The Apple of My Eye

Greetings!

Well, September is certainly flying along, isn't it?  I've been a busy little bee and even did some traveling in early September.  I went down to the Mother Land (aka Texas) to place my mom's ashes next to my dad's in the Ft. Bliss National Cemetery in El Paso.

It was a beautiful "ceremony," with just the four siblings, my brother's ex-wife (who I think of as a sister) and my significant other.  Each of us took a handful of dirt from the shovel and sprinkled it into the grave, then watched as they covered it up and raked the red gravel back into place.   Those of us who wanted to, said our goodbyes, shed lots of tears and went back to the hotel for a swim and to relax for a bit before heading out for a late lunch at L&J's Cafe (best Mexican food in El Paso, in my opinion) and some sightseeing.

El Paso is an interesting place, full of western history and one of the places we visited was Concordia cemetery.  John Wesley Hardin is buried there, but there is also a section for some of the Buffalo soldiers.  JWH was an unsavory character for sure, and met his end in much the same way as he meted out his peculiar form of "justice" - with bullets.

We also took a trip to Mesilla, New Mexico for dinner at La Posta on Thursday night.  Mostly for old times sake, since the food certainly was "eh" at best.  Still, it was fun being back there and seeing how much of a tourist destination Mesilla has become.  The best part of the meal were the sopapillas. Perfection.   Billy the Kid was captured in Mesilla, but apparently got away before they could dispatch him properly.

Dinner the next night was at Cattleman's Steakhouse.  It's a dude ranch and is as tacky as you would expect, but the steaks were awesome and the sunset was just breathtaking.

Back home again with lots to deal with.  We cleaned out my mom's house so that our tenant can move in on the 15th and put everything into storage.  We will have to deal with all of that when we have a bit more money to do so.

Next on the agenda was dealing with my garden.  I have to say over all, most of it was a bust.  Not sure what happened to my tomatoes.  They were off to such a great start, but petered out and I didn't get nearly as many tomatoes as I had hoped.  I ended up buying tomatoes to make sauce and spaghetti sauce.  There is a pot of homemade ketchup simmering on the stove as I write this and man, does it smell good!

The potatoes did okay.  I did get some nice ones, but it was kind of silly.  I planted three seed potatoes in each pot and most of them yielded three or four potatoes.  Not exactly cost effective.  I think next year, I am going to plant them in 55 gallon trash cans and see if I get a better crop.  They were really tasty, though.

Green beans did pretty well - but again, not nearly what I had hoped for.  I did end up with some for the freezer, but mostly we just ate what I picked.  The real bust was the peppers and squash.  They just sat there.  I think they are all pretty much the same size as when I planted them.  It's pretty weird.
The sweet potatoes are still going.  I did harvest the smaller container and there were a lot of tubers in it, but I should have let it go for another month because they are all real skinny.  I think they would have fattened up nicely if I had let them go until the first frost.  Now I know and I will surely let the big container sit until the end of October or the first frost, which ever comes first.

The big surprise and star of the show was the apple tree, which is a McIntosh.  Usually, it has a crop of inedible apples and early drop takes most of them.  Scab and insect damage galore took care of the rest.  Last fall, I dumped a whole bunch of cow manure, sprinkled in a couple cups of epsom salts around it and added a thick layer of mulch.  I also was religious about raking up and disposing of the leaves, as scab over winters there.  The tree has rewarded me this year with an amazing crop of beautiful apples.  There's still some insect damage and Jordan, if you're reading this, you should stop now.  I looked it up and it appears to be wasp damage.  Next year, I will place plenty of traps out for them and negate some of that too.

So far, I have four bags of quartered apples in the freezer which I will take down to my SO's place because he has a fruit press and come home with cider.  I also have 8 half pints of apple butter and six half pints of apple sauce put up already.  This was this morning's harvest for which I had to crawl out of my daughter's bedroom window and pick them from the porch roof because I don't have a ladder tall enough to reach even with the fruit harvester's telescoping handle.

These are destined for apple pies.  One for the freezer and one for dessert tonight.

