Yep, That's a Green Chicken

Well, nuts!

The good news?  

That package I had been waiting for arrived today.

The bad news? 

My Yellow Finn potatoes weren't in the box.  Had I bothered to read the shipping confirmation email, I would have known that they won't ship until the end of the month.

It's kind of maddening that I have to wait on Gurney's to decide when they want to ship something.  The weather waits on no one!

I am one...

Quick Seedling Update

Dost thou love life?
Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.

~Benjamin Franklin

 

It's amazing what 72 hours can do....



Roma seedlings on March 11th



The same Roma seedlings after 72 hours under grow lights


Not a darned one of my jalapeno or Early Calwonder seeds are up yet and we're at 10 days past planting. Not a clue what's up with that.  I may have to try again with different seeds.

Finally, I just got an email today that my Yellow Finn potatoes, asparagus, blackberries and strawberries have shipped.  I'm hoping they'll be here in time to get the potatoes planted this weekend.  It's been 82 degrees here for the past 3 days and, if the weather stays this way, we are well past time to plant potatoes as they're a cool season crop.  Hurry, Mr. Postman!

New Critters on the Farm

Things have been hectic around here the past couple of days, so I apologize for having not posted since Monday.  I've been working like a mad woman on that darn quilt.  In fact, yesterday I worked on it from 4 p.m. to midnight - I just had to finish the squares before tomorrow's class.  At aout 11 p.m., I thought "you know, I'm tired and I really ought to go to bed."  And I should have.  Because all the sewing I did that last hour WAS WRONG.  Now I have to rip out 64 seams.

Boys and girls, NEVER sew when you're tired.

But I'm sure you more interested in these new residents of Cranky Puppy Farm.   They're kind of shy, but I did manage to snap a picture of them.

Red wigglers, nature's compost makers

There's actually a great story here: I got these from one of our instructors at the Food Not Lawns class tonight, and she got hers from the instructor when she attended the same class two years ago.  Talk about paying it forward!  She started with a handful and now has an entire bin of these little poop machines!  So when she offered to let everyone have some of her worms to start their own worm bin, there was no way I was going to pass up the opportunity.

Now I'm sure many of you are asking:  why worms?

Because these little guys are amazing.  They'll eat your shredded paper, table scraps, cardboard, etc. and quickly turn it in to "castings" (a.k.a worm poop) that is wonderful as a soil conditioner, all-natural organic fertilizer or as a natural pesticide in your soil.  The use of "tea" made with worm castings has been scientifically shown to cause a 173.5% increase in plant growth over plants grown without castings.  We're talking super tomatoes, folks!


Plants grown with casting on the left vs. no casting on the right.  Notice the increased root growth with the use of worm castings.  Photo courtesy of  WormsEtc.com.


Since it's all natural, worm castings won't burn your soil like chemical fertilizers will.  And they inject all the micro-nutrients into the soil that your plants need to grown strong and healthy.  Really, I don't think I need to do any more talking - the picture says it all.

I brought these little guys home in a little paper bag and they'll be fine there until the weekend.  I've got an old 24" plastic bin that will be their permanent home in the basement.  Worms like dark, moist places so it's important that it be a dark colored bin (don't use a clear box).  Then take a drill and put holes in the bottom and on the sides (to let air in).  The instructor recommended leaving the plastic top off and just covering it with some cloth to keep other bugs out. 

The stuff in the picture is actually shredded newspaper that's been wetted and rung out.  You want it wet but not soaked - you should only get 1 to 2 drops if you squeeze it (if it's wetter, you'll get fungus and it will smell.)  That's all you need for them to live in and eat.  But I'm going to use them to break down some of the stuff that we might also take out to the big compost bin.  Apparently they are very partial to watermelon rind and avocadoes.  And they even eat hair, so I may have found a use for all those dog hair tumbleweeds that occasionally blow down the hallway.

