Back in the Swing

At least I'm trying to get back in the swing of things.

School starts next Wednesday, I have to start work next Tuesday.  But I spent a few hours in my classroom yesterday and today, and will come in tomorrow.  Got to get my head around that place again.

One of our chickens eats eggs.  Got any good solutions?

We've been eating tons of great food out of the garden.  And taking no pictures and sharing none of it with you.  Think zucchinis, yellow summer squash, kale, beans, broccoli, tomatoes, strawberries, and cabbage.

We went to a fun wedding this last weekend, outside at a camp, with lots of friends, all weekend long.  Maybe I can round up some pictures soon to share.

Lucy keeps getting attacked by Gil, our yellow duck.  He's developed quite the personality lately.  Lucy is scared of him, which is quite hilarious considering he can run underneath her easily.  Don't worry, it doesn't hurt her at all.  But it might just be video camera worthy.

We canned nectarines and didn't take any pictures.  It was hot and we were cranky.  They look almost exactly like the peaches, so go back and look at that picture if you need to.  But I do have some good jam and preserve recipes to share. 

It's been a good summer, now to just cram in a few last fun, relaxing moments before it ends.  And probably a few last projects too.

Abbey

Abbey is a freakin' awesome cat. She is the cattiest of all our cats, and not in a bad way at all.

She really claimed us. In the summer of 2008, we saw her in the parking lot of apartment building, in the middle of the night, several nights in a row. She would play with us when we walked by, and would try and come in our house with us. She was tiny, scrawny, and covered with fleas. She wasn't afraid of anything. A few times she made it in our house, checked out John and Paul, who were terrified of her, and tried to sleep on the couch. After a few days of this, we decided to keep her. At least until we could find a home for her. We brought her on the deck, cleaned her up and started feeding her. She was super hungry. And we posted missing kitten signs, just in case she was lost. After a couple days of her making herself at home, we decided to keep her. Who saw that coming?

We made her an appointment to get spayed, gave her an appropriate Beatles themed name, and bought her a collar. After all those nights of her running around in the parking lot, and then almost a week of living in our house, a neighbor called about missing a kitten. So, she went back to live with them. Clawing them all the way across the parking lot. I cried.

Fast forward a few more weeks. During this time I had been drooling over browsing through the kittens on craigslist and I stumbled across an available kitten that looked just like our Abbey. With an address right next door. And the owner wanted $20 for the medication she had put into her for getting rid of fleas. We went and got Abbey back the next day. And no, I did not pay the $20.

Abbey now spends her days doing exactly as she pleases. She isn't intimidated by Lucy at all. Sometimes, she teases Lucy to get Lucy to chase her. I swear. Other times, Lucy will bark at her while she is sleeping and try and paw at her and Abbey just flat out ignores it. It's awesome. She comes and goes when she pleases. She taught the boys to hunt and kills countless mice everyday and the occasional bird. She's a great farm cat. She doesn't chase our ducks or our chickens. If she doesn't make it inside before we go to bed at night, she knows to come to our bedroom window and meow. She doesn't ever eat so much that she throws up (John and Paul). She refuses to learn tricks for treats. She claimed the window seat bed as her own. She isn't scared of anything. She doesn't always want love (John) but when she decides she wants your attention, she REALLY loves it and lets you know it.

And here are a "few" photos of the little girl.

Abbey learning to be a lounge cat.

Abbey dressing up for our Christmas card that year

Abbey's first time in the snow. Yes, she is on a leash. We lived in an apartment and in those days, the cats weren't allowed to go outside, only on our deck.

Abbey when we first got her, banished to the deck because of fleas.

After a few good meals, making herself at home.

Abbey, with a mouse she was sharing with us.

A bear

My parents have a bear that visits their yard. I find that slightly disconcerting.

This picture is from the kitchen window.  Can you see it?

And with a little zooming in.  This is where the garden is.  Granted, this picture was taken back in May, but I think bears in your garden puts a bit of a damper on growing.

Happy Birthday Dad!

Happy Birthday Dad!  We love you!

While we are busy at a wedding today, Andrew and I were able to go down about a week ago and have birthday dinner and spend the evening with my wonderful father.  Check out the amazing present that Andrew made him!  Andrew amazes me with his ability to have an idea and actually follow it through.

