A Snowy Walk and a Craft Swap

You may or may not be aware that we live adjacent to a large golf course. The course is sprawling and plagued with plaid pants and loafers in the warm months, but when the temperatures drop the golfers flee and snow and silence blanket the hills. I was very skeptical of the proximity when we moved in, but now except for an occasional "Four!" or a random golf ball in the veggie beds I hardly know it's there.


Yesterday I went walking (as I often do) on the course to explore the winter there and discovered a wonderful little pond with a bank lined with river birches. The course tries very hard to protect water and wildlife, and they've received all sorts of awards for their clean water runoff and their native plantings and Audubon involvement. There are bird houses all over the course and most of the non-turf grass is native bluestem. They plant native trees and shrubs, and all in all it's about as nice as a golf course can be.

While I was walking I was listening to Arvo Pärt's Sanctuary and thinking about my recently departed parents and their new life in New Hampshire. I was also thinking about my lack of drive in the winter to create and craft. I think about crafting constantly during the cold months, and I even start a number of projects but I rarely sit down and work on making myself finish something. It was while I was on this walk that I was struck with a harebrained idea. I have since discussed my idea with my mother and she has agreed to humor me :)

I plan to craft at least one thing per month to send to my mother in New Hampshire and in turn she will do the same. While she was visiting she had me pick out fabric for a gardener's tool-bag that she has offered to sew for me, and I couldn't help but be inspired by this to do something for her in turn. I'll try to do something at least once a month, and if it goes well I may even do something every two weeks... we'll see.. I have a few ideas in mind for my first craft-swap, but I have to keep them under wraps until I send the finished project off to my mum since she reads here.

Anyway, from a dreary, grey snowy day came a great way to share my life with my mother. I'm glad I went exploring.

YouTube - TriGirl123 - How we process backyard meat chickens

Borrowed from YouTube - This is super informative!

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Home video demonstrates raising and processing chickens from start to finish for meat. Starting with day old chicks, using chicken "tractors/stagecoaches", mixing their own chicken ration and sharing their unique processing methods.

PLEASE NOTE: Entire chicken raising, killing and processing is demonstrated. Yes, you'll see guts and blood.

Project Plans 2011 : Cold Frame and Solar Dehydrator

It is a habit of mine to have several projects brewing about in my brain at the same time... Some times there are more projects floating around than others, and there are never more clogging my thoughts than at the beginning of each year when I have nothing to do outside other than plan, plan plan.

This year I decided that rather than making a new year's resolution, I would make a list of things I plan to try or at least research in the year 2011. The list itself is still in a sort of abstract internal-brainy-type state, but two of the things I'd like to do before growing season are to build a solar dehydrator, and several cold frames.


This past week, while visiting my aunt and uncle in Holland Michigan my dear aunt gave me several old wood-framed windows. I had posted earlier than week on facebook that I was hoping to make a cold frame and within moments she had commented, stating she had them up for grabs. I came home with six windows and one screen, and have been designing and planning cold frames ever since. I'm hoping to run a line of cold frames along the side of our raspberry patch, facing south, so that this fall I can easily plan late-season crops. I know of a few farms in the area that can successfully grow spinach almost all winter, and an added bonus of the rigid frame construction is that it's duck-proof. When I had hoops and plastic over one of my raised beds earlier this year, our Khaki Campbells basically had a heated spa in which to dine on the spinach leaves. I didn't notice them until they'd basically finished off the whole bed. I didn't get a single leaf! Ugh. Cold frames, however, will be much more difficult for the ducks to infiltrate.

Of course it wasn't until this morning that I'd considered using these windows for something else! I found some wonderful designs online for solar dehydrators, and this one definitely seems to be the easiest for me since I have a lot of corrugated metal lying around the farm from when I pulled it off the side of the barn. Using one window and one sheet of corrugated metal, plus some random lumber (must be untreated, now that I think of it!) I plan to make a dehydrator to use this spring, and I can't wait to make apple and pear chips, as well as dried veggies and berries!


I'll have to see if my aunt would be willing to part with a couple more windows so that I can build one of these. I'll be heading over there again sometime probably in February to visit my college roommate's parents' alpaca farm. I contacted them recently about driving the hour-and-a-half to their farm, station wagon laden with muck buckets, to muck their fields for them. Alpaca manure is not hot like horse or sheep, and so it is safe to directly apply to the gardens. My aunt was interested in joining me on my poo-y adventure, so I'll be heading to Holland to meet with her as well.

