Greenhouse

My greenhouse. This house/ sink wall will get finished off this year really nice. Brick floor is set in sand.

My greenhouse is attached to our home. You walk through it from our dining area of our great room to go outside to our pergola and backyard. It should just be a nice sitting area, but this time of year it functions as a greenhouse with lots of garden seedlings getting an early start.

Planting shelf with heat coils and grow lights.

The table height shelf in the greenhouse has heat coils installed to help seedling flats get a good start, then I unplug the heat coils as the plants are growing so to get them acclimated to cooler temps. Grow lights sit on this shelf.

Seedlings of broccoli, cauliflower, kale, collar greens, parsley, tomatoes, eggplant, flowers, herbs, chard . . .

We're going to dismantle the shelf this year once the Spring season of plant starts is over. I want it to be a nice room. The shelf and under it have become a storage area that I don't want to look at anymore.

Grapevine with Clematis, garlic chives, hostas, nicotiana, lilly of the valley, ferns ...

There is a sink counter on the house wall that will remain. The grape vine growing from the ground on the far end will remain. There's a nice raised brick area next to the window expanse with slatted wood top that would be pretty with potted plants on it.

Outside this window expanse is an outside greenhouse - like a tall cold frame. I've got salady stuff in there that didn't grow much over winter, but they didn't freeze and die. The plants are now taking off and we're starting to add them to our salads.

Lime tree and Fig tree, as well as Jasmine are in large pots on castors. Then there's geranium pots and herbs.

It's April 15 and snowing - 3 more days of snow to come!

Bacon-Wrapped Jalapeno Poppers

I've always loved jalapeno poppers. I've been seeing more posts on simply cutting them in half, which is brilliant. It is too hard to try and slit, remove seeds, and stuff. And then too, your first bite bursts it open and cheese oozes out all over. So this is now my "keeper" of an appetizer recipe!

Lonely, bacon-wrapped jalapeno popper

I saved out two, but Monte ate one, for a picture. I made two batches in the past week. We were invited to new neighbors for grilled hamburgers and I brought the appetizer. Then Sunday, Dawson with some of wife, Sarah's family and neighbors, came to do Ukrainian eggs and a meal (see my post on Ukrainian egg dyeing tutorial). Dawson pulled the stored box of dyes from the garage, set it up and cleaned it up - thank you Dawson!

I made a meal of roasted brined chickens over a bed of roasting veggies, salad with homemade salad dressings (one a dairy kefir caesar I love, and need to post about), and homemade bread. But I did the jalapeno popper appetizer first while prepping the chickens and veggies.

Bacon-Wrapped Jalapeno Poppers

About a dozen jalapenos - stem, cut in half, and de-seed (wear gloves!)
8 oz of cream cheese, room temp
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1# bacon - cut in half

Fill each pepper half by pressing in the cream cheese and then press on the grated cheese. Wrap each with bacon half, ends to the back, and set on baking pan to bake at 450 degrees till bacon is done - about 15-25 minutes. Serve.

I usually buy everything organic or pastured. Our Costco carries the Kerry Gold Irish Cheddar Cheese (as too, their butter) which is pastured - and I stock up on them! I also get bacon without the nitrates, hormones and antibiotics as well.

Shared with: Simple Lives Thursday, Homestead Barn Hop, Granny's Vitals, Food Renegade, Tasty Traditions, Clever Chicks Blog Hop, Traditional Tuesday

Living Out of a Suitcase

Daughter Heather

Monte and me took a road trip. We first visited our daughter and two grandkids. We helped get their gardening spaces planted with veggies. Monte and Bill with four-year-old Will went and got soil prep ingredients, and once home prepared the soil for planting. Heather and me with one-year-old Bridget went our way to get plants and seeds.

Grandson Will

Plant starts, even including lettuce, I felt would be easier for Will to keep out of the beds, as he's been used to playing with his trucks and cars in the dirt. I put the plant markers by the plants and showed Will the pictures of the "fruit" from veggies to flowers, and we talked about them. I had him help me plant the pole bean seeds around bamboo teepees we poked into the soil, hoping this too would help him avoid playing in the dirt.

Granddaughter Bridget

Heather called and said seedlings were coming up. Oh to have a longer growing season. We're still getting snow! I have started seeds in flats in my greenhouse tho. That's how I get my urge for getting my hands in dirt, and an early start for my short season. And my outside greenhouse salad ingredients, though dormant during winter, didn't freeze, is taking off. I need to take a current picture.