BBQ with the Ward Family

Oh, about a month ago now (oh, did I have you tricked into thinking I'm on top of it? sorry!), while we were in Utah, my cousin Mandi kindly hosted a BBQ for us so that we could see all of Ward Family that was in Utah.  I was too busy chasing Lucy and trying to chat with people to take many pictures, luckily my aunt Dana was on it.  And she made this awesome slide show that made it so wonderfully easy to share with you all.  It was great to see everyone, thanks for hosting Mandi!  Wish it wasn't so long it between visits!

Multitasking

Two posts in one day?!?! Are you shocked? Well don't get too excited. I don't have any pictures for this one. And I don't have any purpose as to why I'm blogging, so this may be a completely boring post. But I'm home, all evening, without Andrew or Lucy, making jam, and there is no one online to chat with. So while I'm making batch after batch of jam, I thought I would take a minute to write. Ah, the joys of having a laptop. Pandora, facebook, google reader, and blogging while I'm stuck in the kitchen.

Until last Saturday, Andrew and I hadn't been apart for more than a few hours all summer long. We spent all last Saturday apart, and now he has been doing a band camp every evening this week. Stupid, mushy, sure. But I hate having him gone. Everything is better when I'm doing it with him.

This is the first time I have canned or made jam without him. The process is not near as smooth, the kitchen is way messier, and there is no laughing or talking. I prefer middle of the night canning sprees.

Lucy is being boarded this weekend while we are at weddings. She's at a great place. They breed and show Great Danes, and they board a few large breed dogs at a time. The dogs they breed play and get the same treatment as their dogs, so I know she is in good hands. Probably better than ours. It was still weird to leave her though. It was very abrupt and she had no idea what was happening. And the house feels strangely dead tonight. We don't get her back until Monday morning.

I picked blackberries in the dark tonight. With a headlamp on. Headlamps illuminate spiders but not thorns. Eight cups is a lot of blackberries. Blackberry nectarine jam=worth it.

I think we have the layout of our future home decided on. We are staring at it for a while longer, waiting to see if I find anything else that I think I might not like about it. Andrew already knows he won't like standing on a ladder while building cob two stories high. And he's limiting my number of doors. What do you love/hate about your kitchen? I want to make sure we think it through.

I put together an awesome present for one of the weddings I'm going to. I usually don't get too into wedding presents. Think functionality not creative. I figure there is just too much going on when you get married to appreciate creativity. And you need so many things when you are starting out. But I like this one. It's a good combination of functionality and creativity.

And back to the jam. Night.

Christmas

December 2008

This picture was the main attraction of our 2008 christmas card. Last year we had no such energy for such things. Any suggestions for this year's picture? Hold on, rephrase: Any feasible suggestions for this year's picture?

Coffee Wine

That's right, coffee wine. We have no idea if it will be good, but we love coffee and thought we could give it a try. We used locally roasted coffee from down the road. Here is recipe:

Coffee Wine
1/2 lb freshly ground coffee
2 1/2 lbs brown sugar
1 1/2 ts citric acid
1/4 tsp tannin
7 1/2 pts water
1 tsp yeast nutrient
Sauterne wine yeast

Pour water in pot and put it on to boil. Stir in sugar until dissolved. Stir coffee into water and wait until it boils. Remove from heat, cover and allow to cool (this smelled amazing!). In a sanitized secondary, combine citric acid, tannin, and yeast nutrient, Strain coffee grounds through a double layer of muslin into the secondary and discard the grounds. Add activated yeast and cover mouth of secondary with napkin held in place with rubber band. When fermentation is vigorous, fit airlock. Rack 3 times, 60 days apart, topping up and refitting airlock each time. If desired dry, rack into bottles, If desired sweet or semi-sweet, stabilize, sweeten to taste, wait 10 days, and rack into bottles.

Sorry I don't have any pictures of the making process, but here is at one of the rackings.  I think we still have one more to go.  The coffee wine is the one on the right.  It is so dark and thick.

Notice all of the sludge left on the bottom after a racking. It's crazy what floats to the bottom!

Some things....

Sometimes I wish I could do this as much as she does

1.  I start work on the 7th.  Which means I have to wean myself off of 10 hours of sleep a night (seriously) and get into work mode.

2.  I have 3551 pictures in my iphoto.  That doesn't include the 5 folders of events from 2009 that still need to be scrapbooked so that I can make our book for the year. 

