Feeling Like a Farm

Rabbit pellets will be enjoyed by the red wigglers and the garden plants.

Red wigglers create nutrient-rich worm castings.

Kohlrabi to be enjoyed by humans and rabbits alike.

As time goes on our dreams of becoming more self-sufficient are slowly falling into place. Everyday it's feeling more and more like a farm. In addition to our dogs and cats we have now added a rabbit,  two goldfish and red wigglers to our collection. It is a life cycle. The rabbit waste and our vegetable scraps feed the red wigglers. The red wigglers create worm castings that will make a rich fertilizer for our garden. The rabbit pellets and the newspaper litter get soaked in water for a day and go into one of our three compost piles. Other rabbit pellets go into jugs of water to make a tea for watering potted plants. The water from the goldfish pond that we scoop out when cleaning it goes  into the compost pile. All of these fun fertilizers go into the garden, the potted  plants and our fruit trees.  We have a plum tree, two fig trees and a grape vine. We recently transplanted two blueberry plants and a peach tree so we are hoping they will eventually produce. On cold nights the garden and pots get covered with plastic weighed down by rocks and logs so we have managed to keep everything going this winter. The garden right now is two beds on thick plastic to keep the weeds out. It is made of a mixture of the heavy clay soil that was already there, compost and some soil dug out of the woods behind my house. One row is made up of individual mounds of kohlrabi plants. The other is half Italian lettuce mix and half Grand Rapids lettuce. Last year we had excellent luck with the Grand Rapids. It lasted for a long time in the hot summer before if finally started bolting. It was huge and we had fresh salad every night.  In pots we have kohlrabi plants, kale, Black-Seeded Simpson lettuce and a few straggly spinach and endive.  The vegetable and frutis  in turn feed the rabbit and us. The fish get all the food they need right in the pond. The worms will hopefully catch us some fish. Next on our list are chickens and we hope to follow with goats. The chicken area is already laid out and measured and all the pieces that we have gathered  so far are in place. Now we need to buy chicken wire and some tarps to complete it. In the meantime my friend and I are planning a dual family garden to do at her house. Both of are families will do the work and share the spoils.  Today we will start some tomato and pepper seeds so that they will be ready to plant in a few months. By then the garden area will be tilled up with some top soil and manure added to it. I also hope to be involved again this year with the Keep Decatur County Beautiful community garden. It will all be hard work but the fruits and veggies of our labor will be worth it.

Potted edibles.

Kohlrabi mounds and lettuce beds.

The future chicken pen.

The pond water makes adds moisture and nutrients to the compost pile.

Waste Not, Want Not

I’m not sure when our society became so disposable. We dispose of anything from razors to entire buildings and it just doesn’t seem right to me. I make an effort not to waste but I wish I could do even better. Here are some ways I like to use things in order to reduce, reuse and recycle. If you have some tips of your own I would love to hear them. Please post them in the comment section.

Food is rarely ever wasted in my home anymore.  If my dogs can eat it I will give it to them.  If not it can go the compost pile. Leftover meat grease from my husband’s cooking is made into gravy for dogs or humans. When I am at the end of the mayonnaise, mustard or ketchup bottle and it’s too hard too scrape I like to take that container and mix my own homemade salad dressing right  in the bottle. I shake it all up and the  leftover condiment becomes part of the dressing. It may seem like that small amount of mayo in the jar is nothing but I feel better about using it. I am sure if we were starving as some people are that we would get every drop out of it.  Sometimes I use the leftover vinegar from pickles, olives or hot peppers as a salad dressing base. Seeds rarely get “wasted” at my house. I often dry them out so I can try to grow some of them. Now since I recently learned that all squash seeds are edible I am saving all of those for eating. Right now I am drying spaghetti squash and pumpkin seeds for toasting.

All containers that I can recycle are sorted. Tin and aluminum I can save up and sell for scrap metal.  Plastic one and two I can recycle in my area. I have recently heard of a place in Tallahassee that can recycle all types of plastics and lids. I am going to look into to see if I can bring mine there along with the glass I am saving for them. For now I like to recycle all of the containers in my area and the rest I keep to reuse as storage containers for various things like leftovers, pushpins, craft supplies and you name it. Paper, brown cardboard and magazines I recycle. Newspaper I save for emergency cat litter and art projects. Old envelopes become seed storers. Pretty colored paper I  save for homemade paper projects. I save many long-necked glass bottles because they are great for homemade wines and vinegars.

