Weekend Projects

Well, I just made six jars of mango jam in my pressure canner I got for Christmas. What a snap! It wasn't faster necessarily, but it did involve a lot less work, and a whole lot less hot water. That's the biggest drawback to the boiling water canner; it takes nearly 45 minutes to get it up to a full boil, and it's hard to judge exactly how much water you'll need to properly cover the jars. And in the summer, it can be pretty unbearable to be standing over 4 gallons of boiling water. Anyway, the instructions were very easy to follow and I really liked it. You also have the added benefit of knowing for sure that it's all sterilized and good to go. I'm looking forward to trying more stuff with it this spring.

I put a little ad in our neighborhood email newsletter asking if anyone had bamboo they were looking to thin out. I've seen lots around, but I wanted to make sure I asked first, just to be sure. I got about 5 emails back right away. I took Marc and Olive with me this morning and we went over and got some from a woman on Overbrook. It's amazing just how much storm damage there still is around. A lot of the bamboo was bent right to the ground, but if I pulled it out from the snow, it sprang right back up. I got a bunch of it and I'm planning on making trellises for my raised beds this summer. They're just handy to have as tomato stakes and it is super strong too. It always seems silly to buy them when I see them in catalogs.

I have to get started on the raised beds soon; I need to check at the site we're working on for scrap lumber. I still have the planter boxes from last summer, but I really have to come up with a better way to keep them clean. I dumped the water out of them today and it was just disgusting and smelly. I think that was their inherent design flaw. It creates easy access for mosquitoes and other grossness. I think I can drill some more drainholes in the edge and maybe keep it flushed out more regularly. I paid a lot for them, so I don't want to just toss them. Maybe I can come up with a better configuration.

The tomatoes are doing really well, I moved them onto a wire shelf rack in front of the window. I just wish there were more sun; now that they're bigger the fluorescent light tube just seems puny.

Happy Birthday Bess

Today, my Grandmother turns 100. Bess, when you were born, women did not have the right to vote. The Titanic had not sunk. You came to this country to escape WWI. You grew up and graduated from Cornell University, you had four children, whom you raised on your own after your husband died. You lived through teh Great Depression, WWII, and you were able to watch the first time a human walked on the moon. You saw the invention of television, you were there for the Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam war. You taught me everything I know and love about cooking; you taught me to try new things and never stop learning. I am in awe of the things you have seen and done in your life. I love you Bess! Happy Birthday.

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The U.S. Department of Agriculture is on the verge of granting Monsanto permission to market its genetically modified alfalfa, despite findings that show almost certain danger of the spread of modified genetic material to conventional and organic alfalfa crops.

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The Chickens of the Future!

Wow! Check out the uber-mod chicken coops they have at Omlet.us. Not cheap, but definitely cool in a Jetsonian kind of way. I still don't think I cna sell Marc on them, but they definitely look cool.

http://www.omlet.us/homepage/homepage.php

BTW, Urban Homesteading: Your guide to self sufficient living in the heart of the city by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen. A must read!! I know I have raved about it in previous posts, but it really is very interesting and helpful. Lots of practical information, and it explains HOW to do this stuff, which a lot of sites don't do.

I cannot believe how much snow we have right now. It's crazy. Even just since this morning. I grew up in Upstate New York, and even for that area, this is an absurd amount of snow. I'm off again tomorrow, so it's back to the shoveling in the AM. I don't mind, I have a bit of cabin fever, and all we have been doing is sitting around the house eating for the last 5 days. Oh yeah, and seed catalogs... lots of seed catalogs.

Is it any wonder why I'm obsessed with seed catalogs?

So, I don't even know what we're up to now... we got at least 28" over the weekend, and we probably will have another 18" by the end of the day. The city has completely shut down and all you can do is sit in the house and wonder when it will stop. We haven't gone out to dig anything yet, it's still snowing too hard to bother yet. I just don't know where it's all going to go! Apparently downtown they have started dumping snow in the harbor because there's no place else to put it. All streets are pretty much one lane, traffic is horrible, I'm not sure how this is all going to get cleaned up. Its also so sad what a beating the trees are taking in all this. There are trees and branches down all over the city. The snow took out a big red pine tree up the street, and has taken out quite a few large branches from Mary and Jason's white pine next door. Too bad it hasn't taken out the neighbor's black walnut tree, but three's still time to hope.

On a positive note, it has given me some time to just shut myself in the house and read and do other stuff. It's a little hard to be stuck in the house with a toddler all week, but at least we had one day out yesterday. I did make it in to work for a few hours, and Olive was able to get to Daycare.

I am still reading Urban Homesteading and totally loving it. Of course, a lot of the stuff they can do is much easier to facilitate in Southern California, but there are still some good ideas. I'm definitely going to set up rain barrels this summer for the eaves troughs, and I think I am going to install soaker hoses in my raised beds. I've also decided to divert the condensate line from the AC unit out to a barrel of some sort to use on the garden. It's amazing how much water that can pump out when the AC is going all day in the summer.

I'm really excited to see if my solar attic fan is going to make an impact when it gets hot again...(whenever that is) I hope so. I'm just trying to do everything I realistically can to lighten my environmental footprint. Sure, I'd like to go start an organic farm and live off-grid, but I'm not sure that's really practical for us right now. So in the meantime, I am just trying to do everything I can within reason. Did I mention my paper shredder? I ordered one, and now I am composting all the non-shiny paper and junkmail from around the house. Sometimes I'll bring stuff home from the office too. So far the worms love it, and I thin kit makes a nice "brown layer" of compost which also helps to deter Randy the Rat. If I had some spare money, I'd love to install solar hot water, but that's not cheap. And since the future of my employment is somewhat questionable, I'm hesitant to make a huge investment if we end up having to move somewhere.

The tomato seedlings are doing great!

Recycling!!

I am so, so excited about Baltimore County switching over to single stream recycling. I know this makes me a huge dork, but I think it's awesome. It makes it so much easier, and I'm excited because I think more people will do it now. Just throw it all in one bin, no sorting, no tying of bags, nothing. Recycling is one of those things that I am obsessed with. I take other people's recycling home. I can't stand to see recyclables in the trash. If I see stuff in the street, all I can think is, that's going to be in a landfill for thousands of years. So, anything that will make it easier for people to recycle is good with me.

In a similar vein, I saw a thing online about people collecting coffee grounds from Starbucks for composting. I called the Roland Park one, and they were very friendly and helpful; they are saving some for me and I'm going to try and pick them up on my way home today. They bag them up for you in recycled paper bags and give the stuff away free. Again, it would be just as easy for them to throw it out, but it's nice to see it going to a good use rather than sitting in a plastic bag in a landfill. And it's great for the compost pile... you can even put them directly on acid loving things like blueberries. I may try some on my blue hydrangea.

I went out and turned the compost yesterday and I have definitely had visitors to the bin as of late. I am hoping it's just squirrels and not a rat, but it didn't seem to be that recent. The compost is doing OK, but it was pretty frozen on the edges. I think I'm going to start a new bin in the spring, perhaps one that's made of fencing rather than a closed bin. I also bought a paper shredder so I can start shredding and recycling junk mail and paper. I added some new shredded paper to the worm bin last week and it has really helped with the flies. It's still not perfect; I think there's just more food in there than they can handle, so I'm going to give them some time to catch up. I'm still waiting for it to look like soil in there, but it's far from it. I'd like to see pictures of someone else's worm bin to see what it looks like. I haven't given up yet!