Those little iridescent bastards

So, after watching the video I posted a little yonder back about how to deal with garden pests in a more natural way, I took their advice and simply decided to watch and see how they effected my garden.

THE CARNAGE!

I will rain garlic oil vengeance upon them this week, so help me! Unless anyone else knows of swift effective justice to repel these hellions away from my morning glories. HAVE THEY NO SHAME!? 

Zukicide, part deux.

So, after my last post about zukes I marched my happy ass to two locally owned garden centers to buy the blossom end rot spray the internet told me was at both of these stores. No dice. How can this be?! CURSE YOU INTERNETS! I had to settle for an organic fertilizer high in calcium from a big box store. It was made in the US (yay!) but made from composted feathers and chicken waste. Grr....

what used to be
my zuke's vine

good night,
sweet prince

It seemed for the time being my problem was solved. Then I noticed something was amiss with the vines themselves. Can blossom end rot reach all the way to the stem? I got a few decent zukes but I noticed more and more how the plant seemed to be rotting away. I pulled the plug and tore it out today. I'm unsure if I should compost it or burn it, I'm leaning towards burning it since I honestly don't know what killed it (aside from my fist ripping it out of the ground) and I don't want to risk composting it and spreading whatever turned my vibrant zukes into a mass of leaves and goo. Shit.

My big worry now is that some of my tomatoes have it too. WHAT DO I DO!? 

YAY!

So, new photos tomorrow. We've been up to a lot in the gardens! BUT. That's not what this post is about.

A few months ago we were in a pet supply store buying bunny toys when we noticed the local animal shelter was showing off some of their available dogs. Specifically there was an older dog named Rusty. Erick walked over and was so smitten with the animal we wound up buying a huge bag of dog food and treats as a donation to the shelter. We kept tabs on Rusty, discussing the possibility of adopting him. Then one day on the website, he was gone. He'd been adopted! While we were happy for him to have a home, both Erick and myself were disappointed that he wasn't in OUR home.

Please tell me you have booze in that tiny barrel!
www.irishdogs.ie

It's been several months now and we've decided that this coming winter would be the perfect time to adopt. We've been scouring petfinder.com and pet pardons, but knowing that we can't adopt for a few more months makes it hard since these animals need homes pronto.

We've also been discussing possible breeds. We'd never discriminate based on breed or lack thereof, but some animals have traits bred into them that would not work for our household, considering we have little animals and cats a dog with a sharp hunting instinct and high prey drive might not be the best fit. After doing a lot of reading this afternoon, Erick decided a low key breed such as a St. Bernard would be a great fit for us. While each dog is an individual, the breed has been honed to be more of a nurturer than a hunter since they have a low prey drive.  Now rescuing a dog the size of a pony might sound like a giant headache waiting to happen, but I can't wait. I can't wait to take him/her to obedience training! My goal for whatever dog we wind up adopting would be to get a dog with the right personality to eventually work as a therapy dog. I'm going back to school in the spring for a CNA certificate and would like to work in a nursing facility or hospice situation. Bringing my dog to work with the ill and the elderly is a dream I've had ever since I brought Wolfie to school with me a few years back.

Another concern I've had is that since Erick works nights there are some nights I'm home by myself. While it sounds silly, having a dog that outweighs me in the house would make me a little less jumpy. Plus when the cats are being finicky I know I'll always have a snuggle buddy, sleeping alone is the PITS. Also, they're great with cats. I can see it now, our big lug curled up on her doggy bed, kitties nestled up around her; my face melts with the potential cuteness. Amazingly there are a lot of St. Bernards up for adoption around the state, hopefully when the time is right around October/November the perfect saint'll be waiting for us! 

Something Serious.

Okay. This post has nothing to do with my garden, or earthships or how to DIY anything in your home. This post is about something totally different but equally as vital.

Roughly 4 MILLION animals are put down annually in shelters across the US for no other reason than the fact that there wasn't anyone to adopt them. This is totally unacceptable. These are loving, bright, and beautiful companion animals that were not given a choice about their lives.  High kill shelters are putting down kittens as young as  THREE DAYS OLD. Why were three day old kittens even in the shelter you ask? Because someone didn't spay their cat. Because someone decided their pet was disposable. Now I know there are reasons for giving a pet up, losing a job, having to move, I get it, yes. But for every pet given up by a loving owner who was heartbroken by the choice, there are more who are there due to carelessness and apathy. And because of these careless and cold humans, eleven thousand animals die in shelters every day.