I'm hoping that once I get some of the maple sugaring done, and the syrup boiled later this winter, I'll have something great to barter with for future garden tools/manures/windows/etc. :)

(Note that in the space of discussing one, maybe two, of my 2011 projects, I have disclosed plans for no less than two additional projects... Yeesh. I love to keep busy!)

A disjointed post containing sheepy garbage disposals, a quick recipe, a dog injury and a rotten pumpkin

Gertrude really enjoys table scraps more than either of the other sheep. She is the first to the fence to see what kinds of goodies I am bringing whenever she hears me come out of the house, and the other day, after the thaw, I clipped the remaining broccoli greens left from my failed late-season planting and decided to see if she liked them. Of course she did! I also shared a slightly wilty stalk of brussel sprouts which she was first to devour, though after she started in on it, Ingrid butted her out of the way and decided it was her stalk an no one else's. It's fun to see what the sheep like and dislike. I wish I still had a few winter squash to share with them, but I'm sure they'll get plenty of garden seconds come spring and summer!

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I figured as a quick post, I'd share the recipe for a spread I made yesterday morning for our toast. I decided early on that I wanted to use up some of the chèvre I had left over from the other night's dinner. I dumped some of the cheese, a splash of local "natural" (unhomogenized) milk and a dollop of local blackberry/pecan jam into the food processor. After altering with a bit of extra jam I had, I flipped the switch and tada! I had created a fabulous breakfast spread. I like things sweet so I think if I'd made it just for myself I would've added a bit of honey to sweeten it, but still- it was such an easy way to make such a rich food that I couldn't help but share it. I was also considering adding zante raisins (often called dried currants - a total misnomer) but my dear husband has not warmed to the idea of using raisins in most dishes, so I decided to hold off... this time.

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Our poor Basil was three-legged-lame yesterday for no apparent reason. I think she got tossed around while playing with Connor and my mom's dog Abbie and managed to twist her hock (rear ankle). It took me ages to find where she had hurt herself, but finally I was able to locate a small spot of fluid and heat on the front of her joint. My experience with dogs (and horses... and vet calls, even) is that for soft tissue injuries you're almost always told to just keep the animal calm and quiet, while possibly supplementing with something anti-inflammatory. We simply restricted Basil to only going outside by herself, and she spent much of the day lying in Connor's bed sulking while Connor and Abbie enjoyed their romping. This morning, however, she is much better and the fluid and heat are gone from the joint so I'm pretty sure it was just a mild sprain (and my puppy might be a big wuss).

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Here's a random shot of an angry little pumpkin I found rotting out in the field where I tossed it after the wedding. I couldn't help but laugh at his disgruntled little expression, and the grey green color was so disgusting I just had to share it.

A bit of musing, music and seed-wish-listing for 2011

The snow is falling so softly and in huge clumpy flakes this morning. There is a muted rustle as the flakes fall into place on the patchily covered ground that is almost so quiet you could mistake it for the sound of blood in your ears. There is no wind which has made starting the fire difficult this morning, but it allows the snow to gracefully blanket any surface it comes in contact with. I'm hoping this will finish with another clean slate sort of snowfall so that I can once again look out around the yard and not cringe with the number of tasks that lay ahead of me.

Jeremy and I are listening to our new Decemberists album "The Hazards of Love" for the first time. My brother gave us the album for Christmas and so far it's pretty good. I tend to think of the Decemberists as storytellers. I have a hard time listening to their music and doing anything else at the same time. They have great historical influences and aesthetic, while remaining very solidly in the category of contemporary music. I know a lot of people disagree with my music tastes, but I think the only contemporary musician better at storytelling than the Decemberists is Joanna Newsom. She has a very intense, unique and sometimes grating voice, but there is something very colorful and equally intense about her lyrics. I love the contrast between her voice and her harp, and she is more eloquent and articulate than any modern songwriter.

Anyway, this morning my parents began their trek back to New Hampshire and I began transitioning back into my regular routine. I have loved having them both here, and it was nice to talk a bit of garden with my mom early this morning. She has been my gardening buddy since I was a kid, and since their move back in July I've found myself missing her whenever I'm planning the garden. It was great to have her around for the preliminary garden planning this morning, and I helped her figure out a less rigid plan for her 2011 square-foot garden.

