The Suburban Farm

Between Then and Now

2011-08-13T21:25:00.000-04:00

So, we had a baby.

Ferris Alistair Bedell

He’s awesome, but oh boy did the gardens suffer. We’re down to bare minimum yard maintenance, doing only what’s absolutely necessary to keep the Homeowners Association* from writing us letters under some Adams Family Clause we missed in the by-laws. I’m sure if they didn’t see us out chasing Zane on his bike, the neighbors would think our house is abandoned.

Gardens by Lurch
(Yes, this is actually my yard.)

Zoom.

Somehow we went from folks who thought they had no time, to actually not having any spare time. Last year we had more time then money. Time to garden, chop wood, make stuff. Now we’ve got more money, but no time. (And by more money, we’re not talking lottery winnings here. We’re still scraping the bottom of the peanut butter jar, but now it’s less compulsory.) It is the freelancer’s curse.

What would a normal couple do when they finally found themselves reasonably comfortable but with slightly less free time then they’d like? Probably not what we did. I left my top-secret government job - the one with the steady paycheck, gobs of paid vacation time and sick days, oh and HEALTH INSURANCE. That one. I left it.

Granted it was getting in the way of all my fun. Now I can do things like clean the house, work on the gardens, read books. And I can take on more freelance work! Yes, I have joined the ranks of the scantily employed.

So far it’s going well. I've got some clients, I’m networking and handing out my card like a crazy person, and I even have a website that’s 3/4ths finished. Go me!

If your life is feeling a bit stale, I highly recommend ditching all steady pay and benefits in favor of an exciting and terrifying life of adventure as a freelance graphic designer and photographer. It’s like being a pirate, only less boats and water and more legal.

Other things that have happened in the last two months: Kismet went to the giant meat castle in the sky, and I had a baby.

Poor Kismet. She developed a bump on her face which turned out to be cancer. It sucked. (It also sucked that we found out after we had the invisible fence put in.) The week before Ferris was born we said our goodbyes and sent her to a better place were she can eat out of the litterbox whenever she likes, roll in a large variety of dead things, and get on any couch she sees.

Kismet - Putting the Funk on the Rainbow Bridge

Then I had this critter.

Mr. Awesome Baby

He’s awesome, did I mention that? Labor sucked, I accidentally had a natural birth. I may fill you in on that later, but the short version is: Don’t Go Into Labor Unprepared. (Like the Boy Scout motto, only with more ick and lady parts.)

That’s what we’ve been up to since February. I can’t wait to see what trouble we manage to get ourselves into in the next six months.

* Actually our Homeowners Association is a group of really lovely people, and we’ve never heard boo from them except when it’s time to vote for the new board members. And they take care of the neighborhood playground which is one of our favorite hangouts these days.

Training Pants, the Next Step in Cloth Diapering

2011-02-02T09:23:00.000-05:00

I am actually a bit embarrassed about this. Zane is basically potty trained.

That doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone, so for clarification: Zane goes potty both ways on the toilet. He wears training pants during the day and is diapered when he takes his nap and goes to bed. And while I am taking extra pants and “underpants” on our outings, we rarely need them.

He will ask to go when he needs to and sometimes he’ll ask to go ‘cause he’s bored or because he wants to wash his hands. He does need some supervision to make sure he doesn’t fall in while climbing up, flush 800 bazillion times, waste a ton of TP, and to keep him focused on the, um, task at hand. (And, well, to keep the tasks out of his hands, hence all the hand washing.) His wiping also leaves... something to be desired.

But for a kid who’s not yet two, I’d say this was pretty darn fantastic.

Here’s the embarrassing part: Ryan and I had nothing to do with it. Zane potty trained himself.

Sometime after his first birthday I bought a kid sized potty for the bathroom. I didn’t expect anything to come of it. We planning to start training when the kid was at least two, probably older, why rush things? But I wanted it the potty to be familiar when we did start. One less intimidating thing about this whole process.

Zane had other plans.

He sat on it and peed. I thought it was a fluke. The next night he peed and pooped. The train pulled away from the station without me.

A few weeks later he was spending all his time pants-less and had shirked the “little” potty for the big one.

Pants free is great. It’s convenient and easy. But if you want to go to Target, they prefer customers wear pants. Restaurants too, oddly enough. Three weeks ago Ryan and I decided to step in and take an active roll in this whole potty adventure. We were going to teach Zane to wear pants. Really, least we could do, right?

Step 1: Find training pants.

I thought this would be easy. I remember training pants from my childhood. They were cotton and had some extra padding at the crotch just in case you didn’t have your timing figured out. Turns out training pants are now called Pull Ups.

We didn’t use disposable diapers, we sure as hell weren't going to use disposable underpants.

Thank goodness for the Internet. We found Little Beetle Learners, and they are awesome. They’ll hold a small bladder-full, but Zane can tell he’s wet, and they’re bright and fun and cushy. (Jillian’s Drawers is also awesome, if you wanna try cloth you should check out their Try Cloth for $10 program.)

Step 2: ~~Teach~~ Bribe the kid to put them on.

I admit it. We were soooo smug behind other parents' backs. Our kid didn’t need bribes to go to the toilet. I never had to rummage through my purse in vain hope there was a forgotten lolly-pop in the bottom so the kid would go potty while we were visiting Grandma. Aren't we special.

At least we thought we were.

Given the choice Zane would rather go ultra commando then put the effort into trying to dress himself. So we busted out the gummy worms. Honestly, I don’t blame him, there are some days I wish I’d get a treat for bothering to dress myself.

We didn’t have to bribe him more then a handful of times, which is good, and now the critter can put on his big boy underpants all by himself. 3 times out of 5 they’re even on frontwards.

That was all it took. Zane now wears pants all the time (ok, most of the time, he still gets a fair bit of nakedy time on the weekends) and is even waking up from some of his (diapered) naps totally dry.

Don’t worry though, I bet the next one won’t potty train until they’re 5.

We Ordered Plants

2011-01-24T10:05:00.000-05:00

We got a lot accomplished this weekend. Along with a quick trip to the Living Museum, and finishing four hundred loads of laundry, we ordered plants. We kept it pretty simple this year. We ordered two replacement apple trees (all three of ours were girdled by voles) from Vintage Virginia Apples. This time around we picked up a Shockley, which is a very tasty apple, and an Albemarle Pippin.

The Albemarle Pippin is a neat apple with a history. According to the Vintage Virgina Apple folks it was introduced to Albemarle County by Col. Thomas Walker who brought the apple back from the battle of Brandywine in 1777. Though the 18th century it was widely grown and was known to be cultivated by both Washington and Jefferson (the second should be no surprise, that dude tried to grow EVERYTHING.) In 1838 Queen Victoria was presented with a basket of the apples and it was such a hit that Parliament waved the duty on importing the variety which made it an important export for us. After World War I Parliament levied duties gain, and the Pippin became less popular. It is still grown commerically, but mostly for cider not as an eating apple.

We also picked up four current bushes (two white and two red), a replacement cherry tree (we lost it’s predecessor to voles as well), more strawberry plants, two yellow raspberry bushes, some wild carrot plants and coreopsis for the butterfly garden, a dwarf pomegranate (we’ve managed to keep the key lime alive, so we’re risking it), and some assorted pretty things to fill in a few holes.

We’ll use up the seed we have on hand for tomatos, peppers, various root veg, herbs, and viney plants and supplement a bit from the nurseries in the spring.

Not the most exciting weekend for most people, but hey! I got the laundry done and I don’t have to worry about the gardens for another whole month!

Plants and Seeds of a Different Sort

2011-01-03T09:48:00.000-05:00

Remember when this used to be a gardening blog? Ok, it was never a full gardening blog, but most of what we talked about was plants. What we were planting, what we wanted to plant, when we'd plant it, how and where we planted it. We talked about our grand planting plans for the future... Then we had Zane. And now we're considering paving over the backyard so we wouldn't have to mow the Creeping Charlie every other week.

Zane is the sunshine in our lives, the source of genuine laughter every day, a person full of surprises and wonder, and the giant vortex into which all our time is sucked. Seriously, ALL our time. We're getting ready to leave the house, all we have to do is put on our coats. An hour and a half later we're sitting in the car and I'm wondering how in the heck it takes AN HOUR AND A HALF for three people to put on coats. AN HOUR AND A HALF.

We did plant stuff last year, it didn't do well under the extreme neglect we provided for it. It was Plant Thunderdome in the raised beds. Plants vs. Weeds. Two plants enter, one plant leaves- and spreads it's horrible self all over the rest of the property. (I'll give you two guesses which won, and the first doesn't count. Hint: it wasn't Mad Max.) To heighten the excitement we refused to water anything. By the end of the summer our house looked like the Adams Family had taken residence.

This year it will be different. Maybe. Possibly. We're hoping to put in irrigation to help with the watering, but, ummm, we planted a seed of a different sort. Sometime around July 4 we're having another kid.

The gardens are totally screwed.

Chesapeake (Cownose) Ray

2010-09-27T19:20:00.002-04:00

It started with a documentary. Ryan and I find ourselves getting into a lot of trouble when we watch documentaries. It's probably a good thing the cable hasn't been hooked into the television for the past 8 months, otherwise we'd be living on a steady diet of Discovery and National Geo plotting our new lives on a island, hunting iguanas, running from mosquitoes and drinking distilled mango juice.

It was this documentary.

The short version: it's a four letter word. The slightly longer version: there's almost no food left in the ocean, we killed it all. We ate some of it, but not as much as you would think.

Near the end they mention one side effect of over-fishing, in the Chesapeake Bay there is an over abundance of cownose rays. We've killed all their predators (read sharks) and now between May and October the schools migrate into the bay and decimate the oyster population (they also get the clams and other invertebrates). By some accounts the schools are so thick you can walk over them.

Virginia is trying to change that by convincing the top predator that cownose rays are food. There is a small marketing campaign rebranding the ray the Chesapeake Ray. Hey, it worked for squid (aka calamari) and the Patagonian toothfish (aka Chilean sea bass). The state has also hired high-end chefs to create recipes, handed out ray meat to restaurants, and hosted cooking demonstrations.

After seeing the documentary and reading an article in the local paper I got inspired. I was going to buy some Chesapeake Ray, and I was going to cook it.

I envisioned this epic quest to locate a fishmonger who could sell it to us. I would end up needing to hire a charter boat and I could wrangle the fish in myself, minding the hooked barb on it's tail, of course. I would carry my catch home, a triumphant cave woman, and the twenty five pound ray would make a great thumping sound when I flipped it from my shoulder onto the counter. It would feed my family for a month, sustainably and environmentally conscientiously. After stopping at my local place my quest was stopped short.

Not only do they have it regularly (they catch it themselves) but they'd call me once they had some in stock.

A week later we had it.

We cooked it.

It was good.

It tastes very much like beef. And not in the way the frogs legs or iguana tastes like chicken, it tastes like beef the way cow tastes like beef. Salty beef, and not the best or finest cut of grass fed beef, but definitely beef.

Ryan and I skinned it, which was a pain in the ass and not our finest butchery job, and then sliced it thin. I dumped it in a skillet with a hefty pad of butter and a good handful of capers. (Yes, like veal piccata.) I over cooked it a bit, but it was still tasty. We both want to try making Ray Chili, and I think it would be good as a substitute for ground beef in any recipe.

My favorite part, it looks like butchered alien meat. How's this for first contact?

*My dear vegetarian friends, I do promise to cut back on the graphic photos of raw meat, I simply can't help my carnivorous self.

Living Museum

2010-07-16T13:35:00.000-04:00

Ryan, Zane, and I visited the very awesome Virginia Living Museum recently.

We took Zane to see the turtles, what little boy doesn't like turtles?

They got a lukewarm reception at best. What about dinosaurs? Boys like dinosaurs! Especially T-Rex!

Nope. Not interested. So we handed Zane the map and let him choose his own adventure.

"Hummm..."

"Hey Daddy!"

"I want to go here."

"He he."

"What's over there?

"Dead things!!! Dead things I can play with!!!"*

This looks neat.

"Heya fisy."

"Over here."

"This. I want to see this."

"Cool." (At least I was in the right genus with the dinosaurs and turtles.)

I was ready for him to crash at any second, but he didn't stop or slow down once. At the end of the afternoon Ryan and I were so tired from running behind him that we wrestled him into the carrier just to get a break. He didn't argue, much.

My little critter is growing up.

*They were actually dead things. Taxidermied tails and pelts from raccoons and opossums and such. Aren't we the most awesomest parents EVAR?

Liver, Like From a Cow

2010-07-09T19:43:00.000-04:00

Let’s talk about liver. Yes, LIVER. Specifically, cow livers.

We love liver. We’re eating it two or three times a month. It helps that we’ve got a local farmer who can’t unload the stuff fast enough (along with tongues, hearts, and other tasty bits) so she sells it to us for ridiculously low prices. RIDICULOUSLY low. It seems that most folks around here are under the mistaken impression that they don’t like liver.

I bet you’re under the mistaken impression that you don’t like liver.

I would bet that you actually don’t like over cooked liver. Like eggs, most cooks will keep liver on the fire until it’s nothing but a sad rubbery hunk. (Yes, you’re over cooking your eggs too, but that’s a discussion for another time.) This is wrong, wrong, wrong. Good liver is never chewy. Liver should be cooked till it is firm, but still pink in the center. It’s tender, sort of sweet, and tasty. VERY tasty.

It lacks imagination, but we make the same recipe every time. Liver with Spinach Salad, Croutons and Pine Nuts via Food and Wine. The recipe calls for calves’ liver, but using full grown cow liver hasn't caused us any trouble. I think the grass fed cow’s livers that we buy are less bitter then their corn finished cousins'. It could help that they’re “organic” too. Or it could all be in my head.

To make this fantastic, iron and b vitamin packed, salad you first cut up your bread and stick it in the oven along with your pine nuts to toast. Pine nuts take less then 5 minutes, croutons take about 15. Don’t mix that up. Trust me. While they cook wisk together the dressing for the salad. Then comes the fun part.

Dredge the liver in some flour. Your hands will look like this.

I just lost you didn’t I.

I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist. Does this make up for it?

Whew! Back to the liver. This is the tricky part. You cook it. Remember, don’t go too far. About three minutes on each side, possibly less, just under medium high heat.

You have to baby sit it a bit. This is why Ryan is in charge of the liver. I am too easily distracted by über cute toddlers holding spoons.

You then dress a TON of spinach and add in the pine nuts and croutons.

Heap the salad in bowls, add the liver, and top with some remaining dressing.

Looks tasty doesn’t it. Not like what you imagined liver to look like, right? Still a skeptic? Zane likes it.

He likes it a lot.

* I know that I totally missed focus on just about every single one of these photos. In my defense I was very hungry and delirious from the heavenly smell of cooking livers. I may also have had a glass of wine.

Cat Nap

2010-06-17T17:00:00.044-04:00

Greebo: I think I'll take a nap.

Zane: Hey! That's my chair! Is there room for two?

Greebo: Not so much. Could you, ummm, maybe...

Zane: Hey! I got you! You're in my chair!

Zane: You need a hug!

Greebo: No, really, it's fine. I'm fine could you just...

Zane: Hey! What's that?!??

Greebo: [sigh]

Confessions of an Internet Shopper

2010-06-10T11:00:00.000-04:00

I shop on the internet. I know this doesn't sound like a shocking confession, most folks these days buy stuff from the great mall that is "The Internet", but I buy the sorts of things that most people like to at least fondle a bit before forking over thier money. Things like a refrigerator, a lawn mower (more on that another time), and groceries.

Yup, I buy my food from the internet.

But, but, but, you're hippies! You should be buying stuff from the farmers' market and getting your milk from places that you can pet the cows. You keep chickens! You should know the value of local food.

Before you're world view gets all spinny: I've read Michael Pollan too, and we try really hard to eat local food (mostly plants.)

We belong to two local food co-ops, both of which we order from on the internet. (Yes, even sedate ole Williamsburg is hip enough to warrent TWO co-ops.) One gives us mostly produce and the occasional chicken which we pick up once a week, and the other we get our milk and soap and occasionally other fun stuff from every other week.

Then there's the beef, we buy grass fed beef from heritage cows, from a guy on the internet. We place an order every 8 or 9 months, and it comes frozen in neat portions. We also buy a lamb every year, but that's from a local cheese maker and we do that over the phone.

That leaves very little that we aren't buying local. Mostly staples like wine, dried beans, toilet paper, mustard. (We like mustard.) That little bit I order online through our grocery store and pick up after work. They even have a call box outside the store so I don't have to go in or anything.

Keep in mind that we do have a reasonable budget we need to stick to, or things like the mortgage won't get paid. And the mortgage company likes it when we pay them. I like to shoot for $80 a week, which includes aforementioned wine, so $20 in food - just kidding, sort of.

All of my "shopping" is done by other people. Once a week I decide what we're going to eat and when then I order it all from the co-ops and the grocery store AFTER ZANE HAS GONE TO BED. Then I just swing by the various pickup spots after work before I grab the critter from daycare. Easy, convenient, and local. I don't even have to hit the over crowded, dog riddled, stroller clogged farmer's market on Saturday mornings.

Muesli

2010-06-08T20:29:00.000-04:00

I have discovered something fantastic. Muesli. Not the stuff in the box that's been coated in corn syrup and malt powder, but fresh muesli you make at home.

It's stupid simple. I found the recipe here at the Family Kitchen.

Muesli
1 cup old-fashioned (large flake) oats 
1 cup yogurt (any kind – I prefer a nice thick plain yogurt) 
A handful of chopped dried fruit (raisins, cranberries, dates, figs, apricots and/or mango)  
A handful of chopped toasted nuts (almonds, pecans and/or hazelnuts)
1 apple, coarsely grated (don’t bother peeling it)
1 Tbsp. honey or maple syrup (according to taste and whether or not you used sweetened yogurt) 
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
1 tsp. vanilla (optional)
Stir everything together in a large bowl. Refrigerate it overnight and keep it in the fridge to dip into all week. Serves about 6.

It is awesome for so many reasons. Zane loves to eat apples whole, unfortunately he doesn't have the ability to finish one. Even if we rinse it at the end of lunch and give it to him again at dinner, then at breakfast, then at lunch, and again at dinner; he still can't get through it. I've been cutting the gnawed pieces out, dicing them, and sticking them in the freezer to use in apple muffins, but there are only so many apple muffins one family needs to eat.

It's also convenient, wholesome, filling, tasty, easy, and can go directly from the fridge to your tummy with minimum effort. Oh, and it' whips together in seconds (especially if you use the Cuisinart to grate the apple.)

I substituted Greek Yogurt, 'cause that's what we keep on hand. It's easier for Zane to practice his spoon skills on since it's thicker and sticks to the spoon (and his fingers, hair, face, chair, table, you get where this is going) better. I also used quick cooking oatmeal. It was what we had on hand, but it made the muesli pretty mushy. I would bet it's way better with regular oats.

I think I may experiment and try adding stuff like sprouted wheat berries, quinoa, flax seeds... I'm going to stop now before I start to sound even more like a hippie.

Keep in mind it's not a pretty food. I keep chickens, I know exactly what it looks like. This is probably why I can't get Zane to even try it. Yogurt is one of his favoritest foods, along with blueberries, pasta, and cat food. The kid is willing to put ANYTHING in his mouth at least once to see if it's tasty, and he won't try the muesli. Not even a little. Too bad, it just leaves more for Ryan and I.

Currants, an Introduction

2010-05-27T13:05:00.009-04:00

Zane is a very cautious critter. Unlike most things (books, cat food, dirt) small red berries that look deceptively like food, MUST be thoroughly tested to make sure they're eatable.

First, give them to Daddy. See if he'll eat them.

Watch carefully to make sure he doesn't spit them out.

Next, compare what he gave you to what you gave him. Do they match, or is the old man trying to put one over on you? You've got to watch him, Daddys can be sneaksy.

After assuring they match, you can then try one. If you don't like it, spit it out immediately.

It looks like the currants have passed Zane's extensive testing, and are now on the approved foods list (along with books, cat food and dirt.)

Win win.

2010-05-27T12:48:00.015-04:00

Two of our boy cats have problems. Greebo has kidneys that are very much not kidney shaped and they've got stones in them to boot. (If you don't know, kidney stones in male cats are BAD, VERY VERY VERY BAD.) Porter is a crotchety old bear with territory issues. So when Greebo started to, ummm, "go" in the house, Porter added his, umm, "contributions".

For years we cleaned up after them and followed their rules about what can or can't be where (no towels or fabric on the floors or counters or bowls of fruit anywhere, I've no idea what Porter has against fruit) and we seemed to have struck some sort of agreement. Until they killed Nigel.

Nigel (if you don't know) is our Roomba vacuum. They aren't cheap you know, and having your cat "contribute" on it is not covered under the warranty. Believe me, I checked. There's even a clause about getting it wet.

That was my last straw. After threatening for years to send them out the back door and make them indoor/outdoor kitties, I finally made good.

(Greebo - aka Mr. Co-Dependent)

(Porter - aka Señor McGrumpy Pants)

It turned out for the best. No one is "contributing" where they shouldn't be and all the cats are MUCH happier. The indoor kitties appreciate having a bit more elbow room, and the outdoor(ish) cats are enjoying their freedom.

