Ah the simple life. Sounds so placid, doesn’t it? All those simple pleasures: home-grown food, warm earth between our toes, the cluck and baa and buzz of backyard animals, the happy smells of a kitchen much used. So why does this simple life seem so freaking complex sometimes, huh? That’s the part no one talks…
The Basil Bliss
It’s been an unseasonably warm, late spring day and we’ve been digging a duck pond. It’s time for a drink. It’s not quite warm enough for the icy summer staples (gin and tonic, I’m looking at you) but the moody drinks of winter are just too emo for a day of high cirrus clouds against a clear…
{Giveaway} reCAP Fermentation Kit from FarmCurious
One of my most popular posts continues to be my tutorial on how to use a reCAP Mason Jar lid into a to hack together a flexible, cheap, DIY lacto-fermentation crock. This is a super easy DIY project, but it does require getting your hands on a homebrewing-style airlock and the right-size bung to fit…
Meet The Ducks!
Here’s the list of homestead things we were hoping to accomplish in 2014: Install Solar Panels. Plant Suburban Food Forest Build Pond – working on it. Get Ducks. Get Bees – too late; pushed to 2015. The solar panels are churning out a ton of power (nearly 40 kWh on a lovely sunny day), the trees,…
June 2014 Gardening Chores For The Pacific Northwest
This year is moving so fast I’m terrified I’m going to turn around twice and miss an entire month. It’s June, the plants seem about 2-4 weeks ahead and I feel about 2 weeks behind. I’m already picking ripe cherries, the tomatoes have little proto-fruit on them and the beans are about to hit the…
Mother Earth News Fair Meetup, New Book, High Mowing Organic Seed Discount
You know how sometimes you have a nice romantic dinner with your partner and you languidly discuss the topics of the day? And then sometimes you both set your calendar in front of you and you shovel spaghetti into your mouth while coordinating your To Do lists and appointments? Yeah, this post is the blog…
The Rhubarb 75
It’s not quite strawberry season, cherries look like small, hard green marbles and peaches are just a fuzzy dream. But there is rhubarb. Rhubarb is a strange edible. Not really a fruit but typically used as one, poisonous except for the stalk, tart and astringent and stringy when raw. Who was the first brave gatherer that…
How To Beat Stress Naturally (When You’re Ready To Scream!)
As my regular readers know, last week was kinda icky around here. My son was sick and super cranky (but without losing any of his trademark energy of course), there was a backlog of laundry, a sick kid crawling into bed every night meant sleep was a rare luxury, and nearly every surface of the…
{Giveaway} Mother Earth News Fair Weekend Tickets
I’m heading to the Mother Earth News Fair in a few weeks. This is a four-year-long tradition now – I think I’ve attended every Seattle-area Mother Earth News Fair since it started. I always come away from the Fair re-energized and re-inspired about what we’re trying to do here on our own one-third acre. I…
Things I've Said In The Past Week
Hello darling readers, I just wanted to check in and let you know I’m calling a mulligan on this entire week. We will get back to our regularly scheduled programming on Monday. Until then, here’s a few actual things I’ve said this past week that will give you a sense of how I’ve been spending…
Chocolate Mint Mojito
Mint isn’t just mint. There’s peppermint, spearmint, ginger mint, apple mint, pineapple mint, chocolate mint, lime mint and on and on. (Anyone ever seen Best in Show? Yeah, varieties of mint are kinda like the “I can name all the nuts” scene.) Different mints have different levels of super potent compounds that give them their…
To Do In The Northwest Edible Garden: May 2014
May is a month of promise – amnesia about last year’s failures has taken hold and it’s easy to convince ourselves that this will be the year everything goes right. Weeds will never germinate, pests and diseases will not visit us, perfectly ripe produce will leaps forth like Athena from the forehead of Zeus and…