So after my parents left I started some serious planning for the veggie garden over on the Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds web site, using their wish-list function. It's difficult to forge through their site and not just put everything in my shopping cart, so I've started using the wish-list to sort of digitally dogear the varieties I'm considering before committing to buying them. So far my wish list consists of:

Beets

• Crapaudine (what a great variety name!)
• Chioggia
• Bull's Blood
  

Beans

• Old Homestead
• Golden Wax
• Purple Podded
  

Broccoli

• Early Purple Sprouting

Brussel Sprouts

• Long Island Improved

Cabbage

• Early Jersey

Carrots

• Lunar White
• Cosmic Purple
  
• Atomic Red
• Parisienne
• St Valery
  

Cucumbers

• White Wonder
• Telegraph Improved
• Beit Alpha

Obviously I've only made it to the C's in their alphabetized list of vegetable seeds. I'll be sure to post my final list eventually.

Things I'd like to Try in 2011

Two-thousand Eleven is starting off with colder-than-typical weather, strong Northerly winds and the unfortunate doldrums that all gardeners experience. The white, snowy backdrop across the fields is pleasant in some ways: it allows me to look on the beds as clean slates, rather than several series of to-do lists and fix-it projects. However, as anyone who has painted or drawn can tell you, a large blank canvas is often daunting on other levels. I have so many ideas, and it is nearly impossible to tell which of these ideas are plausible, good, or even possible.

Instead of new year's resolutions, I have spent the first half of January making lists of things I would like to try. It's quite a list, but I thought I might share some of them here...

Before Spring I'd like to:

• Tap maples here at our place, and up at Roheryn Farms, to make maple syrup.
• Build a new hay trough for the sheep, to reduce waste hay.
• Purchase a soil blocker for starting seeds this year, to eliminate waste from pots.
  
• Fix up the seed starting shelves, and add at least one shelf.
• Muck the sheep stall, composting the bedding.
• Visit a friend's parents' alpaca farm to tote several buckets of alpaca poo home for veggie beds.
  

In the food gardens, I'd like to:

• Grow only open-pollinated heirloom veggies.
• Try growing potatoes (in straw), garlic, asparagus and shallots for the first time.
  
• Grow every veggie bed using companion planting.
  
• Expand the raspberry beds by 100%.
• Begin phasing out most of the june-bearing strawberries to be replaced with Mara des Bois.
• Grow "ground cherry" or "cape gooseberry" plants for the first time.
• Try dwarf fruit trees in pots, including fig and olive (with plans to bring them onto the porch during the winter).
• Grow enough produce to have left overs for bartering and possibly for marketing.

In the flower gardens, I'd like to:

• Grow lavender! My goal is to replace anything struggling with heirloom lavenders, or other useful perennial herbs.
• Eradicate the fleabane from the native prairie bed.

With the critters I'd like to:

• Develop a sufficient field rotation for the sheep and their lambs, starting by grazing them on the site for the new veggie bed to fertilize.
  
• Discuss the possibility of chickens with the land lady, both for meat and eggs. Heirloom breeds of course.
  
• Build a poultry run off the side of the barn, if not for chickens, then for the ducks.
  

Around the property I'd like to:

• Build a wood shed on the north side of the barn.
• Clear up much of the dead fall from the apple orchards.
• Create an outdoor living space out in the orchards, complete with mosquito netting :)
• Find a way to weave or crochet vegetable storage bags.
• Make use my antique ice chest for storage of fresh veggies.

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Do you have goals for the new year? Do you plan to try anything new?

Last Frost Date 2011

A Year of Learning: 2010

I woke this morning to a new dusting of snow, though it's really only a translucent veil over the grass, it has made the roof tops into pristine geometric shapes again and has made it feel like winter is justified in it's cold.

The year 2010 has finally ended. The champagne has been drunk, the ball has dropped and we have jumped that final hurdle of the holiday season, into the doldrums of winter 2011. I've decided to post highlights from my year in photo form.

January - We found "the kitties" on the side of the road and fostered them, keeping and began raising Harrison (right) into our own little mischief-making-mouser.


February - We had our wonderful engagement photos taken by my brother, in the dead winter of February.


March - This was the month I almost didn't make it through. I hate waiting for the ground to dry up enough to work in! I did however revel in the fact that I had the presence of mind to plant pussy willows the previous season, and I managed to began starting seeds for the 2010 garden


April - I began work on taking out the large box elder tree that happened to be growing where I needed a fence to be. I also planned, prepped and planted an 8 bush blueberry patch and 35 raspberry bushes and put together a few additional random flower beds around the property.