These days Porter hardly comes in at all, he prefers being a wild man out in the woods with plenty of space. Greebo still spends most of his days in the house, but now he's leaving vole carcasses by the back door, which makes me very happy.

Along with the voles, the neighborhood squirrels, bunnies, and most of the birds have stopped spending so much time in our lawn. Word must have gotten out that we've got two highly efficient predators guarding the place. Which means that we finally have this:

Strawberries! These plants are four years old, and this is the first year we've gotten to eat any of the fruit!

And then there are the currants:

Enough for eating out of hand:

No more "contributions", no more bunnies and squirrels, happy cats, and all the vole carcasses the chickens can eat. Sounds like win win to me.

(What did you think we did with the carcasses?)

Happy Mother's Day, Here's an Apron

2010-05-10T09:56:00.008-04:00

Ryan and Zane gave me an apron for Mother's Day. (They also gave me a panini press, but it's the apron that's important.) Before every self-empowered woman who reads this blog hits the "Unfollow" button, the apron was my idea. I sent this email back in April:

If you and Zane were looking for something for Mother's Day: The Chloe - Canary Yellow Birdseed
Isn't it perfect?

It is perfect. I absolutely LOVE it. I want six more so I'll have one for every day of the week. First, it is the most feminine thing I own except for my wedding dress, and that wasn't all that frilly. And there is nothing wrong with enjoying being a GIRL, 'cause I am one. I embrace the contradiction of wanting to be a feminist but being totally into archetypal feminine stuff. (Yay for aprons and breastfeeding rooms. Boo for unequal pay and treatment.) Kristen over at Jezebel discusses it: Can Feminists Wear Aprons? (This is the article that lead me to the Etsy seller who makes the mostest wonderfulest aprons ever.)

Side bar: Do you know about Etsy? I've mentioned it before. You really need to start wandering around the site. The most wonderful things in the world come from Etsy. Every gift I've gotten from it has immediately become a favorite. The purse my dad got me for my birthday, the "Squeee" necklace Ryan found me for Christmas, and now this delightful apron. Etsy, it's where the magic comes from.

Back to the apron: for some reason the canaries remind me of my grandmother's kitchen. Not her actual kitchen, more of a metaphorical kitchen where my grandmother is cooking her infamous macaroni and cheese or some concoction from her well worn copy of Joy of Cooking. I don't know why the silly yellow canaries remind me of her, but they do.

Third, it keeps food off my clothes.

Novel idea I know, aprons keep your clothing clean, but a freaking breakthrough for me. Zane has always been an enthusiastic eater who doesn't care if his clothes, fingers, hair are sticky or slimy or gritty. Since we introduced him to tablewear, his mealtimes have gotten down right explosive. I'm sure you remember how well a fork works as a catapult, but have you ever tried it with a plate? You can really get some air on those peas using a plate.

No matter how much I wipe him down before picking him up there is always something I miss and that something ALWAYS ends up on my clothes. Now I tie on the apron, and it doesn't matter if I'm dressed for work or if I'm wearing my favorite shirt; the apron is insurance that I won't have to relegate another piece of clothing to the yard/house work pile.

This fantastic little frock has cut back on the amount of laundry I have to do, saved my clothing from three meals already, and is super cute. I'd say that was a heck of a Mother's Day gift.

A Weekend in Review

2010-04-28T10:52:00.009-04:00

Ryan showed a few baby trees what happens when you start shading the raised beds. Hopefully the other ones will learn by example.

Zane watched.

He thought it was neat.

So did Porter, he was less impressed.

We put our starts into the raised beds.

I made bread, all by myself, for the first time ever! It was even eatable.

Zane learned to eat oranges like a squirrel. (This is Ryan's fault.)
He also learned a neat trick involving dinner and his shirt. (Click to enlarge.)

The day ended with story time. On tap: The Bromeliad by Terry Pratchett.

Zane and I sat in the "Cuddle Chair" while Ryan read.

Why yes, he does wear his sunglasses at night...

Happy Birthday Zane

2010-03-16T11:00:00.004-04:00

Zane,

One year ago from this moment your Dad, Aunt Helen, and I were all in a hospital room reading our books waiting for your arrival. It was a very quiet day, but I can tell you when you did make your appearance, it was love at first sight.

Yes, you were gunky and had a very very pointy head, and your feet were unusually large for a creature of your size, but together they made you all the more special.

Every day you amaze your Dad and I. Your wacky sense of humor, your open mouthed-lead with the tongue kisses, the maniacal laugh you have when you think you're doing something you shouldn't be, your undeniable love for blueberries and rasins, the way you dance, and the sleepy look you get late in the afternoon in your daddy carrier. Every day has been an adventure, and I can't wait to see what we'll discover together tomorrow.

Love, Your Mom

Resolutions

2010-03-12T09:34:00.002-05:00

Well crap. I haven't posted anything since January, and that was just our silly New Year's card which hardly counts as a full post. (Seriously, did you see the photo. How flipping AWESOME is my kid!) I had the best intentions, I swear. I was going to write a post on resolutions, then in a few months when I couldn't think of anything to write about I could post a follow up on how well I kept 'em.

Could you do me a favor? Could you pretend that I wrote all about how great New Year's is, and how it's a time for reflection and stuff, and that I really want to try to do these things this year? Pretty please? KTHANKS!

Have I kept my resolutions?

1) Take photos ~~of Zane~~ once a week.

I started out strong and then we all played pass the cold/stomach flu. When I was feeling good, poor Zane was snotty or upchucky or just plain miserable. It did not make for pretty photos. When he was feeling good either Ryan or I were hiding in a crumpled heap in the bed. That took up most of January and all of February. Now that we seem to be all relatively well, (knock wood) I've amended it to take photos once a week. While documenting the Critter's life is important, we're having trouble finding time that doesn't have some activity (like eating or sleeping) shoe horned in. If I can't get my camera out until after he's asleep at night, so be it, at least I got it out.

2) Write for the Suburban Farm twice a month.

Ummm... Yea. I've got a few posts sitting in drafts that weren't worth publishing. They were chock full of gripe and snark. Very unpleasant. I blame the cold/stomach flu game. Now that spring is upon us, seeds are being started, the days are getting longer, and plants are showing up on our door step I think we'll be more inspired to document our goings on and it'll be more publishable.

3) Drink eight, eight ounce glasses of water a day.

Check.

4) Take a multivitiman at least five times a week.

I'm pretty sure I've only taken three since January 1st. Make that four, I just took one.

So, I haven't exactly kept my resolutions, but I haven't actually failed to keep them either. As far as I know no one is handing out candy or awards for "Most Resolutions Kept" or "Best Strict Interpretation of a Resolution", unless they are. You would tell me if they were, right? 'Cause I could totally use some candy right now. No candy? Bummer.

Happy New Year

2009-12-31T19:21:00.003-05:00

Toeing the Line

2009-10-22T16:34:00.003-04:00

A few months ago we started hanging our laundry to dry. I don't know what else to say about that. Yes, we should have started sooner but I have a problem with crunchy clothing. I CAN NOT STAND IT.

Can't stand it the way people hate nails on a chalk board or Ryan hates the smell of cat food. Crunchy, stiff clothes make me grumpy and vaguely nauseated. I'm getting grumpy right now just thinking about it.

There were other obstacles too - like our Homeowners Association. Oh yes, the Suburban Farm is in a neighborhood with a Homeowners Association. I know what you're saying. "But!?! You keep CHICKENS!!?!" We do keep chickens. We carefully researched our zoning restrictions and our property deed and the deed has some room for interpretation. It's creative interpretation and if we ended up in court I'm sure we wouldn't win, but it's enough to keep my conscious clear. Outdoor laundry lines, however, are forebidden. Clear as day, black and white, "Thou shall not hang your laundry (or rugs (and it does say rugs)) outside no matter what."

I'm sure we could challenge it. Our Association is pretty flexible and easy going and it's run by a group of reasonable folks in neighborhood full of reasonable folks. But, you see, we keep chickens and by certain interpretations of the deed restrictions we really shouldn't have chickens in our backyard. So, I'm not sure we should go rocking the boat. Just in case, you know, the whole chicken thing comes up.

This means we've had to get creative about hanging our clothing inside. We started with an accordion rack, which I really like. It holds a load of Zane's clothing (it's all small stuff) or a load of unmentionables (aka underwear and bras, I know I just mentioned it, but I like the word unmentionables.)

We added a (total piece of crap) retractable line rack over the tub in the bathroom, which can sort of hold a whole load of diapers, if you're very careful when you hang them and don't breathe much. It can't take anything heavier than a slightly damp tissue and there's no air circulation so actually hanging a load of grown up sized threads is out of the question.

There really isn't anyplace else to put a drying rack or line in our house. Someday when Ryan builds the laundry room there will be some space, but until then we've hacked this solution.

Chairs, hangers, and sticks on the back porch.

It works surprisingly well. There's plenty of air circulation and the rig can bear the weight of several pairs of wet jeans along with the rest of a grown up load of laundry. If we need to hang a blanket or rug we can use the same sticks set on open closet doors. Perfect, temporary, can quickly be disassembled for storage, and as a bonus the clothing just needs to be migrated into closets when it's dry.

Much to my surprise very little of my clothing ends up crunchy. Some of Ryan's and Zane's do, but they don't mind and Ryan says that they soften up after 10 minutes of wearing them. The diapers line dry perfectly. I still machine dry some blankets, towels, and my pants, but out of the 7 loads of laundry we do a week we only do 1 dryer load. All this will help the dryer and our clothing last longer, it's easier on our electric bill, and I can wear my "dirty hippie" badge with honor and pride now.

Handmade Pledge

2009-10-14T08:32:00.001-04:00

Every fall when the pumpkins and black witch hats come out I start thinking about the holidays. Not Halloween, The Holidays. You know the season where gifts are given, cookies show up everywhere, and regardless of our personal religious affiliations, we all wish for snow.Facebook becomes a relentless stream of "I totally saw Christmas Trees in Target! Can you believe it!?!" "Totally, I saw Santas out over at the mall! WTF, dudes?" Because I don't want stuff thrown at me I don't say, "Of course, the holidays are only TWO MONTHS AWAY!"

I blame it on the theatre. At this point in the season rehearsals for your holiday show are underway, sets are being built, and you already have a work schedule set for the front of house people to come decorate the 80 foot Christmas tree in the lobby. If you don't have your holiday battle plan well drafted by now, you're up fecal creek without so much as a tongue depressor.

Unlike the theatre, at the Suburban Farm the holidays are about one thing, PRESENTS. (Ok, so that's not true, but presents do play a leading role in our holiday planning. The supporting role is played by FOOD.) I love to give presents. Love love love. I'm one of those people who sees something in a store in March and says, "That will be perfect for X for Christmas." I gave my baby sister a set of kitchen shears for her birthday that I bought the day after her birthday the year before. Yes, I am that crazy.

Some how in spite of the small stockpile of perfect gifts this year Ryan and I chose to take the Handmade Pledge. This year we pledge that all our gifts will be handmade (or upcycled). There are several reasons for the pledge. It's better for the environment. We've been finding that life with a baby is more expensive then we thought and we already have gallons of booze in the pantry ready to be drunk. I just rediscovered my Knifty Knitters and I'm obsessed with all the yarn I can buy on eBay. (Even if I can only make scarves.) And then there's Etsy.

Etsy.

It deserves it's own line. Etsy is a GIANT craft bizarre full of all sorts of handmade glories. The site can be a bit overwhelming, so I've bookmarked a few vendors we like: Suburban Farm Favorite Esty Sellers. Keep in mind that our favorites are just microbes on the tips of the icebergs.

For our pledge, handmadeish counts. We do have a small person who takes up a disproportionate quantity of our time, so we may take a few short cuts. But the idea is there. This season we're going to be putting the Suburban Farm stamp on all our gifts, and I'm excited about it.

Baby-Led Weaning

2009-09-17T10:29:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow Zane is headed to the Doctor's for his 6 month checkup. After the appointment Ryan will call and say, "You were right, he does weigh 80lbs." Ok, I'm exaggerating, a little bit, but the repeated heavy lifting with "Mommy's Magic Shoulder" is making me lopsided. I'm totally cut but only on one half of my upper torso. And when I say cut I mean cut, like Madonna without the scary veins kind of cut. I'd switch shoulders but the other one isn't magical. Just ask Zane, he'll tell you. Only one shoulder will do for him!

We'll also get the ok from the doctor to start introducing solids. Solids, being anything other then (that-truly repugnant-not-a-food) rice cereal they push on everyone. Whoops! Too late.

We should have held out. There's something sciencey about an open digestive system and stuff, but the critter was getting absolutely distraught at not being allowed to share our meals. He wanted food, BADLY, and there's only so much begging Ryan and I can take. (Yes, he did actually beg. He made these small grunting "gime" noises, INCESSANTLY. We have tons of practice ignoring begging here at the Suburban Farm. Believe me, you would have caved too.)

However, under no circumstances were either of us willing to sit and shovel puréed goop into his maw. We skipped the mushed up mash, and the rice slime, and the chunky dog food looking stuff in the jars and went straight to finger foods.

Genius! you say. Yes, but it's not our idea, it's Baby-Led Weaning.

The underground movement started with a paper by Gill Rapley and has become more mainstream now the book has been published: Baby-led Weaning. The idea was introduced to us by our friend Bethany, who's a pretty smart chick and used this method with her son. (Thank you Bethany!!! You have changed our lives in ways you can't imagine!)

Baby-Led Weaning in a nutshell: you let the kid feed himself.

You don't spoon anything into his mouth, you don't mash food up past all recognition, and you don't have to worry about how much he's eating. You just cut things up so they have a handle (they say chip sized, but they're British so think steak fries) and let him play. If he eats some great! If not, no big deal he's still getting all his nutrition from the boob (or can, if that's what works for you.) Eventually he'll eat more food and drink less milk, weaning himself off the white stuff altogether.

So far Zane has eaten (well, gummed and swallowed) everything from peaches and avocados to bread and pasta. His favorite foods seem to be steak (grass-fed of course) and yoghurt WHICH HE FEEDS HIMSELF, WITH HIS OWN SPOON. He eats what we eat, we don't make special meals for him. (Ok, we do cut his food special and pull stuff out of the pot before we add epic amounts of seracha sauce, but he's still mostly eating the same dinner we are.) We never have to worry about packing special food when we leave the house or what to do when we're out at a restaurant. It's fantastic.

There is a small side effect. One of the things you learn from the book is the difference between gagging and choking. Zane has not choked. Not even once. I do admit, despite the evidence to the contrary, when watching him eat I am constantly afraid at any minute he's going to turn blue. In learning to eat Zane watches us chew and swallow and does his very best to mimic our actions - this includes "Mommy's Eating Face." While I watch him happily munch his food, selecting out which bits seem tasty, in between smiles and contented sighs, he looks gravely concerned right back at me.

Urban Farm Magazine

2009-09-16T12:36:00.004-04:00

Ryan and I were featured in Urban Farm Magazine for their premiere issue. The article is written by Cherie Langlois who interviewed us for Hobby Farm Home a while back. (I was still pregnant at the time.) It's a great piece, in a really great magazine about sustainable living:

"Urban Farm magazine's mission is to promote the benefits of self sustainability and to provide the tools with which to do it on any size property. Urban Farm reaches out to those in the city and suburbs, those who are inspired by the local food movement and who want to start raising chickens and growing food for themselves, supporting local agriculture and living more sustainably."

You can find it on newstands (web rumors have said Borders and Barnes & Noble).

Go Donate Yourself

2009-08-28T13:03:00.007-04:00

When I got pregnant Ryan was inspired to start donating blood. Now he goes as often as he can, and has even graduated to donating double red blood cells. I've been donating blood since high school, what seemed like a good excuse to get out of gym class, became something I just did. I've had to take a break since they don't want me to donate while I'm Zane's primary nutritional source, but you'd be surprised at what else I can give away.

Cord Blood
After doing a ton of reading, it was clear that there is absolutely no reason for me to bank cord blood. Cord blood banking is expensive, and unless you have a family history of leukemia, sickle cell disease, or other genetic troubles there is absolutely no reason for you to shell out that kind of cash. But it does seem a shame to let all those stem cells go to waste.

So donate it. That's what we did.

After Zane entered the world, my very fantastic and patient OB collected the sample (x liters!) and boxed it all up in a donation kit that was provided for us. Ryan called the number on the kit and they sent a currier to pick it up. It was easy, painless, and that blood either went to help some poor child who could use it or to a lab where they will play with it to come up with new medical solutions. Either way, someone wins. Why would you bank it and spend all that money when you could actually help someone (or multiple someones)? Go here to read more.

Breast Milk
Yes, you can donate this too.

I make more then Zane needs, and now that my emergency stash in the freezer is built back up I don't mind setting some excess aside for other babies who need it.

I donate through the International Milk Bank Project. At least 25% of the milk I send them goes to help infants in Africa who are suffering from malnourishment, HIV/AIDS, and other diseases. The rest is distributed by Prolacta to premature and critically ill babies here in America. They are the only distributor of human milk formula made from 100% human milk. The funds they raise selling the pasteurized breast milk to hospitals go to further their efforts in Africa.

Donating breast milk is a bit tricky and the process to get approved and set up was long and a bit of a pain in the ass. But they try to be as helpful as they can, and walk you through every step. There are other bits of yourself you can donate too.

Bone Marrow
If you're not on the registry, you should be.

Go here (http://www.marrow.org/) and request a kit. You swab your cheek, send it back to them. You're now on the list of potential lifesavers.

Blood
It's obvious, but if you can you should donate. The Red Cross lists local collection sites.

Organs
Is that little box on your drivers license checked? As morbid as it is, you should talk to your family about what to do with your bits when you're done with them. And make sure it's in your will. Don't forget to discuss eye and tissue (aka skin, bone, and heart valves) donations. Despite the virulent urban myth, medical technicians' first priority is your health and well being. They will do absolutely everything in their power to keep you alive and well even if you're listed as an organ donor. When you do pass on, your body is treated with respect and in almost all cases an open casket funeral is possible after donation. Read up on organ donation at Donate Life America.

The Fridge is Dead, Long Live the Fridge

2009-08-21T08:00:00.000-04:00

It's not a good night when you find yourself ordering a refridgerator over the internet at nine o'clock at night. Rather then being upset, I've chosen to view this as an opportunity to embrace the quaint American tradition of zero interest and zero payments for six months.

It seems that all new appliance purchases for the Suburban Farm go this way. We wanted to replace the fridge, but we wanted to do it when we were ready, not because the ketchup had grown fur and started crawling about the place threatening to eat the dog. The dishwasher and the hot water heater were similar stories, except they involved water leaking everywhere. (Good times.)

Thankfully the chest freezer outside was working so we moved all the frozen stuff out, and we migrated all the fridge stuff up into the freezer to keep things, with the help of a couple of bags of ice, at normal refrigerator temperature. Aside from some condiments and a freakload of breast milk, we didn't loose much food.

Loosing the milk REALLY sucked. Expressing breast milk is not the easiest or most liberating thing I've ever done. I had slowly built up a very nice stockpile, some of which was in the freezer, and I was planning on donating my excess. Since we had to tap into it so hard my stockpile has been depleted to emergency rations, and now I've got to build my pad back up before I can feel comfortable giving the excess away.

The refrigerator is nice. It's very shiny and clean and has actual drawers rather than cardboard boxes. It's even got an ice maker. (We're so uptown!) I like the freezer on the bottom since it puts the food we eat the most (produce) right at eye level. No more forgotten carrots or radishes, or at least that's my hope. We'll also save on our electric bill, since the former refrigerator was manufactured sometime in the Reagan administration (ok, it may have been as late as Bush, Sr. but that's still at least 15 years ago!)

This is just how life is. You hem and haw over buying a refrigerator for four years, and one day the universe says, "You know what! I am sooooo tired of you bitching about your refrigerator. Get over it already. It's all you talk about anymore. Blah blah blah. You're soooo boring. If you're not going to do something about it, then I'll make you do something about it. Ha!"

I wonder if we should start thinking about a new stove, a gas stove. Wouldn't that be grand...

- Gretchen

For the Fans

2009-07-21T18:24:00.001-04:00

Yes, it's been quiet around the blog lately. While we often joked that the reason we could do everything we did is because, "we don't have kids," I never expected our little critter to take up such a fantastic amount of my focus. Are we still gardening, brewing, crafting? Hell yes. Are we sill writing about it? Meh, not so much. Oh sure, things have happened and I said to my self, "Self, that needs writing about." But to actually carve out a bit of my day when I'm not addled in the head, that's a real challenge.

This is not to say I'm at all discontent with parenthood. In fact, we have the most awesome, laid back, easy going, enthusiastic, happy baby to have ever been created. He's perfectly content to sit in his stroller or lay on a blanket while we pull weeds. He loves to jump in his jumperoo and watch us make dinner, and he LOVES to be carried (especially by his Daddy) in his Ergo* while we get stuff done around the house. I didn't know how perfect our lives were going to be until he came along.

He even almost sleeps through the night. From 3 weeks on he started only waking up once to feed between 8p (his self selected bedtime) and 7a. Recently he's even started to skip that feeding on occasion. (Now that I've jinxed it by saying something, all you feral mothers can stop googling my address to hunt me down and throw used diapers at me.)

I have found that my life is broken into small segments of time. A few of those I take for myself to check facebook or shower (sometimes its a tough call.) But that's the total extent of my available mental prowess. They call it "mommybrain", but to be fair Ryan's got it too.