Once you've got the bin ready, just add 6 inches of the fluffed up moist newspaper and put your worms on top.  Place them under an ordinary household light fixture, which will force them down into the bedding and away from the light.  Then they'll start eating and the magic happens.  If you want to get more detail about taking care of red wigglers, I'd recommend that you read this document (will open PDF in a new window). 

In about 3 months, we'll start harvesting the worm castings.  That will be June, the optimum time for some booster fertilizer!

I'm linked up with the Country Homemaker Hop this week.  Go check out what other folks are up to!

New Garden Arrivals

This weekend brought several much-anticipated arrivals for the Farm.  First, my Baker Creek seed order showed up on Saturday.  These are our squash, beans, and sunflower that we'll be planting for the first time this year.  Included in the package was the cutest "thank you" note with a picture of their daughter with a HUGE squash.  I thought that was just adorable and a very nice touch.  They also sent along a free package of red lettuce seed so I'll need to find some space for that somewhere. 

And, finally, a catalog for their Spring Planting Festival on May 6th and 7th.  I know I've mentioned before that J. and I were going to make a vacation of that, since Baker Creek is just a couple of hours south of us.  Althought I may have procrastinated too much by now and we won't be able to find a place to stay in town.  If you're going to the Festival, I'd love to meet up with you - leave me a comment.

Roma tomato seedlings reaching for the sun.

The second new arrival is the seedlings from all the indoor planting I did last weekend!  We're right at 1 week and the Roma tomatoes are going nuts!  I had them sitting in our parlor about 5 feet from the front door and they are growing toward the light like crazy.  I think every single seed I planted has come up.

I did an experiment this year and planted new beefsteak tomato seeds AND seeds from last year that were left over from the initial planting (not harvested from my tomatoes). I was just curious if the older seeds would germinate or not.  As of right now, the new seedlings are coming up at a rate of about 10 to 1 of the old seeds.  Not a great turnout.  I really did think the older seeds would sprout more than that.

The Calwonder and Big Red peppers are a little slower than the tomatoes and are just now starting to peek out from under their dirt blanket.  So everything went under the grow lights last night to keep those tomatoes from getting any more leggy than they already are.

Daffodils are up and blooming.  Birds are chirping outside my window right now (even if it is zero dark thirty because of daylight savings).  After a rainy, dreary day yesterday, today is going to be 70 and sunny.  A perfect Spring day to get out and enjoy!

Did you plant anything indoors?  How's it doing? 

I'm linking this post up to this week's Country Garden Showcase. Click to find out what's going on in other folks' gardens!

Last of the Pumpkins

I've had the last two little Spooky pumpkins from last year sitting on my counter since I harvested them last fall.  They are finally starting to turn because there was a spot on the top of one of them and I knew it was time to either freeze them or turn them into something tasty.

It's a miserable, rainy day so guess which one I picked?

I've been working on perfecting my pumpkin bread recipe (originally posted here) and I'm now including apple juice, apple sauce and brown sugar to make it a little more healthy, as well as a smidge of vanilla.  This kicker makes it oh so yummy!  This recipe gets even better as the bread sits, so I recommend you make it at least one day ahead.

Cranky Puppy Farm's Punkin' Bread

Incredients

(makes three 7" x 3" loafs)

15 ounces fresh pumpkin puree (1 can if you don't have fresh!)

4 eggs

1/2 cup apple sauce

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2/3 cup apple juice (can sub water)

2 cups brown sugar

1 cup white sugar

3 1/2 cups all purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease and flour three 7" x 3" loaf pans.
2. In a large bowl (and I do mean large!), mix together the pumpkin, eggs, oil, applesauce, apple juice, vanilla, and sugar until well blended.
3. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger.
4. Stir the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until just blended.
5. Pour into the prepared pans and bake for about 50 minutes.  Loaves are done when a toothpick placed in the center comes out clean.

One to eat now, one to eat later, and one for the guys and gals at work.

I saved some of the seeds from the pumpkins and will plant more later this Spring.  They're drying right now on some paper towels on the kitchen counter.  Now where did I put my glass of milk???