I know this isn't my normal chipper and witty blog post, but I'm pissed. Really pissed. My cats are rescues, they weren't even going to make it to a shelter, a man was going to take them out on his property and kill them. He'd already killed one of the mothers and three babies, the other seven (including my Finch and Atticus) were next if his amazing daughter hadn't homed seven kittens by herself.  This kind of thing happens every day in this country, and it's sick.

The joy and love my pets have shown me makes me weep for every animal that has been thrown away by an undeserving human, and has died without ever knowing a loving home. These animals deserve better than what we as a society have provided them. Collectively, we should be ashamed.

Spay and neuter your pets, volunteer at local shelters, and please, PLEASE consider adopting.

End Rant. 

Be the hummingbird

Oh internets, is there nothing you can't do?

With the weather being as predictable as Charlie Sheen on blow these days, a girl's got to plan a head as best she can. The weather channel's website has an awesome feature that has all sorts of interesting little tidbits and gadgets to help you with the garden such as soil moisture maps, precipitation maps, etc. I love the internets! 

yikes.

It seems like this is a growing trend, punishing those who grow their own food in normally nice pickety yards and properties. I recently posted a video about a woman facing jail time for having the audacity to grow food in her front yard, and now this couple who is supporting themselves off their own gumption and hard work. What's next?

grow your own cooking oil

I always wonder how far I can push the limits of self sufficiency. Given the land, I think with enough practice you can produce everything you need to feed yourself, including cooking oil.  Sunflowers are a fantastic option for the midwest, they're multi purpose, you can eat the seeds, feed them to birds and other animals, and make oil for cooking, and the plants themselves can be composted to enrich the soil for the next season.  When I was browsing around I found This online article that not only discusses how to harvest oil from sunflowers, it shows you how to make your own oil press! Not only does it give step by step instructions from everything to grinding the seeds to harvesting the oil, it also discusses the difference between oil seeds and confectionary seeds, which I had no idea about. Though we can't possibly grow enough sunflowers to meet all our cooking needs, I think I'm going to try and talk Erick into making a prototype oil press with me this winter. If anyone else has experience with making your own cooking oil, I'd love to hear about it!

My hero

Food as a weapon? It's an alarming thought. Something to think about. 

The Humane Society ever so gently plucks my heart strings

Holy hell! That video almost turned me into this woman:

I cannot stress enough the importance of supporting shelters. I've volunteered at them, I've adopted from them, they are a vital part of our country for unwanted animals.  Our town has an amazing shelter called Tails, Olive is from there and I can't imagine life without her. The best thing we could be doing for millions of abandoned animals is to stop breeding more pets! It is absolutely insane that people are pumping out designer dogs and cats while there are literally millions of loving, fun, beautiful animals who will be put down this year for lack of a home. I saw this commercial and I did the big googly eyes at talking kittens. Cute talking animals get me every time. I'm like a damn 6 year old.  

So predictable. 

Happy birthday Olive!

I got an email from the vet reminding me that today was her birthday! I was certain it wasn't until October, but I can't remember what I had for breakfast so I trust them more. 

Happy Birthday Olive oil! 

Baby raccoons: the movie! (AKA a video I took after I nearly stepped on them)

So I finally figured out Erick's fancy pants phone and managed to upload a video of the day I discovered the wee raccoons rolly pollying around the basement. You can't hear it but I swear because the third one growled at me. Yes, I am sweet talking the wild baby raccoons, I know...I know.

Natural remedies

SO! Out in the garden the other day I spy a pretty iridescent blue/green bug with little white tufts around the wings. How cute!

OH SHIT!! 

The japanese beetle has officially whizzed into my garden. I was planning on going to the local garden store and snagging some beetle spray, but I looked up some youtube videos first.

I enjoyed this one especially. Not only does it give advice on how to kill the mature bugs, it gives an organic solution to rid the yard of the grubs as well. Now I have to look up how to get garlic oil~!

