Bird Feeder

    About two months ago I attended a local Arts and Craft Fair/ Farmer's Market that happens annually near my home.  One of the vendors had little homemade bird feeders made mostly out of 1by 2's and 3's and mesh wiring.  They were cute, practical, and seemingly inexpensive to make so I studied the feeders and decided to try my hand at building one soon.  I kept a look out for scraps of wood my husband would bring home from his many remodeling jobs and Mother's Day weekend I decided it was time to create the feeder since cardinals, blue jays, and red- winged black birds were gracing the yard daily!

    I searched through the scrap wood pile and found a number of pieces that would work perfectly for my feeder and then set off to find a skill saw in the shed to begin. Somehow, with the multitude of tools my husband owns, I was unable to locate a saw.  Since he has been working on a large job I assumed all tools were with him for the day.  Suddenly, I had to revisit my bird feeder plans.  

    In the corner of one of our sheds Justin has a dozen or so logs stored up to use for creating sculptures (once he has both a bigger shop and more time).   My two or three creative genes started up.  I had logs and I had chisels.  Thus, the new, impromptu bird feeder plan was birthed.  The new plan consisted of using a chisel to create a circular recession a half inch deep at the top that could be filled with bird feed (in this case safflower seeds for cardinals) and then, in a very rustic way, sit nestled between a couple of nandina shrubs right out front of our living room window.  I set to work removing parts of the wood and about thirty minutes later, my feeder was sitting in its new home.  

   

    While I don't typically do any woodworking/ chiseling/ sculpting (Justin is the artistic and creative one in this match) I really enjoyed the simplicity of the little project and working with the wood.  Justin promises to teach me more about carving correctly and efficiently in the future, but for now I can mark "Making My Own Bird Feeder" off of the to do list.  

    Now, I'm just waiting for those cardinals to start fluttering around the feeder for a delightful show in front of our window! 

Tomatoes and Peppers

         Its been a few weeks since I invested a little time and energy into the garden.  Mothers day worked out to allow for free time during the day, so I took full advantage of my time and the beautiful day and tended to the garden.  The veggies are looking a lot better since I added the Miracle Gro a couple of weeks ago but I still wanted to add a little top soil under each plant to reduce the amount of compost.  This, as you can imagine, was somewhat time consuming to achieve.  The black weed paper was one obstacle I had to overcome.  I thoroughly enjoy not having to pick weeds (yet) out of the garden thanks to the paper so it was important that I didn't rip the paper too much and have gapping holes.  The other concern is obvious: the plants are rooted in their location and I didn't want to uproot them.  With painstaking care, I added enough topsoil to make myself feel better and offer a little incentive to the plants to continue growing.  I did, of course, rip a huge hole in the black paper in one area of the garden but, ah, what's a girl to do!

Roma Tomatoes
(The variety I am growing) 

        I also transplanted my three tomato plants and a banana pepper plant.  I had previously moved the tomato plant seedlings to clay pots outdoors to give each plant more room to grow.  The plants quickly became larger transplants and looked great.  When I finally moved them to the garden I was amazed at the speed in which the roots grew.  It seems like the roots must have been out of room to grow a week or two ago without my realizing it.  I carefully transplanted the four plants into a lovely mixture of top soil, native soil, and compost.  Hopefully, delicious ripened tomatoes and peppers will make it to my table soon!

         The green bean stalks are starting to flower and the fig tree is starting to produce figs (not yet ripe).  I plan to get a camera soon so that I can share photos of whats going on.  We already have a camera but its designated for the business since Justin takes a lot of pictures for work.  My last little project yesterday was one of inspiration rather than a "to do".  More on that for my next post!

A Little Left of Well

I've been sick for nearly two weeks now so it's been a little while since my last post.  On top of that, the garden is struggling and hanging on for dear life due to some mysterious cause.  The leaves of the plants were turning yellow instead of a bright and happy green and it seemed that the plants' growth was stunted but there were no bugs to be seen and I don't suspect any type of disease.  We have a few hypotheses for the culprit: too much watering, not enough watering, high levels of chlorination in our water, too much compost, the garden gods are against us.  After talking it over with a few family members that garden and are much more skilled than I, we decided to get Miracle Gro for vegetables (which I was mildly saddened to have to purchase) and 200 ft of extra hose so that we can better water our garden.

Side note on the watering situation: The garden is about 200 ft from our outside source of water.  We have a rain barrel that we put out a couple of months ago with the intent of watering the garden with rain water but it has rained exactly 1 time since we put it out, so no watering from the rain barrel yet.  I was lugging jugs of water to water the veggies until today.  (See why I blame the garden gods?  One dose of rain in two months, really?  I guess the garden gods forgot the phrase, "April showers, bring May flowers".)  Ok, back to the story.