This post is linked to the Ole Saturday Homesteading Trading Post and Make It Yourself Monday.  Click to find out what other folks are doing this weekend!

Stop and Smell the Flowers



 J. and I just came across this old photo of our youngest Pomeranian, Domino, as we were perusing old photos and I thought I'd share it with you.  He's about 3 or 4 months old here and still learning about everything  So innocent!  Hard to believe that he's coming up on 6 years old now.  He's my sweet baby, a definite momma's boy, and a mad, MAD smoocher. 

I'm linking this up with the Sunday Best hop.  If you want to see some more beautiful pictures, that's the place to be!

Food Not Lawns

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I attended the first session in a 4-week long class titled "Food Not Lawns" on Wednesday night and I brought back a ton of interesting info that I wanted to share with you.

First, a note about Food Not Lawns.  This isn't just the title of a class here in KC.  Food Not Lawns is an organization based on a book by the same name that was written by Heather C. Flores  (available from Amazon here).  The idea is that we should get away from trucking our food all over the place, eat local, and grow our own food instead of maintaining these huge lawn spaces around our homes.  There are chapters of FNL all over the place and, if you're wondering if there is one close to you, you can find out on their website.

The class started off with what I would call marketing regarding why you should grow your own food, why sustainability is important, how the world is overpopulated, peak oil, etc.  There was some discussion of the politics of some of those topics (as you can imagine!) and I found myself being a little turned off by the mere mention of it.  Gardening for me is a relaxing hobby and I prefer that it not be muddied by something as stressful for politics.  I guess, in my mind, gardening has its place and politics has its place and ne'er the twain shall meet! 

Anyway, the left side of my brain was kept busy analyzing some of the statistics they were throwing out during the first hour of the class.  Did you know the following?

• The biggest crop in the U.S. is grass?  23 million acres vs. corn at a distant second with 18 million acres
• We spend $30 BILLION per year to water, fertilize, and maintain all that grass.  That's about $517 for 1/3 an acre per family, which is enough space to grow enough veggies for a family of 6
• Lawns use 270 BILLION gallons of water a week during the summer.  That's enough to water 81 million acres of organic veggies all summer long.
• Lawns use 10 times as many chemicals as industrial farmland.
• 1 calorie of food takes 10 calories of petroleum to produce it and get it to your table
• Americans get 90% of their food from a supermarket
• "Fresh" produce travels an average of 1500 miles before its stocked in the store
• Processed food now accounts for 75% of all food sales globally

Some of those are pretty astounding, no?  During World War II, Victory Gardens accounted for more than 41% of the food consumed by Americans.  So what happened to us?  We became a nation of industrialized farming, huge population growth, the "I want it now" society.  If we want fresh tomatoes in the middle of winter, then we MUST have them and we're willing to pay the price (both economically and environmentally) to do that.  And somehow we turned away from fresh veggies and toward all the nutritionless, empty calorie processed food market.  It's no wonder we have an obesity problem!

The second hour of the class centered on no-till farming, permaculture and some community gardening projects around Kansas City.   These folks are growing subterranean clover (never heard of it!) and then planting their garden right into that clover.  Apparently, it's called subterranean because the flowers turn downwards and actually grow into the soil.  They are great injectors of nitrogen into your soil, so this would be a good cover crop if your soil is nitrogen deficient.  You can also use coffee grounds as well. 

One last tip:  if you're in search for some crops that will grow well in your somewhat shady backyard, try kale, chard, or beets.  They all grow well in the shade.

I'll sign off with some more of those gorgeous vintage Victory Garden posters.  The first one is my absolute favorite, but I love them all.  Hope you enjoy!

Quilt Step 3: Piecing Squares

Before we get started with the next stage of our Strip Around the Block quilt, I want to share with you one of the quilts that was just finished by Sue, one of the sweet ladies in my quilting class.  Isn't it beautiful?  I can only hope that my first attempt comes somewhere close to looking so good.

This was just one of the beautiful quilts that she had just received back from the machine quilter.  Looking at all her work just made me more excited about getting my first one done.  So let's get back to work!

