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!)