May - Our ducks hatched their first duckling, Neville! He was such a runt, and I'll never forget the phone call I got from Jeremy while I was teaching. He was SO excited to be the first to see the duckling. This was also when I prepped the 2010 "new" veggie garden in the first field and planted peppers and tomatoes out WAY too early!


June - My very close friends over at Roheryn Farm had their first foal, Minya. They had to spend so much time teaching her to suckle, and she was still trying to suckle off of the wall days after birth! lol. June was also the month that I had to pry a baby deer out of Connor's mouth and carry it out of the orchard fencing while it called to it's mum. Weather was weird, and we experienced a plague of intense Michigan thunderstorms and tornadoes and felt the Ontario earthquake shake the arena while teaching!



July - Harvesting began with squash and currants, and I spent a good deal of time lounging around the yard coming up with new tasks and endeavors. Late July brought horned worms, but it also brought tomatoes. This was also the first month I made cheese, and had a blast serving it to my family.



August - We began work on putting in the fences, beginning with the wooden post fence out front. I also got to try my first attempt at splinting a duck's broken wing at a friend's house after a visiting dog used it as a tug-toy. August was the biggest month for tomatoes too, and I discovered the black krim tomato is, so far, my favorite.




September - The garden was in full swing, and we were finally able to do some wedding prep including pumpkin purchasing and mass baking. This was also the month that the house was so humid we had a tree frog try to move into Jeremy's studio!




October - The wedding day came so quickly! We had a wonderful time with friends and family, despite the cruddy weather, and the whole thing was beautiful. Afterward we went camping in the upper peninsula for our honeymoon.




November - The mad dash to prepare for the sheep began in November. I thought I'd been preparing all summer but when it came down to it the biggest job of all was the fencing! We put up all of the posts and woven wire in just a few short days and I cleaned out the barn and bought hay so that I could be prepared to bring them home the first week of December. I also discovered in November that I can fit over a cubic yard of compost in the back of my station wagon, and used it to prep my veggie bed for spring 2011 and built a new raised bed out front!




December - The sheep came to their new home in early December and autumn came to a close with a massive snow storm leaving everything covered by a blanket and leaving me with a blank canvas to think about for next year's farm and garden planning.


Happy 2011! Only 123 days until last frost date in Plymouth, MI. :)

I'm pretty sure Gertrude could care less, as long as she continues to get alfalfa mixed in with her grass hay each morning!

A Jenkins Family Christmas Dinner (belated)

Well, we've finally brought our holiday celebrations to a close with the Jenkins family shindig as the finale. This year was the first year since my parents moved to New Hampshire, so our belated Christmas eve was held here.

I managed to make quite a decent meal consisting of locally raised beef pot roast with potatoes and carrots, with balsamic vinegar and rosemary (the last fresh from my garden, dug out of the mulch). For sides I made steamed green beans, brie with apricot and pine nuts with wheat baguette, and a spicy salad greens mix with roasted beets, goat cheese, candied walnuts and an emulsified beet/balsamic/olive oil dressing. What a hit!

For hor d'ouvres I made kalamata olive hummus (yum!), spicy feta and roasted pepper dip, and parmesan artichoke crostini, along with shrimp cocktail.

We didn't actually get to dessert, as I was feeling a bit under the weather and we were all stuffed anyway, but I'll definitely get around to making bread pudding tonight! I'm excited to use my crouching hare casserole for it, which isn't really pictured at left, but it's a porcelain casserole in the shape of a scared hare. It's really pretty awesome!


It was especially great because I managed to get the front porch cleaned up and re-transformed it into a dining room. Even more amazing was that I managed to get it warm enough to enjoy our dinner out there. It is technically a room with three walls of windows, so heating it during the winter can be difficult. The atmosphere was great, we were warm and we all managed to stuff ourselves thoroughly.

After dinner we exchanged gifts. I can finally post photos of the Christmas gift crafts! Of course that's not what this post is about so it'll have to wait...

Here's a quick shot of me in a wonderful apron my mom made for me. I am playing the concertina that my brother is loaning me. I use the word playing very, very loosely here.

This morning I came down to see my parents bundled up, obviously not used to the way we keep the house at night. I found father wearing a scarf around his head, and my mother wearing long underwear, flannel night gown, hoodie and fleece lap blanket. I couldn't help but snap photos and laugh heartily.
Welcome to my home. Wear your layers!