THANKS YOUTUBE! 

vegan yarn!

Is there anything they can't make a good vegan substitute for?

 Nope!

another place to order the yarn

Vegan yarn recycled from Saris, so neat.  I've always wanted to learn how to knit!

I'm getting rid of our St. Francis statue!

REALLY!? AGAIN?!

This thing has made our yard some sort of mecca for woodland creatures even though we live next to the busiest road in town and train tracks and a train yard border the end of the block on the other side.

I wrote before about the stray cat (Boots) and her babies and how we haven't seen them for a few weeks. One of Erick's coworkers who volunteers at the shelter in town told him that they recently got a momma and some babies from around us, so we figured it was Boots and her babies, and slept a little easier. The other night we were pulling in the driveway when Mittens (one of her kittens) sprinted out from under our neighbor's car and into our yard. I'd left cat food out for them just incase, and I found him eating it out of the dirt, which was so sad. He sounded pathetic, and I decided I'd try to catch him and take him back to his momma at the shelter. Considering how the only wild animal we'd seen around was a lone opossum, I figured if I put out two live traps we'd be set and I'd have mittens by dawn the next day.


What I didn't take into account was the fact that our lives are one giant example of Murphy's law.

Instead of a kitten, we caught.... THREE BABY RACCOONS. AGAIN. Shit! Now, they were a lot older looking than the wee ones from our basement, and considering how there aren't a ton of places for a raccoon to go in our part of town we figured the mom would be back (if they weren't already on their own) if we left out some more cat food and set them free into the wild patch of our yard. When I told my mom she was convinced that animal control just released the raccoons near the small park by our house and that they're the same lot as before. I don't know if I buy that, but I know that raccoons keep showing up at our house in threes, which is weird. I blame St. Francis, ever since I brought that statue into our yard we have our own ark load of critters showing up. But this time they're showing up in threes. Super.

Zukicide

photo from gardeningthings.com

Blossom end rot has reared it's squishy head in the back of our garden. After some frantic googling, I discovered it's caused by a lack of calcium in the soil. So gross. I've only been able to use one lonesome zucchini off the plants before I came out the other day to find them all oozey and yellow. Blegh. So....I'm going to the local garden supply store and buying some calcium spray. I'm surprised our garden has gone along problem free for this long, so I can't be too grouchy about something that's a ten dollar fix. I've heard eggshells added to the soil amend this problem, if there are any more experienced gardeners reading this, have you ever had this before? How did you deal with it?

Are you kidding me!?

Sorry it's a fox clip, it's the only one I could find.
Anyway, this is total bullshit.

Make your own sugar!

I just read a  little bit ago that the USDA is allowing GMO sugar beets to be grown in the US. Super. If this news is as frustrating to you as it was to me, you're probably wildly googling for an alternative to Frankenbeets.  

Sure, cane sugar is a valid option, I have some in my pantry now. You can get it raw, since a lot of our nation's processed sugar is filtered through charred animal bones, which I find both highly resourceful and deeply unsettling at the same time. The problem is the sugar filtered through the char is dumped in with all the rest, tainting all of it, which totally sucks.  The issue with cane sugar is unless you live in a tropical climate, getting it local is about as likely as finding baby unicorns knitting you mittens under your porch.

but how can we knit
if we have no thumbs!?
from: www.jhocy.com

There are other options, such as maple syrup and honey. Being vegan, that takes honey off the table, and since we're only keeping one of the maple trees we have now (which wouldn't produce enough syrup for us), this leads me to the point of this post: homemade beet sugar!

I'm not kidding, they run the
sugar you eat through THIS. Blegh.
from: agriculturesolutions.com

I knew you could BUY beet sugar. I wasn't aware you could make it at home!

There's a wonderful article online from indiana public media that goes into detail about how to produce your own beet sugar, as well as other useful sugar substitutes. I'm including the recipe here with credit to them. I'm going to see if we can make room in the garden next year for sugar beets, which are I guess two or three times higher in sucrose than regular ones? I think the normal ones are about 5% and sugar beets are anywhere from 15-20% From what I've read about 15lbs of sugar beets makes about 2lbs of sugar? But from what I've seen of the beets, they're pretty big.