In my last quilting post, our homework was to get all the light and dark strips sewn together in pairs, press the pairs open, and then cut them into 2.5" x 4.5" rectangles.  

We now have 8 sets of light rectangles and 12 sets of dark rectangles and we're ready to start piecing them together.

The next step is to start assembling the center of our squares.  The square are formed by taking two rectangles of the same fabric, turning one of them 180 degrees, and then sewing them together on the long edge.  We'll need a total of 20 light-colored squares and 12 dark-colored squares.  Since we don't have that many individual fabrics, you'll have multiples of some of them.  I just did one set of each color to start and then did additional sets in my favorite fabrics until I had the right number of squares put together.

As you put these together, it's really important that you pay attention to whether or not the points of the squares will line up in the middle and form a perfect "+".  If you've cut your initial fabric carefully, you can actually feel the seams lock together and the outside edges of the fabric squares will also line up perfectly.   I was REALLY careful (a.k.a. "anal retentive") about getting my cutting right, so this part was pretty easy for me.   



A pic of some of my centers put together.  The strip on the bottom is part of the next step.



Now that we have our square centers done, let's focus on the band of strips that go around them.  If you have a light-colored fabric in the center, then the band of strips will be dark-colored and vice-versa.  The top is made up of 2 rectangles sewn together lengthwise so that the fabrics alternate (as shown in the above pic).  The bottom is made in this way also.  The sides are just the plain old 2-square rectangles. 

Here's an example of a square where I've sewn the top and bottom rectangles together and I'm getting ready to sew the entire square together.

Start by sewing the two sides on the center square first.  Then sew the top strip on, followed by the bottom strip.  Rinse and repeat until all of these squares are put together. When finished, you'll have 20 squares with light fabric in the middle and 12 squares with dark fabric in the middle.  

You'll probably want to play with your fabrics to see what colors and designs go well together before you start sewing.  I needed a much bigger work surface, so I'm going to use our pool table at home for this purpose.  But you could simply lay it out on the floor if you like.  If I had done that, a certain puppy would have stolen some of my pieces!



Who?  ME?



Well, I have lots of sewing to do (as do you if you're following along!)  Next time, we'll complete the squares and then start putting everything together.  I can't wait!

The Caterpillar Lied

Remember this little guy?  Well, he's a liar!

His being all black last fall was supposed to predict a bad winter and we haven't really had any snow to think of.  In fact, this is certainly the warmest and driest winter in my lifetime and it may very well go down as the warmest on record.

Don't feel bad, little caterpillar.  The Farmer's Almanac was wrong also.  Maybe you were just so traumatized by all the snow last year and you didn't want to get it wrong this time.  Or maybe it was just a fashion statement.  Whatever...we forgive you because you're so cute.

A couple of quick updates...

The girls are still laying 6 or 7 eggs a day, so the molting situation hasn't slowed them down a bit!  Of course it doesn't help that Miss Butterfingers (that's me) dropped an egg yesterday.  Aarrgghhh! I sold another dozen to someone at work this week and she said they were awesome.  She wants to be a "regular customer", so that's great.  The girls now have a steady income.

The Food Not Lawns class last night was AWESOME.  I don't have time to post details here before work and have quilting class tonight, as you know.  But I promise to have all that for you tomorrow morning.

Garlic and onions are coming up nicely with all this sunny warm weather.  The temperature in the raised beds is 56 degrees and the garlic is up about 5 inches.  That's the great thing about planting in beds - they warm up faster than the ground itself.

Signing off to go make the donuts now.  After all, it does pay for my gardening and chicken farming hobbies....

This post is linked to the Rural Thursday Blog Hop.  Hop on over and see what everybody else is up to!

Quilt Step 2: More Cutting!

I locked myself in the dining room last night away from the TV, dogs and nosey hubby so that I can get my homework done for quilting class this week.  In my last update on this project, I had already cut the initial fabric strips out.  They don't call it the "Strip Around the Block" pattern for no reason.  LOL.