There is also the real threat of this blog becoming a catalogue of how utterly perfect and fantastic and special and gifted and smart and funny and did-I-mention-gifted Zane is. Which is only interesting to a very select market. So, writing about the Suburban Farm has been pushed down the list.

Almost every blog out there has at least one "I promise to write more, I cross my heart" post. That and the repetitive "We haven't written, we've been busy" post usually heralds the beginning of the end of the blog. I sincerely hope this is not the case with the Suburban Farm.

I enjoy writing this blog, and from the comments I get time and time again off screen, folks enjoy reading it. Oh, and there is "Yes the baby is fine and awesome, but you really don't want to hear about how he figured out how to clap his feet together. And I'm doing interesting things too!! I'm a person. A person who does stuff!! And despite the fact I just had a baby, I still do stuff that doesn't involve poop or spit up or feet clapping. (But the feet clapping was very cute, and super advanced , did you know that my son is a super genius? Feet clapping usually happens at a much older age, I have it on the highest authority.)"

I won't promise the posts will appear with any regularity, or even that we'll try our hardest to put something up. I will say that we really intend to keep writing about our misadventures in Suburban Homesteading, and this year looks to be an interesting with the chicken friendly neighbors selling their house, introducing Zane to a gazillion new things, finally mastering the art of homemade cheese, and additional forays into gardening, brewing, pickling, etc.

The easy solution is to throw us in your RSS reader then you'll know when we've got a fresh post, it'll be like a surprise present waiting to entertain you. We'll probably obnoxiously post on Facebook and send emails out too, just so no one misses the brilliance that comes out of this blog, but the RSS feed is the most reliable.

I hope that you've been have a great summer,
Gretchen

*New or expecting parents: the Ergo Baby Carrier is the most incredible carrier ever made. It trumps the Bjorn any day. The only exception is for the ladies like me who happen to be "gifted" with novelty oversized boobs. It was designed by hippies in Oregon and built to fit their tofu slurping waifish bodies. When we first came home there wasn't room for both Zane and I in the carrier. Between my recently acquired new mom body and perpetual fear that I was going to permanently damage this tiny infant that the wackjobs at the hospital let me take home, lets just say it wasn't a good moment for me. Now that he's older and can sit normally we've got it nailed.

The '08 Booze Season

2009-01-11T20:32:00.001-05:00

The Byzantine Pathway to 50 Gallons of Homemade Libations

I had always wondered how people amassed enormous wine collections. I wondered how they filled their huge cellar with 1600 bottles of the finest vintages from around the world. Hell, I wondered how people filled their 8 position wine racks from Target without drinking all the good stuff before its time. The answer, in retrospect, shouldn't have surprised me.

Be unable to drink! I had no idea that all these wine collectors were pregnant. It seems strange that it should be a hobby followed by only those gravid with child, (and their partners in crime) but there it is. Seems like the only explanation.

Anyway, that's the position we find ourselves in (warning, long, somewhat boring story mentioned in the previous post coming). Last summer we picked a boatload of elderberries, blackberries and peaches. We also found a couple sources of cheap honey and decided it was time to branch out into Mead (well, technically Melomel and Metheglin, but who's counting?) So, looking at a full freezer and empty fermenters we made some wine and mead.

Yep. That's my fermentation area. Some would call it disorganized, some a creative war zone, others a health hazard. I call it the only place I have for fermenting things right now. But enough about the area, let's talk about the actual booze.

Elderberry Wine: Think of it as a thick, syrupy red wine with a little coppery, almost medicinal (but in a good way) kind of middle flavor and a very fruity aftertaste. Nice stuff, and easily the most traditionally wine-like of our batches. It could almost pass as a very big, very strange Shiraz.

Peach Wine: I didn't get to make as much of this as I wanted, but it's great. Fruity, summery and showing some signs that it's young harshness is going to mature into something really complex and nice.

Blackberry Wine: It's a lot like the elderberry, but smoother and less full. The mouth feel is more like a grape wine, but the flavor is very different, you sense more than taste the blackberry fruit notes, and the harsh alcohol will hopefully mellow in the bottle.

Blackberry Mead: It’s almost like a white wine, crisp, a little fruity and still too harsh to tease out complex flavors, but should be great after some time in the bottle.

Ginger Mead: I did half of this sparkling and half of it still. You can really taste the ginger heat, but again, like the Blackberry, it'll take some time before I know how this is really going to taste. I have high hopes though. There's a reason ancient man thought of wine as a cheap way to make mead. Properly aged it's some tasty stuff.

I made all those batches essentially at the same time last summer ('07) and I've been racking them and watching them and trying to hold off on drinking them so as to get them all properly aged. I went into an orgy of bottling and in my frenzy bottled 70 bottles across those batches. That's 13.9 gallons, give or take. It should all be very drinkable soon, but until then it looks great on the shelf with Gretchen's wonderful labels.

So that brings me forward to this year's harvest. We missed the blackberries (mostly), the squirrels got the peaches, and the elderberries were pretty picked over by the hungry birds (it was a HARD year for fruit, heck, for any food crops). So I have 2 gallons of Elderberry wine currently in fermenters (they're the small jugs closed with tinfoil) and that's it for the fruit we could pick ourselves. Hopefully we can make up for it in '09.

The biggest project right now is the cranberry wine. I ended up getting 6 gallons (might shrink to five by the time it's in bottles because of the pulp in it) and I just racked it on the 22nd. If very young tastes are any indication of future quality (and they sometimes are) then this will be the Best Cranberry Wine Ever. It tastes of fresh cranberries and the color is a deep beautiful red. It still has a little sugar left in it, but that should be gone by the time I bottle it and it'll be bone dry, fruity and wonderful. I also decided to try a second pressing with it. I dumped the fruit pulp into another bucket with 2 more gallons of water and 6 pounds of sugar. It should make a lighter version of the original wine. Or completely tasteless alcohol water. It's a crapshoot.

I'm planning a large batch of fig wine. It's been a couple years, but I froze some figs, and my parents stocked their freezer too, so there should be enough for a sizable batch (I hope 6.5 gallons, but I'll settle for whatever I can get). It was good in previous years (almost as good as the cranberry) and I'm looking forward to seeing what this year has to offer. But that's just speculation.

To round out the light alcohol projects I have a batch of Sahti and a batch of Barleywine. Both end up with a big beer for aging and a little beer for drinking. That'll roll us up to 20 gallons of beer that I'll talk about later. Maybe I'll take pictures of the whole process and write it up. We'll see. I'll have enough grain left over that if I get a few more ingredients I can maybe try that cranberry beer Gretchen talked about in the last post. Mmmmmm, Cranberry.

On the hard liquor front we're soaking 3 gallons of Cranberry vodka (below), a couple liters of Cranberry liquor (with orange and lime peel in it!) pictured to the left, a 1.75 liter bottle of limecello starter (that'll turn into a solid gallon of sweet, sour limecello) and a 750 of pepper vodka for martinis, Bloody Marys and general cooking. I've tasted essentially none of these, but if they work out like I hope we're looking down the barrel of a good good booze year at the Bedell compound.

There! Done with booze rambling for the moment! See, that wasn't so long and boring. . .well, so it was long but not boring. . . fine, long and boring, but the info should be out there! or at least written down so I can remember next year. Because if I don't make sure we pace ourselves over the next year I'm not sure I'm going to remember this year at all. In any event, hope you enjoyed the booze discussion and I'll get back to you as I start the beers.

Cranberries!

2008-12-18T11:29:00.007-05:00

The holidays are upon us, and Ryan and I have started a new Suburban Farm holiday tradition: Put up as much homemade booze as humanly possible. Back at the end of September Ryan bottled a bunch of wine and mead that we had sitting around in buckets, and I finally got around to making lables. (Because, of course you need fancy labels on your homemade hooch.) This spurred him on to go ahead and bottle two more batches of wine that had been sitting for a while.

Unfortunately, bottling left us with several empty buckets and just like nature and cats abhorring vacuums, Ryan abhors an empty bucket. There is a long (and sorta boring) story about how we came to our fermenting, steeping, and brewing plans for this season, but the punch line is we bought 42 pounds of fresh cranberries.

Yes, that's what 42 pounds of cranberries looks like.

Some of these cranberries have gone into a 5 gallon batch of wine, some went into a bucket with 2 liters of vodka to steep for a month, some went into mason jars to make an orange cranberry liquor, some are in the freezer for other (non-alcoholic) culinary experiments. Ryan also wants to brew in the next couple of weeks, so he'll be making two batches of beer, both with second runnings, and we've set other liquors to steep. Hummm... maybe we should try cranberry beer too.

And yes, it is ironic that we're not drinking and we're squirreling away approximately 50 gallons of booze. (I'm totally not exaggerating at all - Ryan did the math.)

We've also found an exciting new way to spend Tuesday evenings - Lamaze class. Once a week Ryan and I trug out to the hospital to watch live birth videos from the early 80's (hospital gown fashion hasn't changed at in 20 years), read handouts about labor positions, and practice our breathing and relaxing techniques. Well, I'm supposed to relax, he's supposed practice rubbing my back, shoulders, hands, and feet. Apparently the relaxation is so important we even get it assigned to us as homework. Being the model student I am, I insist on studying Ryan's back and foot rub technique very thoroughly in between classes.

Other then back rubs, we cover a lot of different material. At one point the teacher mentioned pets and started the discussion of how to introduce the baby to them. Now out of the other 12 couples in the room, why she had to ask Ryan and I if we had any pets I'll never know. Most people balk at the number of cats, but once you mention the chickens you've achieved a whole new level of crazy. Once her attention was turned to another more "normal" couple I made a side comment to Ryan about a Thunderdome style introduction "Two men enter, one man leaves..." I fear was overheard by half the room.

It's probably for the best no one overheard Ryan when he saw the reproduction pelvis, "If I were a post apocalyptic warlord, I would totally wear that as a hat!"

- Gretchen

P.S. Since you've asked, here's a picture of me and the critter.

It's all about gender, baby.

2008-11-22T19:00:00.001-05:00

For those of you who've been waiting with bated breath - we're having a

For your edification, here's the money shot:

The ultrasound tech kindly put the arrows in to draw attention to the bits you're supposed to look at. Despite the helpful arrow, I can't tell from looking at it. To me it could be anything. Here's the other money shot:

I can tell much better from this one that he's got boy bits. The photo is as if he were sitting on a glass table with his knees bent and his ankles crossed. At this point in the scan the tech announced that she felt like she was violating the poor kid trying to get a good shot of his privates. However, she still added the ever helpful arrow.

I do realize that the kid is not even born yet and I'm already posting embarrassing photos of him on the internet. I'm looking forward to the first time he brings a date home, "Oh yes, this was the day we discovered our little man was a boy." And just in case you were interested in seeing a photo of him that didn't center around his bait and tackle, here's a face shot:

Yup - He's waving at the camera again. That's our kid.

We're still working on names, and probably won't make up our minds until the kid arrives. I already see the foundations of a extensive naming matrix being laid. "If the kid is born on a Tuesday, and it's raining, and he has hair - brown hair, then we'll use..." We'll come up with something eventually. As my mother in law pointed out, they won't let us leave the hospital until they can put a name on his birth certificate.

I am doing well. I have a few minor complaints; there is some ignorable pain, my nose is always running, and I FART ALL THE TIME. Why didn't someone mention the farting? Did you think it was funny to hold out on me? At home it's no big deal, Ryan will put up with my gastric symphony. But work is a whole different kettle of fish. I'm worried that I'll cut the cheese in front of my boss, or worse yet, my boss's boss. Just the other day one slipped out in front of my co-workers. It was one of those high squeeky long ones that you can't pass of as another noise that just happened to sound similar, you know like a shoe noise. Everyone ignored it, after a very long pause, for which I'm eternally grateful but I'm sure it won't be the last time it happens.

In other news, now that we know the kid is a he, we've started rearranging the house in preparation. We cleared out the guest room and we set it up as my home office. It's really lovely, the only thing that will make it complete is a couple of oversized chairs from craigslist. With all the crap out of the kid's room we've started arranging furniture and trying to decide what sort of decor options to choose. Does it make Ryan and I bad parents that we both love this wall decal from blik? Sad Psycho I really think it would work as a nursery theme, and the future therapy bills are totally worth while, right?

We've also started making our first "parenting" decisions. Parenting Decision of the Week: We will be cloth diapering.

Now that you've stopped screaming in horror, here are some of the factors that swayed us:

1 - It's better for the environment (sort of). There is one infamous study from the UK (where they call them nappies) by the Environment Agency that has drummed up much chatter. After a four year study the EA came to the conclusion cloth diapers had pretty much the same impact on the environment as disposables. While disposables take up valuable landfill space, cloth still need to be washed and transported. What isn't clear from the (limited) reading I've done is what how the impact changes when you think about using the cloth diapers for more then one child, and if you hang dry them vs. using a electric dryer. Here's a quick Times article if you're interested: How green is your nappy? Prepare for a surprise

2 - It's cheaper then disposables. This is an undeniable fact for us. When we calculated the cost of the diapers and added in the cost of washing and drying (soap, water, electricity, etc.) the cloth come out way ahead of disposable. We even assumed that we're still on the regular grid for our electrics, not on solar panels. (Yes, we may get solar panels in our near future. We'll fill you in on that as the story develops.) There is a higher up front cost, but we feel that it's worth it.

3 - They're one size fits all. We can use them from the day the little one is born until he's potty trained and then use them on the next kid. The AIO (All in Ones - that's cloth diapering lingo) that we have chosen are the bumGenius 3.0. The 3.0 has snaps that adjust the rise of the diaper as the child grows and it has velcro tabs to adjust the waist size. The adjustability is a unique feature for the cloth diaper market, usually you have to buy sizes just like you would in disposables. Click here to read about the bumGenius 3.0 at euphoriababy.com. (Where, incidentally we're registered, if you're interested in contributing to our diaper supply.) The 3.0 really works just like the disposables do, only instead of throwing them in the trash you wash them. (This also means we'll be using cloth wipes too. But that doesn't seem like all that big a deal.)

4 - Cloth diapered kids potty train faster, or at least that's what we keep hearing.

5 - They come in fun colors.

Regardless of these very compelling reasons to go cloth, we're still getting a lot of resistance from folks when we tell them of our choice. We keep hearing, "But you have to get rid of the poop, what'll you do then?" I must admit the cynic in me wants to say something snarky, but people seem legitimately concerned. We also get a lot of, "That'll last a week, trust me." Those people get sucker punched.

Perhaps having so many animals has given us a higher tolerance for, um, bodily fluids, but Ryan and I don't really see any problem. We have a wonderful invention in our home, called a toilet, it takes solid wastes away like it was designed for it. We also have a washing machine which does a really fantastic job getting rid of liquid wastes on fabric. It doesn't matter if it's a carpet that fell victim to Greebo's bladder infection or a rag we used to deal with Kismet's most recent experiments in grass eating, the washer handles both with ease and grace. And if, gods forbid, we somehow manage to get something "icky" on our hands there are these wonderful things called SOAP and HOT WATER, they're absolutely magical when you use them. Really, if you're not on the soap and hot water bandwagon, I suggest you climb on up - you can thank me later.

We'll post again soon with more updates around the Suburban Farm. We've got a bunch of cooking, canning, labeling to do this weekend, and I think Ryan's going to tile the big bathroom! Until then, some photos of Porter & Mal.

- Gretchen

Things other then the baby.

2008-10-21T15:55:00.008-04:00

Ryan was going to post about hanging with Karl Rove, but he's waiting for the photo evidence to materialize. Which may or may not happen in the foreseeable future, so no breath holding or anything. Never fear, we've had other adventures to catch you up on.

A couple of weeks ago while Ryan was shooting training videos for the Navy in Rhode Island, the hot water heater sprung a leek. Not a gushing women and children first kind of leak but a slow trickle that annoyingly soaks the rug. The second Ryan got home I raced him off to find us a new heater. (Ok, I let him get one night's sleep, but we left early in the next morning with mushy socks.) I should mention the leak was through the lower thermostat electronics. Electricity and water... Isn't there a warning on my blow dryer about that?

The rest of the story is pretty uneventful. Ryan and his dad got the new tank installed without any trouble. The new unit is an electric tank water heater. We debated going tankless, better for the environment and all, but the price difference was too steep for us. One day (after the winning lotto ticket is magically deposited in our mailbox) we'll talk about getting a tankless heater along with a gas line for it.

The following weekend we went camping in the Shenandoah National Park. We wore poor Kismet out on a three mile hike; I think our little girl might be getting too old for our adventures. The upshot is that she's really well behaved when she's exhausted. We also discovered the hard way that the air mattress had a hole in it. (Note to self: Ryan will drive off and leave you behind if you whine like a two year old for long enough, despite the fact its a well known cure for a backache.)

The weekend after, we drove to Pennsylvania for my buddy Meggie's surprise birthday party. Her super sweet husband got a bunch of her friends and family together and booked Francis Dunnery to play in their living room in honor of her 30th. Francis sang, waxed philosophical about relationships and life and love, and hung out for a bit. We ate and caught up with old friends, it was a great time.

We also spent one Saturday (much to Ryan's dismay) cleaning out the garage. Once a year we have to take everything out and reorganize. I keep telling Ryan that if we put stuff back where it belongs this wouldn't need to happen, and he thinks that the garage was just as organized as it was when we last cleared it out. To be fair to Ryan, we did throw away a whole truckload of crap this round. Part of the larger purge to make room for the critter and its accouterments. (Babies need so much CRAP!)

We also got the chicken pen all cleaned out and Ryan added a truckload of fresh dirt. The chicken house has been modified and I'm happy to say that after a little convincing all the girls are sleeping in doors again!

There are more projects on the Suburban Farm task list as well. Ryan's going to build me a laundry room. Well, he's going to build a wall (with a door!) to close off the laundry area from the rest of the garage and some cabinets for extra storage. I am ridiculously excited about this. We're also going to install The Path next to our house that leads from the driveway to the back door where we walk. It's the way we get in and out of our house and it's constantly waterlogged and muddy. Lots of fun when you're dressed for work and in heels. The Path involves gravel, french drains, sand, slate, and probably shovels. It's pretty elaborate, but we're hoping to get it done before the kid shows up. We're also hoping to get the bathrooms finished. The second bathroom just needs tile installed, but the master bathroom is going to get fresh paint along with tile and a cabinet to store towels and toiletries in.

After that it's mostly maintenance projects. There are some trees in the back woods that need to come down, the hoses will need to be drained and put away, the gardens winterized. We need to get wood for the stove, yes we're avoiding the heat again this winter. We have to go through our seed box and decide what we'll want to grow next spring. I'll post again soon with more updates. We're scheduled for the ultrasound next week. If things go according to plan, we'll know more about the baby's plumbing. I think we're having a boy, Ryan thinks it's a girl, here's to hoping one of us is right.

- Gretchen

Bicycle Bicycle banana fanna fo Ficycle

2008-10-01T16:29:00.005-04:00

Discussions around the Suburban Farm lately keep dancing around the topic of names. Ryan is perfectly content to wait 7 weeks when we'll find out if we're having a setter or a pointer. I'm not so comfortable waiting. By the time we find out what the kid has for plumbing, we'll have less then four months to choose the critter's destiny.

If you think I'm being overly dramatic lets look at an example: It's Friday night and there are two guys at a party, Sheldon and Duke. We all know what Sheldon's doing, the physics major is hanging out in the corner after being dragged to the party by his slightly more outgoing friend on the off chance that one girl will talk to either of them. And Duke? He's on his third round of beer pong and bragging about his exploits with that chick he met at Hooters (it's a family establishment) while his buddies cheer him on.

See! Names do make a difference. Still don't agree with me? Here is a quick excerpt from Freakonomics on Slate. This post, A Roshanda by any other name, discusses how names that are inherently black impact the lives of the children who carry them. I don't think its a big stretch to extrapolate that if a name that is obviously "black" can effect the outcome of a child's life, then a name that is obviously "poor" or "hippie" or "snooty" or "strange" could have the same effect.

I know that not everything is about the kid's name. Jeffrey seems like a perfectly nice name until you put Dahmer after it. I know who a person is, is part nature and part nurture. Some of it I can control and some of it I can't. (See Mom! I was listening.) Nevertheless, I think finding a name that both Ryan and I can live with is a huge challenge. Most of the conversations have been going like this, "What do you think of X?" "It's great if you're a hippopotamus with a skin condition."

One problem is that our naming philosophies don't sync. I apparently like long "pretentious" names and Ryan likes short syllables and dislikes nicknames. Boy's names seem to be harder then girl's names, partly because I dated a few (ok a lot) of guys before I met Ryan. Our kid will never be a Jeremy (dated two of them), David (the guy before Ryan), or Palo (stop giggling). (Hey Señor McJudgey Pants - you have to sort through a few frogs (and snakes, and rats, and dogs) before you find Prince Charming.)

So far the only name that neither of us hated was Bicycle. It works for both a girl and a boy! No, we're not having a Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin moment. We would never consider actually naming our child after a two wheeled human powered vehicle, but it does reinforce my desire to start searching for names now. There are an awful lot of hell no's to go through before we'll find a few maybe's to consider and four months doesn't seem like enough time to discover those gems.

