Our yard in pictures - May 17, 2013

This is one of the several stepping stones the girls made

Yes, this is inside, but it's the "forest" the girls made to encourage Spring

Newly planted trees, shrubs, etc - all will hopefully produce yummy goodies for us

The chicks hiding from the drizzles

Another view of all the things we just put in - some neighbors love it, some hate it

The fairy garden, which also has potted trees: fig, banana, and pomegranate

The girls get to ride their upcycled tire horse near the fairies

The plum tree is in bloom, and has a 3-in-1 citrus and a stevia plant on its mulch

The new strawberry bed.  The other was way too crowded.  Flowering all ready!

The 6 raised beds (still needing planting for the most part), and the 8x8 acidic blueberry bed

The rabbits ate down the peach tree a couple years ago and now there are three branches.  I will attempt tree shaping around the ornament.

The rabbits ate down one of my honey berry plants.  Thankfully, I see some life.

The apple tree has leaves, but no blossoms yet.

The little cherry tree in the front yard that was a volunteer in a friend's garden and was gifted to us

Yep, indoors again.  The branch to hang the pics was a trimming from one of our fruit trees

Garden prep list

May 7th, 2013

So this list is mostly for me, but you can see what effort goes into it.  This year, with last week's 16 inch snowfall (yes, on May 2nd), a lot of things didn't get done as timely as I would have liked.

Here's what we've got to get done:
***UPDATED May 13, 2013***
*string wire for the hops to grow up the garage

Get more compost (the site is only open Saturday mornings and Tuesday afternoons - guess what I'm doing first thing Saturday.)

Fill raised beds 1, 3, 4, 5 & 6 with compost.  I filled bed 2 today with our own compost and then covered it with dirt.

Replant the strawberries into bed 2.  Toss (not compost) the diseased ones.  Pinch the runners so the strawberries put their energy into berry production instead of propagation.  Give away the rest of the bed's worth of strawberries. 

Weed area around back and side of garage.  Edge with bricks.

Weed, put down newspapers and/or cardboard, put down weed barrier, and mulch planted area on the back and side of house.

Weed, put down newspapers and/or cardboard, put down weed barrier, and mulch the area for the kiwi.

Weed, put down newspapers and/or cardboard, put down weed barrier, and mulch the 8x8 lasagna garden, after planting the blueberries.

Build/Install trellis for the grapes.  

Plant trees/bushes/etc
 - Paw paw (one that needs to be moved and replanted because I don't want it to shade the yard.  The other will stay where it is)
 - Flowering cherries (two in front, two in back)
 - Sea berries (two in back)
 - Sweet cherries (in back)
 - Elderberry (two in back)
 - Aronia (back)
 - Juneberry (back)
 - Hazelnut (two in back)
 - Goji (back)

Make an area of the yard acidic (yes, I know that I should have started this last year, but the area where my blueberries are does not get as much sun as I'd like, so I'll have to watch it closely as I have the plants that I need to plant now).  The acidic bed is now in the 8x8 lasagna bed.

Move the blueberries.

Weed, put down newspapers and/or cardboard, put down weed barrier, and mulch around each of the above, and also around the Russian mulberries, red and white currants (in back), and honey berries (on the side). 

Plant in pots
 - 3-in-1 citrus tree
 - Pomegranate tree 
 - Stevia
 - Banana tree

Make a teepee trellis for the girls to enjoy the plants that will grow on it and make the "walls" of a "fort"

Put in compost on the backside of the house to direct water away from our foundation (water problem in the basement with the ice dams on the roof earlier this winter)

Dig up a gooseberry plant or few from my friend's house and re-plant at ours.

Set up a trellis between a couple of the raised beds for plants to grow vertically (melon, cucumbers, gourds, etc can be grown up so as not to have the fruits on the ground or sprawling everywhere, but make note of companion planting, as you wouldn't want your melons, cukes, squashes, gourds near each other, or you'll end up with something like the cucumber-tasting melon we had last year).