Next enroute was Sonita Arizona to stay with Monte's geology "partner" (tho both individual consultants they tend to do most projects together). Being close to Tucson I spent a day with my sister and Monte came for supper to visit and drive me back to Stan's. Tucson is where I spent most of my growing up years. Monte came for graduate school and met me. Before moving to 8000 feet in Colorado, we'd built a home in the Tucson Mountain desert. So I've gardened in two extremes - like a bumper crop of tomatoes in February planted at the base of a brick south facing wall in Tucson, to being able to get tomatoes, period, in the mountains - all by tricking mother nature.

At my sister's

Stan and us took a scenic drive to Apache Junction east of Phoenix for a friend's daughter's wedding. Since the southwest got lots of moisture this past winter we wanted to see the desert wildflowers - we caught the beginning of the season. And along the way we stopped at a copper mine overlook - Arizona is "The Copper State".

Sonora Desert beginning to bloom

Large Arizona copper mine

The next morning we dropped Stan at the Phoenix airport and met my brother and family for brunch. After visiting for a couple hours, we visited friends from our neck of the woods vacationing there. Visited for the afternoon, eating out on patio at Mexican restaurant for supper, then drove to Flagstaff to stay the night before heading home. We were going to visit some areas in eastern Utah, but since Colorado had gotten dumped on with snow, we figured it was probably chilly still with snow too.

Grand-daughter Scout

Then Easter weekend we visited our older son's. Emery and Scout were excited to see us!

Three year old wrote his name!

Monte and Emery having cookies and milk and a discussion

Remember I said Colorado got snow while we were gone? Yes, the entire state got snow. Our other son Dawson, with wife Sarah made snow "men?" And as I write this, it is snowing again!

Sarah and Dawson's snow creations

It's snowing today ... again!

Living as Easter People

"Body of Christ"- My needlefelted picture of a pruned grapevine framed by grape clusters hidden by leaves

 
“Love is not a duty it is our destiny. It is the language that Jesus spoke and we are called to speak it so that we can converse with him. It is the food that they eat in God’s new world, and we must acquire a taste for it here and now. It is the music God has written for all his creatures to sing and we are called to learn it and practice it now.”
- NT Wright, Surprised by Hope (and great book!)

A page from my sketch book drawn over thirty years ago

 
So how can we learn to live as wide-awake people, as Easter people? ... In particular if Lent is a time to give things up, Easter ought to be a time to take things up ... If Calvary means putting to death things in your life that need killing off if you are to flourish as a Christian and as a truly human being, then Easter should mean planting, watering, and training up things in your life (personal and corporate) that ought to be blossoming, filling the garden with color and perfume and in due course bearing fruit”
Ibid

A quick painting I did at a retreat about a decade ago

 
“Jesus is risen, therefore God’s new world has begun. Jesus is risen, therefore Israel and the world have been redeemed. Jesus is risen, therefore his followers have a new job to do. And what is that new job? To bring the life of heaven to birth in actual, physical earthly reality.”
Ibid

Wool seed pod and flower people I put out about the house every Spring - New Life!

Ukrainian / Pysanky Egg Dyeing

Ukrainian - Pysanky Eggs

It's that time of year again. Time to order dyes or kits, though I still have last year's dyes jarred in a box in the garage. When more people are going to be coming to our home to do eggs, I get some fresh dye, otherwise just use the stored dye. 

I saw an article in a 1973 National Geographic Magazine on Ukrainian eggs, and wanted to do them. Since I knew how to do Batik textile art, I understood the process, but didn't know special tools existed. As is typical of me, I just jump in and do things. I got beeswax and melted it in a metal measuring cup and stood over the stove painting the wax on eggs. And the only dyes I new of were the typical grocery store Paas (?- I think that's what it is) dyes. Monte joined in the process when we were dating.

Monte almost 40 years ago waxing an egg for resisting the dye - batik style egg designing

Years ago, group of young couples Travis brought to dye eggs

Soon after we were married I found the traditional kistka tools and special dyes. For years now we've been ordering supplies from the same store, and have bought kits for wedding presents. We've also bought a lot of extra tools and leave the dyes out for about a month and have had many people around our dining table decorating eggs. One couple, years ago so looked forward to it they started designing eggs months beforehand. When they moved away they bought their own kit and have done it every year.