This week's homework was to pair up 20 dark fabric strips together and 16 light fabric strips and then sew them lengthwise in pairs (dark with dark and light with light).



Finishing a strip. I've got a cotton rug under my sewing machine to protect my dining room table.


My instructor gave me a great tip during class last week.  Since I haven't sewn in awhile, I was a little worried about keeping my seams straight.  If you look closely at the picture above, you'll see a strip of what looks like cardboard in front of and slightly to the side of the foot.  It's a narrow strip cut from Dr. Scholl's moleskin padding - you know, the stuff you put on corns and bunions on your feet?  It's self-adhesive (but can be easily removed) and provides a great guide to run your fabric up against as it feeds through the machine.  I felt alot better about my first seams using this and they came out perfectly straight!  So, if you have a beginner sewer in the house, you might try this trick.



10 dark and 8 light fabric pairs sewn together

The next step is to press the seams open.  This goes pretty fast even thought I pressed the fabric front and back 3 times:  (1) set the seam as it is with the two fabric fronts facing each other, (2) then I opened up the fabric by folding one of the fabrics over the seam and pressing it (as shown below), and (3) I turned the fabric over and pressed it again just to make sure I had a clean, crisp press. 



Pressing the seams open.  This is my least favorite part of sewing - right up there with folding laundry on the list of most boring things in life.

 Finally, using the Shape Cut or a ruler, cut the strips into 2 1/2" wide rectangles (so each rectangle is 2 1/2" x 4 1/2" with the sewed seam in the middle).  We'll be using these pieces to make the center of our squares.  As you cut them, stack them by colors.  (Sorry....I didn't take a picture of this step!).   If you're making this quilt along with me, stay tuned later this week for the next steps.

Tonight, I'm starting my "Food Not Lawns" class and hope to bring back some interesting garden tips for everyone. In the meantime, I'm off to work to find out if the job offer I extended yesterday to a potential new member of our team will be accepted. 

It's 63 degrees at 7:30 this morning and it's early March.  Spring is here.  Hope you enjoy your beautiful day!

Dust Down a Country Road

Anybody else crazy in love with barns like me?  I'd love to have a place with an old barn - not the shiny metal monstrosity that we have currently.  Something about the creaking of the wood and the sun shining throught the cracks of the boards.  It almost feels like time has stopped when you enter a barn.  I guess I am old school.

This barn isn't that old, but I still find it charming with its fresh coat of white paint and red roof.  Might I suggest a little John Hiatt to guide you on today's barn tour?

Like dust down a country road
Blowing in the wind
Behind an old truck load
Up before the rooster crowed
There's an old dog staring
At the dust down a country road

-- "Dust Down a Country Road" by John Hiatt (click to listen)

How to Build A Potato Box

Potatoes are cool season crops, which means you want to get them in the ground early.  The rule of thumb here in Kansas City is that they should be in the ground by St. Patrick's Day at the latest (for the early variety) or the last weekend in April (for the late variety).  Really, if you plant anytime between the beginning of March and the first weekend of May, you should be fine here in zone 6.

My original plan was to plant only a late season variety called Yellow Finn, which does well growing vertically in bins, garbage cans or other containers.  It also keeps better than Yukon Gold or Russets.  But, since J. says we have Russets sprouting in the basement, I may find some space to try those in hills as well. 

With all the nice weather yesterday and some idle time on our hands, J. and I decided to get those potato boxes built and off the "to do" list so that we'll be ready when the seed potatoes get here.  The hardest part about this project was picking the lumber, and this is something that you can easily do even if you're not Bob Villa. 