If we have time (well, when we make the time), we need to:
*add on to the chicken coop so that the girls have nesting boxes.  I would also like to have a door on the bottom so that it's easier to get to their food and water.
*power wash and stain/seal the girls' playset
*build a hammock stand because we don't have two large trees close enough together and I want to use my hammock

Oh yes, and there's planting to do.  Here's our list:

Seeds/roots:
Lettuce (need to be replanted because of the snow storm, as nothing is coming up after a few weeks)
Beans
Peas (planted and coming up)
Beets (need to be replanted because of the snow storm, as nothing is coming up after a few weeks)
Carrots (need to be replanted because of the snow storm, as nothing is coming up after a few weeks)
Cabbage
Parsnips (planted, but nothing coming up yet)
Cucumbers
Kale (need to be replanted because of the snow storm, as nothing is coming up after a few weeks)
Pumpkin
Gourds
sweet potatoes
blue potatoes
broccoli
cauliflower
zucchini
nasturtiums
Sunflowers
spaghetti squash
turnips
salsify
cilantro
amaranth
calendula
parsley
epazote
echinacea
sage
st john's wort
goldenseal
ginsing
ginger
perennial leeks

Plants:
Melon
Watermelon
Tomato (a lot!)
Eggplant
Tobacco
Ground cherries
Peppers
basil
comfrey (I have someone who would give me a cutting, but my husband is still wary about it since it can easily take over.  We're still thinking about actually planting it).

We've got plenty more that has been planted, or overwintered, or are perennials, but I'm excited to get things going. 

So far, we have some asparagus coming up, along with rhubarb, onions & garlic.  It will be so nice to eat right out of the garden again!

Sap to syrup - our love of maple

Last year's maple season lasted about one week.  Since we were about 7 days late in tapping our neighbor's tree, that meant that we got bupkiss.  The small amount of sap, maybe only a cup or two, would not boil down to anything worthwhile.  This year, however, we had a long (one could argue that it was too long) sap collecting season.  It came later this year than it did last year.  Last year it was done by the middle of March.  This year, we didn't even start tapping until April, and were able to collect over a period of three weeks.  There were days in there that I would collect 4 or 5 gallons of sap!  While this is not much for those who have a grove of maples (or like my mother, who taps about 20 or 25), it was a lot for one tree.  The trees we tapped last year at our neighbor's home did not provide more than a gallon or two over more than a week.  The tree at Jaimie's parents' home produced more than 5 gallons, but we only left the tap in for a week.  The tree in back, which had two taps for more than 2 weeks, was the performer.

After boiling it for days and days (okay, hours and hours over the course of a couple of weeks), adding more sap to the boil whenever we got down to about half a pot, we got just under half a gallon of the most delicious syrup we've ever tasted!

There were a couple of mishaps along the way, of course.  For instance, we tried using a rocket stove at first, but never managed to get a boil. 

Next, we tried a charcoal fire, based on the idea that charcoal burns hotter than wood (otherwise, why would blacksmiths use it?).  Needless to say, this didn't work. 

Ultimately, we bought a turkey fryer setup on e-Bay, and Jaimie melted the bottom of the aluminum stock pot that came with it.  Still, the burner worked great with our large canner. 

In fact, it may have worked better due to the fact that it is shorter but wider, so their was more surface area to boil (more surface area=faster reduction).

This morning, we had maple french toast with our own, homemade syrup.  Yummy!   We can't wait to see how the rest of the sap works out.  Oh, did we mention that we still have about ten gallons of sap?  We don't want to boil it down for one more pint or so of syrup, so we're going to ferment it and see if it's any good.  Hey, stranger things have turned out well.

Chicken (Rabbit) Tractor from Upscaled Stuff Laying around the Garage

Our four pullets feathered bunnies, Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail and P.J. Funnybunny, were really outgrowing the 33-gallon tub they were living in in our basement, so Shelly asked me (Jaimie) to build her a "chicken bunny tractor".  (We can have four rabbits in town, as opposed to two chickens, so they're feathered bunnies.)  So, we called our friends Tony and Nicole for guidance, since they have been keeping feathered critters for a while (out in the country where they can be chickens).  They came over today and Tony lent his expertise (and built the coop - I just dug out the materials and put on the chicken wire).  I originally thought we would need a trip to the lumber yard, but Tony spotted some old bunk bed ends that Shelly had planned to use as trellises.  That solved the framing problem.

