The apple scrap vinegar I made using Jonathan apple scraps turned such a gorgeous color of fuschia pink – and smells so good and appley – that I couldn’t just keep it for myself. I have a dear friend that donates her fancy empty bottles, mason jars, and egg cartons to me – I always […]
By tonight most of the gorgeous Fall leaves will be torn off the trees (thanks a lot, Sandy), so Sofía and I went around this past weekend collecting them to make “stained glass.” We sandwiched them between sheets of waxed paper and ironed them on medium-high (put a towel underneath to protect your ironing board). […]
Well, sort of. In a tangential sort of I’d-rather-be-crafting kind of way, I suppose. I finally got all this year’s harvest worth of beeswax melted down in my new melter-pourer. Yup, it’s in a double-boiler because beeswax is flammable. Never heat beeswax directly on a stove, folks. I heated it until it was just mostly […]
Look what I found! My old pottery website from 2006, two years before I was even pregnant with Sofía. I didn’t realize I’d left it live, but I’m glad I did. (Um, PS: I do much, MUCH better pottery nowadays, thanks primarily to my classes with Mea Rhee. Don’t judge me.) Looks like the basic […]
Our pond this year has been infiltrated by cattails. I’m not sure where they came from -their seeds drift in the wind, I suppose – and I’m not really sure whether or not I should destroy them or let them be. I don’t want them to entirely swallow our teeny little puddle of a pond, […]
Of delicious red tomatoes. No, these are not my own tomatoes, alas. These are from the farm stand just down the road; because of last night’s frost warning they were culling all the tomatoes from the fields and they had 1/2 bushel baskets set out front, stacked on bleacher seats, “Seconds! Buy 2 get one […]
I mentioned a while back that I was thinking about starting to dabble in silver, didn’t I? Well, I’m going to go ahead and blame that new obsession of mine for keeping me from blogging. (That and, you know, the garden dying with the end of the year so there’s nothing outside to blog about […]
It’s Fall, and for us that means Applesauce Time! With two kids we’ll go through it faster than ever. This year instead of going to a pick your own place we asked our local farmer if he had Jonathans (my favorite for applesauce and pies – I missed them SO MUCH last year!). He didn’t, […]
After spreading all that compost yesterday I still had time to mulch over one newly-straightened pathway. It took four wheelbarrowloads of mulch… and I found out just how out of shape I’d let myself get over the past year. My shoveling muscles are not what they used to be! I dug out half of another […]
This past weekend I made more pies than I’ve ever made before. A friend of mine was selling her Tea Pops at a Fall festival and needed pies to sell as well; so I made her a dozen. First the all-butter (always!) double crusts, assembly-line style, a couple days ahead of time. Then I cut […]