I'm sure we'll find one eventually, there aren't many nameless adults running around. And who knows, maybe Sheldon will hire a personal assistant to clean his Academy Awards and Duke will discover what Dark Matter is really made of.

Suburban Farm: New Addition

2008-09-15T09:45:00.006-04:00

The Suburban Farm has been quite a frenzy of activity and the list of projects that we want to get done around the house is growing larger by the day. To add to the fun, we have a self imposed deadline of March 1 for many of them. What's so special about March 1? Nothing really. It's just that sometime near March 8 the newest addition to the Suburban Farm will show up.

I figure the rumor mill has filled most of you in by now, just in case you didn't get the memo, I'm pregnant.

We've even had the first photos taken. Meet the future ~~galactic overload~~ benevolent ruler of the universe, our kiddo:

You can so tell it's our kid, it even smiles and waves for the camera.

Ryan and I waffle between super excited and freaking the f#$* out, with the emphasis on super excited. To answer the most common questions we get asked:

Yes, we will find out what gender the kiddo is, but we're not going to find out for another 7 or so weeks. Because, that's just the way our doctors do things. Once we know, we promise we'll tell you.
: No, we haven't thought of any names yet. We don't even know what gender the kid is. Geesh.
: No, I haven't really been sick or anything. I was pretty fatigued the first trimester, and occasionally plagued with what felt like mild car sickness, but other then that everything was hunky dory.
: Yes, the boobs grew.
: No, I don't know when they'll stop.
: It's ok, the boobs scare me too.

We've had other adventures lately too. The hot water heater broke, we went camping, Ryan got referred to as "the local libertarian guy" by Karl Rove. We'll post again and fill you in. In the meantime, here are more photos:

Hugs,
Gretchen (and the kiddo)

Ill Omens and Other Signs of the Apocalypse

2008-06-06T11:37:00.013-04:00

So the Apocalypse bit is a little extreme. Although, if one were to find something looking like what we saw in the garden while planting tomatoes and peppers (more on them later.) one would be forgiven for grilling the neighbors endlessly on both the daily eating habits and nightly wandering rituals of each respective homeowner's familial canines. It would be forgiven because it is the most obvious place to find an explanation for the large piles of dog's vomit appearing around our property.

It turns out it's actually Dog's Vomit Fungus.

And, surprise, it's not a fungus. It's a slime mold. It has no cell walls, it's more like one enormous cell with thousands of nuclei (think thousands of ball bearings full of DNA sloshing about in a puddle of yellow jell-o). So it looks like a fungus, but on a cellular level it's more like an animal (similar, but not identical, to the basic odor and appearance of some entities known to frequent questionable bars and dancehouses the world over).

And it moves! It slowly creeps like an Amoeba and consumes mulch by phagocytosis (one of my favorite not-a-dirty-words). Slime molds are thought to be the among the very first multi-cellular organisms, formed when amoeba-like things just started working together (Something like the loose confederation of states that became the great US of A. They're all critters in their own right, but glom them all together, convince them to move in approximately the same direction and suddenly the aggregate entity is slithering across mulch beds annexing Poland [ed. note- many apologies for that last sentence. It may be the most mixed metaphor in the history of metaphors.]) The Dog's Vomit starts out yellow and squishy, slowly hardens and then does the one thing that REALLY caught our eye.

It BLEEDS!
The breakdown of the fruiting body results in a reddish, thick liquid. It's hard to tell in the picture, but the blood spots aren't static. They ooze slowly. It really is as if this large pile of throwup is bleeding. Somewhat unsettling when you're just trying to decide where to put all your tomato starts. I must admit I walked by several times, picked up my cell phone to call Torchwood, realized that that organization was both in Wales and fictional (not to mention concerned with alien rift beings, not possibly injured not-really-fungi that resembles dog sputum, and I don't really know the number) and wandered off to water something.

It kept haunting me all afternoon. What if this was a creature from the depths of space, plopped down beside my sadly unplanted hardy kiwis and happily growing black elderberry quietly bleeding to death while sending out telepathic screams for help over the Ham Radio bands? What if I was screwing up first contact due to my lack of compassion/telepathic Ham Radio? Then I remembered, I've seen these before, I'll see them again and while they might be time travelers, they did it the old fashioned way. One day at a time from the depths of the deep past and into the future. Just like Sharks and Coelacanth and John McCain, unchanged for millenia.

In any case, it's amazing the things you see when you're trying to get stuff to grow in suburbia. More to come as we tackle the new tomatoes, pick the crucifers and forage all over this crazy town. And don't worry, foraging in this case means berries, not copper pipes from abandoned new construction, but don't think I haven't thought of it.

Ryan

Suburban Farm: Getting Hitched

2008-05-12T15:48:00.004-04:00

Hey Everyone!

I know it's been forever [cough] more-than-a-year [cough] since we last posted about the Suburban Farm. Excuses? Sure we've got 'em, tons of them, the biggest being we simply didn't have time. When every post starts with "We're so busy we can't find time to eat/sleep/pee..." then it's time to stop writing about how freaking busy you are and GET SOME WORK DONE. So we took a blogging hiatus for our mental health and to catch up on some recorded tv.

What's new around here? After nine years we decided that our books were so commingled that we should just give in and get hitched. The wedding was fantastic - good food, beer, friends, and music. And I know everyone says this, but it was really us. Who else's marriage ceremony mentions an zombie attack? Ok, who else's marriage ceremony mentions an zombie attack, who doesn't wear velvet and black lipstick on a regular basis?

There are photos to be seen here, regretfully, sans velvet: The Bedell Wedding

Other new stuff - we installed wood floors through out the house, which started a chain reaction of home improvement projects. The wood was all installed before the wedding, and this past weekend Ryan tiled the kitchen. The guest bathroom will be next, followed by a remodel of the master bathroom.

Master bathroom, doesn't that sound grand? Not at all like a closet with a toilet, shower, and sink installed. Happily we're not enlarging it, so you'll still be able to pee and wash your hands at the same time. There will be tile, and new paint, and possibly a new light, so it may seem bigger.

We're also putting in a closet system in our large closet in the hall - the closet that's larger then the master bathroom. The closet will address our storage problem (aka the glassware fetish), and hopefully eliminate the game of name-that-jam which is only slightly more fun then the games of What the hell is this? and When did we put that in a jar? and Perhaps we should start labeling these things better.

Fort Chicken will be updated this summer as well. The ladies have gotten it in their heads that the very lovely coop we built them is suitable only for egg laying and would much prefer to sleep crowded on top of their feeder. Every night the soft sounds of the warm spring evenings are peppered with loud chicken squalks when someone gets shoved off. They also insist on staying out of doors when it rains, and there is nothing more miserable looking then a wet chicken. Well, perhaps a wet kitten, but you get my drift. Fort Chicken version 2.0 will have a redesigned coop and feeder, which (we hope) will encourage indoor sleeping, and a rain shelter. Despite all this the ladies (all 10 of them) are hale, hardy and laying like crazy.

So life on the Suburban Farm is crazy and strange as ever, and we're going to make an effort to post more frequently of our misadventures in gardening, camping, cooking, and perhaps even throw in a few photos every now and then:

I love my life.

Hugs,
Gretchen

Suburban Farm: Cute Chicks II

2007-04-19T09:22:00.000-04:00

We picked up six new baby chicks this afternoon, we now have a total of ten chickens. These chicks are the same breed as our other hens - Rhode Island Reds. Why do we need more chickens? Right now we're almost always getting three eggs a day and most days we get four. In a few months our ladies will start molting, and when chickens molt they don't lay. Also, as a chicken gets older she lays bigger eggs but fewer of them. This is why most laying hens don't live much past their second birthday - it's just not economical for farmers to keep them around.

At the Suburban Farm we will keep our girls around long after they're in retirement. But we want eggs more frequently then our girls will provide as they mature. The new chicks should start laying right around the time the first group is molting. Admittedly, there will be a few months after the first group molts were we'll be getting seven or eight eggs a day, and the winter after next we will be without eggs entirely since everyone will be molting. But in about two years after everyone has molted at least once we should get four or five eggs a day, which is the right number for us.

So, this should be our last round of chickens for a couple of years. I am trying to persuade Ryan that ducks might be a fun idea for next spring. They lay eggs too. He's slow to convince and he has a good argument about the maximum capacity in the back yard. I guess there should be some room for plants. I've upped the stakes with the beekeeping bargaining chip, "You get bees and I get ducks."* and I think his resolve is wavering.

- G

*By-the-way, if you told me four years ago that I would be having a conversation like that, I would have thought you were an escaped mental patient.

There's one in every group. We did tell her that she can't get her ears pierced until she's at least 3 weeks old. If we could just get her to turn down that damn stereo.

Scratchin' like a Hound

2007-04-18T15:52:00.000-04:00

Gardeners all mark the start of spring differently. Some say it begins with the first daffodil bloom or the moment the trees start to leaf out, some with soil temperature, and others go with the calender or moon phases. For the Suburban Farm spring starts with the annual games of catch-poison-ivy and find-the-first-tick. Ryan gets the prize for the first tick - it was in his belly button. I am the lucky one with my first case of poison ivy this year. I touched it and then apparently scratched my tailbone, brushed my face, stuck my finger in my ear, rubbed my mouth and picked my nose. Hopefully not in that order - although I can't think of an order I would like that sequence of events to go.

What gets me about poison ivy is the folk wisdoms and superstitions surrounding the rash and the plant. After the rash appeared on my face people would say things like, "Don't come near me, I'm highly allergic." Suburban myth 1: Poison Ivy spreads from the rash. WRONG - the rash usually appears one to two days after you've made contact with the oil. I don't know about you, but I generally shower with soap at least once a day. Maybe you believe that bathing is a yearly event, if so by all means stay away from me.

Suburban myth 2: Once its in your system it spreads. WRONG - it's contact dermatitis. You get a rash from coming in contact with the plant oil, even if it's indirect. The dog goes out into the woods and has a good roll. When she comes back you pet her and tell her what a good dog she is. Then you brush your teeth, change clothes, go to the bathroom. Is it any wonder you've got a rash on your face, stomach, and tushy?

Suburban myth 3: You have to dry out the rash. Now, I don't know if drying out the rash is helpful or not. What is not helpful are the folk remedies for doing so. "Scrub it with a washcloth and pour salt all over it." "Cover it in honey and wrap it in plastic wrap." "Sandpaper and lemon juice - fixes it every time." "Put Bleach on it. Straight Bleach." WRONG WRONG WRONG Bleach!!!?! WRONG - I will not stop the itching by giving myself a chemical burn or making myself sticky. Here's an experiment: Take a shirt and put it in a bucket. Pour enough bleach into bucket so the shirt is floating slightly and let it soak for a while. Let's say two hours. If you feel moved add in some salt, honey and lemon juice for flavor. Let me know how that shirt looks when you're done. Not so good, right? AND YOU WANT ME TO DO THAT TO MY FACE! What is wrong with you people! Seriously, bleach? (I am not kidding here folks - three different people told me to put bleach on it. Three different people who, as far as I can tell, are not related.)

If you do get it and the rash is awful or somewhere sensitive like inside your mouth then go see your doctor. He or she can prescribe pills and creams and all sorts of other wonderful medical treatments. Other wise leave it alone, scratching causes scarring, and stick to oatmeal baths and calamine lotion.

Despite being itchy in strange places, things here at the homestead are going wonderfully. Ryan's been working very steadily, and in addition to the extra projects at work, I've given up my Saturdays to work on as an apprentice to a local photographer. That's why posting has been a bit sparse lately, a trend that will continue for a while since we're planning a small vacation up to Buffalo at the beginning of next month. Ryan and I haven't seen much of each other the last two weeks, so it seems like a good idea to lock ourselves in a 1.5 ton box that's hurling down the freeway at 70 mph for 10 hours. I think it will go fine, but if you see Ryan with his face wrapped in plastic wrap and covered in honey and salt, just walk away.

- Gretchen

Additional Reading on Poison Ivy

Wikipedia entry
WebMd entry
About.com - Pictures of Poison Ivy
Wilderness Way - The site I will send all those bleach advocates to, "...the best way to make sure that you do not get a case of poison ivy is to immunize yourself. And the easiest way to immunize you is to ingest poison ivy."

Off the Deep End: No Impact Man

2007-03-16T14:09:00.000-04:00

So this guy - Colin Beavan - is trying to lead a no impact life in NYC with his wife and two year old daughter. More power to him!. I have not deeply read his blog, so if there's subversive political speak, please forgive. Although he takes eco-dogma to a whole new level, in general, I think his principals are sound: use less, eat less, buy less.

Here's the rub: The link (No Impact Man) goes directly to a post about telling his wife they won't be using toilet paper any more. To each their own, as my mother would say, but there is some very extensive/graphic dialog in the comments about how other people avoid using TP. I'm all for saving the world, but come on people. We live in an industrialized nation for crying out loud - stop using your own hand and grab some Seventh Generation.

Suburban Farm: Seed and Plant Orders

2007-02-22T15:37:00.001-05:00

We placed our orders for seeds and plants.

We were sober.

We stayed under budget.

We mostly stuck to our list.

If you want to see everything we ordered and from where you can check out in the sidebar to the right or by clicking here. Now, some of you may be tempted to fill up your shopping carts and see how much we spent. (Don't be ashamed, I would do it.) Please know that most of the places had deals like spend $50 and get $25 off (shipping included) and Ryan and I are members of a gardener's discount club that get's us an 10% off in addition to any sales or promotions at most of these nurseries. So we actually spent WAY less then you would imagine.

If you're feeling inspired, there are a few things you should know about ordering plants through catalogues.

Mail order plants always look dead or mostly dead when they arrive in the mail. I have only had two occasions where the plants were actually dead and needed to be replaced. In both cases the nurseries will replace the plants once we're back in growing season.
They won't charge you until they ship the plants. If you use a credit card this isn't a big deal but it can reek havoc on your check book if you use your debit card. Especially since most nurseries don't send things all in one go. They break up your order based on your growing season. You get your seeds at the end of winter and your plants sometime in the spring. This isn't amazon.com people, you order and you wait.
Garden Watchdog is your friend. Check out what other people said about the nursery before buying. We bought our Che tree from Edible Landscaping and the order was filled almost 8 months after we placed it. (See #2) This is common with unusual plants and the nursery was very good about telling us what was going on. We wanted a very special tree for Riley and his honor guard of 4 chickens, so we splurged and ordered a 3 gallon pot. What we got was a 3 gallon pot filled with dirt and a tree that would have had elbow room in a 1 gallon pot. There is a BIG price difference between 3 gallons and 1 gallon. However, if you look at the reviews from Garden Watchdog this is to be expected from this nursery.
You will buy other plants. You will stroll buy a neat salvia at the nursery up the street, or find that the farm down the road sells 4" pots of herbs 4 for $5, or decide that naked spot in the yard is calling for a blueberry bush. There will be the funny Mexican nursery and grocery store, or that guy with the pick up truck. Keep this in mind.
Things will probably not look quite as good as they did in the catalogue,. Most of us don't look as good as the supermodels in GQ or Vanity Fair - or hell even as good as the people who show up in People. Just as those pictures are the best representatives of the human species, so are the pictures in the nursery catalogue.
Expensive is not always better. Cheaper and more common plants for sale at the less hoity-toity nurseries may not be quite as elegant or flawless as their Cosmopolitan counterparts, but they'll wash floors, take out the trash, and make dinner. Metaphorically at least. And hey - sometimes you even get a Gisele Bundchen from a $1 seed pack.
You will get more offers in your email and mail box then you know what to do with. Hold tight and resist temptation. You just ordered plants. Wait and see how those work into your current landscape before buying more.

I think we did pretty good. The only thing that we're not quite sure where to put is the Daisy Collection. (You real gardeners who are laughing at me can stuff it. I don't care how easy you say it is to grow Shastas from seeds - I can't do it. I've tried and failed more times then I like. Oh - and I can't grow mint well either. Roses don't give me any trouble at all so, nanny nanny boo boo.) The plan is to put them next to the mini wall between J's house and ours, but we're not really sure what the wall's final shape will be since it's currently under renovations.

J's decided that he wants to add to his driveway so that he can park his police car in between our houses. While I don't understand his obsession with paving over most of his property, I don't really have a problem with the new driveway addition. He did remove a beautiful oak tree, which Ryan and I chopped up and stored for next winter, I would rather have left alone. There will be more light now, so it's not a total loss. He's also relocating a metric crapload of dirt into our back yard. We'll spread it out and use it to plant the raspberries and any viney plants (squashes, pumpkins, watermelon, cucumbers). If you missed the last 800 times I mentioned it - our back yard is a swamp. Its permanently waterlogged. This makes walking on it a challenge, not to mention it's damn near impossible to grow anything except weeds. The giant pile of dirt will turn into several informal raised beds (aka smaller piles of dirt) which will keep the plants drained enough to survive. We hope.

In other news - the girls have been dutifully laying.

We haven't been eating as many eggs this week, so we actually managed to fill up a carton. Fill it up long enough to take pictures anyway, then we had omelets. It's almost time to put in our next chicken order with the Feed & Seed. The plan is to order another 6 Rhode Island Reds to add to our flock. Two of these chicks are part of an informal, suprise, chicken adoption program. J's kids love the chickens and get a big kick out of feeding them worms and clover pulled from the lawn, so much so that they keep asking J, and his wife, S, for pet chickens. Since they've been so fantastic about our Suburban Farm, we thought it would be fun to take the kids with us and let them pick out their own pet chickens to live at our house.

Back to the plants: This weekend we're cleaning out the garage to set up our sprouting table and hydroponics rig. Unfortunately the garage needs massive reconstructive surgery. Prince Charming (Ryan) will not be happy. The following weekend we're jaunting up to PA to celebrate my mother's birthday and, hopefully, take in the Philadelphia Flower Show. (I will take many, many, many pictures. I promise.) I am slightly concerned that I will return with massive lists and be overcome with the desire to rip up all the gardens and start over. Not that it would actually happen, Ryan would stop me, but we'd probably both loose some teeth and break a few bones in the process. The weekend after that, it will be time to start the seeds.

Thus the adventure starts all over again.

- G

Is my red your blue?

2007-02-02T16:22:00.000-05:00

Somewhere between the ripe ole ages of 3 and 5, I had my first philosophical thought. Does my little sister see colors the same way I do? I couldn't imagine anyone actually liking the color blue better then red. I mean really! Red is way better then blue.

That was the moment I decided that what she saw as blue, I saw as red. Order was restored to my world and I went back to playing house, happily giving her the blue/red cup. (I also decided that my baby sister's favorite color was green, since she couldn't know any better. Besides red and blue were already taken.)

Sincerely, from that moment on I'd pretty much assumed that my siblings and I all saw colors (among other things) differently. E's blue was my red and vice versa. It explained a lot - believe me. As it turns out, I was wrong. We all see colors exactly the same. Want scientific proof? Here you go:

A Rose by Any Other Name Would Look as Red
Human brains seem to calibrate color vision against a standard, making up for differences in eye hardware.(via Inkling)

Now I have to come up with another explanation for why my sisters and I are so different. My younger sister is an herbalist in the UK and my baby sister is studying horticulture. Regardless of what my mother says, I don't see any similarities.

Suburban Farm: Resolutions

2007-01-10T16:51:00.000-05:00

They (the behavior scientist folks and the head doctors) say that you should make your resolutions and goals public. That way when your colleges at work find you passed out in a large birthday cake intended for your boss with a fork in one hand and a spoon in the other, or when you're at the grocery store and you run into a friend and fellow eco-foodie and you have a package of pesticide injected, partially hydrogenated, hormonally imbalanced processed cheese food product in your cart, they can call your ass out on it.

New Year's resolution number one: THOU SHALL USE AS FEW PLASTIC GROCERY BAGS AS POSSIBLE. So, if you happen to see me walking out of the drugstore with one of those too-little-to-even-reuse white plastic baggies clutched in my hands, tackle me and force me to eat asphalt until I remember that I publicly swore to cut back on my plastic bag consumption. Feel like joining me in my madness? Visit www.pledgebank.com/Nobags to add your pledge. Make sure you let me know so we can use you to ~~guilt trip~~ rally other people to join our cause.

You can get cloth bags anywhere, if you don't already have something laying about the house already. Think backpacks, mismatched pillowcases, those canvas bags from L.L. Bean that everyone but me has. (Hint, hint.) Ryan and I did purchase some ~~all-organic hemp cloth~~ hippie grocery bags from reusablebags.com. If you are thinking of buying some we recommend you get a mix of mesh and regular bags. We love the ones with long handles. Strap those babies over your shoulders and you can cart eight bags of groceries into the house while holding a cup of coffee and keeping one hand free for the door knob. Unfortunately, pack mule jokes from the neighbors are inevitable.

The weather here in Williamsburg has been fickle thanks to the freaky tropical jet stream. One day its almost 80 and the next we don't top 38. We haven't turned the heat on yet (except for trips - the kitties have trouble working the wood stove) and now its almost a challenge. Can we make it through the rest of the winter using only the wood stove and the space heater in the bedroom? Tune in and find out. Or just call us in three weeks; if we don't answer we're away from the house, screening your call, or we've gone the way of the little match girl.

The warmer weather has been good to our colder weather crops. Back in October we thought it might be a cool to put in some crusifers to see how they'd do. Well, I'm happy to report that the cabbages, brussels sprouts, and broccoli are thriving. I must admit, we cheated and bought seedlings from Lowes. But still, we're growing stuff and its JANUARY! (Shut up Al Gore, and let me enjoy my delusion that I might actually be a decent gardener.)