Making Beet Sugar

(adapted from: Grandpappy’s Homemade Sugar Recipe)

1. Carefully wash and scrub beets, remove greens.
2. Finely slice, dice or shred beets into a large pot.
3. Add just enough water to cover the beets.
4. Cook beets over medium heat until tender (about an hour).
5. Drain the beets (retain the water! this is what you will use to make the sugar), you can eat the cooked beets, use them in other recipes or can them.
6. Simmer the beet sugar water over low-medium heat, stirring frequently until it becomes a thick syrup, roughly the consistency of honey.
7. Transfer the syrup to a storage container. As it cools, it will begin to crystallize.
8. As the sugar crystallizes, periodically remove it from the container and crush it into sugar crystals.

And for the other substitutes I mentioned that might be more practical for others: 

Substituting Honey And Maple Syrup

You can also use maple syrup or honey in many recipes.

To substitute honey for sugar, eHow provides a few guidelines:

• Up to one cup, honey can be substituted for sugar in equal amounts.
• Over one cup, use about 2/3-3/4 cup of honey for every cup of sugar.

They also recommend reducing the amount of liquid in your recipe, adding a little baking soda to counter honey’s acidity and reducing the cooking temperature a bit.

For maple syrup, similar rules of thumb apply: use about 3/4 cup maple syrup in the place of each cup of sugar and reduce the amount of liquid in your recipe by about 3 tablespoons per cup of maple syrup added.

Both honey and maple syrup also make healthier, more local additions to coffee, tea and other beverages.

Sounds like it would be a worthwhile experiment! If anyone tries this, I'd love to hear how it turns out! 

If you want to try and stay afloat in the sea of GE and GMO produce, genetically engineered food news produces informative articles and lists on the subject.

Dream home

An earthbag home. We'd love to have it look
 something like this inside! photo from:
holistic-interior-designs.com

While we love our house, we don't plan on living here forever.  Eventually our goal is to buy a few acres near here and build our own home. We'd keep the house, maybe renting it out or using it if our parents can't keep up on their homes, or family need a place to stay down the line.

photo from: permaculture-media-download.blogspot.com,
a cool blog that I recommend highly

   While there are a plethora of housing options that are economical, we want one that will truly be eco friendly and let us live completely off grid. For awhile now we've discussed building our own Earthship. They use earth filled tires to build the walls in the house, and once plastered look as beautiful as normal walls. But instead they act as thermal mass. That means they help regulate the temperature of the house, no electricity required. The exterior windows are also angled in a way that deflects sunlight during hot summer months, but during the winter when the sun is lower, welcomes in the warmth. A house that works in harmony with the seasons, it seems so practical and common sense, you wonder why everyone isn't living in them. As if this warlock of a home wasn't sweet enough, it catches your rainwater and turns it into your household water, there's a grey water system, solar panels, and you can build them anywhere on the planet. The movie "Garbage Warrior" discusses them, demonstrating how they can be built in places more traditional homes wouldn't last or be practical. On top of all that, the architechture in them can be stunning. In tandem with the grey water system, there are large spaces inside for plants that are watered off cast off water, imagine your tomato and pepper plants growing next to your kitchen counter! Hell yes! Colored light filteres through when the sun hits recycled bottles in the walls, adding another element of art and beauty. 

from planter to plate in five steps!
photo from: treehugger.com

photo from: uprooted.jessicareeder.com
another truly awesome blog

building your own home! from: dornob.com

Another similar option I just discovered today was earthbag homes. It's a very similar concept, only you create the home with bags filled with local earth. LOVE IT! It also gives more creative freedom as far as curves go. There's a book on the topic I stumbled over while surfing for housing designs that looks very promising. Two sites that I found fascinating where earthbagbuilding.wordpress.com and .tinyhousedesign.com It'll be at least five to ten years before we can even think about moving out of our house, but if this trend keeps up, we'll have plenty to read and look over while we daydream about our dream house! 

