Remember last year, how I got that absolutely massive couple of sweet potatoes from my new hugel bed? They turned out great, sweet and not fibrous at all like I’d feared. So in case part of their massive growth was due to amazing genetics and not just the pond goop I’d topped the hugel with, I kept the top […]
I bought a huge clump of oyster mushrooms in the store a couple days ago. Josh and I refer to them as the beef jerky of the plant world – when crispy-fried in olive oil with just a sprinkle of sea salt and a dash of soy sauce glazed onto them at the last minute, […]
This was a really dry summer. I mean really dry. I’m not big into watering, more of a cross-my-fingers-and-hope-it-rains kind of gal, but even I had to give in a few times to save most of the plants on Backfill Hill. And even with the livestock waterers hooked up to 55 gallon water containers, I was […]
My new colony is doing great – the population absolutely exploded! In fact it boomed so much that the last week when I checked, every single frame in a two-deep was full of brood. I happily put on an extra box and walked away. You’d think this would be a good thing, right? Except I […]
The ducks and their chicken friends seem happy in the duckyard. Every night I tuck them into the old chicken tractor (which never will be mobile again, sadly) and check their feed and water. Which inevitably need refilling, which means I get to crouch down to chicken-tractor height and squelch through all that …not so […]
As you can see from the photo below, as big as my garden seems to me sometimes, it still only takes up about a quarter of our unused land. Maybe less. I really hate waste. Wasted energy, wasted potential, wasted resources. I’m not too fond of paying property taxes on a piece of land […]
We are now 1/4 protected against groundhogs and marauding chickens. I love, love, love this gate. Because it is the main gate, I fancified it with an arch using a tutorial I found over at Casa Decrepit a long time ago. I figured, with the number of times I walk through there per day, it […]
I love baking gourmet cakes, and sometimes I am asked to make them for friends and family, which I really enjoy. I love the fussiness of whipping up entirely different recipes from scratch for each distinct part – a filling, a frosting, a drench, maybe a ganache or caramel drizzle, and of course the cake […]
I decided to tackle another home organization project this past weekend … because just look at this. Shameful, I tell you. This is the cabinet where we store all our warranties and manuals. And other sundry stuff too, but it is the sloppy, sloping slide of papers I really wanted to tackle. I wish I […]
Ever. I promise. Have you ever heard of the sous vide cooking technique? I bet you have. It’s this suuuuper fancy technique where meat is sealed in vacuum bags and kept at carefully maintained temperatures for long periods of time, breaking down collagen etc while allowing no meat to escape. Actually, I shouldn’t pretend to […]