Its also time for us to start picking out plants and seeds to buy this February. Last year I made this overly elaborate spreadsheet that calculated the cost of each order including discounts and shipping rates. It even referenced the items on the businesses' websites so we could double check each plant and make sure we got the best deal possible. It was a thing of beauty. Tweak one order and the whole sheet slammed into action; recalculating how much we were going to spend and where, warning of duplicate entries and when we maxed out our budget. Then one rainy Saturday night last February Ryan and I, plant starved and half way through the second bottle of red wine, thought it would be a good idea to put in our orders. And thus the spreadsheet was defeated. The poor thing never stood a chance. We didn't blow our budget, I don't think you could get us drunk enough to do that, at least not when it comes to plants. (We, however, have officially banned ourselves from ever going into a bookstore after having so much as tablespoon of cough syrup.)

Which brings us to my second New Year's resolution: THOU SHALT NOT DRINK AND ORDER PLANTS NOR SEEDS OVER THE INTERNET. This year our order should be smaller then last, since we have all sortsa seeds left over. To make sure we stick to this resolution we'll publish a list of what we plan on ordering and from where before we put the order in, then we'll publish a list of what we actually ordered and from where.

I have some other resolutions, like: THOU SHALL CURE YOUR STUFF-IN-MOUTH DISEASE AND GO TO THE GYM AT LEAST THREE TIMES A WEEK. or THOU SHALL TRY TO SPEND LESS TIME IN FRONT OF THE TELEVISION and please STOP FEELING EMBARRASSED WHEN YOU TAKE TRASH FROM WORK HOME.

Yes, I take trash from work home, and it's no longer just shredded paper. I've been taking the paper from the mail room home since I started our worm bin. Word got out and now people bring me stuff from their home shredders. Actually I really like the fact that people are getting into the idea that I can use shredded paper for a multitude of tasks including worm bedding. Its a great way to open up conversations about ways we can stop putting so much crap into landfills without getting preachy. (Nothin' worse then a preachy hippie.) This past week I pushed the bar even further and asked if I could take the leftovers from a catered luncheon home to feed my chickens. (It was left over lettuce.) That was yesterday. Today I have three small plastic bags full of pickles, stale bread, lettuce, olives, and some cheese. (Don't tackle me yet! I rinse out the bags and reuse them, and there really is no other way to transport the food home.) I'm walking a fine line between feeling embarrassed and feeling good that all this food won't end up in the trash. But mostly I'm a bit embarrassed.

For all the hippie that I am, I still wear suits to work. I have calluses from my high heals, and I NEVER leave the house with out makeup on. I paint my fingernails, and even though I tell everyone that it's to cover up the dirt that's always under them, secretly I think its pretty. I blow dry my hair, chew with my mouth closed, always know which fork to use (thanks Mom!), and how to make polite conversation with almost anyone. I am a liberal who's trying to pass as a conservative. I am an eccentric who discuses herself (not well) as a wall flower. Perhaps it's good that Ryan and I aren't that dogmatic about our lifestyle. I don't flip out when we eat ramen noodles, the kind that come in (gasp) styrofoam, for dinner. I don't worry that the nightlight in the bathroom is always on or that my pets eat commercial pet food. Good commercial pet food, but commercial pet food none the less.

That's my real resolution this year. To continue this crazy journey of psudo-homesteding without getting caught up in the ideologies. To remember that my life is mine to enjoy, and if it's not fun it better pay the mortgage.

-Gretchen

Links, links, links.

2007-01-08T11:48:00.000-05:00

From Slate: Wine snobs version of the men's room, Cold Shower."When I'm tasting with other sommeliers, we all look out of the corner of the eye to check the other guy's spitting ability. It's noticed, and any sommelier who tells you otherwise is not telling the whole story."

This is Elvis, he's been cloned from a side of Prime Yeld Grade 1 beef. You can find more about him here, or you can read the very informative article from Slate about cloning. Cloned Bull.

Then there's Fancy meeting a nice boy like ewe, via The New Zealand Herald. "Probably, most of them could be put down as bisexual rather than gay," said Mr Clarkson."

And under just darn cool is PlayPumps International. They distribute/build water systems that bring clean and safe water to communities across Africa. As children play on a merry-go-round, it works a pump that draws uncontaminated drinking water into a tower, providing easy access to a reliable source of water for millions.

Down with CDs!

2007-01-04T16:00:00.000-05:00

Yet another rant. Can you belive it?

I don't like to buy CDs. I just don't. I buy the CD, listen to it nonstop for about two weeks before getting sick of it. Then it goes into large black case (aka. music purgatory) that sits in a dreary corner and only comes out to collect another CD. I ditch the cases (the damn things just collect dust and take up too much room) which means I can't resell them. The disks hang around just in case I want to rock out to Slippery When Wet one more time.

There is a lot of waste, toxic chemicals, and other world ending crap associated with CDs. See here, or here. So why bother? Here come the mp3s. I like mp3s. I have much better speakers on my computer then I do on my stereo. I have an mp3 player that allows me to take my music on the road or to the gym. (Don't underestimate the traveling music. You can't have a good roadtrip without the carefully crafted soundtrack.) I end up burning my disks to a harddrive anyway as a backup. Mp3s are perfect. Well, almost perfect.

Now a days, since the downfall of Napster, the conversion of iMesh, and the Russan government ousting allofmp3s.com* the only DRM free music available to me is eMusic. I like eMusic, don't get me wrong, but apparently most of the music I like is a little to mainstream for them. They have an extensive collection, but eMusic is only indie labels. So you can find this, but you can't find this.

I could surrender and get an iSomething, but they're so big brotherish. Always watching, making sure the world can only listen to music under a very particular set of circumstances. Not to mention they're freakin' expensive. My player cost me $40. The iEquilivant is $80 and doesn't have a screen, or a AM/FM tuner, and is smaller then a credit card. If that doesn't scream break me/loose me, what does? Don't get me started on that officious software. And for goodness sakes. If I spend the money on something I want to own it, damn it, not rent it.

So I throw this question out to our 12 odd readers, who may or may not be family members: Where can a gal get some DRM free Dylan?

- Gretchen

*I understand that some of my music my have been acquired under dubious circumstances. Leave me alone, 'cause you did it too.

Bioengineering Soapbox

2006-12-14T12:10:00.000-05:00

Well, I don't go to church, which must be why I'm ok with eating cloned animals:

Among those who said they attend religious services only "a few times a year or less," 30 percent were comfortable with animal cloning, and 54 percent were not. Among those who attend weekly religious services, 17 percent were comfortable with cloning, and 70 percent were not. (Washington Post Article)

All fooling aside, what's everyone's beef with cloned meat? Or with bioengineering in general? As far as I'm concerned, there is little difference between selectively breeding and cooking DNA in a lab. Just because we're not waiting for mother nature to take her own sweet time doesn't make it evil. Most everyone eats genetically modified food regularly:

...80 percent of the U.S. soybean crop and 38 percent of the corn crop are now biologically engineered. "Whether it's corn-on-the-cob, soy sauce, canola cooking oil or Fritos, we have been consuming bioengineered foods regularly since 1996, all with no ill effects... (Townhall.com Article)

People need to eat, it's a nasty side effect of living. Unfortunately, we're having trouble feeding all of us. What if modified pigs or corn could enable us to make organizations like this obsolete? (BTW, If you have some extra cash this year, this is a good group to give your charitable monies to.) Bioengineered foods have the potential to do much good. I would also bet good money that any biofuel we dive into will come from modified stock. Not that bioengineering is pitfall free, but I think its time that we stop being so damn superstitious and start thinking about how we can change the world for the better.

BioFuels

2006-12-05T11:01:00.000-05:00

Here's an informative article via Grist, about the numbers behind the three major contenders (ethanol, cellulosic ethanol, and biodiesel) in the biofuels movement and some of the pros and cons of manufacturing those biofuels. The Big Three.

Suburban Farm: Back to the Farm

2006-11-15T16:27:00.000-05:00

It was exactly 12:04 when I got the call:

"Gretchen?"
"Yes."
"I have exciting news..."
"Yea?"
"The chickens..."
"We have eggs?!!?"
"We have eggs."

I screamed and scared the crap out of a intern who was standing next to me. I ran around the office sharing with my co-workers, who generally think I'm off my rocker. One of them even said I was "glowing." At this point there is hardly anyone at work who doesn't know I just got my first eggs. People from other departments have stopped by to congratulate me. I don't care if man has been harvesting eggs since the dawn of time, there is nothing cooler then seeing seven of our eggs that came from our ladies. Eggs!!! And I raised the chickens who made them!!!! My girls are strutting around Fort Chicken all proud of themselves. (Actually they're acting like nothing happened and are looking for more kitchen scraps. I obliged, there's nothing too good for my girls.)

As for the non-farming side of our lives, we've had a great couple of months. We both got to work together on a film. This is old hat to Ryan, but I'm outta the industry enough to still get excited about how damn cool it is, and it was wonderful to see Ryan in his element. We worked with some fantastic and exceptionally talented people, oh, and I got some killer photographs. This past weekend we had dueling Thanksgivings. (One of the perks of divorced parents is you get two of every holiday.) Throw in dinner with Ryan's family the weekend before, and we had three thanksgivings! It was wonderful. Then there was my ten year high school reunion. What a trip! We all turned into grownups. (Well more grownup then we were anyway.) When did that happen?

Unfortunately, the two months of almost total neglect is starting to show around the house. The gardens are full of dead and possibly slimy things. Everything is caked in wet leaves, not the nice dry ones you can rake up, but the slippery black yucky kind that clog the rake. While we were away, the voles built a luxury apartment complex complete with a full service spa, shopping mall, and service garage. It’s uptown baby. (I’m sure that the gourmet grocery selection is not helping our cause.) The young trees, which have lost their leaves, now look like dead sticks. Oh, and the roses are having some sort of personal complex. In short the homestead looks like Nick Nolte after a three day bender.

There is a light on the horizon, our mail box was stuffed with glossy catalogues all pornographically brimming with photos of plump vegetables, glistening fruit, and exploded blossoms. The magazines are calling to us, like a drunk football player after prom “I’ll make you happy. I promise. You just have to go all the way with me.”

Note to self: do NOT drink while ordering seeds again this year.

Any moment now, Ryan get around to writing a seasonal wrap-up of all our successes and near successes and post it. The short synopsis: we planted the che, got two apples off our trees, had a wonderful herb garden, successfully grew beans and peas. Water continues to be an issue only now it’s dragging the hose to the four corners of the yard and I’m lazy. (I think we may try one of these water jugs, or find a hack to create our own.) We don’t have enough sun, except in the middle of the front yard and I’m not hardcore enough to cover the lawn with more raised beds.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thankgiving, and keep checking back for updates.

- Gretchen

Weeding the Lawn

2006-09-15T08:00:00.000-04:00

What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

I am out in my yard after a long day of mowing, weeding the gardens, mild transplanting, trimming back the herbs, and other chores that keep things looking presentable. My neighbor J is out washing his car (which does with some frequency) and the guy across the street, R, is weeding his lawn. I have mentioned R in the past, you know, the Republican. J and I wander over to see what R is up too. He has the coolest tool. It rips up weeds using a claw like mechanism on a pole that keeps you from having to bend over. I thought my scam* of letting them grow long and convincing the neighborhood kids to pull them was good, but I want this gadget.

Anyway, we are chatting and he happens to just pop into the conversation, of course he has to pull up the weeds, "it's in the deed restrictions that there can be no weeds between the property line and the street." I know he doesn't mean anything by it, but this guy keeps shoving these deed restrictions in my ear. He was the one who pointed out that the deed restrictions say no poultry, with the exception of pets. My girls are pets, but he let me know that I was walking on a tightrope. (And for my next trick, I will defy all convention and...)

I made some off hand comment about as long as it's green and it cuts that's all that concerns me. J agreed and went to get his mower to give his weeds a buzzcut. I got to thinking - I do care. My lawn is lumpy thanks to the voles/moles and beetles, full of something that looks like a mini lily pad and some other branchy and gristly thing, along with the "buckeyes", dandelions (two verities), and other annoyances. I also have mother of thyme, lots of mother of thyme, and clover. Both of which I love, but they can fall into the weed category depending on who you ask. Sure, I could put down broad leaf weed killer, but it won't help. My yard is on a slope, and the after the first good rain all the herbicides will wash down the hill and into the gardens.

I have many ~~problems~~ challenges with the front gardens - I've even nicknamed one The Cave. It is cold (bottom of a hill) with no light (north side and shaded all day by the house), acidic (ph of 7, same as beer) and it never drains. It's also the front garden so I do what I can to help the few cave dwelling plants I put there to scratch out an existence. Adding herbicide into an already impossible situation won't help anything. I do spread grass seed (I swear this only makes me have to weed the grass out of the gardens, and doesn't have any real effect.) but I limit the fertilizers - they just end up in the gardens mucking with the ph and making mutant plants. I don't water - the gardens never drain and that's were all the water ends up anyway. I could mow more frequently, I do love my mower, but even I only have so much spare time.

Yes, I would love to have a lawn that looks like this. But that's just not in my future. Instead, I will resign my self to slowly replacing the front territory with gardens so that the homeowners association doesn't notice when I have no more weeds to mow.

- G

*Yes, I really do let the weeds get long and have the kids help me pull them up. The "buckeyes" and dandelions are easily identifiable and the kids love ripping out sections of "lawn". They also love creating a HUGE pile of weeds and then dumping it in the back woods. Who knows why this is fun, but I'm not about to ruin a good thing by asking.

Suburban Farm: Candles & Chaos

2006-08-29T21:39:00.000-04:00

My candle burns at both ends
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends -
It gives a lovely light.
Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892 - 1950)

In an ideal world we've done nothing but pass the time leisurely eating fresh foods from the garden, drinking homemade booze, and relaxing.

In the real world, we have been burning the candle at both ends and desperately trying to find a way to light the middle.

Last Saturday we both worked the 6 House's Annual Back to School Festival. 6 House, a faith based outreach group in Newport News, with help from local sponsors, handed out school supplies to underprivileged children. It was a really cool event. They had face painting, a rock wall, inflatable optical courses, free snow cones and popcorn. There was a performance by the Hampton High School Drum Line and the Hampton High School Football team played games with the kids. There was strong showing of support from the community and everyone had a great time. Ryan and I both got some incredible footage:

I also babysat on Friday night (twice!) and Saturday night. My calendar has been filling up fast with sitting gigs thanks to a recommendation from my buddy Jocelyn who teaches Music Together classes here in Williamsburg. I've got another couple of days booked, and I scheduled a photo gig on Thursday night. The extra cash is nice and it's going to fund a refurbish of the big closet in the hall. Come winter - when there is no gardening to be done - we are going to tile it and install shelves. The result should be a brewing room, pantry, and clothes closet all rolled into one. (Just so there's no confusion, yes I do still have my regular 8-5 top secret government job.)

Ryan's had several gigs too. He shot some stuff for Smirnoff Ice at the East Coast Surfing Championship event in Virginia Beach on Sunday and he's booked for all of October as the Director of Photography on a film in DC. Next weekend we'll be traveling up to Alexandria to go to the premier of the 8th Plague (visit www.the8thplague.com to see the trailer) which is the same group that's doing the film in October. Ryan was Assistant Camera on the 8th Plague, and they liked him so much that they want him back as the DP.

The gardens have been slow, other then my herb garden, which may be a blessing in disguise. The weather has been obliging and kept everything watered, and we are just now starting to get some tomatoes. There were some acorn-like squash off of the volunteers in the compost pile, a few concord grapes, and some blueberries. The only truly prolific plants were the snow peas, which burned out in June. There were so many peas that we couldn't eat them fast enough. But, when life gives you lemons, make lemon wine! Or in this case Pea Wine. (He he he... I can't help myself, my inner 5 year old is rolling on the floor. Pea Wine!)

Ryan put in the extra effort when he wasn't working and diligently sprayed his Dad's fruit trees. There were peaches, figs, and cherries - all tasty and fantastic. We got some really nice second tomatoes and watermelon from a farm here in town, and Ryan made several batches of tomato sauce and pickled the watermelon rind. It's all good eating, but I wish it was our plants that had made the contribution. Hope is not lost yet, we took a tip from mother nature and planted some pumpkins in the compost pile. Keep your fingers crossed for pumpkins in time for Thanksgiving pies.

Along with his famous sauce (stolen from Alton Brown and reworked) Ryan made a TON of chicken and mushroom hand-pies which are stashed in the freezer. They were one of his favorite foods when he was living in London, and I must admit they are horrifically convenient and addictive. (Yes, we still eat chicken. No, we will not eat our chickens - you don't eat pets.)

We've also been trying to put together an informal cookbook with all our favorite recipes. This project was started last year, with the thought that it would make a cheap thoughtful Holiday gift for our family and friends. Gathering and writing down our favorite recipes, however, is a larger project then originally anticipated. Our reputation is on the line, so I feel compelled to tweak every recipe to perfection. This means many diligent nights in the kitchen carefully crafting and writing notes. Then there's formatting the copy, and of course illustrations of some sort. Perhaps a fancy cover... I don't think we will make to print by New Year's, but it is in the works.

Speaking of chickens, the Ladies will hopefully start laying next month, if we can keep them in the pen. Whoever told us that a four foot fence is adequate for keeping chickens confined was a big fat liar. Beth can get to the top of the 6 foot gate to roost. She's broken out of the pen entirely a couple of times now. Fort Chicken is now jerry-rigged in attempts to keep her from flying the coop. We believe that once the gals start laying they will get too heavy to leap to such great heights, so we only have to worry for about another month. Still it is a pain in the ass to have to go out every night right before the sun sets to make sure everyone goes to bed in their coop. If we don't this is what happens:

This is Beth roosting in a tree 25 feet from the coop, after getting over a 6 foot fence. This was NOT a fun evening. It was dark and we were combing the back yard with flash lights looking for a carcass or blood or something to explain why we were missing a chicken. Now we try to make sure they are all in bed before sunset, which is getting earlier and earlier.

Yes we've been crazy busy, but its all been fun. I can't remember a time since Final Girls that Ryan and I were this overwhelmed and happy about it. We have become neurotic about our calendars, and I'm petrified that something is going to slip through the cracks. But as the great Warren Zevon said, "I'll sleep when I'm dead."

- Gretchen

Cages, we don't need no stinking cages.

2006-08-07T15:06:00.000-04:00

This year was going to be different. We were going to bow to custom and buy tomato cages. For the past couple of years we have tried a few tomato harnessing methods. First was the stake and tie, but rather then use bamboo or those funny metal rods in the landscaping department, I decided that copper pipe would add some decorative interest. The tomatoes are smack in front of our house for all the world to see, after all! That year I learned that you can't tie anything to a copper pipe. The tomato vines ended in a pile on the ground, lashed to the pipes with the bits of string and twine of our failed attempts. We even had a few cable ties in the mess.

The following year we got crafty and rigged a string down the length of the pipe to tie the vines to. We had more tomato plants then the previous year and resorted to using sticks along with the copper pipes; augmenting the whole thing with a string mesh. It worked until the plants got heavy. That year we got a pile of strings, cable ties, sticks, copper pipes, and tomato plants.

This year we were going to give up and buy cages. I know they're ugly, hard to store, and are in a constant state of disintegration (prove me wrong, I dare you) but there must be something about them that people like. We waited till early July when we knew which plants were thriving to purchase cages. Why risk buying too many or too few?

The answer is - because no one sells tomato cages in July. The cages sold out in early June to all of you ~~cheaters~~ non-seed starters and optimistic gardeners. Note: We were not the only people on a quest for tomato cages, EVERY store we visited said it was a popular request. Stands to reason that one of the stores might consider re-ordering for mid-July. But that's just me.

You can order these bulky, ugly, gangly, things. We would need a bare minimum of 8, and that's pushing it. With shipping that's a grand total $179.04! When they're on sale! Must be some damn fine tomato cages! Remember the Suburban Farm credo? "When all else fails at least we were ~~cheap~~ frugal." We did salvage a few cages from Ryan's parents - once again coming to the rescue. But, there just weren't enough. Last weekend, nearly a month after we wanted to cage the beasts, we broke down and built these:

Behold the tomato teepee! Please hold your applause. They are a wonder of modern engineering, I know. Personally, I think they look better then any cages I saw but I haven't asked my neighbors what they think yet. "Them kids is at it again. Look, they planted sticks!" The sticks were cut from the backyard. Now before I get nasty emails about deforesting, we cut two year old poplar trees from the understory leaving more space for the maples, oaks, cedars, magnolias, and other slower growing trees. We didn't even make a dent in the poplar population in the back yard. Ok, so at least two of them are holly trees. You want to save the holly trees, come dig them out of my back yard. I can't kill them fast enough, and they make great firewood.

So we ended up not spending a single cent on tomato cages this year, and I for one am happy with the results.

- G

Worms in my desk.

2006-07-21T12:08:00.000-04:00

"Shedd Aquarium employee Cecelia Urgani tosses lunch leftovers into a bin full of earthworms under her desk. The worms produce castings -- that is, poop." Link

I don't think this would fly in my office. The conversation would go something like this, "Hey Bosslady! Can I put a compost bin under my desk?" "Gretchen, did I ever mention our drug testing policy..."

