Friday catch up

Well yesterday we were able to gather some black raspberries, and a few slightly under ripe wild blueberries.  Seems our wild berries are going:

black raspberries

dew berries

blueberries

blackberries

 

Somewhere in there we might have wild strawberries (no flowers yet), and the wild grape harvest; I am hoping that we’ll get rain soon or the blackberries might not get big.  We dug out about 12 wheel barrow loads of dirt from the pond yesterday, today… well… we did decidedly less as my back is seriously hurting today so I can’t bend to do the cutting of the soil.

 

I got the remaining tomatoes planted this morning out in the garden itself as my other type of tomato is up in front of the house in “pots”.  I don’t want a repeat of last year’s cross pollination lesson.  So the tomatoes varieties are separate, as are my pepper plants.  I also got my bushel gourds planted this morning, in the spot we had our potato experiment last year.

 

Speaking of the experiment, we  have our potatoes planted in the same manner.  I need to get more straw as they are getting tall now, so we need to go and cover them more.  I am thinking though that next year we’ll use that spot to try to grow some heirloom corn, and I’m going to use the “weedless gardening” method as after the ‘taters are done all the current plants there should be smothered by all the straw.  So all I’ll have to do is cover the straw with dirt, compost, and manure.

 

Hope everyone has a good weekend.

 

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be…

Pond work

I’m not sure how many of you know this, but we’ve been trying to dig a pond since last fall.  I had secretly hoped to get it done before the end of fall so this spring it would have filled up with rain water.  No such luck.  We have however had some luck now in digging it.

The “red thing” is my daughter’s sweatshirt, but this is the space we are putting the pond in.  The lower right of the picture is one of the spots we are digging in.  We are also digging just past the sweat shirt where we have a fallen tree broken into two pieces.

There is a little bit more space to the right and left of the picture that will be included in the pond as well. As I said in an earlier post, the dry ground has made digging a little bit easier as since we are digging it by hand the pick we are “cutting” the ground with is going right through it like it’s nothing.

This spot is a fairly natural depression in the ground we came upon when we first cleared this area of trees. Right about where I was standing to take this and to the right of the image is where we are going to put in a small waterfall to help aerate the pond.  The side with the fallen tree will be our shallow end and where we’ll have cattails growing.  We are also going to get some fish when it’s done and filled, i read in a book that it’s a good idea to get a bucket full of water from a local pond to make sure you have the right microrganisims (spelling?) in your water.  Good thing there is a pong across the street that I can get some from then.  I also have permission from the people who own the spot across the street to transplant some of thier cattails into my pond when it’s done.

I imagine it’ll probably take all summer to finish digging the pond out, but I’m not fully sure on that.  We might get done in a month if we keep at it good and not skip a clear day digging.  I guess it’s a good thing we needed to fill in the root cellar we were digging as we’re putting the dirt there.

That’s it for now,

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be…

Flour-less Chocolate Cake

Yes you read the title… flour-less, no flour.  It’s a protein shot, granted it is a little on the rich side and some people probably would have fits over what the ingredients are.

Here is the cake unfrosted:

Here are the ingredients:

6 whole eggs

20 oz of chocolate chips(bitter-sweet)

1T of vanilla extract

1/2 lb of butter

Yes!  That is all there is in this cake.  What you do is you first get your eggs to room temperature, fresh eggs are the best of course.  Whip them to stiff peaks, and yes it’s possible; it just takes time.  While that is whipping melt the chocolate chips and butter together, I have to say this is probably the only thing we use a microwave for.  Add the vanilla to the chip/butter mixture and mix it all till that is smooth.  Fold the chocolate mixture into the eggs carefully.  Then pour into a spring-form pan and bake at 350 degrees (pre-heated) until the surface cracks.  Cool thoughly before eating or frosting, it does tend to be crumbly and a tad rich.

This is the cake frosted with real butter creme:

Yes, there is only frosting on the top as we are running out of butter.  Silver who is a trained chef and once worked at a resort that served this cake un-frosted at $8 a small slice.  You know those kinds of slices, you see them in TV shows when someone goes to a fancy restaurant and their plate for dessert is at least three times the size of the cake.

Please also note there is no ADDED  sugar to this either, so it’s fairly safe for a diabetic who is eating properly.  But please, do not take my word for it other than the fact that Silver is a diabetic, and he eats this cake.

 

 

 

I hope you all try this cake out it’s heavanly!

I’m a mean parent part 2

I guess I’m still a mean parent, and if you don’t know what I mean by that take a look here on my Blogger blog:

http://rivenfae-wolfwoods.blogspot.com/2011/02/im-mean-parent.html

I wrote once about how my kids think I’m this horribly mean parent because I make them work. Well, they still think I’m mean; and now I am because I’m not listening to them when they get hurt. Well… I don’t constitute a little cut on your big toe, and it is little no bigger than the head of a pin; as warranting needing to rest. Nor do I think.. but mom my back itches as medically necessary of rest, or sneezing a lot for that matter.