Though electric kistkas exist, it's traditionally done by heating the metal funnel of the kistka over a candle till the beeswax is melted. It does not run out until it touches the egg. It's a wax-resist process, starting from lightest and getting progressively darker. You initially wax over everything you want white and put egg in yellow, once dry, you wax over what you want to stay yellow, and so on. When done you hold the egg to the side of the candle and wipe the melting wax off with a paper towel. The eggs are raw and they dry out over time.

Egg carton of our Ukrainian dyed eggs

This picture is just one of the three cartons that got done several years ago. That was a very productive and artistic weekend of eggs - Travis had several couples come and stay several days to dye eggs (and enjoy just hanging out, of coarse). Dawson has friends come too. Everyone loves it!

I cap the canning jars of dye and repack the box. I store them along with the old silver spoons, candles and candle-holders, box of tools, instructions and pictures, and then the vinyl tablecloth. It can be pulled out anytime. Every year I say I'm going to do it for Christmas ornaments - but I haven't yet.

Several years ago Monte made a shelf for the eggs to better display than the hanging wire baskets I've always kept them in. The company I order the dyes and tools from, the Ukrainian Gift Shop, has a variety of stands for the eggs. So I got a bunch of the cheap clear plastic stands. Monte is going to make a shelf unit for each of the kids too.

 



Having done these for years, I never varnished them and finally did a few years ago. It's a final step I've always skipped. So some of the varnished ones are older and already faded. These dyes are toxic, so no eating of the eggs, but are not run-proof, so make sure the varnish is not water-base. We nailed three nails every so often in boards to support the eggs and I use my gloved hands to rub the oil-base varnish on the eggs. (The stands could be used in the oven on low temp for helping melt the beeswax off. I've not tried this - but a book I have shows it.)

3-legged nail 'stands' for holding varnished dyed eggs

More people around our dining table Ukrainian egg dying

Dawson waxing his egg for dye resist

More people enjoying creativity and our home's hospitality

Shared with: The Homestead Barn Hop, The Chicken Chick

A Guerilla Gardener

This is amazing. How Gardening can solve life's problems! Share it!

"Free is not sustainable. The funny thing about sustainability, is you have to sustain it. . . . To change a community we have to change the nature of the soil. . . . If a kid plants kale, he'll eat kale . . ."

Ron Finley plants vegetable gardens in South Central LA -- in abandoned lots, traffic medians, along the curbs. Why? For fun, for defiance, for beauty and to offer some alternative to fast food in a community where "the drive-thrus are killing more people than the drive-bys."

Ron Finley grows a nourishing food culture in South Central L.A.’s food desert by planting the seeds and tools for healthy eating.

Orthorexia

I first wrote about this in 2007, but it's still so valid ... Maybe even more so!

I think about this statistic I've read about, having first heard it on the radio: 6% of American's money goes to food, while Europe and Japan spend 15-20+%. We Americans gladly fork over money for satellite TV, cell phones and other electronics, yet buy our food as cheaply as possible.  I still don't understand this diagram ...

For years I have been interested in nutrition, reading tons. Since the 60's, Mr Rodale and others started our awareness of farming practices, and health and wholeness. So much food was beginning to be processed, boxed and shipped long distances. Shelf life became most important, as well as convenience.

The more I know ... understanding where the food around me is coming from and how it's grown and made, makes it almost impossible to eat.

There's a word for this: orthorexia. It means having an unhealthy obsession with eating healthy.

Our grocery expenses are higher than they used to be. We're wanting to buy wild fish, pesticide free fruits and vegetables, hormone and antibiotic-free meat and dairy. And did you know there's now organic Twinkies!? It turns out that eating with a conscience costs more.

That's what we've told ourselves, as we try and buy as fresh and local as possible.

I know we can buy cheaper, probably half the cost. But here's the thing about orthorexia--unlike most afflictions, the worse it gets, the better you feel.

Some friends roll their eyes, as I pick up everything and read labels. Are we becoming elitists? But you know what? We feel great!

Making Maple Syrup

I just read a letter about New Englanders readying their equipment for maple syrup season. It reminded me of long ago when we helped Monte's dad make maple syrup in Wisconsin. We didn't do it a lot cuz it's impossible to plan "vacation time" when you never know when the sap will start running.