In recap, the crops that did the best for me this year was the lettuce, which we enjoyed well into July, the green beans and the beets and carrots.  I planted a second crop of carrots and they are just about ready to harvest now.  The kale, collards, brussels sprouts, and cabbage were all victims of cabbage worms.  Next year, I will use row covers to negate that.

All in all, it has been a fun gardening season, even with the disappointments and I have plans for some improvements next year.  The little fruit trees I planted are all doing really well, as is the fig tree, so I have hopes that I might get a tiny crop from them next year.

That's it, folks - until next time!  Enjoy the season!

Lipstick, High heels, Pearls and Daydreams

Bonus post today!

A fellow knitter sent me a link to this website.  Go ahead and click it.  I'll wait.

Much sighing.  You guys.  THIS.

Now, I'm not a cleaning nut.  I go through phases where I'll scrub the beejeebus out of stuff and other times where I look at things and think, well, you can still make out the floor through all the cat hair, so we're good.  See, I work a full-time job and I have a lot of hobbies that I like to do.  I try my best to keep up with the dishes and the bathroom fixtures, and the necessary stuff that makes me feel like I could at least have someone come over if they give me an hour's notice, I dim the lights, burn a candle and they sign a contract that they will not open that door at the end of the hall.  Sort of like the story of Bluebeard.  Just.  Don't. Open. The. Door.

In my mind, my imaginary life is most akin to that of a 1950's housewife.  Things are clean and spotless and blindingly white.  I am, in short, together.  In reality though, I am one step away from being featured on Hoarders.  Okay, not really, but there is that spot under the radiator in the kitchen where I spilled something two months ago and the mop doesn't reach under there and, well... it mocks me every time I go in there. (I see you, spot and your day will come!)

Recently, a friend loaned me The Magic Art of Tidying Up and it has changed me.  I piled all my clothes on my bed and went through every single one of them, picking them up, turning them around and waiting for my body to tell me if this piece sparked joy.  Amazingly, it works.  9 garbage bags of clothes later (I didn't even think I had that many clothes and yes, most were donated), my bedroom is a place of serenity and stays that way.  It was truly magical.

All this to say, that when I opened this link the other day, my heart literally skipped a beat.  Oh, the beauty of the packaging, the simplicity of the ingredients, the suggestion of the scents... I was weak at the knees.

I was suddenly transported.  There I was, bright white sunshine streaming through my laundry room windows, the stacks of neatly pressed and folded clothing (all of it white of course), the scent of slightly scented ironing water hanging in the air - clean, crisp, serene.  My black and white polka dot dress, black heels, pearl necklace, bright red lipstick and neatly curled hair...I want it all.  I want to buy all the things.

Shopping cart filled up, credit card out... then I remembered... and closed the website.  Tonight, I will pull on jeans, dig out my cruddy sneakers and go down to my dark, dank basement that smells slightly of cat pee thanks to my cat with litter box issues.  I might wear pearls though.

All Cooped Up!

I will start this out by saying that I don't have a lot of experience building things.  My dad was a great woodworker and built all sorts of things, but other than the occasional birdhouse, I never built anything.   I take that back, I once built a fence from scratch, using only hand tools.  It didn't look bad and it did the job, but I kind of messed up the gate.  Oh well, it kept the dog in the backyard.

Last year, when I decided that I was going to take the plunge and get some chickens, I started looking at pre-built chicken coops on the interwebs.  Wow.  Talk about sticker shock!  Combined with the fact, that so many of them are made overseas out of press board and who really knows what's in that paint anyway?

The next stop was surfing the web maybe doing it myself.  I looked at lots of designs... I mean lots.  Days were filled with various websites and I even bought a book with really cool designs in them. That's when I discovered this site.  The Garden Coop has some slick, sophisticated designs and their plans, according to the reviews were very, very thorough and easy to follow - perfect for someone like me.

After some thought, I decided on the Basic Coop and purchased the plans.  My thought was to build a run onto it, so I played around with some graph paper and the basic design and came up with the idea of building the coop section with longer legs and extending a run of the same height off of it.

Did I mention that I've never used a circular saw before?  There were some parts of the cutting that made me nervous, like the plunge cuts, where you basically plunge the spinning blade into the middle of the board where you want a cut.