3.  I have been slacking on this project and need to get back ahead of it for a bit.  It's not hard to maintain as long as I stay a few weeks ahead.  I'm not.  I forgot a post last week, and had to beg for help the week before.  Thanks everyone for your help.  Got to get back on the plan...

4.  We met with a build/design company that I think we be working with on our cob house.  More on that coming soon.  Soon is a relative term.  More on that when I get to it.

5.  I have 4 email accounts.  And I need them all and should honestly be checking them all frequently.  That's sick and wrong.

6.  I have maxed out my free photoupload capabilities on blogger and am currently looking for a free solution.  Right now, I'm logging into blogger as Andrew to upload the pictures.  He's part of this team, he can take some of the photo storage responsibilities right?

7.  I cleaned out my google reader, read the quick stuff and the stuff that I knew I could just easily click as read.  I'm down to just posts that I want to really read.  It's at 199 posts.  Hence, I cleaned out my subscriptions, down to the ones that I really consistently enjoy reading.

8.  Andrew says our to-do list is overwhelming.  It is.  But then, it's always overwhelming.  And what part would you want to cut out?  (Andrew: you can't answer school/work.  It's not an option.)

Ward Family Reunion

Here are a few pictures from our Ward Family Reunion. I stole them from my sister, thanks Rachelle. Someday soon, I will post the ones my cousin Dillon took for me, and I will steal the ones from the family photobucket, and the list gets longer of the things to do.

Dad

Boys cliff jumping.  I jumped off that one too.  I wish I could find some pictures of Andrew flipping off....

Me and Miss Jane Pain, otherwise known as Emma Lue

My big baby needing a good cuddle in the morning.

Emmy with my Mommy

Taylor

P.S. The work laptop is back. Love.

Mt. Adams

Mt. Adams-taken on our rafting/camping trip last weekend.  We saw Mt. Adams, Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Rainier, and Mt. Baker all in the same day.  Thankfully, no eruptions occured.

Note to Self

Substituting applesauce for oil in molasses cookies doesn't work.  The dough just doesn't work for making balls.  Andrew came up with this great save to bake it like bread.  Would have been awesome except that I messed it up again and didn't cook it long enough.  Except for that caved in middle part, it still tasted amazing!

P.S.  We sold an order of molasses cookies on etsy a few days ago!

Chickens

When we moved in, our landlord owned 4 chickens, 5 ducks, and turkey. When he left for Palm Springs last September (from which he has never returned), the maintenance guy, Norm, started taking care of the animals. They didn't do so well. It's not Norm's fault, he tries. But the birds didn't have a good setup, Norm works two full time jobs, and he doesn't know anything about them. So Andrew and I started taking care of them, with Norm paying for the food and us eating the eggs. This worked fine for a while, until something killed off all of the free roaming ducks and one of the chickens in the space of 3 nights. We pinned up the 3 remaining chickens in a chicken tractor of sorts. But it wasn't very mobile and it was a pain to feed and water them and then the turkey started attacking me and, long story short, we told Norm we were done taking care of them. They had stopped laying when they got pinned up and it was just too much work for nothing. So he started taking care of them again. And our landlord ordered 4 more ducks and 3 turkey chicks for Norm to pick up and take care of. Nothing was getting very good care. It was hard to watch, but we try not to get too involved in their adventures. It's out of our control and just not logical, so it frustrates me. It was around this time, as we watched the 4 ducks and 1 turkey die, and chickens cooking in the sun all day, that we walked down the hill behind our house and saw this.

To us, it said:  I'm a chicken coop with an enclosed run.  Do you see it?

We started with getting rid of all of the weeds and blackberry bushes growing up in the middle.

By the end of the first day, it looked like this.  The house and the fencing were all there.  Inside the little house was dirt floors and a rotting wall.  We think they used to use this area for when they sheared the sheep and docked their tails.  They (being our landlord) doesn't do that anymore.

Lots of space for chickens to run around!

We built the nesting boxes out of scrap wood lying around.  The ramp up to the nesting boxes is an old folding closet door that was in the burn pile.

On the left, you can see the side of the nesting boxes with the ramp.  Along the back wall, is the perch.  It used to be an old bedframe, also from the burn pile.  The matching closet door is the ramp to the perch.  We used a section of fallen down fence, two sections actually, as the floor, and some scrap sheets of plywood to patch the rotted sections of the wall.  I don't have a picture of it, but Andrew built an awesome door using all scrap wood, hinges, and even a knob.