This 200 ft. of hose just made my life and my garden so much better.  I expect that with the Miracle Gro, the new found source of water, and the Alaska Fish Fertilizer we have been using, our garden will recover in no time.

Since I haven't been out in the yard for about a week now because of my sickness, I was delightfully surprised by our blackberry bush.  Four cups of plump blackberries were ready for the picking and literally hundreds of red berries are patiently waiting to turn black.  I doused the bush with water (thanks to my new hoses) to encourage nice plump berry production.

For the first time back in the garden in a week, it felt really nice to be out there and feel like I was being productive with the garden.  I still need to transplant our tomato plants which look great and I need to pot the lavender transplant I bought from the farmers market.  Those thing will have to wait until Monday though, because Festival International is this weekend and plenty of good music, friends, and food are awaiting!

Earth Day 2011

Happy Earth Day! 

Clean Simply

I love the idea of simplifying my life as much as possible.  Do away with the mental, emotional and physical clutter.  Even when my post doesn't focus on this Zen topic, you will probably see it as a theme through them.  Mother Teresa once said, "Live simply so that others may simply live."  Simple yet profound.

Don't worry- this post isn't going to tell you to get rid of your home or clothes.  Rather, I want to share with you about a couple of new books I purchased (both in the neighborhood of $6!).

clean: the humble art of zen cleansing by Michael de Jong is packed with practical, useful information in spite of its pint- size appearance.  Jong gives you remedies for everyday household cleaning needs such as cleaning counters, tubs, and sinks as well as even bigger task like getting mud out of carpet or removing wallpaper.  You may not be impressed yet since you probably have a store bought cleaning product for each of these needs.

Jong uses only 5 ingredients for ALL cleaning needs: Baking Soda, Borax, Lemon, Salt, and White Vinegar.  Most task only require one or two of these ingredients.  I've tested out several of his concoctions and was delightfully surprised!  I've already made an agreement with my mom to bring her my over 20 store bought cleaning products for use at her store.  I can't wait to have the extra space to store gardening supplies (we have a small house!).

I'll give you one recipe to test out before moving on to the next book (also by Jong).

"Mix one- quarter cup borax and one- quarter cup baking soda to make the best bathroom and kitchen cleanser ever. Add some salt as an abrasive, if necessary" (120).

To my delight, Justin discovered another book by Jong called, clean body: the humble art of zen- cleansing yourself.  I don't know about you, but I find it outrageous what a girl has to pay for a good moisturizer or exfoliating cream. Jong, again, gives you five ingredients to tackle all of your bodily cleaning needs: Baking Soda, Lemon, Olive Oil (really good quality), Salt, White Vinegar.

I tested out his facial scrub this morning and loved it.

"In a gentle, circular motion, apply this homemade facial scrub: a brew of three parts baking soda to one part water.  Rub the scrub in gentle circles from your forehead to your jawline to your chin, taking your time as you go.  Rinse super well to reveal a clean, fresh- scrubbed mug.  No need to towel yourself; just let your skin air- dry" (53).

Jong looks at ways to clean and enhance elbows, knees, faces, feet, hair, hands, mouth, privates (yep), scalp, skin, and even your tush.

Try these recipes for yourself and see what you think.  If you have a specific need that you would like to see what Jong's remedy is for that problem, let me know and I'll see what his advice is.  I know our local library has a copy of the first book (actually I still have it!), so check there first before you purchase the books if you aren't sure you are going to like them.  I know I'm looking forward to simplifying, saving money, increasing my storage space, and having less chemicals in my home!

Eggs: It Does the Body Good

Since Easter is nearly upon us and a big part of the Easter celebration includes dying hard- boiled eggs, I thought it fitting to spotlight the often forgotten about hard- boiled egg. Justin and I eat two boiled eggs nearly every morning of the work week.  Each Sunday, while cleaning house and working in the yard, I put about a dozen eggs boiling to supply our breakfast for the whole week.

There are a number of reasons that I do this.  One reason is the fact that eggs are really good for you!  Two eggs provide the following: 12.6 g of protein which have 18 different amino acids ; 10.6 g of fat (3.3 g of saturated), 56% of the DRI for selenium, 24% of DRI for phosphorus (helps store energy), 14% of the DRI for zinc, 46% of the DRI for riboflavin and viamin B12, 40% of the DRI of choline (boost brain health), 28% of pantothenic acid, 12% of folate, large amounts of Vitamin B, 22% of the DRI for vitamin A, 6% of vitamin E, 352 mcg of lutein (antioxidant that promotes healthy skin and eyes).  Many say that the cholesterol found in eggs can be bad for you so they recommend limiting the amount of eggs you eat.  New research shows that the type of cholesterol in eggs is actually the "good" kind of cholesterol.  While, I am not in any way a health adviser or telling any of my readers what to do, I would prefer to eat eggs with the chance of increased cholesterol (even "bad" cholesterol) than to eat the other types of readily available breakfast foods.