With that said, I seem to have a nice cold going on. I have been having very congested mornings where I’m sneezing every ten minutes, my throat feels like one of the cats crawled down it and shredded it’s way back up. I also am not sleeping well because I have been winding up so congested by the middle of the night.

Guess what…?

I went out and watered the garden, harvested Lambs Quarters for breakfast, fed the dogs and cats, made 2 different breakfasts, dug in the pond, washed laundry, and then washed dishes, oh.. and before this post I wrote 2 posts per blog I keep. But dang, …I must not understand that when I’m mildly ill I’m suppose to complain gripe and moan about how hard it is to work. Thereby making the work take twice as long.

What I have noticed is that most kids who spent any of their time growing up in the city especially in the public school system where kids are taught to feel entitled to almost everything. They seem to have trouble with the concept of doing some hard work. They don’t seem to care about the “what if’s” that might lie down the line as they are too focused on the here and now.

…and it’s my job to be a mean parent to teach them otherwise…

Garden Update

So I am now going to post the pictures of the garden that I have picked up, sorry if they aren’t the best quality I took them with our phone as we still need batteries for the camera.

Isn’t it pretty?  This is a volunteer squash plant that I have in the midst of our bean plants, and if you can tell it’s close to flowering.  I think it’s possible that it’s either a “patty pan” or one of my Dark Star zucchini.  I will know more when this plant gets bigger, and as my Dark star’s get bigger.

I’m also hoping it’s be prolific as we have gotten hooked on eating stir fried squash for lunches during the summer.  ..and I know my son the picky eater is soooooo looking forward tot hat idea.

Speaking of the kids I was not sure if I mentioned or not that we are putting them on a withdrawal diet.  i am getting them off all the processed stuff they ate while in school and trying to get them on the correct foods.  Especially since 2 of them have low blood sugar, one of which is my picky eating son.  I got him to eat a bowl of leftover beef soup for lunch yesterday.

 

 

 

 

Speaking of the Dark Star zucchini:

They have all sprouted, so I have 6 little zucchini plants coming up.  To their left i also have 1 lemon squash coming up.  I was hoping to have more than just one of those sprouting, but sometimes they just don’t agree with you.

I tried growing these last year and we never got any female flowers that grew past flowering stage.  I am hoping that this year they do much better, and that we get an overabundance of them.  I know we’d eat them.

As I didn’t get a picture of them I’m going to tell you that one of my two egg plants is putting on new growth, but it is going very slowly.  I am hoping to see at least one of them “shoot up and take over”, as I do like eggplant; but don’t like paying what stores charge for them.

 

 

 

 

Here is a small amount of the bush beans that I have planted.  They seem to be doing very well and are taking over my bed that I put them in.  My thoughts on that are… hey if they grow super thick then at least I know they are shading the ground under them.

Granted I do have some kale growing in there, and some cabbage, one squash plant, and some onions.  So it’s got some diversity in it.  I swear beans are one of those plants that if you turn your back they grow 3ft.

They look like a miniature forest out there.  which like I said should have the double benefit of keeping the ground shaded.  I am hoping to put tomatoes and egg plants here next year, so any good that the beans do here will certainly help my night shades.

 

 

 

 

Here is a surprise I got this morning while out picking Lambs Quarters:

That is a flower on my Elderberry!  Now only one of the plants has flowers on it, but I am still hoping they will both produce.  Also I imagine next year this one at least will have more flowers on it.

 

If I make it back outside after lunch (I’m suffering a cold and feel cruddy) we’re going to cover the ground around both of the Elderberries  with some chicken manure.  I am hoping it’ll help them both out, and keep the ground under them moist.

 

I just now need to go look up a good recipe for elderberry jam.  With the hope that we get enough berries for it, otherwise I may freeze them and leave them for tea making.  As it helped Silver out a great deal this last winter when he got ill, as it’s a great source of vitamin C.

 

Though it makes me wonder, could you add Elderberry to a mixed jam?  As we’re going to have an abundance of black berries this year, I can mix them together.  Might make an interesting jam.

 

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be…

What would you do?

I saw a preview for a new NBC show that I think has an interesting premise, it’s called “Revolution”.   Here is a youtube link to the preview:

Now I think it’s a an interesting idea to think on.  How would you do if the “power” all went off, suddenly.  Could you survive?  Would you know how to live in the “new world”?

Now I was chatting with someone last night that frankly, I doubt could make it in such a world.  For one she thinks cities are super clean and anything that isn’t one is full of germs and that there are no germs in the city.  She thinks there are no tapeworms, rabies, “recluse spiders” in a city.  She also thinks all food and water in a city is safe and good for you.