To do list:
-build earthbag home
-walk the one ring back to
Mordor 

photo from:
greenlifestylemagazine.net

Dragonfruit

also known as pitaya. photo from wikipedia

So the other day at my favorite grocery store (that shall not be named. Sort of like Voldermort?) I was walking past the organic produce and happened upon...Dragon-fruit? I'd seen it on the food network before (Who doesn't love watching some good ol' food porn, or chefs competing and making dishes out of string cheese and coco puffs?) But I'd never tasted one. Our diet gets a tad repetitive in the midwest, so I thought it'd be a fun healthy way to surprise Erick with something interesting at home. It was in the organic section, so I figured it'd be free of all the weird shit that's floating around in farmland. I made a few mistakes here:

A) I couldn't find a price tag, little did I know once I leaving the blasted thing cost EIGHT DOLLARS. What is it, solid gold inside? Shit! I should have marched my happy ass back and returned it, but it took four ladies to ring it up, one being the mother of a kid I used to work with...I felt a little guilty returning it after they went through the trouble. I'm such a wimp.

B) I didn't read the sticker on the fruit until I got home that said it was from Vietnam. Shame on me for purchasing something that traveled thousands of miles on a lark for some fruit salad.

C) Also, it was irradiated! WHAT!? I know they pull this shit with food all the time, but this magenta pine cone is nestled next to organic produce!

Needless to say, I was pissed at myself. I'd broken all the food rules I try and follow in one hot pink, eight dollar fuck up. Now that I had this day glo wonder sitting on my cutting board at home though, I figured I might as well dig in and see if it was worth it.

It wasn't.

It was bland, SO bland and watery! But if the thing had been picked at it's peak of juicy freshness, then blasted with radiation, boxed, flown over the goddamn ocean, unpacked, thrown on a truck, driven who knows how far, hauled into the back room of the store, inventoried, then finally, FINALLY nestled next to the organic produce in my favorite grocery store, how could I expect any different? The sad thing is, people are probably buying these and thinking they taste like shit, when I'm sure an actual fresh pitaya is delicious. I'm going to try even harder to stick with locally grown fare, and not be so easy to cave when I see giant hot pink fruit beckoning me from who knows where.  It also goes to show that nothing in supermarkets is really safe from this type of shit, no matter how employee owned or shiny.

Ugh.  It makes me want a greenhouse all the more so I can try and grow these kinds of things myself.

Community plot photos

Wow. That looks depressing doesn't it? To be honest, there isn't much pep or sense of community here right now. Out of everyone we tried to greet or make a conversation with, most have been polite, and several have been downright dicks. One lady though, our plot neighbor to the left, was very kind to us, even going so far as to offer horse manure! Gotta start somewhere.

These photos are from the day after we pulled an entire plot of thistles *by hand, for two hours*

What did we plant once the ground was cleared of our hellish Scottish emblem?

* red and white potatoes
*green and white onions
*french breakfast and sparkler radishes
*garlic
*lemon balm
*Hungarian heart tomato, and another heirloom I was given but don't know the name of

Erick hard at work digging our potato row. He doesn't like it
when I take photos of him so this'll have to be our secret. 

There are also wild onions and dill on the plot we didn't remove. The dill is actually very hardy and tastes wonderful on bread with some butter.

Sadly, I did have a pea plant, but the neighbor behind us killed it! He tilled right to the edge of his line and the dirt buried it. Twice, even after I dug it up and put large clumps of dirt around it to shield it. Lame. Also, who uses Roundup where they grow food?! Ugh.

We decided against greens when we saw tons of rabbits rustling in the untended plots (again, full of thistles) we also saw a dozen chipmunks and a DUCK nesting in a plot near us. A few days ago we went back and the duck plot had been mowed down to the dirt, which was sad since no one's using it and the duck wasn't hurting anyone. We're trying to get a second plot since we've seen double (and even triple) plots, but the new city clerk seems intent on restricting that and grandfathering in the people who've had double plots for centuries. Which is fine, we're just bummed we didn't get in on this earlier!

Our row of wild onions. They taste wonderful, and the flowers last forever. Silly question to all you seasoned gardeners, we can eat the stalks right? They look so juicy and crisp, I want to put them in a stir-fry.