The Internet is full of helpful advice and I did a bit of research on safely using a circular saw, purchased some safety glasses and set about cutting all the wood to the sizes I figured out I needed. True to all the reviews, these plans are amazing!  Every step was laid out for me and it was really easy to follow along.  I'm sure experienced builders might find them a little too detailed and probably didn't have to refer to them like I did, but I sure appreciated them!

The coop and run are almost a year old and the inhabitants seem quite happy with it.  During the worst of the winter, I did wish that I had insulated it, as there were a few nights where I was worried about the little dears and ended up wrapping the coop with a thick blanket and closed off 2/3 of the top to keep it a bit warmer in there.  You have to be careful about closing things up so tightly that no air gets in, because that's how frostbite happens - the moisture from their breathing builds up and then ice crystals form.  The girls made it through just fine though.  My only issue was the drinking water freezing solid.

Hello??  We're waiting for our mealworms here.  Hurry up lady!

I'm really happy with my efforts and it is hen approved.  I mean, it's not perfect and a few times, I had to let go of my perfectionist tendencies, but considering that I never built anything remotely similar to this, I'm pretty proud of myself!  It looks nice in the yard, too.

All in all, it did turn out to be more money than if I had bought a ready made cheapo coop like they sell on Amazon, but this is sturdy and I think it is going to last a long time.  The girls are safe and secure and since we do have raccoon and opossum (and fox) in the area, that was important to me. The total cost to build this from all new materials (wood, hardware, screws, tools, etc.) was around $500.

With Silver Bells...

Every year I begin my gardening adventure determined that this is the year that everything will grow like it does in the catalogs or Organic Gardening.  In my mind, my little back yard is neat and tidy, which a totally weed free path and lovely flowers nodding their heads in approval along the way.

Every year, just around this time, things just kind of get away from me.  There are good reasons for this.  I have a full time job so my time on the weekend is limited and there is always something to be done, laundry, cooking, etc... so when weeding becomes a full time job, I start to lose the battle.

Really, I should do something about landscaping the brick path so that weeds don't grow there, but I'm not really sure what I want to do there.

At any rate - I thought I would share what was working this year and what wasn't.

What's working - my strawberry patch and the sweet potatoes.  Both are growing like gangbusters!  I'm expecting a bumper crop of the first next spring and of the latter this fall!  I'm really happy with the strawberries, as this was the first permaculture bed I made last year.

NOM NOM NOM

Sweet potato (Georgia Jet, I think) growing in a trash can.

What's not working too well - well, interestingly enough - it's my cucumbers, peppers and squash.  They've never gotten bigger than about 5 inches and they are just sitting there.  I didn't even bother to take a picture, because, well... they aren't worth it. Maybe when they hear about this public humiliation, they will be shamed into bursting into fruit.

My little greens section has been doing okay, although it has been beset by cabbage moths and I've had to share the collards and kale with them.  The lettuce was a huge success, as are the carrots.  I've had marginal success with the beets, but I think it is because there is too much nitrogen in the soil, from what I've been reading.

The beans are starting to come in and I've harvested a few bags of decent looking potatoes.  I made smashed potatoes with them the other night and they were awesome!

the rounder ones are Lehigh and the oval ones are a variety called Nicola.  

The apple tree is still doing great - the apples are getting to be a decent size.  I hate to hope, but if things keep up the way they are, I might be making some apple butter from my own tree come fall.  This is the MacIntosh that I've been trying to rehab.  At first, I didn't think that many apples had set, but I looked up tonight and I'm going to have to buy one of those fruit pickers on the long handles.

The other fruit trees have had their summer haircuts and are putting out another flush of growth from the cuts, which is what I want.  Their next haircut will be in late February to take out any unwanted limbs and help them establish a strong framework with which to bear fruit.  Out of all of them, I have a feeling the only one to set fruit next year is the plum tree I picked up at HD for a song last fall.  I think I paid $10 for it.  It is growing like crazy and already has a couple of inches of new growth from the cuts I made.

The crazy plum!

Apricot Tree

Tomatoes... I have fruit set - Here's a pic of one of the Indigo Roses that I have been cautiously drooling over.  Still nary a ripe tomato yet though.  I hope they all don't ripen while I'm in Texas.

