Independence Days Week 12: Grapes & Bee Hive!

Posted on May 26, 2010 by Anisa

So been CRAZY busy this week, and wanted to get something up.  We’re getting ready for a trip to Tennessee, so I preemptively crossed that off my 101 in 1001 list.  Which reminded me that I could cross a few more items off as well.   A month or two ago we paid off the 4Runner (WOOHOO!), and a few weeks ago, my friend Genny let me try her raw milk.  Surprisingly, it tastes just like… milk.  😀  I don’t know what else I would have expected.

Anyway, in short, here’s what we did this week:

Plant something – Grapes Grapes Grapes Grape Grapes!  Ok – not that many grapes.  We were able to get cuttings from our friends, Rich & Rachel and so we hope to have some yummy concord grapes in a year or two!

Harvest something – eggs, lettuce, spinach

Preserve something – well no food in this category, but we put another coat of stain on the fence, as it had been a couple years – so now it is preserved for a couple years more!

Waste Not – compost and recycling, reused some scrap wood for the…. BEE HIVE!  Yes yes, we have built a bee hive!  Now we just need a swarm and we’ll be rolling in the honey (welllll not rolling in it, but you know what I mean)!  Also sorted through H’s outgrown clothes for E, and E’s outgrown clothes to give to friends or Goodwill.  Went through kids’ toys as well and made a bag for Goodwill.  I have a reputation for being a Toy Nazi in this house, so there are never too many toys to go through.  But the TN in me struck Monday morning.  I tried to temper it a bit by putting a couple more of the boys’ toy baskets on the floor where they can reach them without help.

Want Not – um – built a bee hive, duh!  Looking at ordering some bulk chicken locally, but have not taken any action yet.

Build Community Food Systems – so thinking the said grapes count here. ??

Eat the Food – yep, we did!  My favorite from the week was BLT’s with avocado.  The tomatoes weren’t the best, but we used our lettuce and bacon – yum!

A few bee hive building pictures for you…

Categories: Beekeeping, Food, Garden, Independence Days, Urban Homesteading | 8 Comments

Independence Days – Week 11

Posted on May 17, 2010 by Anisa

This week was much better than some of the previous weeks.  Turns out that getting some exercise (endorphins) and spending some time outside in the sun (vitamin D) can do wonders for the mood, body, mind and spirit.  The beginning of the week was actually a little rough (it was all cloudy and overcast) but the weekend made up for it nicely, with the sunshine and the gardening!  Also it helps that I was able to see friends more this week as well.

Here’s a picture of the bulk storage I mentioned in last week’s update.  And here’s what we were up to this week:

Plant something – watermelon, pumpkins, spinach, basil, more tomatoes, marigolds, turnips… um also some grass seed where we’re trying to patch up the damaged back lawn.  We don’t have a lot of grass back there, but what little there is has been burned by Josie over the winter.  We’re hoping it will recover a bit.

Harvest something – eggs, lettuce, spinach

Preserve something – um – nothing, and I actually have to take back last week’s asparagus (it was on Rick’s docket to-do, but we ended up eating it all instead!).

Waste Not – compost and recycling, reused some scrap boards in the garden.  Also decided that we’ve been silly not giving the grass clippings to the chickens, so they got two bags full on Sunday.  It’s been raining a lot, and the grass had grown like crazy – lucky birds loved it!

Want Not – made an impromptu garden plot in the back yard – with a raised bed.  We used our own compost – finally – in this bed, and Rick made it out of some left-over scrap lumber.  I really love how it looks.  It has tomatoes (for me and H to snack (or as Rick would say, “graze”) on, basil, and carrots.  Plus some marigolds.  This is pretty much H’s little plot.  Especially since it’s in the back yard, and he loves carrots and tomatoes.  And the raised bed is nice, so he knows where he can’t step.  Plus he picked out the marigolds all by himself.

Build Community Food Systems – gave some extra tomato plants to the neighbors, had another neighbor’s five-year old daughter help us plant in the back yard.  It was so cute and fun and I got some great snapshots of her and H. (Stay tuned for the pictures – will try to get them posted this week).