The water feeder is a $1 bucket from the hardware store, with holes in the bottom, set in an old planter bottom.  Continuous watering.

The feeder is another $1 bucket from the hardware store, with holes in the bottom, set in a seed tray.  Continuous feeding too.  We did purchase some netting to put over the entire enclosure so that they chickens couldn't get out and nothing else could get in.  Oh, and we patched the gaps in the fencing with spare fencing lying around.

And finally...the chickens.  We reclaimed the 3 chickens from our landlord and said we would take care of them along with our own.  That's right, we got our own chickens!

We found an ad on Craigslist for $5 red star hens, organic and pasture fed.  We got 5 of them.  Pretty little things aren't they?

When we went to pick them up, we met the cutest little family.  Their boys ran the chicken business, sold eggs, hatched chicks and took care of them every day.  The boys helped us catch the hens and we paid them for them.  Very fun.  And guess what?  We got them on Monday, and they have already started laying!  Anybody need eggs?

Peaches for Me

So we went on this really great camping/rafting trip last weekend with Andrew's family. We've done it the last few years and it's always nice to spend the weekend with everyone. And the rafting is good too, especially when there are no incidents going over waterfalls. This year, for some weird reason, traffic was really bad getting down to the White Salmon. Took us 9 hours. We think it should have been 6 or 7 without traffic. So on the way back, we decided to take back roads to and then through Mt. Rainer National Park. At one point, we got a little bit side tracked on a dirt road and turned around to take the paved road, costing us about an hour. Other than that the drive was beautiful and traffic free all day.  In the end though, I think we still spent about 9 hours in the car, just a prettier 9 hours.  We did stop for dinner at my parents on the way back, which was nice.  My mom also ordered a box of peaches for us that we picked up while we were there.  Which were pretty ripe and ready to be used.

Fast forward two hours to 10 pm when we get home.  And the forecast for the next few days is high 80s, which is hot and muggy when you have no AC.  And we decide to start canning.  At about 10, 10:30.

We are getting better at canning, but it still takes over our whole kitchen.

Me: hot and tired and dirty from camping.  Staring at all the work we have to do while I'm waiting for the water to boil.  It's still hot to can at midnight.

Pretty Peaches

A very tired and confused Lucy.  Why can't we just go to sleep guys? And yes I gave her that box to tear apart.

10 quarts of peaches later we were finished.  And then we cleaned the kitchen for an hour to attempt to thwart the fruit flies.  It was 2 am by the time we were done.  But we did manage to prep the peaches for the 2 batches of Raspberry Peach Jam on Monday night and 2 batch of Peach Cobbler Jam on Tuesday night.  I am done with peaches for a while.  I don't even want to eat one.

Raspberry Peach Jam

Raspberry Peach Jam

This is delicious! It's sweet, yet tart. I think it is my new favorite jam. Really. I like it better than strawberry rhubarb, which is saying a lot. It's made from the raspberries we picked at Boxx Berry Farm and the peaches from Eastern Washington. We have lots of extra jars, if you want one we are selling an 8 oz jar for $5. We also listed some in our Etsy shop, if you feel more comfortable buying it that way.

P.S.  It was made late Monday night while we were trying to avoid canning in the heat.  I'm so glad it has cooled down again.  We are definitely not heat people.

Blackberry Syrup

We are still working on finding a really good syrup recipe. This one tastes great, but it is a little bit thicker than I would like in a syrup. We aren't really sure if that is just the way of cooked, canned syrup...or if it is something we are doing wrong. Ideas?

Berry Syrup
3 cups fresh berries
1-2 cups sugar

In a saucepan, crush berries.  Add 1/4 cup water.  Bring to boil over medium-high heat, reduce the heat to medium low, and simmer about 5 minutes.

Set cheesecloth over a bowl.   Pour the berry pulp into the cheesecloth and allow the juice to drip through.  When pressing the juice through, be careful not to press the pulp through into the bowl.

Clean the saucepan.  Measure the juice, then pour it into the saucepan.  For every 1/4 cup juice, add 1/3 cups sugar.  Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar.  Reduce the heat to low and simmer about 1 minute.  Skim the foam and pour syrup into jars.    Leave 1/4 inch head space, process jars 10 minutes.  Makes 2 8-oz jars.