 Is there anything easier than sprouting potatoes? Throw them in a paper bag and forget about them for a few months. I've done that with regular food before, it's nice to see it finally paying off instead of ending with me hunting around for the phantom smell in the back of the car. These are leftover potatoes from the supermarket that I got before the new one opened up. It's a little unsettling because I don't know if they're going to sprout limbs and murder the rest of my plants in a Monsanto patented chemical fueled roid rage, or suits from Walmart and Aldi are going to come sue us for patent infringement. Oi.
                                                                                    Either way next year we have a seed provider picked out and our list of plants all neatly written down and stowed away. Nothing more comforting than knowing our entire stock of produce from our garden next year will be GMO free. A few odds and ends we're getting at our local farm store, but those are mostly flowers and the odd herb. Does anyone else garden on a community plot? We're trying to foster some sense of community with our plot neighbors that other gardens seem to have, but with all the untended plots and things looking a little shabby, it seems like an uphill battle.

plug plug plug

Surfing the web today I stumbled across a blog I'm rather smitten with. It's based in Indiana and called  "going local", it's about local events, produce, and other things yummy. My two favorite things about this blog? First; a recipe library by SEASON! How handy is that? Love it. Second? A transparency statement stating that she doesn't accept money or charge for posts about events, etc. Nothing makes me happier than transparency in media. Too bad Fox doesn't follow the same policy.

http://www.goinglocal-info.com/my_weblog/

(For the record no money changes hands for my blog either. Probably because no one reads it) 

Slow Food USA

My new love! Slow Food USA is such a cool organization. Everything from growing your own food to making food stamps last at farmer's markets is discussed by this group. There should be more advocates like this for the healthy field to fork way of life!


http://www.slowfoodusa.org

Finally! Photos!

We finally got photos! No, no cord yet, we took the memory card from Erick's camera to a convenience store and got them put on a disk. Turns out I took about 300 photos of our cats..... oops.

Back in Feb. when I first broke my ankle I was going a little stir crazy. We started a ton of stuff way too early in our studio so I'd have something to do aside from listening to Stephanie Miller and Mike Nowak on the radio like I was from the 20's.  The big bucket is full of basil that later turned all black and died.Speaking of our studio, this is it. The week Erick moved in I cleaned the room out and painted a big-ass narwhal so we'd have a place to paint and do other arty shenanigans. Mostly it's turned into storage and what was our grow room over the winter. 

Once I was able to hobble around again we started prepping outside for our much awaited garden. Considering the condition of the house, there was a lot to do. There were some mighty bush-tree things that had to be hacked down, ground to till, a fence to put up, limbs to cut off our tree, etc. I have to say though, Erick did the lions share of it while I was "supervising" from a lawn chair on the patio sorting onion bulbs and stoking a small fire. 

 The yard before most of the tilling took place. It's weird to see this photo and think about how it looks now filled with greens and veggies.

Another project we undertook was ripping down the disgusting shed that had been festering next to our neighbor's fence. Things were living under it, there was a hole in the roof, ants had taken over, it had to go. Now that momma cat was using it as a toilet for her kittens before they took off. We haven't seen them for about two weeks now :(  

Our produce is taking off! Zukes, Lettuce, Tomatoes, all of it is flourishing faster than we can pick it!  

Our sunflowers, this year I'm probably going to let them go to the birds and save a few for our rat, but next year I'm going to start saving all the seeds and seeing what I can make them into

Our peas are doing better than expected as well, I'm kicking myself for not buying snap peas, but we can still turn these into something tasty.

 Erick and I made the mistake of planting 6 rows of lettuce. The other day before I wrote my post about flea control I decided to risk it and let Olive in the garden to see if she'd take a chunk out of our lettuce horde. Instead she demurely hopped over the the fence and nibbled the clover until mosquitoes swarmed her so badly I took her inside.  Speaking of the flea post, aside from feeling silly I wrote such a maudlin post, we found a solution! I'll write in depth about it later. 

Our rather scruffy looking yard. You can see the rain barrels in the corner, we've had those since March but I forgot to write about them. oops. 

So. Much. Lettuce. it is absolutely unreal how fast and how prolific it is, even in the full sun and the heat! Good thing there's a vegan and three rabbits to try and make a dent in this insanity.