Tho Monte's cousins have established modern ways of maple syrup making and creating businesses, Monte's dad did it the old fashioned way. He hung buckets on the trees, rather than having hoses run to holding tanks in sheds. Riding the 4-wheeler thru-out the day and night to collect full buckets AND to keep the fire stoked under the large flat boiler pan, was work. It was all done out in the open and not a shed with stove burners. He wasn't doing it for a business, just enough for the family. Emery grew up on a homestead there and maple syrup was their main sweetener, so he'd gotten a bit sick of it. But moving back to the homestead and having Grandkids (and a curious wife of his son - ME) ask about the old day experiences kinda made him want to do it again.

Did you know it takes 40 gallons of sap to cook down to 1 gallon of syrup? The taste of the cold sap with a hint of maple flavor is very good and refreshing. And if you've read Laura Ingals Wilder books you'll know there's something called "sugar snow". It's an extra surge of sap run after the season is basically over - just a bit of freeze and thaw. They'd celebrate by making syrup from it and eating it over snow like a snow-cone.

I'm going to post a string of old photos from our experience.

Travis straining sap into old milk cans in the 4-wheeler

Travis and sap in milk cans on 4-wheeler

Grandpa talking to Travis

Collecting maple tree sap

Grandpa Emery and Heather riding the 4-wheeler

Me with Travis collecting sap from tapped maple trees

Monte's dad - Grandpa Emery

Heather with tree sap collecting pail

Travis by the boiling area checking on the fire

Grandpa Emery, little Dawson, and Travis boiling down the maple sap for syrup

Memories? The brisk out-of-doors with no mosquitoes, tics, or black flies; identifying tracks of animals in the mud; beaver coming out of dens on the breaking up ice ponds; wood smoke; pancakes with fresh syrup . . .

We don't have hard maples in Colorado. We still have some jars left, tho it's been years, that we're saving . . . Not sure for what . . . But it reminds us . . .


Shared with: Real Food Wednesday, Simple Lives Thursday

Stocks/ Broths - Chicken, etc.

I posted recently about cooking a whole chicken in the slow cooker. So what am I doing now? Cooking up the chicken's bones in the slow cooker for a broth. EVERYTIME I cook meats with bones, I make broth - even if just a small bone - like we had grass-fed T-bone steaks last week and I further cooked up the fat and bones into a great broth (which I drank for 2 meals, mixing in some raw cream and one of my chicken's eggs; and too, a bit added to some cooking greens). Even bones from brined and cooked beer-can chickens on the grill (which I've posted about).

I thought I'd already have a post on making chicken broth. I kinda do in my White Chili Chicken soup post. So I thought I'd officially do a Chicken Broth post. I've been making this same recipe for over 30 years - whether in a pot on the stove or a slow cooker. I mostly do it in a slow cooker now, cuz I do it for at least 24 hours to extract as much calcium, gelatin, etc I can. Occasionally I'll keep cooking for several days, adding in water as I use some - like the above broth drink. People call this "perpetual broth".

Cooking chicken broth in my slow cooker - already cooked on low all night

Chicken Broth

De-bone the chicken, putting all the bones, sinew, cartilage, skin, fat (even chicken feet and heads too, if you have them) . . . in the pot.
Cover with water
1 onion, quartered (skin on is fine)
2 carrots, in 4ths
3 celery ribs with leaves
1 tsp pepper corns
3-4 whole cloves
1 1/2-3 tsp salt
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

Cooking broth in a pot

I don't typically put tomato pieces in chicken broth, but it wouldn't hurt - I do in beef broth. Any veggie scraps can make broth. I make fish stock too from good sourced fish.

When you're done with cooking your broth strain it. I don't de-fat it when it's organic or free-range meat. I want all the vitamins I can get, including vitamin D. I'll divide the broth in jars and freeze (initially don't tighten the lids and keep them upright, of coarse, till frozen. With tight lids, I've had too many jars crack - tightening the lids after frozen seems to prevent this, and too, they don't have to remain upright anymore).

I'm looking in Sally Fallon's new book The Nourishing Traditions Book of Baby & Child Care (I'm giving it to my daughter). She adds one bunch of parsley in the last 10 minutes of cooking - I'll have to start doing that too.

Adding stocks to anything is adding an Umami - improved savory flavor, besides the enhanced nutritive value.

Shared with: My Cultured Palate, Simple Lives Thursday