Indigo Rose Tomato.  When it ripens, it will be deep red with a blush of nearly black purple and oh, so sweet!

Well, that's about it.  My next blog post will be about my foray into the world of carpentry, but I'll leave you all with this pic of one of the happy girls roaming around, eating worms and bugs, dandelions and lamb's quarters to her heart's content!

So there was this sale...

Hey there!

Picked my brother up at work the other night and we stopped at the grocery store to get a few things. That's when I saw it.  The sign said, "Blueberries... Buy 1 Get 2 Free."  I stared at it a while.  Surely, this couldn't be right?  They must have meant, "Buy 2 Get 1 Free."

I looked at that sign for a bit and finally, just went ahead and piled 6 pints into my cart.  What the heck.  Why not, right?   I do loves me some blueberry jam, as well as blueberry pie, but that's for another day since THIS mama has been counting those calories, and yes, I know jam has a lot, but you all... Buy 1 Get 2 Free.  That's all I'm saying.

Anywayyyy... I brought them and the next day, set about washing the berries and sorting through them.  There was only a few that were not acceptable and those I tossed with disdain into the compost.

Darn it.  Not enough sugar and what??  I knew I bought pectin, but could not find it.  Off to the grocery store for both.  Too bad there isn't a local sugar cane or sugar beet farm.  I have a feeling that sugar is one of those things that if I knew the conditions of the workers, I would never buy again, but ignorance is bliss, as they say and I somehow doubt that either of those crops grow in Pennsylvania.  (When we lived in Arizona, where I grew up, I used to see the trucks with sugar beets all the time, so I'm guessing the climate here is not conducive to either crop.)

While I was there, I looked through the meager canning supplies and thought for the umptiumpth time that I really should start a business that specializes in canning and putting food up supplies.  (I could call it, "CAN this!")

Home again and dumped the rest of the sugar on the berries, as well as the pectin.  I had jars all sterilized (which is super important in water bath canning) and ready to go along with hot lids and rings.

This is my steam canner, that I only use for sterilizing since there is lots of argument about it being hot enough to kill bacteria inside a full canning jar

The jam came to a boil and threatened to over flow the very generous pot I had them in, which is why I don't have a pic of that step.  I let it boil for the suggested amount (although now that it has cooled, it appears that I could have let it go for a bit longer, as the jam is more syrupy than jammy.) and loaded up the hot jars with the hot jam, swiped the rims with a clean paper towel dipped in white vinegar,

I then slammed on a lid and ring, tightened them finger tight and plunked them as I finished them one by one into the hot water bath.  You should always have about an inch of water over the tops of the jars in water bath canning, just so that you get a good seal and even heat throughout the jar.

The jars were processed for 15 minutes, because they were pints and that's what the USDA says for that size.

Tonight, I removed the rings, washed the jars in hot soapy water and placed them upside down on the dish towel to dry.  They are beeee-you-ti-full!

Here they are pictured with a batch of beans I pressure canned.  I did the beans because my supply was running low and they make a great addition to salad or a quick dinner of bean tostados (which is what we had tonight).  These are black beans and chick peas (garbanzos or chi-chis if you are Italian).

I cannot wait to have some delicious blueberry jam on toast with a fresh poached egg or two and maybe some homemade sausage.  Oh, I should do a post about that, right?  Best Christmas present ever... the grinder attachment for my Kitchenaid Mixer!  (or as I like to call it, "The Goddess of Kitchen Equipment"  I love that thing!)

Greetings fellow carbon units!

I thought I would give you a quick update on my dwarf fruit trees.  If you will recall, I planted a peach tree, an apple tree and a plum tree last fall.  I also had a couple of fig trees, but in order to not keep you in suspense, I can tell you right now that they did not make it through the winter.  I'm going to try again with them at a later time.

Getting back to the three fruit trees.  Well... I ended up buying another apple tree, peach tree, apricot tree and a nectarine tree.  That's a lot of trees to cram into one tiny backyard, but I managed.  Besides, they're dwarf and won't get too big, as long as I keep them under control.