Empty milk jugs and large juice bottles I wash and save for many uses. Some I have saved  for adding to our emergency water supply storage. Each one gets a drop of bleach added to the bottle along with the water and then it goes into  the storage room. Other jugs I use for watering plants and mixing liquid fertilizer. Still others are used as temporary containers in our new homemade wine-making adventures. I have been known to mix up my own homemade cleaners and store them in these containers too. Make sure you carefully label all of your containers. You don’t want to end up with a terrible thing called container confusion. Years ago I accidentally took a swig of oxy-clean solution  that was in a water jug. I had to call poison control to make sure I would be ok. They said I might vomit but otherwise I would be fine. I never did vomit or feel sick but I did get an embarrassing story to tell out of it.

Empty bread bags, tortilla wrap bags and the like I save  for putting our lunch sandwiches into. I just shake out the crumbs and save it for brown bagging it which is what we normally do if we are working. That way at least I get an extra use out of the bag and I don’t waste a Ziploc or have a dish to wash which saves water. My father has used bread bags to wrap up open cheese for years. I wash and freeze plastic soda and juice bottles. These are the ice packs for the lunch. I make Kool-Aid or iced coffee for drinks which go into the recycled bottles as well. The homemade ice packs, drinks and lunch all go into a plastic Wal-Mart  bag. It works great.!

Plastic pet food bags are great for placing around plants in the garden to keep weeds from springing up. They can also be used underneath for raised beds with the same effect.  Old clothes that aren’t good enough to donate I will tear up into cleaning rags which I like to use instead of paper towels. Old t-shirts are a nice bedding for a homemade cat bed made from a cardboard box.

Finally, one of the most fun projects I recently did was reuse parts of an old dishwasher. We recycled much of it for scrap metal. The compartment that held silverware I am reusing as an extra drainer for washing dishes. The large bottom drainer is now a jewelry rack. I purchased some spray paint that can be used on plastics and vinyl in the color burnished silver. First I wiped it down with ammonia to help the paint adhere better. Once it dried I had to spray several light coats of the paint over a period of two days and then  let it dry for a week. Now it hangs up on the wall as a perfect place for French hook earrings, bracelets, rings and necklaces.

I am always trying to think about how I can reuse it or recycle it before putting it into the trash. I am pretty good at reusing and recycling but I need to get better at reducing the amount of waste I create in the first place. Here is a link to a videos about the Johnsons, an awesome “zero waste” family that I aspire to be more like: http://vitality.yahoo.com/video-second-act-the-johnson-family-24454760 . Mrs. Johnson has a blog called the Zero Waste Home that is very interesting: http://zerowastehome.blogspot.com/2011/

Spiders Are My Friends

    I'm not the type to be afraid of spiders and I'm not the type to go around killing them. If it is not a black widow or a brown recluse then it is safe with me. When I lived in upstate New York, I never had to worry about anything poisonous. Living previously in Nevada and now living in Georgia is a totally different story. Poisonous snakes and spiders are going to be somewhere in the neighborhood. Luckily, I don't get to interact with them too often. If you are a black widow or a brown recluse and you show up in or around my house, I'm sorry but I am going to kill you. If you are another type of spider, welcome to my home!  I have insects and you eat them right? So let's work out a deal. I won't kill you and you kill them. Is that fair enough?
    Down in South Georgia we have some great and beautiful spiders. The jumping spiders are fascinating. There are thousand of species of these so I have no idea which ones I have seen. I thought I could catch them but they leap away from you at super speed. Once I saw one on the bathroom wall and a fly was on the wall nearby. The jumping spider seemed very still for moment and then instantly pounced onto the fly.