Reaping What I Sowed.

2006-06-28T10:39:00.000-04:00

I have officially surrendered. After much persuasion from my sister I have created a myspace page. So if you're here via myspace - welcome. For those of you who get our regular emails, I know we keep saying that we update the website more often then we send messages and now it's been almost a month since one of us last posted. Well, we've been busy and nothing much has happened. Ryan wants to write on the technical developments in the gardens. (He's the details guy, I tend to do the human interest stories.) Fortunately, he's been too busy working. I usually chime in twice a month when something amusing or interesting happens.

Nothing interesting or amusing has happened.

The chickens grew more, they are almost full size now. The cats, the rat and the dog are happy. The garden is growing, weeds need pulling, and we now officially in maintenance mode. This is when you look back and say, "Well, it seemed like a well thought out plan at the bar last night." Watering, weeding, and pruning are all more work then we thought they'd be. Our gardens are the culmination of many nights carefully planning, budgeting, debating, researching, and then drinking copious amounts of homemade wine before ordering plants and seeds online. Oops! Now we have to weed the beds we made.

We just returned from a whirlwind trip, visiting family in Texas. We had a lot of fun, and now I have an obscene amount of pictures to process and burn to disk. To add to the chaos, my father is coming to visit with my stepmother and brother for the holiday. I should mention that they are also brining their new puppy. I'm excited, but this also means I now have three days to whip the house and the gardens into presentable shape. I also have a BIG and stressful week at my top secret government job, hint hint it's the end of the fiscal year. I'm up for the challenge, but it means that we might be a bit quiet around here. (Now that I've said that, chances are we'll post 8 times over the next week.)

We did make a batch of sage jelly, but I haven't even tried it yet to know how it tastes. Ryan bottled some beer, and we had another round of sprouts go off. (Note to self: put sprouts in fridge before leaving for the weekend.) We still need to move the chicken house outside and install the gate in Fort Chicken.

In internet news, three of the great garden bloggers have teamed up to create an uber blog, Garden Rant. If you haven't been go check it out, these gals are great writers and gardeners. I have already tolled the virtues of Michele Owens of Sign of the Shovel fame, but Amy Stewart (Dirt) and Susan Harris (Tacoma Gardener) are wonderful too. Cheers ladies and thanks for giving us gardeners something to read about!

Reaping what I sowed,
Gretchen

Suburban Farm: Hen Houses and Roll Call

2006-06-05T10:42:00.000-04:00

I know I promised amusing stories of building the hen house. I thought it would be a disaster - one that would only look ridiculously funny from the other side. I imagined several failed attempts, a few disputes between Ryan and I, public ranting from both sides on how easy it could have been had the other person had just ~~listened~~ done it my way. Perhaps a few pictures of us covered in paint, seething at one another in front of a rickety square held precariously together with duct tape and hope. But alas, Ryan had to go and be the Prince Charming he usually is and just quietly built the damn thing while I was at work. It took him two days, and while it's not Fallingwater, I think it looks (and is) remarkably functional and stable. I still have to paint it, but that's hardly adventurous, I paint everything.

On a more sad note, we only have four parrots to live in it now. Two weeks ago we constructed the outdoor pen. The pen is and was being used as a daytime grazing area for the Ladies. Every day someone was home we would take them out and so they could romp and play. This seemed like a great arrangement, but we had failed to bury part of the chicken wire fence to prevent diggers from breaking in. The neighbor's dog (much to everyone's horror) broke in and slaughtered half of our flock before we caught her. The dog was only doing what dogs do, even Kismet is starting to eye the Gals and drool a bit, and our neighbors are horrified and really sorry. Ryan and I spent all day last Saturday digging a foot deep trench and burying the fence. We now need to get some taller stakes and do a second pass to bring the height up a good foot or two, since we're a bit gun shy and worried about the neighborhood cats. There are also plans to add a gate, since the thing is a real bugger to climb in and out of for people. We are sad about losing the four chickens, but this is the lesson that needed to be learned the hard way. The two we had named were smart enough to avoid getting caught, so Aughra and Beth are still doing just fine.

In fact, three of them now have names. First there is Beth. She is the littlest of all the Ladies. She is also the most assertive. She's the first to come over and say hi to people, and tends to ride herd on her bigger sisters. Then there is Aughra, named after the witch from Dark Crystal. She is the darkest red, and the second smallest. She really embodies her namesake's attributes, and except for the removable eyeball, she is enigmatic and likes to stare at you knowingly. The most recently named Lady is Mama Cass, formerly called the Big One. She is the largest, most developed, and most vocal of our Gals. She likes to play "hawk" by perching on your arm, and is learning how to be a proper parrot. She enjoys being held and is very patient. The last Lady who has not yet been named is the Medium One. She is the second largest next to Mama Cass, and tends to do what ever Mama is doing or what Beth tells her to do. I am sure she will have a name soon.

Ryan, again appearing in his role as Prince Charming, fixed the screened in porch. We opened it up and all the kids sit and look out over the chicken pen and the back yard. It's more fun then you think since we have several visitors to the homestead. There is Marley, our visiting squirrel, and Bunny, our visiting bunny. We also get a few of the neighborhood cats who visit. We don't know their real names, but we have nicknames for them. There is Bitey Cat, who is real friendly until you get all uppity and try to touch his belly fat. There's Spot who lives two doors down (I belive that she's officially called Kat) and takes down large game animals. She even had an altercation with a LARGE black snake. There's Fake Porter, he looks a lot like our Porter but is not nearly as handsome or cordial. There's Casey, aka Vlad the Impaler, the next door neighbor's dog.

Round the homestead, we've been desperately trying to remember to water all of our plots. The great thing about making grand plans on paper is that you forget all about the simple details, like watering. What a enormous pain in the ass that is. We did let things get a little dried out, so once again our "crops" are behind where we'd like them to be. We must have bad gardening karma, 'cause last year we had too much water. Now its too little. Damn it, when are we going to find the third bowl of gardening porridge? The one that's "just right"? Well, there have been fresh peas for us and the kids around the 'hood, so I should complain too much or the gardening Gods will strike me down.

- Gretchen

Which came first?

2006-05-30T16:42:00.000-04:00

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Well, thanks to Disney we now know: Chicken and Egg Debate Unscrambled

If we could just find answers to some of life's other great mysteries.

- G

Mexican Ground Parrots

2006-05-12T11:30:00.000-04:00

Our poor puppy princess, Kismet, is totally freaked out by the chicks. She gets curious about the bizarre peeping noise and sticks her head in the brooder to investigate. The chicks make baby sized squawks and Kismet flinches and runs away. This happens pretty much every time we go into the garage. I think the babies know what they're doing and intentionally make funny noises when the door opens, and I swear I saw a few of the bigger gals chuckling after one of the incidents. Poor puppy, if its not the cats, its the chickens that pick on her.

The Gals are growing like crazy, if you blink you might miss it. The pictures are from last weekend. Most of them are almost fully feathered and ready to go outside for brief spirts. The neighbor kids think they're great fun and constantly want to come over and play with our "peepers". Peepers is one of two code names we've established to keep our sour puss neighbor from knowing that we've got chickens. (Really he lives across the street, our actual neighbors think its grand. And he's really a nice guy, he's just one of those people who doesn't understand our projects. Oh, and he's a Republican.) The other name we use for our gals: Mexican Ground Parrots. Unfortunately, we can't take full credit for this brilliant nomenclature. Ryan came across a similar name out on the web.

The gardens are thriving and we have even started getting a few tasty treats (spring onions, sage, and an occasional strawberry) from them. The 3-year-old girl who lives next door has been developing her gourmand instincts and asking for "tours" of the gardens. The "tours" consist of her pointing to a plant and asking, "Can you eat that?" I still haven't convinced her to try some mint, but the strawberries and stivia are a big hit. Perhaps I can change her mind this weekend after we make mint chocolate chip ice cream from scratch, with real cream. What budding foodie wouldn't go gushy over that?

Yesterday the postwoman brought us a 7 inch hand loom from Hazel Rose Looms. It is a wonderful piece of craftsmanship, and Ryan really liked the customer service. (He ordered the loom.) We both made some squares last night while watching TV, and since we're still getting the hang of the loom, our squares are a bit wonky. We've decided to keep making them anyway and use them to create a new blanket for Kismet. Perhaps this will make up (a little bit) for all the merciless teasing she gets from the rest of the kids.

- Gretchen

Suburban Farm: Cute Chicks

2006-05-01T20:48:00.000-04:00

We have some other stuff to tell everyone about, mostly involving feats of great physical strength and finesse. But we know what you really want to see, cute chicks. So these are our newest addition to the Suburban Farm. As of this moment they are simply known as The Ladies. As they get older and their personalities become more pronounced they will find their names. At this moment in time, they are less then three days old. They'll be living in the garage in their "house" for the next month or two while they develop and we build a hen house and yard for them. New chicken discovery: chickens like to be petted. Who knew? I promise there will be more adorable photos and interesting chicken trivia in the days to come, but for now I'll leave you these pictures 'cause I'm gonna go pet my chickens. (Click on a picture to enlarge it.)

Suburban Farm: Gardens, Mint, and Insanity

2006-04-24T10:00:00.000-04:00

Happy Wednesday! I know you haven't heard from us in a while, we haven't been doing much except watching back episodes of Lost.

Ok, you got me, that's not true at all. We've been BUSY! We built three 4x8 and one 4x4 raised beds, which required four truck loads of compost and one truck load of topsoil. (Thanks to Ryan's folks for the use of the truck.) We then mulched almost everything with another two truckloads of mulch, and most places got the wet newspaper mulch combo. We also chipped up a thicket of sticks that accumulated over the past two years (again thanks to Ryan's folks for the use of the chipper) and used the resulting mulch for the backyard trees, blackberries, and my mint garden. (Actually if it weren't for Ryan's parents, our yard wouldn't look nearly as nice.)

We also decided mid-project to add two new little beds, one for sunflowers and one for the mint garden. I am the only person in the world who can't grow mint. I kill the stuff all the time. In desperation, I purchased 7 different kinds of mint and planted them in a nice sunny spot on the side of the house where I hope they'll invade and cause problems that require my mower to fix. So far (now in week two) I haven't killed the plants. The mint verities are: ginger mint, orange mint, peppermint, apple mint, spearmint, chocolate mint, and I threw in some cat mint. They should all fill in, bloom, and attract some nice critters. I also used some of the mad money I get from my other gigs (babysitting and photo work) to buy some annuals and a few perennials for the front of the house. Everything is all decked out in the most vibrant jewel tones, it looks so lovely.

In the middle of all of this craziness, we discovered that Emma (the rat) was having emotional issues. I know, you're laughing, but she has been really lonely since her sister, Amma, died. She didn't really get any interaction on a regular basis, which was part of the problem, so she has been relocated into the living room where she can be part of everyday life. She also has a new cage with a very stimulating environment. She seems happier and more energetic, although we still have some work to do. The rest of the kids are doing well, especially Kismet who now looks forward to her weekly visit at Grandma & Grandpa's house for Sunday dinner. She gets to run around their fenced back yard. Life is good!

I had a BIG event the weekend before last at my top secret government job. They kept me all weekend working like a mad woman. One of the upshots of working for the state is that they have to give you overtime when you work more then 40 hours, so I get an extra week of vacation this year. This means that you must come and visit, 'cause I have a weeks worth of time off I have to use before the year is out. This is on top of my already accrued vacation, personal time, sick leave, and family personal time. Not to mention the community service time I can take. (Geesh, it's a wonder I have to go in at all.) So there is plenty time for everyone to come visit.

We are also just now starting to build the hen house, and the chicks should be at the Feed & Seed this week or next. (I promise pictures soon.) The first round of planting is almost done, too. Currently growing are: flowers, tomatoes, peppers, herbs, lettuce, spinach, snow peas, snap peas, carrots, beets, onions and potatoes. (We have a total of 57 different varieties of edibles that are in the ground right now.) Soon it will be time to put in all the viney plants like loofa and cucumbers. We've had trouble in the past getting any of our plants to thrive, so we're hoping we overcompensated this year and have to give most of it away.

That's about all for this week. I hope you are all doing well, and please email me back to let me know how your projects are going. And, don't forget to check the site for more regular updates.

Hugs,
Gretchen

Earth Day

2006-04-20T10:33:00.000-04:00

There is a group of people where I work, who are committed to educating the public and fighting for changes in the way we handle our environment. You know the drill, every office has at least one person who distributes the recycling bins and occasionally picks soda cans out of the trash. Sadly, in my office, I'm not that person. We have an even crazier group of people who fill that niche. Or so I thought.

Today they are handing out pledges in honor of Earth Day, which is tomorrow by the way. The first irony is that they dressed the statues outside the office building (this actually happens quite frequently depending on the season) entirely in non-recyclable plastic junk. In order to keep the "costumes" on they used a lot of clear packing tape - and I mean a lot. I used less when I moved and had to put everything in boxes. Then once you get in the building they are asking that people sign a pledge to make some environmentally friendly changes, in exchange for doughnuts and store bought pre-packaged baked goods. I'm all for bribes, but the packaging alone from the goodies is a problem, not to mention that they will simply throw away any extra food into the trash. All in honor of Earth day.

This pledge they are handing out is the usuall list of stuff. Replace your bulbs with compact florescent bulbs, turn up/down your thermostat, turn off non-essental appliances at night, reuse and recycle, don't pre-rinse dishes, and wash your clothes in cold water. I must admit that I astounded the girl when I said that I already did everything on her list. So, I'm offering a Hardcore Earth Day pledge, based off steps that we've taken here at the house (mostly to save money, but still.) or steps we're too wimpy to take, but should.

Take the Ecological Footprint Quiz, and try to reduce your footprint this year by 5 acres. I have to be honest here, our footprint is 20 acres. It would take 4.4 earths to support humanity if everyone lived like us. There are only 4.5 biologically productive acres available per person, so I'm screwing at least 3 other people by living the way I do.

Get rid of your garbage service. You will be much more careful about the amount of garbage you create if you personally have to deal with it's disposal. Ryan and I really cut back when we had to start taking the stuff to the dump ourselves.

Only shop the outside of the store. With the exception of canned and bagged (like pasta or pretzels) goods all of the stuff on the inside of the store is chock full o' preservatives, packaging, and is usually more expensive anyway.

Only eat meat once a week. For our vegetarian readers this is a no brainer, but reducing your meat consumption will help your grocery bill and the environment at the same time. Plus if you're only eating meat once a week, your more likely to spend your meat budget on something really worth wile.

Reduce your water consumption by 25%.

Reduce your electric consumption by 25%

Start a compost pile, or a vermicompost bin. Better yet, do both.

Eliminate your car trips. Ok, I can take the bus to work, but it sucks up two hours of my day if I do. I could also ride my bike to work, if the roads in weren't so dangerous and I didn't have a problem with sweating through my suits. So, on the weekends I'm going to try to do all my shopping via human power. I make no promises, I'm a real pussy when it comes to this sort of thing.

Eat seasonally and locally. Again, this is a hard one for us. We love to eat, and we are spoiled by having a great selection of megamarts to get our food from. Still, we do buy produce from local farmers, grow veggies, make our own bread, and visit the farmers' market when it's open, but most of our food is purchased in the grocery store and probably grown overseas or in Mexico.

Convince at least one person, or, better yet, a household to reduce their footprint.

So that's my pledge. Would anyone care to add their pledges to it in honor of Earth Day?

- Gretchen

The bumpy ride from seed to planting.

2006-04-19T15:25:00.000-04:00

Greetings all. It's been a while since I really said anything around here. I had high hopes and goals of a running commentary all along the early spring planting season, with daily updates about little seedlings and fruit buds and all the green growth that's breaking out all over the yard. It's all so exciting.

But I decided I'd rather just watch it and try to summarize each major step.

So we built raised beds. We planted things in them (sometimes even following our plans) and now we're watching things grow. Soon it'll be time to plant more, but right now I'm just going to write a little about my experience with starting seeds this year.

I really like starting plants from seeds. I get a kick out of it. Usually I really only like plants that earn their keep, but if I start them from seed I'm fascinated with even the inedible flowers. I wrote about beginning this process an an earlier post.

Now the vast majority of those plants are out in the garden and I'm looking back at the experience.

That's how the seed starting table looked about a week after starting the tomatoes and peppers and whatnot. The small dish is pansies (Incidently, don't bother. They're so cheap and nice at the store that it seems silly to start them inside 12 weeks before you plant them out.) the big dish is snapdragons, and the rest of the tray is warm season vegetables. It looks so nice and neat and organized. It's so full of promise. At this point nothing has died, nothing looks crispy and it's all about the potential.

I just like that picture. It's after we labeled all the peat pots, all the cotyledons are open and some things are getting true leaves. You're looking across the pepper landscape. The little guys are so healthy, so happy, so ready to turn into great big plants that will give wonderful, juicy, tasty, spicy, pretty fruit that I can turn into sandwiches and sauce and grilled things and, well, you get the picture. It's great to watch the tiny little seeds turn into plants, daydreaming all the while about the wonderful things you'll harvest in just a few short months.

Then you realize you're overextended. Plants sort of spill off your seed starting table. They get too close to the lights and get burned, they get all weepy as you're hardening them off, they just generally frighten you within an inch of your life that all the hard work and watching and waiting and anticipating is going to be for naught.

You get pictures like the one above. You can see all the yellowing burnt leaves and the weak stalks and the strange colors. I think it was a combination of a few factors. One was letting the tender little plants get too close to the hot lights, another was potting them in peat moss and perlite (i think that mix is too acid on its own, I added lime and things got better) and the last might have been hardening off too quickly. I took a week to get them ready for the outside, an hour more exposure each day. Then I just let them stay out all day. Then left them outside constantly. It would have probably been better to take 2 weeks. But then again, I only lost one tomato plant before I got them planted and that's a lot better then last year when I must have lost 75% of the tomato seedlings.

The strange yellow leaf thing got me scared, the fact that I planted 2 weeks before we had originally planned has me nervous and and, I kid you not, I lost sleep over the seedlings when it looked like I was going to lose them to a mystery leaf yellowing (I've since decided it was a burn from the light. New leaves are just fine.)

All the plants are great now. We planted them in the beds this weekend and lost one to some sort of creature (probably a neighborhood cat) breaking a pepper plant off an inch above the soil line and one to some sort of wilt. That's a pretty good record for me and I feel it bodes well for the gardens this year.

There it is, seed starting in overview. Hope you enjoyed it, I'm hoping to get some more bits like this one on the details of the other projects we've been working on lately.

Ryan

Bustin' out all over or Dude check out these buds

2006-03-30T16:49:00.000-05:00

Spring is arriving with a vengence and I've been meaning to throw these pictures up for about a week. We're in Zone 7 so by now a lot of these buds have progressed to full fledged leaves, but I'm not late enough to have them turn into fruit. Anyway, I hope everyone enjoys the possibilities of tiny little plants in the garden. I know I do. Each link opens the picture. I'd just lay them out for you, but Blogger seems to completely choke on making a nice layout of any significant number of images. So just go ahead and click away, I promise they're all labeled correctly and won't frighten you with strange pictures of crazy things.

I'll probably put up a few more pictures soon (I need to dump the camera and see what looks cool.) but that's the beginning. It's spring, it's official, stuff is growing and I'm excited. It's not going to be long before there are cute pictures of chickens and their homes.

We are more then foodies.

2006-03-21T09:53:00.000-05:00

If you haven't checked out the Sign of the Shovel yet, you should. Michele is a fantastic writer and a real joy to read. "Michele Owens, who bites off more than she can chew as a matter of policy, has two gardens: a town garden in Saratoga Springs, NY and a country garden in Salem, NY." This week on her blog she quoted the Kitchen Gardeners International, and I really wanted to forward this:

Kitchen Gardeners are gastronomes of the highest order. Unlike mere foodies who flit from one trendy spot to another in search of instant culinary gratification, Kitchen Gardeners set out roots in a place and begin planning their pleasure months in advance.

Just another reason you should get out there and plant something. One packet of seeds is all you need to get hooked for life. Over the summer I purchased a few homegrown potatoes from the farmers market, and we had a few given to us by a friend of Ryan's dad. I cooked them and tossed in some salt and butter. They were FANTATIC. I was totally shocked! Potatoes actually have flavor. I didn't have any clue! This is the sort of experience I get from every little fruit and veggie carefully harvested out of our yard. Cheap thrills, yes - but thrills nontheless.

We also are able to have things that we couldn't get under normal circumstances. For example: Jerusalem Artichokes and Figs. Jerusalem Artichokes are a tuber that grows these great black eyed susan type flowers on giant sunflower sized stalks. But the tuber is soooo tasty. It tastes like an artichoke, and it eats and cooks like a potato. Although if you eat them raw they're more like water chestnuts. They don't ship well at all, so you are unlikely to find them in your local grocery store. Figs don't ship well either; the ones you normally see in the store are dried. Dried figs are tasty, don't get me wrong, but real ones right off the tree are an experience to themselves. (Just flick the ants off.)

Anyone who knows us, knows that there is no such thing as bad food in our house. We love trying exotic new foods, recipes, and cooking styles, but we're in the mac-and-cheese phase of life and can't really afford the freshest most flavorful ingredients unless we grow them. (You won't find vanilla beans or saffron in our spice rack.) We have found a way to keep up our gourmet lifestyle on a tuna noodle casserole budget. Even throwing a few squash seeds in the back yard will improve your quality of life, so try it. What have you got to lose? I promise you will become more then a foodie too.