With some other reclaimed lumber and a cabinet door we had removed when we installed our dishwasher,  the coop was completed in about two hours.

Here are the girls enjoying their new home for the first time:

As you can see, it's very portable, even without wheels.

And the girls love it!

We can't wait for them to begin laying!  We still need to put on roofing and paint, but it's functional now. 

Winter activities

Since we really couldn't spend much time outside this winter, we created things indoors.  If I just relied on my memory, I wouldn't think we've done that much, but here's the proof in pictures.

Making string ornaments

Our family values list, prominently displayed

The 2nd annual ginger bread house

A 2nd tiered cake, which we made after making one for my sister's shower

My first knitting project (yep, a scarf)

My friend, the lucky recipient of the scarf.

Baby quilt sections sorted out - the squares were cut out by my older sister, and I finished the project

Finishing the top of the baby quilt

A "forest" made of string and construction paper leaves & flowers to encourage spring to come.

Accidentally delicious - Rum Cosmopolitan

Hi.  Jaimie here.  I was in the mood for one of my father's very dry cosmopolitans, but he can't remember the recipe.  So, I Googled "vodka martini recipe".  The first recipe I found called for 1.5 oz vodka and .75 oz of dry vermouth.  Okay, I can work with that.  I added a squirt of lime juice and just enough cranberry/apple juice to turn it pink.  Then I shook it with ice and strained it.  It was delicious, so I decided to make another (for my mother, of course).  It was then that I realized that I had used light rum instead of vodka.  Still yummy!  Here's the complete recipe:

1.5 oz light rum
.75 oz dry vermouth
squeeze or squirt of lime juice
just enough cranberry or cranberry/apple juice to make the drink turn pink

Shake with ice and strain into a martini glass if you have one.  (I don't, so I just left the ice in mine and drank it out of a highball glass.)

Enjoy!

Making sauerkraut - guest post by Jeannine S

 Shelly and Jaimie were lucky enough to be gifted with a sauerkraut crock. Sooo....one day, Shelly came home from the local farmer's market with a huge head of cabbage. Naturally my question was “What on earth are we going to do with that huge head of cabbage???” To which my sweet daughter-in-law replied “Why, make sauerkraut, of course!” (This was before I knew about the crock.)

Now back in my hippie days in the 70's, I did make sauerkraut, among other things, the old fashioned way with a crockery jar, a plate and a brick. Scenes of the many times the kraut had spoiled due to flies, uncooperative weather, or just plain bad luck, flashed before my eyes. I was dreading it. I hesitantly inquired, “Do you have a crock or big jar we can use?” Sweet Shelly chirped cheerfully, “Well, we have a sauerkraut making crock! Will that do?”

Whew, I figuratively wiped my brow, what a relief! It was actually a great set up. There was the crock with a built in lip to fill with water, a lid and a stone weight for the cabbage. Oh, and by the way, there was also a recipe. Talk about convenient!

We had a production line going, with Jaimie shredding the cabbage (which I HATE to do,) and I was putting it in the crock and smashing it (to release the juice.) We also had to layer it with salt. The worst part was the smashing. I tried a potato masher and that didn't work as well as I wanted it to, so I went back to “old tried and true” - my fist! Once the cabbage was in the crock and layered with salt, we put on the lid and filled the lip with water. (This was to keep the air and wee, small creatures out.)

Then it was just a matter of waiting and fighting the urge to peek at it. After about 6-8 weeks, we opened the crock and for supper, ate some of the most delicious sauerkraut I have ever tasted.

(Editor's note:  We failed to keep water in around the lip of the crock, so it went bad before we put it in the fridge.  So, that went to the compost and we'll be making some more).