I think while she wouldn’t survive in such a world if the power went off, I do think there are others very much like her that believe these things.  I think it’s a sad product of society, that people think that cities are “gleaming shining” examples of cleanliness.  Especially if you pay halfway attention to what goes on in the world you’d see they aren’t.

But back to my original thought  here, surviving after the power goes off…  I would like to think at least me and my family would, I’d worry about Silver as he’s got diabetes and a inactive thyroid.  So for at least one of those things we’d probably have a problem, as once we couldn’t find medication for his thyroid, he’d prob die.

The people most likely to survive are ones who can produce their own food, yes I realize there would most likely be people with gun stealing things.  Well their problem would be after they killed off anyone who they didn’t like eventually they’d kill off the people they’d need to provide them with food.

So I’m going to be watching this show when it comes out this fall to see what “writers” think will happen to people after the power goes out.

First Big kid work day

Well the kids have been out of school a full week now, but as they has VBS at my girls’ church (yes, I’m Pagan and let my kids go to church)the three kids all went to it.  So I really couldn’t put my kids to any real work in that week or they might have gotten very dirty before heading out to church.  Well, this week is changing that.  We got up, I had the kids take the puppies and momma dog outside; while I cooked breakfast.

Afterwards I took the older two kids and had them working with me on digging out some of the pond we have been working on since last fall.  Silver went and cleared some more with the weedeater, and now I can get to my berry patch so much easier now.

Well I had hoped to get a large amount of digging done, but as my older girl was doing the shoveling , I on the other hand used a pick to get the dirt loose; it took in the time I had allotted to work in .  Only 5 wheel barrows full of dirt, that might be enough to finish my pots off for planting; but not much else.  ..and in case you were wondering my son was moving the wheel barrow and using clippers on small trees for Silver, and the youngest was watching the doggie family.

We then broke for lunch of leftover beef soup from last night, and Silver set up some cole slaw; to go with dinner.  We’re going to have tempura chicken (my kids call it candy chicken as we eat it like candy), cole slaw, and the kids will also get french fries with it.  I’d probably be happy just eating the cole slaw come dinner time if it warms up in the 80′s again.

After lunch I went out with the two girls to dig out some of the chicken yard for manure, my son was on doggie duty.  We dug out about a wheel barrow and a half for now, as this is going to be for mixing soil in about a few hours; for the rest of my pots.

Speaking of the pots:

This is one of the pots, I have bought them from the MFA for $5 a bucket. They had contained some kind of feed supplement for livestock and as you can see this one is broken at the bottom. So they put them out front and anyone who wishes to can buy them, I’ve had them for a couple of years now and have only just gotten to using them.

This is one of my pots finished as of two days ago, it has 3 tomato plants and a dill in the center.  If I did this right the Cherokee Purple Smudge are in here, and my Amish Pastes are going in the garden.  As I kept the two types in different trays so I’d know they were not the same tomato.  I don’t want any “mix ups” in my tomatoes this year.  Last year all the pollen crossed and I got a “paste type” tomato from all my tomato plants.

Now for this pot I took and mixed chicken manure, our clay soil, perlite, and some oyster shell together and poured it into the pot.  I am going to be making a few more of these today, in a couple of hours.  I am adding the oyster shell as last year I had a problem with blossom end rot and I read that calcium will fix it.  So I put oyster shell on top of the soil last year, this year just for the tomatoes I am mixing it into the soil.

Also I put the dill in the center as I read somewhere that dill will keep the horn worms away from your tomato plants.  Granted if we get any horn worms my chickens will be very happy birds.

 

 

I am hoping that this is a wild grape and not a ..not sure on the name here; moon berry (?).  I have too go and look up in one of my books as I have seen it fairly recently telling me by leaf which plant is the wild grape and which is poisonous.

They are producing nicely aren’t they?  Which is why I am hoping it is a grape vine as I have quite a few of them scattered around with lots of  fruit showing at this point.  Granted if we keep up with the dry weather I’m not sure how well they or our black berries will do this year.

This one is near our chicken coop and it’s over hanging a small tree that I’m not too worried about how healthy it is, as if it grows to much bigger we’d have to take it down.  If you look real carefully you can see the white paneling that is the side of our chicken coop in background.

 

 

 

 

Here is something very pretty, or at least will be very pretty soon I hope:

I can’t wait to see this in full bloom.  This is one of the two wild roses that I have been “training”, this one into a goat panel.  I have another one that I have some smashed tomato cages that i have started weaving the rose in and out of.