Materials Needed for the Potato Box

The concept behind the potato box is that you start with a short box of anywhere from 10 to 12" high and then add additional rows of boards all the way around and cover the plants with more dirt as they grow.  It's a great way to grow alot of potatoes in a limited space and, in many cases, it increases the yield over 200% over that of hilling them in a garden bed.
Let's get started building our box.  For each box, you'll need the following:

• (4) 2" x 2" x 36" corner posts that the boards will be screwed to
• (6) 2" x 6" x 8' boards
• (96) 2 1/2" wood screws (I prefer stainless so they don't leave black streaks and won't rust)

You can use pine, cedar, redwood or pressure treated (if it's been treated with copper sulfate only, which isn't toxic).  J. and I decided on cedar for the corner posts because it is very slow to rot even in direct contact with soil.  However, cedar is REALLY expensive.  The 48" corner posts are $3.48 each at Lowe's.  To offset the cost, we went with cedar fence pickets for the boards rather than the 2" x 6"s.  Also, we decided to spread the cost out a little bit and only purchased enough pickets to get the boxes started.  The pickets are 71" long, so we got 2 sides of a box out of each picket. 


Cedar 2" x 2" and pickets ready to be cut.



Step 1.  Cut the boards.  We used a chop saw because it makes this job alot easier.  Cut the corner posts to 33".  Then cut your boards.  If you're using 2" x 6" boards, you'll cut them into 12 21" lengths and 12 24" lengths.  The longer boards are 3" longer because they will overlap the shorter boards on the corners.

In my case, because we're using pickets, we went a little bigger.  After cutting the dog ears off the pickets, we had 71" to work with.  The pickets are 1/2" thick, so I needed for half my boards to be 1" longer (to allow a 1/2" overlap on both sides).  So we cut the pickets at 35", giving us one board at 35" and the other at 36".  Rinse and repeat until all the boards are cut. 



J. shows off his power tool skills while cutting our pickets.


Step 2.  Assemble the two short sides of the box.  Lay two of the posts out on your work surface.  Then place one of your shortest boards. at the bottom and line them up so that the outside of the board is lined up with the outside of the corner post (as shown in the picture).  Use a square to make sure everything is lined up properly.   Pre-drill two holes into the board and post and then secure with two screws.  Once you have the first board secured to both posts, add a second short board so that it's on top of the corner posts and butted up to the board that you just secured (this will give you a box surface that is approximately 11" tall.


It's a good idea to pre-drill the holes so that it doesn't split when you drive the screw into it!


Rinse and repeat with two more corner posts and short boards.  You should now have two completed sides:

Step 3.  Assemble the completed box.  Now turn your attention to the stack of longer boards, which we'll use to connect our two assembled sides.  Following the same steps, attach one of the longer boards to the other side of the corner post of one of your completed sections.  Make sure the outside of the longer board is even with the outside of the short board, forming a nice corner (as shown below).  You may need someone to hold the side while you get the first screw in. 


J. shows off his Milwaukee and his mad box-building skills. Meanwhile, I'm the human clamp (holding the side up).


Step 4.Place in your designated location and fill with dirt.   Loosen up the soil underneath it and make sure it's nice and level.  I also recommend putting down weed fabric in the bottom first to prevent having weeds growing up into your nice soil.  Fill with a mix of 2/3 garden soil and 1/3 compost. 


Here we are in the process of filling with garden soil and compost.


As the potato grows, we'll repeat the same steps above to add another level of boards and then dirt, taking care to never cover more than 1/3 of the new growth of the potato plant. At harvest time, we'll remove the boards from one side of the box, knock the dirt over and harvest the potatoes.

Now you're ready to plant those potatoes!  Stay tuned, as I'll be covering how to plant, as well as updates throughout the summer as our potatoes and potato box grow.

See this post featured and join me in finding out what other folks are up to over at this week's Country Garden Showcase, Barn Hop, and Country Homemaker Hop!

I've Been a Busy Bee

Sorry for the delayed posts this weekend, folks, but I have been hard at work on that "honey do" list.  I can't wait to share one of our garden projects with you, but it's a long post so it will have to wait until tomorrow.