- Gretchen

Recipe - Pizza Dough

2006-03-20T13:44:00.000-05:00

This makes a tasty dough - but it requires a bit of foresight to make since it should sit overnight in the fridge to mature. This was originally Alton Brown's recipe, but we made a few changes. Mostly cut the salt WAY back and we leave it on the counter for a couple of hours before refrigerating.

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons sugar (For a crunchier crust, cut this in half.)
1/2 tablespoon kosher salt (Alton uses a full tablespoon.)
1 tablespoon pure olive oil
3/4 cup warm water
2 cups bread flour (for bread machines)
1 teaspoon instant yeast
2 teaspoons olive oil
Olive oil, for the pizza crust
Flour, for dusting the pizza peel

Toppings:
Whatever you like!!! Keep it sparse until you get the hang of getting the dough in and out of the oven with toppings on it. It’s also very tasty with just some herbs and baked like focaccia.

Directions:
Place the sugar, salt, olive oil, water, 1 cup of flour, yeast, and remaining cup of flour into the mixer’s work bowl.

Using the paddle attachment, start the mixer on low and mix until the dough just comes together, forming a ball. Lube the hook attachment with cooking spray. Attach the hook to the mixer and knead for 15 minutes on medium speed.

Tear off a small piece of dough and flatten into a disc. Stretch the dough until thin. Hold it up to the light and look to see if the baker’s windowpane, or taut membrane, has formed. If the dough tears before it forms, knead the dough for an additional 5 to 10 minutes.

Roll the pizza dough into a smooth ball on the countertop. Place into a stainless steel or glass bowl. Add 2 teaspoons of olive oil to the bowl and toss to coat. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 18 to 24 hours.

Place the pizza stone or tile onto the bottom of a cold oven and turn the oven to its highest temperature, about 500 degrees F. If the oven has coils on the oven floor, place the tile onto the lowest rack of the oven. Split the pizza dough into 2 equal parts using a knife or a dough scraper. Flatten into a disk onto the countertop and then fold the dough into a ball.

Wet hands barely with water and rub them onto the countertop to dampen the surface. Roll the dough on the surface until it tightens. Cover one ball with a tea towel and rest for 30 minutes.

Repeat the steps with the other piece of dough. If not baking the remaining pizza immediately, spray the inside of a ziptop bag with cooking spray and place the dough ball into the bag. Refrigerate for up to 6 days.

Sprinkle the flour onto the peel and place the dough onto the peel. Using your hands, form a lip around the edges of the pizza. Stretch the dough into a round disc, rotating after each stretch. Toss the dough in the air if you dare. Shake the pizza on the peel to be sure that it will slide onto the pizza stone or tile. (Dress and bake the pizza immediately for a crisp crust or rest the dough for up to 30 minutes if you want a chewy texture.)

Brush the rim of the pizza with olive oil and top with whatever suits your fancy.

Slide the pizza onto the tile and bake for 7 minutes, or until bubbly and golden brown. Rest for 3 minutes before slicing.

Seeds Continue and the Grape is Replanted

2006-03-16T16:54:00.000-05:00

Hello again. Just wanted to drop a quick note and a couple pictures into the mix today. Work continues apace on the gardens. The tomatoes, peppers and licorice marigold all got started this past weekend so the seed starting table is starting to fill up. I'll throw a picture up once they start to sprout. It's already getting precarious in th e Green Room, and there's at least another 50 peat pots to find a place and light for. Should be interesting. It's only Thursday and the first of the licorice marigold is poking through the dirt. The tomatoes and peppers should get going in a few days. By next week I'm expecting to have little seedlings and in two weeks they should have their first true leaves.

Seed starting numbers.
30 Snapdragons, at least one plant in each pot.
9 Pansies, only two have germinated now.
8 Mortgage lifter tomatoes (indeterminate heirloom large pink)
12 Bloody Butcher tomatoes (indeterminate heirloom, med, dark red)
8 Roma tomatoes (determinate hybrid paste)
8 Sweet Baby Girl tomatoes (indeterminate hybrid cherry)
4 Big Chili II hybrid hot peppers
4 Hungarian Yellow peppers
25 Assorted Sweet peppers
4 Chocolate Bell peppers (yes, they are a deep brown)
4 Licorice Marigold

Next weekend we'll be building the garden beds and other miscellaneous yard work. It's only a few weeks to the last frost date and we're getting antsy. Gretchen picked up a few daylilies from the grocery store and we bought a couple of tiger lilies from the farmer's market. They went into the ground next to the other daylillies, which seem to be the only bulbs we have any luck with.

In other news, I dug up the concord grape that we planted on the front of the house right after we moved in. It was just starting to get big, and desperately needed to be trellising and Gretchen didn't want a grape trellis in the front. (Gretchen chiming in here - he didn't mention gigantic 4' square fence posts in our front yard, in our only real garden space, laced with wire.) It's also probably a little too shady there. Well, a lot too shady. So it's now behind the house in front of the fallen oak tree. If it survives, it'll be pretty cool. I tried to get as many roots as possible. It had spread out over the entire front garden and some roots were too embedded to get up, but as you can see from the picture, I did get a lot of the root system.

In any event, thanks for reading, I'll keep telling you about what goes down as it goes down and maybe you'll let me know where I'm going wrong. Next week will probably bring a real update from Gretchen after the garden construction project. We're also hoping to get a gas chipper in here and make some of our own mulch.

Have a good day,
Ryan

The warm days, seed starting and sorting it all out

2006-03-10T09:44:00.000-05:00

Hope you're all enjoying the flurry of activity around here lately. Hopefully it'll continue through at least the spring and summer. Basically we're just real excited about getting started on the gardens and the chickens and all of it. There's just something that's both exciting and freeing about coming out of winter and moving into spring. Makes me want to get stuff done. And put it here so I can remember what I did this year later. Anyway, right now we're starting seeds and getting ready to build beds and whatnot.

We've aready decided what to plant. We even planned it all out on graph paper. then Greebo pooped on it (I mistyped that at first, I said he poped on it, but he's never even been near a funny hat or robes) I don't know if the pooping was because he dislikes the time we're spending not petting him, or it's just the natural reaction of an obligate carnivore to the cultivation of vegetables, but either way it was a bit of a bummer.

Above is the pile of seed packets we're using this year. Many of them are saved from last year, but we did get quite a few new varieties this year. Basically, most of the major seed suppliers run great deals early in February and you can get seeds at around $1.00 a packet. Makes it real easy to go overboard. But then again, we did fit them all in and we did it with half the number of raised beds then we were originally thinking.

On to seed starting. That table with sad little lamp and peat pots is our seed starting table. The lamp is a self ballasted HID type lamp and it's great for what it costs ($80) one will grow a Tomato plant right to the edge of setting fruit. Once we put out the rest of the seeds we'll bring out th eother one we have and maybe even the fluorescents. We'll see how crazy it looks in a few weeks when pretty much everything is growing in there.

This also starts a series of posts that will be me trying to sort out what's going on with the garden. I'm going to set out tables of what we started, what we ended up planting where and how it eventually worked out. This should allow my evil plan, to bore the living snot out of you, to come to full fruition. I hope. Anyway, here's a quick image of the garden spreadsheet version 0.1 Alpha.

Thanks for reading, I look forward to comments from all of you (otherwise it REALLY feels like I'm talking to myself here) and hope everyone has a bang-up start to spring.

Suburban Farm: Mulch, Anarchists, and Spring

2006-03-09T18:37:00.000-05:00

Spring is here! Well, almost here anyway. Ryan and I have been clearing out the wild blueberry bushes behind the house. I've been bushhoggin' with my mower again!!! For those of you who don't know - I have a love affair with my push mower. I adore her, and I will use any excuse to rev her up. This weekend we're tackling the leaves in the swamp. I'm shivering with anticipation.

We're hoping to convert the cleared area into a grassless yard and turn the back swamp into a 7 story garden. This is a LONG term plan, but for now we have an area to hang out in that isn't squishy.

If you are planning to mulch your gardens this season, (and you should be) ~~please be cautious and know your supplier!~~ After Katrina hit New Orleans, many trees were blown over. In efforts to clean up some of the devastation these trees were turned into mulch, so much mulch in fact that the they were willing to let it go to state or company that's willing to haul it away. So cheap mulch may be showing up at a garden center or superstore near you, with the added bonus of Formosan Termites! The Formosan Subterranean Termite is the most destructive insect in Louisiana. It is found in about half of Louisiana’s parishes. New Orleans is one of the areas Formosan Termites have a strong hold, and most of the trees that fell were infested badly. In efforts to stanch a termite epidemic, the commissioner of agriculture in Louisiana imposed a quarantine for the Formosan Subterranean Termite on October 3, 2005. Ok, so this has been debunked - there are no termites in mulch being shipped around the country. I retract, I retract. Click here to read the article debunking the myth.

If you missed it in the NYTimes, take a minute to read this story: Liz Seymore , a 50-something writer, turned her house into an anarchist commune. Ryan and I are not anarchists by any stretch, libertarians yes, but definitely not anarchists. Ok, so the jury is still out on Ryan. But either way we like to read stories about people who are doing something different with their lives.

Hope all is well with you, and you have a great week.

Recipe - Curried Sprouted Lentil Salad

2006-03-09T16:10:00.000-05:00

We have gotten so many people asking us to share recipes, that I thought we might post a few here and there when the mood takes us. Today's recipe comes from our sprout supplier, The Sprout People. If you aren't eating sprouts, you should be. If you're buying them at the grocery store, you need your head examined. Sprouts are a tasty, cheap, instantly gratifying, low commitment, nutritionally valuable food. Ryan and I are partial to the mung and the various crunchy sprouts they sell. If you're interested in starting to sprout they have kits available, but note that we use the sprouter that they absolutely hate, without any problems.

Curried Sprouted Lentil Salad - Gretchen's Version
Serves 1 as a Main Course or 2 as a Side

Ingredients
1 cup Lentil Sprouts or other crunchy sprout mix
1/2 cup chopped parsley
1/2 small red onion - diced
1/2 red or yellow bell pepper - diced
1 tomato - diced
1/8 cup mayonnaise
2 Tbs. ketchup or tomato paste
1/4 tsp. dill weed
1 Clove Garlic – chopped fine
1/2 - 1 Tbs. curry powder
salt & pepper to taste

Preparation
Mix all ingredients together and serve.

This also makes tasty pita filler, and tops salad greens or rice well. It can be served warm or cold. Other additions that I enjoy are sesame seeds, Tabasco, red pepper flakes, or a bit of peanut butter – omit the tomatoes and ketchup when adding peanut butter.

Spring is right around the corner

2006-03-09T15:10:00.000-05:00

Hello again. As you may have noticed the sun is coming up earlier in the morning, the nights are getting warmer and the weeds are starting to grow in the flower beds.

That means it's springtime again. That should mean that the Suburban Farm Blog will get updated with a lot more regularity because we will actually have something to say. On that note let's start with a nice uplifting picture.Yes, those are the very first seeds to come up. Snapdragons, which are started 12 weeks ahead of last frost. Above you have Pansies. Also started at 12 weeks before frost. So everything is coming along as hoped.

Next weekend we'll be starting marigolds, tomatoes and peppers. After we get them going I'll post overall pictures of our seed starting table and get into more depth with scedules and building plans and the like.

Suburban Farm: Worms, Chimneys, and Vinegar

2006-02-04T13:09:00.000-05:00

It's pretty yucky out side, and despite the warm temperatures we can't plant anything. So I thought it would be a good time to send out another Suburban Farm. The last three weeks have been uneventful. Ryan's had some work and I started my class - American Popular Culture, post civil war. There's a TON of reading, and the professor doesn't post the reading until the Friday before the Tuesday class. It wouldn't be a large problem, you know me I love to read, but the stuff is so poorly written that it takes me forever to get through a 20 page article. Since I have to read two articles and one book a week, it takes up a large portion of my weekend and my Monday night. Nevertheless, I find the class engaging and enjoy stretching my mental muscles.

Ryan did get two very large projects done. He cleaned the chimney. Thankfully while I was at work; I would have freaked out about all the black creosote everywhere. The cleaning involved a large brush and some elbow grease. Its just like a bottle brush, so imagine scrubbing out a very large bottle. In all probability this is the first time it's been cleaned since the house was built 11 years ago, so we did have a bit of a hazard on our hands.

The other massive project was sorting the worm bin. The process is this: You lay out a big tarp and dump everything out onto the tarp. You take the big pile and divide it into smaller piles. The worms, who don't like sunlight, will burrow into the center of the piles. Then you just scoop off the layer of castings (worm poop) and you are left with a pile of worms. We put all the castings in large plastic under-bed-box that we use for starting seeds and stuck it in the shed. The large piles of worms we put back into our worm bin filled with damp shredded paper, and the process starts all over again.

Despite his best efforts to get all the worms out of the castings, several were left behind. Today we used the casings to fill in the hops barrels, and when we pulled the casings out of the shed they were full of happy worms! We are a worm making factory over here. Ryan also tossed a handful that were left on the tarp into the compost pile, and we now have a large colony that has developed there. (We still use the compost pile, since the worm bin can't really keep up with all of our "green" garbage.) The pictures are too cool not to share:

In other news, we had some pear wine that we haven't bottled in an open fermenter. Ryan checked on it Monday night, and surprise! we have vinegar. To be truthful, I didn’t like the wine all that much so we weren’t in any rush to bottle it. But the vinegar is FANTASTIC! We have to find some bottles to put it in, but we’re happy to share with anyone who wants some. Pear vinegar - who would have thought?

We are starting to layout spreadsheets and diagrams all coordinated with our own personal almanac - there are massive plans ahead. Stay tuned for more adventures in suburban farming, at the very least it will be entertaining.

- Gretchen

Plans for 2006

2006-01-13T10:56:00.000-05:00

Below you'll find a list of all the stuff we want to grow next year. It may seem like a huge list, but it's not that much longer then last year and we're planning on putting in a lot of beds. Yes, you read that right, everything is going to raised beds next year. The side garden with its 6" rise did so much better then anything else that we were convinced that raising the beds with landscape timbers (or 2X12s) is the only way to go. We'll dig the area under the beds and add some topsoil and compost on top to fill the foot deep boxes. Hoppefully this will translate into hugely enhanced yields and just a generally more positive gardening experience.

We're also going to slowly expand our fruit collection and maybe add a few nuts. We'll see. We're also trying to make sure the front yard looks as good as it tastes and to that end some of the front yard bed space will end up being dedicated to (mostly) edible flowers.

Front Garden

This is the garden in the front yard. It's going to be made into two 4' wide and 8' -10' long beds. The back one will be almost entirely tomatoes and the front one will be cherry tomatoes and flowers. Should be neat and will hopefully yield more tomatoes then anyone will know what to do with.

Tomatoes
Cherry Tomatoes
Pansies
Marigolds (Small)
Purple Basil
Snapdragons

Fence Garden

This is the garden next to the neighbor's fence. next year it'll be at least one (and more probably two) 4' x 8' raised bed rather then the mess is was last year.

Bell and Sweet Peppers
Pole Beans
Snap Peas
Broccoli
Eggplant
Salad Greens
Brussels Sprouts

Containers

We've done peppers in containers before. They work really well in 12" pots. The Jerusalem Aritchokes (AKA Sunchokes) will be grown in either a big Rubbermaid bin (like the worms) or a large trashcan. That'll keep them from spreading and also keep the voles at bay. Should be a neat experiment. The strawberries will either be in a terra cotta strawberry pot or in some variation on the strawberry tower theme.

Hot Peppers
Strawberries
SunChoke

Back Gardens – No Vine

The back garden is going in in front of the Blackberries. Yes, in that sunny spot in the back yard. For reference the little green things in front of the shed are the blackberries.

Radishes
Onions
Potatoes
Carrots
Garlic
Beets

Back Garden - Vine

This is another raised bed (or possibly just an uncontained hill with a trellis) in the back yard. Hopefully it'll be a hugely healthy, incredibly viny and massively productive part of the garden.

Spaghetti Squash
Loofah
Acorn Squash
Watermelon
Cucumbers (Pickling and Slicing)

Flower Garden

This is the area right in front of the house where the shade plants and the roses are, on both sides of the front walkway. This is completely Gretchen's territory in the same way that the vegetable only gardens are my territory. I can only imagine what she's going to do with this space next year.

Sunflowers
Bleeding hearts
Red Daylillys
Marigolds (Barn)
Roses

Herb Garden

This is the side garden. Hopefully we'll get it to fill in with only herbs and that'll make it more funtional and perhaps a bit more attractive. I wouldn't be surprised if we got another Jerusalem Artichoke, but that wouldn't be in the plans.

Chives
Chamomile
Cilantro
Dill
Fennel
Lemon Balm
Mints
Parsley
Tarrigon

Trees & Misc

These are all single specimen trees that will go in around the yard. I'm certain that I'll talk about each one in loving detail once we get them.

Asian Persimon
Che Fruit
Bamboo
Rhubarb

Future Plants

These arte plants we're considering for the year after next/the indeterminate future. They might even go in sooner if all goes well and we have both the time and the money. We'll see.

Filbert / Hazelnut Bushes
Paw Paw
Corn
Amaranth
Cabbage
Summer Squash
Asian Pear
Pomegranate
Currants

Jerusalem Artichokes

2006-01-13T10:37:00.000-05:00

Hello again. Just wanted to drop in a quick post about the last harvest of the season, the Jerusalem Artichokes.

To refresh your memory they're the tall sunflower looking plants that grew in the side garden. We were hoping to have excessive quantities, but the voles got all but one of the seed tubers I put in, so we got one small patch that ended up in the middle of a large cluster of Sage. It seems to have worked out relatively well though. As you can see to the right they get pretty yellow flowers in late summer/early fall. As they grow they get very thick and tend to lean (at least when planted near the house.) The picture to the left is the first harvest. We got two more harvests of about that same size out of the one small patch of Jerusalem Artichokes. As you can see they look a lot like ginger, but they can be cooked and eaten like potatoes. They taste a lot like Artichoke hearts. They're really quite tasty. They're also (reportedly) great for Diabetics. I like them because they're a fun (and incredibly easy) plant, something to harvet from the garden well into winter (I dug the last of them last week (early January) and almost impossible to get in the Grocery store. In other words the prefect garden vegetable. I'll be putting more in next year with saved tubers from this year's crop. It'll be an interesting experiment in sustaining the garden with less inputs. I'll be sure to report in after we see what comes up.

Current Plantings, Third and Last Edition (yes, I know it's late)

2006-01-13T09:56:00.000-05:00

Fine, kill me for procrastinating, but here it is, the final look at what we planted last year, just before I put up what we're planning to plant next year.

The Fence garden

The fence garden was a strange experiment/accident that ultimately changed significantly where we thought we could plant things. Essentially we had extra tomato and watermelon plants and since I am constitutionally unable to actually throw something away we kind of stuck them beside the blueberries in an area where they might do OK. We basically didn't do anything to them. I put them in, halfway staked one tomato (of two) and let it go. The tomatoes were pretty prolific (a few pounds at least per plant, which was good for our garden) and the watermelons pretty much covered the entire area. We got 5 melons from the patch. All in all a pretty good result from an area that we'd, up to then, pretty much ignored.

The other dwellers in the fence garden are the two rabbiteye blueberry plants. If you squint you can just see them in the back of the picture above. They're doing great. Hopefully next year we'll get a significant amount of berries off them We got about 10 last year, so I'm hoping for a pint or two at least.

As a bit of inappropriate background the soil around here (Southeastern VA) is naturally quite acid and most of the wooded area behind our house is covered in wild blueberries. We thought that was great until we netted a few so the birds didn't get them and realized that they're just not that good. They're tiny, dry, not flavorful and just generally unpleasant. So we got to clearing out the wild plants and replacing at least some of them with cultivated varieties. Seems to be going well so far.

The fruit

We put in a Fig tree, two Blueberry bushes, two Blackberry bushes, a Pineapple Guava and three Apple trees. Last year we got about 10 Blueberries and a dozen Figs. They're all growing like gangbusters. Everything has survived, gotten bigger and seems to be loving where we put it. Our hope is to harvest a little of everything (except apples) next year and then the year after we'll get real harvests (Except the apples. They'll begin to bear in two years and really get going in 3-5.). It's really exciting for me to grow fruit trees. Theres something about putting something in the ground that (assuming no one screws it up) can bear fruit for my great-grandchildren. It makes me happy. Ah well. That's about it for what we grew in our first year of seriously improving the land we're living on.

Suburban Farm - New Year

2006-01-02T23:00:00.000-05:00

Happy Monday!

I know you haven't heard 'bout the farm in a while (like two months.) Well, there's not much happening since it's winter. We did get the apple trees in November and planted them in the front yard. I would include a picture, but they look like sticks that have been partially buried. The trees are only two years old, but they seem healthy and appear to like the location that they are in.

On December 12th we lost a dear friend and companion, our cat Riley. We wanted to thank you all for being so supportive. We miss him terribly, it's amazing how much space in your life one cat takes up. The other four seem to be adjusting, and we're still trying to figure out who will be the alpha now that Riley is gone. This spring we are going to plant a tree and place his ashes under them. We haven't picked out a tree yet, it needs to be something truly special.