As for varieties - well, the peaches are Intrepid and Elberta.  I grew up in Tucson and have fond memories of picking Elberta peaches in the hot sun and biting into them, right there in the orchard. The sweet sticky peach juice usually ended up all over my face and shirt, but man was it worth it.

Intrepid  Peach

The apples are a Honey crisp spin off and an Cox;s Orange Pippin.  The Cox's Orange is an old variety and it is the only one that isn't a dwarf, but I haz plans for that one.  I intend on trellising it against the fence, but we'll see how that goes.  It is supposed to be a good all purpose apple and one that is used in a lot of the hybrid crosses we have today.  It is also supposed to be a good cider apple, and I lurve me some cider, I will tell you.

I don't remember what the apricot, the plum or the nectarine varieties are, but I'm looking forward to them fruiting in the next few years.  Apricot jam, might just be my favorite.

Apricot Tree

At any rate, they all made it through the winter with flying colors and are growing with astounding amounts of vigor.  I will do some summer pruning at the end of next month just so they don't get too big or leggy.  My goal is to have nice sturdy trees that can withstand a fruit load easily.

Now the next garden addition is pretty sweet and I've been enjoying the heck out of them.  Meet Susan Beak Eggthany and Mo Clucker.  Suzie is the dark red one and Mo, is the one with the whiter feathers around her neck.  They are about 10 months old and have been popping out an egg a day each since mid-January.

They're quiet, well behaved, love eating bugs and they eat the heck out of the dandelions!  Also, Mo has a serious thing for strawberries, so I'm always shooing her out of the strawberry bed. She was too fast for me here and played keep away with Suzie while gobbling up her ill gotten gains.

Chickens are a natural for any garden - free manure and it's supposed to be the best manure ever once you let it compost some.  Plus, can I tell you?  They have huge personalities!  Who knew?

They come running when I shake their treat bag and always follow me around checking out what I am doing and making sure I do it correctly.  They make this funny sorta soft clucky noise when they see me and I have just been having the best time.

Here, I was trying to get a picture of an intriguing weed.  Ran right over to investigate right as I was taking the picture.

The very best part is the fresh eggs.  You seriously have never baked something before if you have not used a fresh, laid 15 minutes ago egg.  Fluffy, light as air baked goods.  Did you know that most of the eggs you buy in the grocery store are about 3-6 months old when you buy them?  There really is no comparison at all.

Now, I am sure someone is going to ask, but the answer is "no."  You do NOT need a rooster in order to get eggs.  You need a rooster if you want fertilized eggs.   Just as a human woman produces an egg every month regardless of whether a man is present or not, so do hens.

I really think that if more people knew how fun and easy chickens are, more people would have them.

Okay, well, that's about it.  Until next time, please remember, Be Kind To Each Other.

With Silver Bells and Cockle Shells...

Hello gentle readers,

Know what is gross?  Potato bug larvae.  So very, very gross.  They are slimy and squishy too.  Which is good, because it makes picking them off of potato plants and disposing of them easier.  But... shudder.  blech.

If you have been reading my blog - first off, that makes you ultra cool - but secondly, you may recall that last year, I started building permaculture beds and taking steps to create a little "food forest" in my urban backyard.

I started by creating some sheet mulched beds with lots of good stuff.  So far, the results are pretty good.  My strawberries have been pumping out 2 to 3 berries every day.  Certainly, not enough to make jam, but they are tasty.  This is their first spring in the ground, so I imagine they are still getting established and hopefully, I will get a decent crop next year.

(Aren't my nails FABulous??  They're my new favorite obsession, Jamberry nail wraps.  These are Mermaid Tails mixed up with some regular old nail polish on the rest of my fingers.)

Secondly, the apple tree... I'm so happy with it this year.  It still needs a ton of pruning and shaping, but so far, there is no sign of scab on the leaves or the apples.  I also thinned the apples I can reach and maybe it is my imagination, but the remaining ones look so much bigger already!

This is my little salad garden.  Things that are doing well:  lettuce (two varieties) and the carrots look promising.  Also, I planted some dragon tongue beans along the back.  'cause... dragon's tongue... coolest name ever.  They're doing pretty well.