underside view

side view

    Size-wise these jumping spiders are nothing compared to one that is frequently seen in my area. This beautiful creature has a lovely yellow body with white spots and long legs that are brown and yellow striped. I thought at first that it was commonly known as a yellow garden spider or Argiope spider. Now that I have received a helpful comment from a friend, I have found that is called a banana spider (Nephila clavipes), which seems a very suitable name.  I am just assuming it's a girl and I call her Goldy. My aunt and uncle once had a golden retriever named Goldy and this spider is nearly big enough to put on a leash. This one I have seen attached to the outside of my house but more often I see it in the woods. One lovely girl has had her web set up across one of our nature paths for over a month. At first she shared the web with what I believe to have been  several small males who may have been rallying around her for some spider lovin'. One day they were just all gone. Did they go upon their merry way or did she eat them? They were a small fraction of her mammoth size and I am tempted to believe she is a man-eater.

top view

    The first time I saw the crab-like orb weaving spider I did a double take. It looks like it has little thorns sticking out of it and is also known as a spiny orb weaver. I couldn't believe it when I saw that it was a spider making a web. Last year one took up residence in the front yard for several months and became known to me as Charlotte, the most cliche name I could think of for a spider. Its web was suspended between the large evergreen in our front yard and the ground below. I would often watch it building its web. This year the ones I have seen stuck around only a few days. One had its sparse web precariously hanging between some high tree branches with one thread attached to the grass below during several windy days. Maybe it figured out this wasn't a good place because it soon disappeared.

    I recently made friends with a small spider that had taken up residence in a rather strange place. It was living in the crease on the top outside edge of my cats' pet food bag. I decided that one could stay too. I certainly don't want insects getting in the cat food. It would sit lurking in the shadows behind its web in between the crease of the bag just waiting to catch its unsuspecting victims.  My friend the spider was there for over a week until one day my husband thought he was doing me a favor by feeding the cats. I had shown him the spider before but he had forgotten about it and just picked up the cat food bag to dump onto their dishes. I, on the other hand always scoop the food from the bag by hand so as not to disturb my little friend. Since my husband forget about my new pet, it is now MIA. Hopefully it just set up a new location in my cats' room.
    Here's to you spiders, my natural pest control friends. Thanks for being there for me. You don't hurt me so I won't hurt you and I am always here to provide plenty of insect action in my home!

Using Every Part of My Produce Presents

    I had lots of jalapenos and habaneros, I needed to find ways to use them. I decided I had to make a hot chili out of those babies. One thing that I have learned over the years is never tell them what you are cooking. That way if something goes wrong and you have to make something else they won't think you are a bad cook. Or if it turns out to be something else by mistake they don't need to know that either. Years ago when my husband and I first got married I said I was going to make chili but it came out like soup. My husband didn't think it was very good chili, but if I had just served it and said "here's your soup" it would have been fine.
    So I intended to make chili but I really didn't have enough tomatoes to make it thick enough. I wanted to make it go farther so I made Hot Chili Soup in the crock pot instead. This is a vegetarian soup but in this case I cooked some ground beef in the microwave for my husband and he added it to his bowl. The soup was delicious, flavorful and spicy hot. We crumbled up lots of whole wheat saltines into it and topped it with a dollop each of nacho cheese sauce and a homemade sour cream-based onion dip.

    To use the fresh lemon I cut half of it up and put it in iced tea. The other half I used for a homemade salad dressing for some fresh garden greens that I grew in outside pots. No part of the produce went to waste.  I had hot peppers left over so some I chopped and added to an already hot vinegar that my husband had made and kept in the refrigerator. The others I chopped finely and placed on ceramic plates outside in the sun to dehydrate naturally for a few hours. In the evening I brought them inside and placed in the kitchen cupboard to dry for a few days. Now they are dried and  look like a beautiful green and yellow confetti. I will put this in a recycled container for a future chili or soup. Three separate ceramic plates hold the seeds from the lemon, jalapenos and habaneros and are sitting in a cupboard to dry. I always keep one kitchen cupboard open for drying things on plates. The seeds will be placed in labeled envelopes and be added to my seed box later. I am very excited to try planting the lemon seeds. The man who gave the lemon to my husband got 150 lemons off his tree last year. All of the scraps from the peppers and lemon went into the compost pile.
    One thing I will remember next time is that I need to wear latex gloves when chopping habaneros.With a Scoville Scale hotness factor of between 100,000 to 500,00 they can really burn. The jalapenos only rate at 2500 to 5000. The Scoville Scale ranges from a 0 to 1,000,000.  After working with the peppers for three days I am paying the price. While ringing out an ammonia soaked mop with rubber gloves my hands started burning because they had a leak in them. Later I did the dishes wearing gloves in very hot water. Afterwards they were throbbing and burning so bad that I took an ibuprofen. It even hurts my hands to shower! An injury from a habanero was not what I expected but I won't  make that mistake again. 