Since it's the new year, Ryan and I have some big plans. We are going to post a list of all the tasty and wonderful plants we hope to put in this spring. We are definitely going to put more gardens in - once again biting off way more then we can hope to chew. The garden in the front that is exclusively for vegetables is going to be expanded to accommodate two raised beds that will be 4ish by 8ish. (It will also make my flower bed larger and I hope to add another six rose bushes to my surprisingly thriving rose garden.) We will also put in some raised beds in the back yard and on the side next to the blue berries. Hopefully all these raised beds will help us deal with the swampy conditions that continue to plague us, even when there's no rain. We are also getting chickens this spring, so stay tuned for Ryan and Gretchen's adventures in chicken raising. The first task is to build them a home - I can assure you this will provide many a humorous tale.

Before Christmas we did manage to bottle a bunch of the wine. We got some of the fig, and some of the pear into bottles. We have more fig and pear to bottle, along with some peach. If the world starts to end anytime soon, we've got enough booze to keep the entire county so drunk they don't notice. We also froze some watermelon that needs to be juiced and fermented sometime in the next week or so. We can't stand to watch food go bad, or uneaten. We also can't eat more then half a watermelon or a pound of figs between the two of us. This leads to much booze - since we can't think of any finer way to keep this stuff around. To be fair - we do pickle, make jam, can, and experiment with some of this stuff too. Pickled pears anyone?

We didn't get around to making our barley wine in time to toss it into Santa's sleigh, but we're still planning on brewing before January is out. This is actually good news, provided that Ryan and I can show some restraint. When we give bottles of the barley wine, we always tell you too keep them for a year before opening them. Well, I know for a fact that many of you have about as much restraint as Ryan and I. Next year, however, you will be getting a barely wine that has already been aged for a year and ready to be opened! - on the condition that we didn't drink it all. I will make the following recommendations to all of you who missed the Long Night Ale this year - call us regularly and leave death threats on our message machine. I am pretty sure nothing short of bodily harm will keep us and our grubby fingers out of the best brew on earth. (If you haven't tried it yet - I'm sorry. You have missed one of the finest things man could possibly experience, aside from sex and the perfect cup of coffee.)

We are also trying to assemble a collection of our favorite recipes. We get a lot of requests for them, and there is no such thing as bad food in our house. I was thinking of including one here that we absolutely loved!!! Rachael Ray's Fool-i-ya-baise Seafood Stew. We made the whole meal, including the anchovies and olive salad that was dressed with lemon and olive oil. (FYI - evidently you have to warn wayward diners that they might eat an anchovy. How were we supposed to know?) It was fantastic and quick. We substituted the white wine for vermouth and we used our homemade chicken stock that had plenty of gelatin in it. The gelatin comes from cooking the bones to death and gives the stock a great mouth feel. We'll be making the stock later this week so I'll fill you in with the next Suburban Farm.

So that is all for this week - you'll hear from us again. We wish you a fine new year and many happy new beginnings.

- Gretchen, Ryan, & "the kids"

Suburban Farm - Rats

2005-10-30T17:26:00.000-05:00

Happy Sunday!

Not much has happened in the last three weeks. Ryan's been in Baton Rouge doing some sound work for FEMA, during the recovery process. We've been chatting in the evenings, and boy does he have some interesting stories! But, I will let him tell them when he gets back home. We aren't quite sure when that will be. It could be Tuesday or it could be the 2nd of December. As usual we are slaves to his work schedule.

In other news, we have two new additions to the Suburban Farm - Emilia and Amilia. They live in my office on a high shelf so that the cats won't bother them. We did introduce the girls to Scamp, and she's under the impression that we're keeping very dirty kittens in a cage away from her. She's quite indignant about all of this, and tries to supervise the girls from the floor while chattering at me to let them out. Riley, Porter, and Splats don't seem to care. Greebo likes to sit on top of their cage when I get it down. I'm not sure he understands that there are critters under his butt. And Kismet is unhappy about all this nonsense. As it turns out, the rats are rather fond of the poor puppy. They like to curl up with her in the living room next to the wood stove. I guess she's nice and warm, and doesn't smell of cat. She takes it like a good sport, but looks at me pitifully as she sits trying not to move or squish the girls. The Girls themselves are quite sociable and are warming up to meeting new people. (The kind with only two legs.) They made a great impression on the neighborhood kids who love all of the crazy stuff I do around the house.

The circle is gearing up for Halloween. We have a lot of children who trick or treat in our neighborhood and my next door neighbor, Jerry, and my neighbor across the way, Bob, wouldn't want to disappoint them. They go all out! Jerry took two days off work! There's smoke machines, skeletons, sirens, abandoned cars, people in bushes, gravestones, fake blood, severed limbs, etc. They should sell tickets to this thing! I guess this year there will also be hay rides! This guy's had his tractor out tooling around the street for the last two weekends, and he's getting to be quite popular. You can't see it in this picture, but he also gives rides to the occasional cat and dog. Ya'll know Ryan and I, and you know that we can out gore anyone here in suburbia - we've got all the equipment. I can mix up the best batches of corn syrup blood in all of Williamsburg, and we have left over props from Final Girls. However, we pulled together a gypsy camp our first Halloween here, and the kids were so excited about the non-scary house that I couldn't bring myself to set up a gore scene. So, since Ryan's gone, I'll set up the camp for the third year in a row.

Its been cooling down enough at night, that I've had to start a batch of green tomato salsa. The tomato plants are starting to drop their fruit and dry up. I don't blame them - it's been chilly. I'm gonna leave everything until it falls off its respective plant, but I don't think we have too many more days before the first frost. I've been pretty successful at keeping the house a nice warm 70 degrees by using the wood stove and a box fan. It's not exceptionally cold out - 60ish in the afternoons - nevertheless I'm feeling quite proud of myself. I have burned through the wood faster then Ryan thought we would, but it has been getting COLD at night (45ish). Once it does frost, our apple trees should ship, and I'm excited about them! We ordered three different verities: Virginia Beauty, Black Twig, & Shockley, all on M111 rootstock. We won't get fruit for a couple of years, but the trees will look fabulous in the front yard on the ridge. I promise I will take pictures, and since Ryan may be out of town, it should make and interesting adventure.

I've been labeling beer and wine for the Holidays. Those of you who have come to expect our yearly batch of Barley wine, don't fear. Ryan and I will put in a batch as soon as he gets back. It'll just be a bit young when we send it out, but it's best when aged anyway and you should still have yours from last year. We'll put in another batch of Cranberry too, and hopefully we can keep our grubby paws out of it long enough to bottle more then 5 bottles. We also have the fig wine bottled and labeled. It needs to sit for awhile, but Ryan has high hopes for it. The Pear wine is looking lovely and needs to be bottled soon. We also just got our hard cheese kit and cultures in the mail. We've been making fresh mozzarella for a while, and it is the most fantastic thing you have ever eaten. Now we will try our hand at making cheddar and feta! I've been patient so far, but I may resort to making cheese without Ryan.

So that's it for this week. I hope you all are in good spirits.
- Gretchen

Current Plantings - 2nd edition, The Side Garden

2005-10-12T14:05:00.000-04:00

The Side Garden

Herbs: We have Catnip, Sage, Oregano, Basil, Thyme, Dill and fennel. We had Parsley last year and early this year before we found out it was biennial (We thought it might be a perennial) by it going to seed and getting bitter early in its second spring. The first year we planted too much Basil resulting in Basil oil and dried Basil that still hasn't totally been used. This year we probably have a bit too little and will run out before we can get it to come up in the Spring.

We definitely have too much Oregano (it's a perennial and we wound up with three big, spreading patches.) and we'll probably cut it back to one real healthy patch for next year. The Sage is doing great and we'll probably just let it continue growing where it is and hope that we don't kill all of it trying to harvest the Jerusalem Artichokes (more on that later).

The Thyme and the Lavender are getting established and showing signs of really liking the place. The Dill is over and done with, but it grew great and we kept hoping to use it for Dill pickles, but the Cucumbers died so we just saved the seeds for use next year along with the tender young shoots of next year's planting.

The Catnip loves it where it is, has made the bees in the neighborhood very happy and we probably have way too much even though we cut it back to one plant from four last year. It'll stay, if only because it's nice to have it around, it attracts the bees and looks nice for much of the year. For next year we're going to probably add tarragon, more parsley, and maybe a few herbs to really make the currently raised side garden just herbs.

Jerusalem Artichokes: We had hoped to have half of the side garden be a row of Jerusalem Artichokes (like potatoes, but different) but it seems that something (probably the voles) got all but one of the seed tubers I put in the ground. That means that we should have enough for planting somewhere next year (possibly in a large container) and a little eating this year. In theory that plant is supposed to be several times more prolific per unit space then potatoes and be far and away the best crop for Ethanol production. They're also quite tasty. I hope we can figure out how to keep the critters from making off with them next year.

Eggplant: The eggplant previously growing under lights inside got planted out into the side garden (mostly because there was an empty space left by some herbs not coming up as planned.) it's flowering like gangbusters, but no fruits yet. It's a little shaded by the J-chokes so that may be it, or it may be that I put it out too late. We'll never know.

Tomato: I had one left over tomato plant after filling the front garden and the test patch in the side so I put it in the side garden. It's growing, flowering and setting a few fruit. It was a late blooming seedling and as such won't have much time to give fruit before first frost.

Peas: The first thing planted out in early spring was the snow peas. The half of the garden that didn't get J-chokes got snow peas. They were great. Good tasting, bore fairly well for their species and then died in time to plant pole beans. The decision was made that we needed to plant 2-3 times as many snow peas next year.

Beans: Where there were blank spaces along the back of the garden we planted pole beans. Incredibly tasty, bearing from a few weeks after planting all the way to frost they seem like a really good idea. Just don't expect anemic little corn plants to hold them up. These beans pulled the silly little corn plants right over and destroyed any chance of having corn. They also then sprawled all over the garden threatening to choke out all non-pole-bean life forms. Next year they're getting their own raised bed with real poles.

Corn: We planted some sweet corn and some popcorn. It basically grew stunted, pollinated incompletely and then got killed by the beans. Not a successful experiment.

Peppers: The only bell pepper that survived was in the side garden. It gave us two large brown (we got the chocolate pepper) peppers and then someone ate the roots. It is now giving scads of little brown peppers while it wilts pitifully. We're definitely planting more next year. They're tasty and I don't even like bell peppers. We might leave some in the side garden and we might put them exclusively in the side raised beds.

The side Garden was very confused this year as we tried to fill in around short season plants and plants that didn't grow. Hopefully we'll get it more organized next year and we'll have all the herbs we could want (and a few vegetables).

Suburban Farm - Swamps and Beer

2005-10-09T17:05:00.000-04:00

Hope you all are doing well - it's time for another edition of the Suburban Farm. Not much has happened in the last two weeks. Ryan's work slowed down enough for him to spend some quality time 'round the 'ole homestead, so we started a blog. The blog contains my emails, as well as some ravings from my partner in crime. You can check it out at http://www.suburbanfarm.blogspot.com

Tammy, the tropical storm, stopped by for a visit over the weekend and returned our backyard to its usual swampyness. For those who know of our on-going battle with what is passably a marsh behind our house, this is no surprise. It had finally dried out enough for me to mow the weeds back to respectable height, and now I could farm shrimp - or mosquitoes at least.

Since it's been rainy all weekend there wasn't much to do but stay home, cuddle, and watch tv. The cats made the most of it, but Ryan and I got our fair share of cuddle time. Ryan, Riley & Greebo did get motivated enough to make bread. This is their experiment, Nantias. They’re a cross between a tortilla and nan bread. Very tasty, and it was so nice of the cats to lend a helping hand.

Last weekend we did get out to our favorite nursery. Paradise Nursery in Virginia Beach. It's a hike for us to get out there but totally worth the trip. We absolutely adore Sybil and Rob, and they are extraordinary helpful to two fledgling gardeners. In the spring we visited the nursery and picked up a lovely fig tree and some blueberry bushes. This past weekend we added two blackberry bushes and a pineapple guava to the mix. They do ship all over the country, so if you're thinking about adding some fruit trees to your collection I would highly recommend purchasing from them. (http://www.paradisenursery.com/) This is not a plug by any means, we REALLY like this place. They have the fruit trees planted all over the property and they gave Ryan and me the tour with some samples. It's just neat to see what other people are doing with their edible landscaping - and Ron and Sybil are the king and queen of edible landscaping.

We did stack firewood for the winter. We’re going to try, emphasis on try - there are no guarantees, to heat most of the house over the winter with wood. At least it will cut back on our heating bill a bit. A downside of having a two story great room is that you spend a lot of money heating the ceiling.

We started brewing the pear wine with the pears from Ryan’s Dad’s trees. We did bottle the cranberry wine (aka Greebo’s Remarkable Holiday Elixir.) The fig wine, with figs from Ryan’s Dad’s trees, is ready to be bottled any moment now. We only got 12 or so figs from our tree this year, but considering we planted it in the spring I’d say it’s doing remarkably well.

That’s about it for this week. I will try to send another edition in two weeks to keep you all filled in.

- Gretchen

Suburban Farm - Why

2005-10-09T16:53:00.000-04:00

Hey out there in blog land. It's Gretchen. I should probably put forth my personal opinion about why we’re doing this. We’re trying to document our adventure/experiment, because we’re sure that there are other people out there just like us, and this is our way of sending up a signal. We know that what we’re doing reduces our footprint, and is better for the environment. We know that if the world ends we’ve got it covered. But the real reason - it’s damn fun!

We like to eat homemade bread because it’s cheap, tastes better then the stuff at the store in those bags, and it’s fun to make. (Or so Ryan claims – he’s the baker.) We want chickens because it’ll be a hoot. We like having worms living in a Rubbermaid box in our garage, because it’s fun. (What seven year-old would disagree?)

All these things also make our lives better, and leave us more spending money then we would otherwise have. This doesn’t mean that when Ryan’s out of town I don’t stop by the local bakery and pick up a loaf or two. We are reasonable and pragmatic people. We are trying to make our quality of life better then it would otherwise be, by saving money, growing and making our own food, and enjoying time together working on a project.

But that’s why I do it, who knows what Ryan’s motivations are.

Current Plantings - 1st edition, The Front Garden

2005-10-07T13:42:00.000-04:00

Here's a list of what we're growing now in the front, how it's doing, and how we're modifying things for the future.

Tomatoes: As you can see in the picture above, most of the front garden is tomatoes. They're a frightful mess. Essentially we tried to support them on strings attached to copper pipes. The strings stretched, the pipes bent, and I eventually gave up on trying to keep them upright and separated. So now they're all running together. I'm not too worried though. They're actually still producing pretty well (with some time off for insufficient water in late September) and don't seem to have too many problems. I wish I had weighed all the tomatoes to have a yield on the area, but essentially we had just about enough tomatoes for general eating and whatnot. A few extras went into sauce, but for the bulk of our sauce I had to buy seconds from the local farm. They were not the best sauce tomatoes, but $6.00 a half bushel is a fairly good price.

Next year this whole front garden area is going to be replaced with two raised 4'x12' beds. That should slightly increase the area for tomato plants and should significantly increase yield. As it is the tomato plants get almost no drainage. That means we had root rot early in the season, and as such ignored when they needed water late in the season. Even with the mulch it was a big mess. Basically next year we're planting the same verities (Lemon Boy, Mortgage Lifter, Roma, some cherries and a few others) just raising the bed.

Peppers: You can't see them in the picture above because they died. Root rot I think. They just wilted away during a wet spell and never recovered. They're moving to a square along the side of the house next year.

Squash/cucumber/luffa: They were planted to the right of the tomatoes this year. Last year we did the same thing and the cucumbers thrived. We made 5 gallons of pickles. This year I think the cucumbers dried out. Essentially I was so afraid of root rot I didn't water much at all. Mistake. But the Luffa did ok. There's a picture of a young luffa fruit. It's a bit late for them (October) but they might have time to get mature. There are a lot of them on the plant. Supposedly they're edible and tasty when young. We'll see. In the meantime the unused west side of the house is going to get all the viny crops next year. With a hill it'll drain well and there'll be room for all the plants to really spread out.

Marigolds: We usually interplant marigolds everywhere to keep the rabbits and bugs away. It might be an old wives tale, but we like the flowers and they're great on salads so it doesn't matter whether or not they actually repel critters. They're just nice to have. Usually they're the normal dwarf marigolds you see everywhere, but this year we got a ridiculously large, out of control, mutant marigold. Our friends at Paradise nursery tell us that it's an old fashioned barn Marigold and that all the ones you get today are dwarf. Supposedly only the big ones have enough oomph to keep the bugs and rabbits away. I can believe it. I'm sort of scared of that Marigold.

Eggplant: There is an eggplant in the middle of that mess that is a front garden. It grew poorly and currently has one fruit on it. We seem to have very bad luck with eggplants. I assume it's just the normal root rot/lack of water problem that the tomatoes are having, and if that's the case then they'll be fine next year with the raised beds.

Grape: There's a 2 year old Concord grape in the background. It has a woefully inadequate trellis that's going to be replaced next year. It hasn't given us any fruit, but next year should be the magic year. I hope.

Well, that's about it for the front garden. There are usually various containers on the sidewalk, but I'm not going to get into them right now. Thing to note is, the front garden is going to become two 4'X12' raised beds. This should make for some really productive spaces. I'm looking forward to it.

Mulching with Email

2005-10-07T13:19:00.000-04:00

Today I continued an ongoing project. Gretchen has been bringing home big bags of shredded paper from her super secret place of employment (could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you and everyone you might have talked to). We're using it as mulch for the new plants. It seems to be holding on to both water and the ground fairly well. We're going to cover it with real mulch later on, if only because it's not that pretty. And after reading this study about using shredded paper as mulch I'm even more excited. It appears that with commercial apple trees nothing makes them grow better then shredded paper mulch.

You can see in the picture above that it looks silly. I added a bit more paper after this picture was taken, but basically these two plants are ready to get a capper of real mulch and ride out the winter in style.

By Way of Introduction

2005-10-06T22:33:00.001-04:00

Hello all, greetings travelers, welcome back, whichever seems appropriate to you. In essence, Salutations.

I'm Ryan and I'm the other half of the reasonably unsane duo making up the undertaking you're currently reading about.

Gretchen's the other half. She's providing the broad, sweeping overview. Every two weeks she's going to update everyone on the really important/interesting things we're doing.

I'm going to be providing the filler on both ends of this blog. I'm going to keep you up to date on the tiny little details, as well as the broad sweeping philosophical questions. About what? About the little patch of land we call home, the Suburban Farm.

First, we might be better off calling it the Suburban Homestead because we're not at all interested in making it pay (as in cash money). We're not looking to make the land here produce more then we can either use or easily give away to friends and family.

Second, the physical plant. We're on about a half acre that backs up to a utility easement. That makes us a bit further from the neighbors then most people, but doesn't buy us much past the half acre. The half acre is divided between house, lawn, dirt, Garden and woodland. We're taming the woodland, covering the dirt, expanding the garden and reducing the lawn. The house itself is about 1600 square feet built in the mid 90's. It's fairly unremarkable except that it's ours and we like it. Perhaps one day I'll get into it with you, but for now, except to say that we're embarking on a wood heat experiment, the outside is much more interesting then the inside.

Third, the parameters. We're staying within zoning laws, building codes and nuisance ordinances. We're making sure the house looks fairly nice (if sometimes a bit odd) from the street. We're trying to spend as little money as possible (not always succeeding, but trying). We're learning. We're experimenting. We're going into the third year here and we're just getting started. Basically, we're trying to see how close to a goal of self-sufficiency we can get while taking the land, the house and the neighborhood as givens.

So there you have it. You're reading about 2 people, living in suburbia, dreaming about their homestead out in the country, but rather then just dream they're trying to make at least a small portion of their dream a reality without having to find that perfect homestead.

Suburban Farm - Worms

2005-09-17T20:37:00.000-04:00

Happy Saturday Everyone!

Ryan and I had an exciting week. Ryan thought he had the week off, but Wednesday evening he got a last minute call to go do sound for ABC. They were looking for interesting news of Opheila, but as it turns out, she was "the lamest hurricane EVER". They hung out in the hotel with a bunch of other news crews and ate tons of junk food. He got back yesterday and left for DC this morning. I haven't seen much of him this month, but his work is going GREAT!

While he was away our worms showed up! I loaded the two pounds of red wigglers into our new worm farm. I thought ya'll might like a few photos to get an idea of what we're doing:

This is the bin.

Here are some worms. You have to look close, they look just like the dirt.

They are already eating some of our garbage, and it doesn't smell at all. (I left that photo out - you don't need to see egg shells and coffee grinds.) The bedding is shredded office paper from the Law School and some peat moss. They eat the bedding too. If you are really interested in worm farms - they are super low maintenance and cheap - there is a great book you can get from your library, "Worms Eat My Garbage" by Mary Appelhof. There is also lots of info out on the web, Google vermicomposting. You don't have to do one as large as ours, we compost everything we can. In a few months we'll have casings (aka really great poop) for the gardens.

So that's it for the Suburban Farm this week. Hope you all are well.

- Gretchen

NOTE: Just found this from a year ago. (Today is 12-20-2006) Thought I would post it, but it is much out of date.