Hop on over and check out my recent piece on Culinate: “Rethinking our food priorities: No more cheating on my egg lady“
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Here are the chickens, after a big week in the shed. This week they kind of sprouted up a little — they’re not so round and fluffy — they’re getting kind of tall and chicken-y looking. You can’t see it from this photo, but they’re starting to stand up and crane their little necks. They survived a couple of really cold nights out there in the cardboard box in the dog crate, so that was a triumph. On Saturday, I built them a bigger box — taped two boxes together so now they have the whole 3’x2′ dog crate —…
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This was my other weekend project — cleaning out the garden beds and turning over the soil. I used straw mulch last year, which was a great success, but it was a seedy batch, and I wound up with a sturdy winter cover crop of wheat. I experimented a couple of months ago with just turning it over. But like the grass that I also have troubles with, it kept coming back. So this weekend I went through each bed, digging out the wheat, and the carcasses of dead vegetables, and turned over the soil, breaking up lumps along the…
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This is Raymond, staring at the shed door, because on the far side of that door are four baby chicks in a cardboard box tucked into a dog crate all kept warm by an infrared light. There were six chicks, but I erred and thought they were too hot under the light, and so two of them caught a chill and gave up their tiny little ghosts. They’re resting peacefully in the compost pile. Here’s the little peepers. Saturday morning I called Murdochs, our local ranch store to see if the chicks had come in (they’ve had a shortage this…
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This weekend I started seeds — tomatoes and leeks right now. I’ve blogged before about my seed starting setup, and nothing’s changed since last spring, so I’ll simply send you to this older post if you want to know the mechanics of how I get things rolling every year. This year I’m going to give leeks a shot. I love leeks, and they’re so expensive in the store. I tried them once by direct sowing and they didn’t take, so I thought I’d give it one more shot. For the leeks, I simply filled one tray with seed starting mix,…
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In related topics, there’s a terrific article at Culinate today that touches on many of the same topics we’ve all been discussing over here. Take a look: What is householding? — Making the choice to stay home :: by Harriet Fasenfest :: Culinate.
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I made a really gorgeous no-knead bread this week. Even with my crummy point-and-shoot camera, you can see the tiny bubbles along the surface of the crust. This bread not only sprung up like you see, but the entire crust was shattery when it came out of the oven. This one took two days. It’s been so cold, and I’m such a miser, that my house has been hovering between 57 and 62 all week. I mixed up the regular old no-knead recipe in the middle of the day Monday. Three cups flour (I use half bread flour, half all-purpose,…
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I’m finding the recession sort of interesting, and frankly, kind of inspiring. It’s easy when times are fat to get lazy — to buy stuff instead of fixing something or making it yourself, but really, just going out and buying things isn’t the way I was raised. I had one of those moms who if you were bored and whiny on a Saturday told you to “go make something” or better yet, “go outside and make something.” Maybe it’s being from the Midwest. Lan Samantha Chang had a piece in the Sunday NY Times about living in Iowa, and how…
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I made a cheese! Unlike yogurt cheese — this is a “real” cheese for which you use rennet and everything. There’s a biology/chemistry professor in Cincinnati who has a terrific website about making cheese, and I followed his instructions for “Neufchatel” cheese. (Although I did half a recipe — I didn’t use all my weekly milk share.) This was really interesting — first you gently heat the milk, add a little souring agent (I used yogurt) and a tiny bit of rennet dissolved in water. Then you let it sit overnight. By morning, you have curds — which to me…
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Sunday was a lovely snowy day. Big fat snowflakes like something out of a movie. About ten, Raymond and I walked to the dog park, and everyone was there which was fun — we walked a couple of laps, all the dogs doing their thing and the “grownups” had a chance to catch up. On the way home, we ran into Anna and Max who were going for a walk with Silas, who is almost three. They had the sled in case Silas needed a lift on the way home. Everyone had that silly smile you get when it’s snowing…