Eat the Food – mmm…. spinach and lettuce from the volunteer plants has been delish.   Opened the last jar of pumpkin butter.  Rick magically found more tomatoes (I swear I don’t know how he keeps doing this?!?!!) in the freezer so we’ve been enjoying those.  Bacon and ham steaks (ham and eggs fried rice!) and eggs, of course.  Also another batch of hummus. Finished the last of the antelope burger and some kale in some tasty Italian wedding soup (or our own rustic version at least)!  For that we used the recipe in this post, but we substituted antelope for turkey, kale for escarole and our tomatoes from the freezer for the canned (a common substitution in our house).

Categories: Chickens, Community, Food, Garden, Independence Days | 3 Comments

Thrifty Thursday: Reusable Produce Bags – for FREE!

Posted on May 13, 2010 by Anisa

Here’s a quick one that occurred to me as I was emptying the mandarin oranges into the fruit bowl last week.  Although I’ve been bringing my own reusable bags to the store for a while, I always cringe at the amount of plastic bags I still use for produce.  Luckily I grabbed the camera and now I can share an easy, no sew, way to have a reusable produce bag!

Step one: Empty your mesh bag of the produce that came with it.

Step two: Cut off the labels, including anything that has a bar code (don’t want your store checkout person to get confused).

Step three: Using an old piece of ribbon (this scrap came from something I was going to throw away anyway) to lace through the mesh around the hole you made to get the oranges out.  Tie the ends together.

Step four: Remember to bring with you to the store do you can reload you new/old bag with new produce that doesn’t roll around the cart all by its self any more!

Categories: Simple Living, Thrift | 3 Comments

Announcing: Sweet Sprouts!

Posted on May 7, 2010 by Anisa

I’m officially a certified childbirth educator, complete with birth charts, business cards and a WEBSITE.  Please make sure to check out SweetSprouts.org!!!  You can also become a Fan on Facebook or follow SweetSprouts on Twitter.

The blog has been up for a while now (since the beginning of the year), and my readership keeps increasing, slowly but steadily.

I had my first class last night, the first of a four-week series on Thursdays from 6:00pm to 9:00 pm at Sweet Beginnings in Littleton.  I have three couples, and all of them seem really fun.

June classes are on the schedule for Thursdays as well, and I have a couple signed up for a private class in June too.  My summer six-week Childbirth Education Series begins on July 12th and continues until August 16th on Mondays from 6:30 to 8:30pm at the Malley Center in Englewood.   I am a little stunned at how quickly my classes are taking off and feeling like this is going to be a very busy summer!

The four and six week series cover all the same information (both series’ include 12 hours of instruction).  Student preference and my schedule will determine the four or six week format in the future.

I have also teamed up with a doula from Metro Mama Birth Services to buy a new DVD, scheduled to release in June, for screenings of the movie called, DOULA! The Ultimate Birth Companion. The first screening will be for expectant families and birth professionals, date to be announced.

Please feel free to check out my site – it’s still in progress but the basics are there.  There will still be a little tweaking, with pictures and formatting, etc.  But you get the idea.

Categories: Childbirth | 1 Comment

Independence Days – Weeks 9-10

Posted on May 5, 2010 by Anisa

The garden is a bit behind where I’d like it to be, but there is still time, as Rick keeps reminding me.  So here’s what has gone down in the last week or two or three.  😉

Plant something – tomatoes, beets, kohlrabi, eggplant, quinoa, onions, kale, rhubarb, squash, radishes… this is off the top of my head, so I might be forgetting something?

Harvest something – eggs, lettuce, spinach, asparagus

Preserve something – asparagus.

Waste Not – compost and recycling.

Want Not –  Realized that I could use my empty canning jars to store some bulk items like rice and granola.  This looks so much nicer in my cabinet and it’s much easier to find things then a bunch of bags all jumbled together!

Build Community Food Systems – um – I don’t think there’s much here.  We did have the neighbor over for dinner one night?  And I did find out that my friend Julie joined the farm and will be working on the same day as me (woohoo!) this summer.  🙂

Eat the Food – Jelly, ribs, and corn gone; been munchin’ fresh asparagus, made a big batch of hummus for the first time.  Rick’s been diligently using all our frozen tomatoes and every time I think they’re all gone, he magically pulls another bag from somewhere!  The peaches are still delicious.  The pickled beets are gone now.  The boys have been using frozen melon in smoothies.

What about you?