 Hot Chili Soup  
1 cup dried kidney beans
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 cloves minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons chili powder
1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 finely chopped jalapenos
1 finely chopped habanero
1 1/4 cups salsa
1 14.5 oz can diced Italian tomatoes
1 10 oz can diced tomatoes with green chilis
     Since I wanted this ready in time for dinner but did not soak the beans overnight, I heated a bowl of water in the microwave with a lid on it until it was almost boiling. Then I soaked the kidney beans for about four hours. I drained, rinsed and put them in the crock pot covered with a few inches of water on high. After several hours I tested them to see if they were at the desired tenderness. Mine took about four hours. Once they were done I scooped out most of the water, leaving about a half inch covering the beans. I added the remaining ingredients and simmered for another hour. You can serve it with crumbled whole wheat saltines or tortilla chips and  a dollop of nacho cheese and sour cream dip.



Lemon Dressing
zest from 1/2 a lemon
juice from 1/2 a lemon
1 T white vinegar
salt and pepper to taste
   Mix it all up and pour on top of fresh salad greens. I like to use citrus pepper or lemon pepper in mine. To get the zest of the lemon, gently scrape it across the small part of a cheese grater. Top the salad with almonds if desired.

  

My Three Country Gifts

   One thing I have noticed since I have moved to Georgia is that people are always giving you fresh produce. Since we moved here we have gotten corn, watermelons, squash and more. The community garden I joined provided cucumbers, squashes, herbs and snap beans. Now that my husband goes to people's houses for his new job they give him things too. He came home the other day and told me had three things for me. One was a fresh lemon. I have never had a fresh lemon. Years ago we tried to grow a miniature citrus tree and the lemons got to be quarter size and fell off. The lemon  was still a little green on one side so I thought I was smart setting it in the sun to finish ripening. When I looked it up on line I discovered that once you pick lemons they don't ripen anymore. That's ok because I was determined to use it anyway.

     The second thing he gave me was a bag of jalapenos and habaneros. We love hot peppers so I had to figure out how I would use these too. I took a little sliver off the tips to see how hot they were. They tasted like green peppers. I told my husband they weren't hot at all which I could not understand. It turns out I just did not take enough of a sliver because I did not even get to the hot part. They definitely were hot.
    The last thing he gave me was a dead bee. Yes, I said a dead bee. My husband thought I would love a dead bee and he was absolutely right. I will add it to my insect collage that I am making. Insects are just so pretty it's a shame to let their dead bodies go to waste. But I will save that story of how I started an insect collage for another day. I'm glad my husband knows me well enough to know that I love the little things in life like insects and produce. I guess he did learn something after 16 years.
    

Back on the Country Side

   About a year ago my husband and I left Las Vegas after 10 years and moved to the small town of Climax, Georgia. People often ask me if I am bored here because there are so many things to do in that big city in Nevada. The answer is an adamant "no". I love it here. I grew up in the countryside, the daughter of a dairy farmer in upstate New York.  Now I feel can get back into the green side of me that loves growing things and enjoying the natural world. My husband grew up here and since we have returned to this area we have grown our own vegetables, picked wild blackberries and made our first homemade wine. I even joined a community garden.  We have two fig trees and a plum tree in the yard. Wildflowers dot the grass. We created nature trails in the woods on our property.  With the population in Climax at about 297 people and Las Vegas at about 583,756 people you might think I'd be bored as can be. But  I have made friends and joined groups in the nearby city of Bainbridge.  We traded in the night life for the country life. The city was fun while it lasted but now I'm back on the country side.