Things that aren't:  The collards are doing well but I'm sharing my harvest with cabbage moths; same with the cabbage; the kale; and the brussels sprouts.  I probably should have used row covers.  Next time.

Along the side of the house, in the driveway, I started a container garden and almost everything is looking really great although I have nary a bloom on a tomato plant yet.  I planted:  potatoes; sweet potatoes; tomatoes; peppers; squash; cucumbers; watermelon; and winter squash.  Most of them are in these new-fangled plant pouches which are supposed to be way better for the plants and prevent root bound problems.  So far I like them, but I am concerned they are not quite large enough for the potatoes.

Speaking of potatoes, I may have gone a bit overboard when I ordered the seed potatoes last year.  I have 17 pots of potatoes.  Apparently, I forgot I didn't live on a farm.

Alright you guys, that's about it for today.  Next time, I will show you how the dwarf fruit trees are doing, plus a little introduction to my new weed and bug control system.

Until then... remember -  Be kind to each other.

The Return

Greetings Gentle Readers,

I know it has been a while since I posted and... well, life.  Some of it is good and some of it is not.  You know that saying, "Time flies when you're having fun?"  Well, time also flies when you have tragedy.  You see, this year started out just like every other year in my life - with a lovely New Year's Day full of home cooked food (slow roasted pork shoulder, kale, home made bread, etc.) and progressed swimmingly towards my sister's birthday on the 8th of January.

Early on the morning of the 13th, we got a call that my mother had been rushed to the hospital in respiratory distress.  My mom's house is four hours away and before any of us could rush to be there, she was gone.  Just like that.  No warning, no chance to say goodbye or tell her how much we loved her.  Nothing but disbelief, shock and crushing sadness.  It will be five months on June 13th and I still have moments when I just can't believe she is gone.  It is as if a portion of my brain just doesn't want to cling to the reality of a world without her in it.

It is a strange thing, losing a parent.  We all know it is coming - it is the natural order of things.  Old people die.  We all know that, just as we know that one day we will be old and then we will die.  When both parents are gone we become unmoored, in a sense.  Suddenly, the only person that remembers our childhood is us.  Our parents take the memories of our first steps, our first words, and our first day of school with them when they go and we truly cease to be the child, literally and figuratively.  It is a strange feeling to be cut adrift in the vast sea of humanity without the parental shelter awaiting our return.  We are thrust into the role of reigning adult and are now the repository for the family history and lore.  

When my dad was sick with Alzheimer's, it was tough on all of us, losing him a little bit by bit and even sadder, he lost himself bit by bit.  In June 2013, as he neared the end of his life, we all gathered around him and after I kissed him on his forehead, I whispered to him, "It's okay, you can let go... we'll all be fine."  It was true too.  As much as we all loved him, watching him lose the essence of himself was, I thought worse than losing him all at once.  Alzheimer's is a horrible disease, robbing its victims of their families, their memories and finally, their dignity, so there was a sense of gratitude that he was no longer suffering.

In my mother's case though, there was no long goodbye.  She was there one day and gone the next.  No mental preparation, no sense of relief that she was released from suffering - just shock, pain and sadness.  

It's a human thing to play the "what if" game and especially when we have a sudden loss like this.  "What if she had listened to me and gone to the doctor the last time I talked to her?"  "What if I could have spoken with the ER doctor and said, Yes, please resuscitate her?"  But the biggest thing is always, "What if we knew that the last time we talked with ..... (fill in the blank), was the last time we were going to talk with them?"  What would we say?  What would we want them to know?  What was left unsaid?

For me, this at least carries no guilt.  I told her I loved her.  Every time.  Because I did.  She's gone now and carries a piece of my heart with her, but at least wherever she goes in her travels now, she knows that and that is the most important thing - to know we love and are loved.  

We will be taking her ashes back home in September.  Back to El Paso, where she came into being 84 years ago upon this earthly plane, to rest beside my dad, underneath the rocky shadows of the Franklin Mountains and the vast, impossibly blue sky of her desert home.

I'll be back tomorrow with a garden up date.  In the meantime, hug your parents, if you can.

Until then, gentle readers, Be Kind to each other.