This brings me to my second reason for dining on eggs for breakfast.  I don't like to prepare breakfast in the morning.  Plan and simple.  If I don't have my boiled eggs, I end up not eating breakfast 90% of the time.  Unfortunately, most quick prep breakfast items are bad for you.  Most cereals are loaded with sugar and rarely contain enough vitamins and minerals to last you to lunch.  This is the same for pre-packaged oatmeals.  Regular old steel- cut oatmeal is a good alternative for breakfast but is a little more time consuming to prepare.  If I had the gumption to make a good breakfast before work I would definitely consider steel- cut oatmeal with fresh fruit, honey and a little brown sugar and cinnamon.  Another alternative would be plain yogurt with fresh fruit.  (Not the fruit- flavored yogurt you can purchase in stores.)

I love the simplicity and lack of effort it takes to prepare the eggs (I hate doing dishes!).  This is how I boil my eggs.

1) In a pot with enough cold water to cover eggs, place the desired number of eggs to be boiled.
2) Turn stove on medium high- you want the water to come to a slow boil and not a roaring boil that will crack all of your eggs before they're boiled!
3) Continue boiling eggs for 5 minutes.
4) Cut the heat off, place pot on another cool burner and cover.  Let sit for 15- 20 minutes.
5) Rinse eggs with cold water multiple times.  If the eggs continue cooking, the yoke will turn a greenish color which is still delicious but a little dry.

*I don't add any salt to the water for boiling or to the eggs when I eat them.  I get more than enough salt in my other meals so I keep it simple and healthy in the morning.

We currently purchase the two and a half dozen trays of eggs a week but will eventually rely on our own chickens once our yard is "chicken ready".

Happy Easter and 

Happy Eating!

References for statistics:
LiveStrong.com 
whfoods.org

Hub City Farmer's Market

Every Saturday from 8 am- 12 pm the Hub City Farmer's Market is bustling with several vendors and shoppers looking for the freshest vegetables, breads, tamales, etc.  I rarely make it to the market because I work many Saturdays and its all the way across town.  Plus, if you want the good pickin's, you need to get there first thing in the morning.  When I am not working on Saturdays, I don't like to rush out of the house early in the morning.  I planned to go this Saturday though with by baby nephew, Jaxson, in tow.  We met a friend at the market closer to 11- which was really too late to get any of the vegetables I wanted.  The good thing is that everyone's signs still said what they had sold that day (even if sold out) which is helpful for my next trip in a couple of weekends.  


There were several booths dedicated to just vegetables.  The largest one being the Gotreaux Family Farm.  This family is really unique.  They have a huge farm, I actually toured it once, and not only practice organic farming but practice nutrient dense farming.  This may be confusing to some but there is a difference.  Organic farming is really about what you don't add to your veggies or soil (chemicals, pesticides, etc.).  Nutrient dense farming is that plus adding organic matter that increases the nutrients in the vegetable.  There were of course other booths selling vegetables but unfortunately for me, all that was left were beets and swiss chard which I was not looking to purchase today.

Click here to go to the  Hub City Farmer's Market website

One of the vendors was a younger guy selling plants that he grew from seeds in his greenhouse in Lafayette.  He had a great selection of herbs and vegetables and other houseplants.  I was in the market for lavender and he had several beautiful plants for me to choose from.  My friend purchased a pineapple sage plant along with a hanging basket of "culinary herbs".  


We moved down to a booth that sells roasted coffee.  I was intrigued, being that I LOVE coffee.  We asked her about where she got the coffee from and how she roasted it at her home in Lafayette.  The coffee I purchased is from Nigeria and the growers parents actually live here and are friends with the vendor.  Thus, she simply buys the "green" beans directly from the grower and then she roast them upon arrival.  At the market, she only sells what she has roasted that week.  


There were other booths that were selling items from beautiful homemade cypress furniture to baby bibs and even painted decorative flamingos for your garden.  I didn't recall seeing these booths the last time I went so I inquired.  It turns out that every third Saturday of the month craft vendors set up shop along with the vegetable growers and bakers.  


The market is a great place to start becoming a Locavore even in small ways.  Its a great feeling to talk to the farmer or person who produced the product you are purchasing because you know you are not just getting quality food but supporting that family.  The market is also a great place to get advice!  The vendor who hand raised seedling plants (whom I purchased my lavender from) was more than happy to give me advice AND tell me some of his failures so that I didn't attempt them.  Who knows, maybe one day I'll have a booth there, assuming I have more successes than failures in the gardening department. 

So all you need to do now is GO to the market!

When: The market takes place EVERY Saturday, year round from 8-12
Where: The Oil Center, 427 Heyman Street 
Who: Anyone can attend, it is a great family atmosphere with many of the vendors children there helping out