P.S.  I fixed the typo in the Potato Pancake recipe!

Where to start

We just got back from a wonderful little camping, rafting trip with the Bybees and, due to no one's fault but my own, I'm feeling overwhelmed. And I can't quite decide where to start back up with the blogging. What do you want to hear about?

Lilies-June 2010

1. How Lucy ate a mouse.

2. Driving 10 hours in the car, stopping at my parents for dinner, picking up 30 plus pounds of peaches, getting home at 10 pm and canning until 2 in the morning.

3. The jams (delicious sounding) that we have planned for the rest of the peaches.

4. The blackberry syrup we made last week.

5. The camping/rafting trip where I didn't take enough pictures.

6.  All about the 5 chickens we are picking up this afternoon and the chicken coop we are building that we have to get finished before 2 pm.

7. The making of coffee wine.

8.  That it is supposed to HOT today here.

9.  A nice little garden update.

Getting Around

Believe it or not, I really do use this blog as a journal.  So it annoys me when I can't find something that I know I have written about.  I'm not done yet, but here are a few of the things I have changed lately.

I added a search function, it's in the top right corner of the blog.  I use it all the time, it seems to work pretty well.

I updated the About Us tab along the top.

I added a Harvest tab along the top of the blog for keeping track of what we are growing and preserving from local food.  I know it's a little weird that it's all in lbs but hey, it seemed systematic to me

I also added an Inspiration tab along the top of the blog to keep track of the websites that I have shared.

I started a Bellingham tab along the top of the blog for posts about great places in Bellingham.

On the right side of the blog, there is a section that says Read More About.  Most are self-explanatory but a few require some explanation:

• Bybees is anyone on Andrew's side of the family
• Food includes recipes and canning
• Outdoors is for all hiking, camping, boating, skiing, and other miscellaneous outdoor play
• Projects is well, for all of the random projects
• Scrapbook is for all of the scrapbook pages
• Wards is for anyone on Lauriel's side of the family

On the right side of the blog, under the section that says Read More About, is a white box with the title I want to share these...  The titles in the box are posts that I have read somewhere else that I want to save for future reference.  If you click view all in the bottom of the white box you can see all of the posts that I have shared.

Lucy and the Rabbit

On our long trip through Utah and Idaho, we stopped and stayed with Andrew's Grandma Anthony, Aunt Gail, and Uncle Jack in Pocatello.  We got there around midnight and right away Lucy fixated on this fake bunny.  

Wouldn't have been so bad if Grandma Anthony wasn't asleep and we didn't have to worry about waking her.  Luckily, she slept through the whole thing.  Lucy was kind enough to give repeat this display the next morning though.

Other than the obsessive barking at a fake bunny, Lucy was pretty good and managed not to destroy anything!

Test

What do you think is an acceptable response in this situation:

One of your cats walks past your sleeping puppy on the deck and into the house carrying a dead mouse.  He drops it on the living room floor to show you.  You are grossed out from a distance than go to look a little bit closer.  The mouse gets up and starts to move.  Your puppy wakes up and starts to come inside.  Do you:
A)  Grab the puppy and start to scream for your husband, who happens to be 10 ft away, to get the mouse. 
B)  Be superwoman and calmly grab the puppy in one hand, the live mouse in the other, and take them both outside where you safely release the mouse.
C)  Faint.

Lucy's New Bed

We got Lucy one of Costco's amazing cedar chip dog beds when we first got her. She loves it and I love that she smells like cedar chips. Lately, I've been thinking her crate isn't cushy enough and that she needs more than just some blankets to sleep in. So we picked her up a second cedar chip dog bed (don't worry, they are under 20$) and put it in her crate. Now she hardly comes out. People who think that crate training is mean should come see Lucy. She's a poster child for loving her crate.

Carrot Hop Wine

Start with freshly scrubbed carrots

Chop 3 1/2 lb

Measure 2 1/2 lbs of brown sugar

Boil the carrots in a gallon of water until tender

Measure 1/2 ounce of dried hops

Make some coffee

Watch the carrots boil

Stirring sugar with the boiling water until completely dissolved

Add the carrots and hops and let steep

In a day or so we will add the yeast and let it ferment. Then on to the carboys for a few months before bottling. Maybe next year I can let you know how it tastes!