We were blessed with 60+ degree weather again today, albeit the wind was so bad it would blow the hair off your head!  This morning, I decided to sit out on the patio and get some of my seeds started.  Worked great until the wind started kicking up and blew my seed packets off the table.  But I did finish and it's a relief to finally have that done.  Here's what I've planted so far:

• 18 blocks of beefsteak tomatoes
• 9 blocks of roma tomatoes
• 9 blocks of Early Calwonder peppers
• 9 blocks of jalapenos
• 9 blocks of Big Red peppers

I'm using one of those Jiffy starter kits - you know, the kind you can buy at any big box store.  It's too late to do this now, but I think I'll try my hand at soil blocks next year.  From what I've been reading, planting with the soil block method encourages air circulation and there's no way for the seedling to become root bound because there's no pot.  The real benefit, however, seems to be that there's no "transplant shock" that's normally associated with moving seedlings from their initial pots to the garden (you know, the time right after you transplant when it seems like the plants are lagging.)

Soil blocks are made from a special combo of your own garden soil and either peat moss or sphagnum.  With the right mix, the blocks will stay compacted and won't fall apart.  You use a special tool to compress the mix into a cube and also create a dimple in the top, which is where the seed is planted.  You can buy soil blockers all the way from 3/4" up to 4".  I'm thinking about buying either the 1.5" Mini 5 or the 2" Mini 4 to create my starter blocks.  Both of those will then fit into blocks made by the Maxi 4" blocker, so I'll need one of those as well.  Since I have some time, I'm going to keep my eyes peeled for some of these on sale somewhere, since that's a $130 investment for just two pieces of equipment!  Maybe I'll put it on my birthday or Christmas list.

But, for now, the little seeds are tucked safely away in their little terarium and we're patiently awaiting some sprouts.  And I am on my way to being tucked safely away in bed.

Stay tuned because tomorrow I'm going to take you with us as we build our potato bins!

First Try at Breadmaking

I've been bitten by the domestic bug today and have been cleaning and organizing like a mad woman.  But that wasn't enough....oh, noooooo!  I also decided to cook up the final two pumpkins from last fall AND try my hand at making some white bread rather than running to the store.

Since I'm a little lazy, I decided to try out something I saw over at The Iowa Housewife on making bread in your food processor.  I've got a breadmaker also, so I guess I could have done that, but the food processor was closer.  I told you I'm lazy.

I borrowed one of her recipes for simple white bread, but she's shared all kinds of recipes for cheese bread, herbed garlic rolls (yum!), buttermilk and other yummy breads. Here's the recipe I used for the white bread:

Simple White Bread ala Food Processor

Ingredients
(makes 1 loaf, or 16 slices)

2 teaspoons instant yeast (1 package)
1/2 tablespoon  sugar
3 cups bread flour -- 13 1/2 - 15 ounces
2 tablespoons butter (or shortening, lard or salad oil)
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup warm water
3/4 cup whole milk  (or water)

Directions

1. Combine all dry ingredients into processor bowl.  Use steel blade.
2. Mix about 5 seconds, until combined.
3. Heat liquids to 120-130°.  For me, this was about 50 minutes in the microwave and I used a candy tester to make sure the temprerature was right.
4. With food processor running, pour liquid through the feed tube in a steady stream as fast as the flour absorbs it.  Continue processing until dough cleans the side of the work bowl, about 45 seconds, then let the machine run to complete kneading, about 60 seconds.  Dough will be fully kneaded.
5. Let rise in covered work bowl, about 20 minutes.  I transferred the dough to a bowl and then covered it with a dish towel.
6. Punch the dough down.  Shape into a loaf and place in a greased 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 x 2" loaf pan.
7. Let dough rise in pan, covered with oiled or sprayed plastic wrap or waxed paper until center is 1" above rim of pan.  You want to be careful here that you don't strangle the rising dough with the cover.  I just placed it in my oven with the light on and covered it with a dish towel.
8. Preheat oven to 375° while the dough is rising in the pan.  Bake in the center of the preheated oven until loaf is well-browned and sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom, about 35 minutes. 
9. Brush the top of the slightly cooled loaf with butter for a soft crust.

