, well... I guess that I shouldn't be surprised if the bunnies hop backwards or have horns or something. Good gravy!

So we're looking to re-home our sweet Mr. Leap, as we cannot afford another $120 rabbit vasectomy. He's extremely tame, since being handled practically from birth. He's also obviously not your average aggressive buck, as he masqueraded successfully as a girl all this time, and he's been the picture of sweetness with these new babies, bringing Cinny mouthsful of hay and his own hair to help her build her nest. Any takers? ;)

In another 6-8 weeks we'll also have the babies up for grabs. Their gender and coloration are still unknown, but if you're interested in a sweet little backwoods bunny with an "interesting" family history, give me a shout.

7/23/11 Update: The babies didn't make it. We're not sure what went wrong. :( We are still trying to re-home Leap, if anyone is interested.

Garden Woes

Garden-wise this year, not much has been happening, let alone on the scale on which we'd imagined it. It's a huge bummer, because a) we're used to having an abundance of organic, homegrown produce at this time of year for eating and canning, which isn't going to happen, and b) because we don't get to try again for another 9 months.

We were foiled on a couple of fronts, mainly, that this Spring and Summer were both slow to arrive and then failed to dazzle weather-wise. This is the second ho-hum summer in a row here, and it's bumming me out.

Our other failing was our soil. We saw it's richness and deep black color, and foolishly assumed that it would be adequately fertile, as it had not been gardened for nearly a decade. Wrong-o! We amended with goat poop, bunny poop and a worm casting/bat guano liquid fertilizer, but everything except the weeds seems to be growing in slow-mo.

This sorry state of affairs leaves me to wonder if there will be any way at all for Bill and I to carry on with our Farmer, Feed Thyself challenge. There's just nothing there to eat yet! The pumpkins look promising, and the lettuce is kicking, but most everything else is still in it's infancy. So our planned FFT start date of August 1st is looking quite unlikely. :(

Recipe: Homemade Cajeta (Goat Milk Dulce de Leche)

-1 Quart fresh goat's milk
-1 cup sugar
-1/2 vanilla bean, slit lengthwise
-1/2 cinnamon stick
-1/2 tsp baking soda dissolved in 1/2-1 tsp of water

Heat the milk, sugar, vanilla bean and cinnamon stick over medium heat, in a heavy pot. Stir constantly until the mixture begins to boil gently.

Remove from heat, still stirring, and add your dissolved baking soda. The mixture will froth/foam up a bit, but can be stirred down fairly easily.

Return the pot to the heat. Reduce heat slightly (I change the setting from 5 to 4). Continue stirring until you feel like your arm is going to fall off, about 45 minutes to an hour.

At some point during your endless stirring, you should notice your milk mixture beginning to deepen in color. The intensity of flavor increases with cooking time/darkness, so you can decide when the color, flavor and consistency look right to you. I stopped mine at the point where it coated the back of my spoon, and was a butterscotch pudding color.



Pour your finished cajeta into a glass container - you DON'T want to put molten-hot liquid candy into plastic, trust me. The cajeta will keep in the fridge for about a week. Let me know if yours ever lasts that long. ;) You'll also want to get your pan soaking in hot soapy water ASAP, as the caramel is like hardened epoxy once it has cooled completely.

Your quart of milk should have reduced down to about one pint of caramel. Cajeta can be used as a topping (try it with coffee ice cream!), a little sweetness in your coffee, or as my friend Libi says, poured straight down your throat. Enjoy!