 

The nice thing is this one in the picture has tons of flower buds on them this year.  Last year it did not have as many, so I am glad it’s doing so well so far this year.  I also now have some shamrocks planted near this rose and they have sprouted and have been growing.  Considering I got them as a “freebie” from one of or plant orders I have to say I’m not unhappy with them.

 

I also can’t wait to see what color this rose is going to be, the first year we were here the one rose growing out of the old foundation was all white.  Most of the local wild roses are a pinkish color so who knows what this one will be.

 

I took a look this morning and maybe I’ll get some pics of them later, but my day lilies are putting out flower stalks.  So I should be able to harvest some buds and flowers soon.  I just hope we can get our solar dryer built before we have too many things to dry.  I’d really like to dry the flower buds so we can use them for soup thickener this winter, but I’m not sure we’ll get to that point this year.  I might unfortunately go out and buy some plastic baggies and freeze them.

 

Well I am going to try to post my garden pics later as I have dishes calling my name right now and I should probably get them done.

 

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be…

Long Hot Day

I spent a fairly long day in the heat today, I was woken up at almost 7am by Paris who wanted out apparently. I harvested some lovely lettuce that we had for lunch today. Silver having new string for the weed eater was out clearing more of the clearing. The grapes.. well I hope they are wild grape, are doing wonderfully this year and I see tons of bunches forming on them.

 

I had the kids out to work on digging out the pond. I had my son take the dirt via wheel barrow, to a pile up in front so I could mix some soil for our herb plants and possibly the tomatoes. We discovered the cats eating our nice new catnip so it is now in a hanging pot so our cats cannot eat it.

 

I baked my first yellow cake from scratch, I’ve done chocolate before; but I wanted to try a yellow and we have one now. It is a bit hard to eat a whole slice so it might last a bit.

 

I used the wheel barrow to mix my soil, now I have to mention we are using the four old tires for some of our plants. I have the herbs in 2, including the new Stevia plant. I used chicken manure, perlite, and our clay soil for the tires for the herbs. The pot with the tomatoes and dill got also some oyster shell in it as we learned last year it needed it for blossom end rot. I am thinking of putting our hot peppers in one of the remaining tires and the luffa gourds in the other.

 

Well that’s it for now,

 

 

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be…

New Tires!

Well, had a wonderful afternoon yesterday. Some money we had been waiting on to arrive had shown up and we were able to buy a full set of new tires for our van. New tires as we need to drive up by Chicago once this summer to take my kids up to see their grandmother. Silver was suppose to go visit his son… but I’m not sure if that is still going on or not. …and only because we haven’t had any steady word on whether or not help with gas is coming or not. I know my mother is sending us gas for one way.. which oddly came out cheaper than sending the kids via train to her, or bus for that matter.

 

We picked up a bag of dog kibble for the cats and dogs to share till the 1^st, especially since the puppies are eating now kinda. I discovered the trick is to feed momma some first separate from the puppies then put the food in with her and the pups. Otherwise she growls at her own puppies.

 

We’re going to go out to the one farm store this morning to look at some herb plants as they were selling them for $1.69 a small pot. I am hoping to get a few good cooking herbs and maybe they’ll still have some catnip. Gonna get some chicken feed on the way home as for about 2 weeks the hens have been on a mixed grain diet that hasn’t quite gotten the egg production I’d like.

 

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed BE…

Not a Pond Day

Well I had a nice quiet morning, I woke up at about 7am here. I went and fed all the animals and watered the garden then sat and enjoyed about 2 cups of tea before anyone else started waking up. The plan today was to go out and do some digging in the pond before midday.

 

Well I went out after breakfast this morning and discovered something. I had sent my son out yesterday with the weed whacker to cut from the front back through all of the clearing. Well he went out, he cut some of the grasses down. Only by where the dog house we aren’t using is. So we spent this morning clearing the rest of it, between the weed whacker and clippers we got most of it clear before noon. Funny thing where we are digging the pond we have JUST grass growing, after cutting about half of that I raked tit up for the chickens to go wild on.

 

It seems all my Dark Star zucchini are sprouting, so we will have about 6 plants; which hopefully will produce lots of fruits. The Lemon ones are just starting to sprout now, and one of the pumpkins has sprouted.

 

We used the Weed Whacker so much that we are now out of string for it. Pity it’s one of the few types that cannot use the plastic permanent blades. So we have to wait till after the first to get more string for it.

 

The man who had my girls fostering the puppies and training them, is going to lend us a kennel for Paris and her puppies. Which will be wonderful as I’m going to have to bleach my floor as they puppies now almost a month old are wandering a peeing everywhere. Anybody living fairly nearby want a puppy? We will have 4 of the chocolate females available in about 2 more months. Mom is of hunter line (no we have no proof) she chases birds, as does the father of them. Just contact me if you want one.

 

That’s it for now,

 

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be…

 

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