Categories: Food, Garden, Independence Days | 3 Comments

Independence Days – Week 6

Posted on April 12, 2010 by Anisa

Plant something – nothing (AGAIN!  UGH!)

Harvest something – eggs and dandelion greens

Preserve something – nothing

Waste Not – compost and recycling.  Also – been thinking that Rick’s biking to work might fall in this category, since it saves gas?  Gave away the old washer & dryer on Freecycle as well as a few very tired cloth diapers.

Want Not – Rick roto-tilled the garden and the place where we’re going to plant Concord grapevines this year.  So excited!  Also, I found a place to make a new cover for our bike trailer for less than a replacement cover from the maker would have been if a cover were available (it’s not).  This is so great since we love this trailer and I got such a good deal on it.  (And we use the bikes so much in the summer). 

Build Community Food Systems –  nothing

Eat the Food – some pickles, tomatoes, pesto, pork shoulder, peaches….. trying to eat exclusively from the pantry & freezer this week since I feel a little meated out (with all the beef and chicken we ate over the last month or so).

Categories: Food, Independence Days | 1 Comment

Independence Days – Weeks 4 & 5

Posted on April 9, 2010 by Anisa

I realize this report is late late late.  I’ve already started documenting week six for us as well, but I wanted to get these past two weeks posted, so I’m not SO far behind.

It’s been a busy couple weeks here at the homestead, and we still have nothing in the ground.  But good friends were in town, and we were able to see them and spend some fun time together.  I did contact someone about a dairy cow share (though it is SO expensive, I’m not sure if we’ll do it).  And I was able to get some yummy fruit!

I’ve struggled finding blog writing time, though I am finding I have a bit more to say these days.  Now if only I could manage to get both boys to nap at the same time, I might get to write it.

Plant something – nothing

Harvest something – eggs

Preserve something – nothing

Waste Not – compost and recycling

Want Not – Week 4: sold my small size cloth diapers.  Yay for recouping some of the cost, and rebuilding the kiddos bank account.  Also finally joined free cycle.  Planning on offering a few things on there next week.

Week 5: Rick finished the compost bin.  Unfortunately, H & Josie are fascinated with it and keep opening it up and then the chickens join in and we end up with compost over half the yard… so still a work in progress I guess on that front.

Build Community Food Systems – Week 4: 30 # organic heirloom tangelos from Arizona.  A farm friend got a bunch of boxes all at once and shared with friends.  And they are SO good!

Week 5: I called the landlord of the four-plex across the alley from us.  We’ve noticed that over the last few years, although they have a lovely mature green grape vine nobody ever harvests them.  So we asked and he said we could help ourselves (not sure if this really benefits anyone but us, but at least the grapes won’t be wasted)!

Eat the Food – used the last of the carrots and asparagus, two hams at Easter, tangelos for the ham glaze, can’t remember what else…

Um – also so big this week, I received my certification to teach!  yay!  I’ve went ahead and ordered my business cards and some charts!  Yay yay!!!

Categories: Food, Independence Days | 2 Comments

2010 Independence Days – Week 3

Posted on March 22, 2010 by Anisa

Plant something – we have volunteer spinach & lettuce!  (ok, I know that’s not planting, but yay)!  We did hit the garden center this week and came home with bucu seeds.  So far, I’m sad to say, nothing new has hit the dirt – but I’m not supposed to post what I haven’t done! 

Harvest something – eggs had a banner week for 2010 thus far: aprox 27!

Preserve something – nothing

Waste Not – compost and recycling. Rick worked on the compost bin construction this weekend.  It should be done next week! 

Want Not – so fortunate – Rick’s grandparents gave us a gift certificate to the garden center for Christmas, so we used two-thirds of it on seeds this week.  We have a little left to go towards tomato plants and any flowers I may want come April/May.  Also – we got a packet of seeds from Rick other grandpa – kholrabi from Slovakia!  These seeds are super special and we are so excited to plant them! 

Build Community Food Systems – served up all that green chili (I made aprox 3 gallons last Saturday) on Tuesday. 

Eat the Food – asparagus soup again (we had friends over),  carrots from the freezer for corned-beef & cabbage on Wednesday and pot roast on Friday (this was a beefy week – very unusual, we NEVER buy beef!),

No recipe to share this week.

Categories: Chickens, Food, Independence Days | 2 Comments

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