Sue estimates the cost of making this at about $1.20 per loaf or 8¢ per slice (with milk) and $1.01 or 7¢ per slice(with water and no milk).  Since I scored some organic milk for just $1.25 per gallon on Friday and we already had the Red Mill organic bread flour on hand, my cost was much less than her estimates, and certainly less than what you could buy processed bread for in the store

I thought this was really simple to make and I can't wait to try some of her other recipes.  And I guess I can cross this off our list of goals for this month.

Got any tips for a newbie breadmaker or have you found other innovative ways to make bread?  Or have you made anything really tasty lately?  I'd love to hear about it.

I'm linking up to the Ol' Saturday Homesteading Trading Post and the Made From Scratch Blog Hop.  Check them out and find out what other folks are up to!

A Mish-Mash of Things

Doesn't it seem hard to believe that February is already done and gone?   Spring is here - at least weatherwise, if not by the calendar.  

Spring doesn't always bring good things with it, though.  First, we had an awful storm roll through two nights ago with some incredibly strong winds.  Fortunately, we didn't get any tornados but, unfortunately, other folks did.   It apparently devastated some small towns south of here.  So far, no one was killed and I hope it stays that way.  Those folks are definitely in our thoughts and we hope they are quick to recover from such an awful event.

Our neighbors behind us just moved after being foreclosed on.  They had moved in about 8 years ago and rescued another early 1900's Victorian that had burned.  It was sad to see them leave, as they were great neighbors - always friendly and she loved to come over and see how the chickens were doing.  As they were packing to leave, she brought over the egg basket in the picture.  She left it while we were at work, so we didn't even get to say goodbye as they left.

Speaking of chickens and eggs...  The total for February came to 183, which is more than double what the girls laid in January.  Must have been the mild winter because, as you may recall, we didn't put any artificial light in the coop.  And, interestingly enough, almost all but 2 of them are in some stage of molt right now but their laying has not decreased.  We'll see what happens as March progresses.

Oh, one more thing... I've signed up for a 4-week class titled "Food Not Lawns" at the University of Missouri. It's presented by master gardeners and its focus is on urban and suburb backyard gardening.  I'm hoping to learn lots from this class, as it comes highly recommended.  March should be interesting as I'll now be in class on Wednesday and Thursday nights.  J. asked if I was ever going to be home!

Goal Updates

Now that we're two months into 2012, I though I'd take a quick look at this year's goals and see what progress has been made.

Organize the basement, laundry room and pantry.

We've made substantial progress here and I need to do a post to update you with before and after pictures.  But we still need to do an inventory and sort through things for the yard sale in April.

Learn to make our own bread and eliminate store-bought bread. 

Nope, and this is just laziness.  We've got the recipes and we just need to do it.  I'm putting it on the March list of goals below.

Learn how to use my camera. 

Unfortunately, I procrastinated and the classes were full but I did put myself on the waiting list.

Finish renovations on our rental house. 

In progress!  We started with the major tree cleanup.

Finish the renovations on our tavel trailer and get it moved to our 40 acres.  Just a little work here with picking the fabric for the curtains.  Which I can now sew with the new Janome!

Finalize water management plans. No progress.

Diversity the plants in the garden.  DONE!  In my 2012 garden plan I've included lots of new plants such as spaghetti squash, bush beans, purple asparagus, onions, garlic, sunflowers, etc.

Get healthier.  Um, yeah.  :-)

In the interest of taking that gargantuan list in baby steps, I decided to make a list for what needs to be done in March.  I saw this over on My Simple Country Living and think it's a great idea, so I asked if I could steal it. My plan is to do a goal update at the end every month.

 Behold!  CrankyPuppy's monthly to-do list for March.

March To-Do List:

Till up the garden beds and lay in new (old) compost

Start tomatoes, peppers and flowers seedlings indoors

Build two potato bins and plant the Yellow Finns

Build trellis for cucumbers and spaghetti squash

Research and start a "chicken treat" garden

Make our own first loaf of bread

Finish organizing the basement and pantry

Get ready for the yard sale in April

Fix the bikes and make time to ride

Whew!  That's quite a list but I think it's do-able.