April Showers Bring .... Easter Eggs and Egg Muffins?



My kiwi vine is coming to life



IT'S SPRING AND WE HAVE RAIN!!!  It has actually been raining pretty good for the past month!  I am so excited.  There is snow in the mountains and the hills are green.  It is SO pretty around here.  April & May are my favorite months because everything is beautiful.  Here in the Bay Area, our hills are brown most of the year, but with some winter rains everything turns emerald green.  The clouds are big and puffy.  The sky is a beautiful blue.  Everything is clean and coming to life.  Now I really can’t wait to get my garden going!



Mixing the dirt and compost



Now for garden news!  Um....well....not much. :)  Actually, a couple of weeks ago, Bryan and I went to the local nurseries to talk to the experts there about our soil problems.  Here goes: Our compost is "hot" and our top soil is just dirt.  Nothin' good.  I am afraid that my poor little plants will shrivel up and die!  I have been avoiding the whole subject for some time.  Today, we face the facts.  The first person we talked to really didn't know what he was talking about and wanted us to buy $150 in planting soil.  NEXT!  The next nursery started to tell us the same thing.  Then the real expert came in.  I actually took a sample in of my dirt and my compost.  He told me to go out and mix and turn frequently.  It should be ready to plant in a couple of months!  YAY!  That is perfect timing.  It will be a somewhat late garden, but given our vacation plans this summer, that works out nicely.  I will use potting soil when we plant our seedlings.  Between now and then, we just turn it all over and keep it wet.  With the recent rain, that hasn’t been a problem.  Getting the dirt all mixed has been a chore.  It isn’t hard, it just takes time and muscles.  I finally got it all done.  (Bryan helped)  It is turned and hopefully cooling in the rain.



Baby sunflower that still has it's hat on



Now for inside!  I am starting some seedlings.  YAY!  So far I have started some pumpkin seeds for the kids, sunflower seeds for our hopefully soon to be chickens and basil for all of our summer dishes.  I am dreaming of bruschetta, tomato salad, any salad…there are so many things to do with basil!

Let’s see, what else has been happening on our little urban farm.  Well, last week we celebrated Passover with my sister and brother in law.  It is always a great time with family and really makes the Easter celebration special.  Because my kids don’t have any cousins their age, we decided this year to throw an Easter party at the park with friends during our break.  We settled on a glow in the dark egg hunt one night this week.  Wouldn’t you know, it rained cats and dogs all week!  <sigh>  We had to reschedule for this weekend – tomorrow. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                            
Part of the party is an egg fight.  This is actually a Mexican tradition that our friends taught us.  It is now something that my kids (ok, me too) LOVE to do each year!  You blow and dye eggs and then have a fight smashing the eggs on people’s head and getting egg shell everywhere.  There is suppose to be confetti in them too.  I have done this before with tissue paper confetti and then you tape up the end of the egg. 

Unfortunately, the tape isn’t biodegradable and it is just a lot more work.  I now skip that part and no one really misses it.  So, this week we headed down to our local-ish egg farm to pick up 7 flats of eggs.  That is 140 eggs!  We got them all blown this week and Samantha and I dyed them today.  

 Now the question – what do you do with 140 eggs!  In the past, we eat eggs until we can’t stand them any more then they get thrown away.  Open eggs don’t last a super long time.  This year though, I refuse to let them go to waist!  I am making egg muffins!  Like the ones and McDonalds only yummier and hopefully healthier.  (though with all the good stuff I added…I don’t know. J)  These are going into the freezer so that those mornings when we are running late, I can still have a breakfast!  Maybe now, Samantha will have something other than toast for breakfast before school.  YAY!  I got 24 made today.  I probably still have 50 or 75 to go.  I guess I know what I am doing tomorrow besides getting ready for our party! Lol  It’s ok, I just keep thinking about the peace that it will bring to our mornings.  That makes it all worth it.

We Have Dirt!!!

It has been a while since my last post.  Things here have been bustling!  It is so hard to fit this farm into our standard life of homeschooling, errands and activities.  Both of my kids are at that age where they are involved in everything and can't drive themselves yet.  So, life ends up being a "Hurry up and wait" type thing.  I wouldn't change it for the world!  Ok, maybe I WOULD cut back some.  I want to just simplify.

Back to the dirt!  My nephews came down from Sacramento and helped us out.  We found out kinda last minute that they would be coming so we had to scramble to get dirt for them to fill our new planter boxes.  Many of the local cities offer free dirt to their residents.  Unfortunately, ours doesn't.  I had arranged to meet up with a friend in a neighboring city to get the compost there - only to find that I could only have 1 square foot!  Um....that's not quite going to work for me.  So I start looking at other cities and the only ones that had unlimited compost weren't open until the end of March and we were sitting in the middle of February! 

Thankfully, a local mushroom company offered free compost to city residents.  Since it was where I grew up, they let me have it. :)  I was so relieved.  I rented a U-Haul pick up and went down to get it.  What an adventure!  Now, if you have never driven past a mushroom farm, you just haven't lived.  The aroma is similar to that of a dairy farm.  Heaping piles of fresh manure steaming in the sunshine all watered down and fermenting.  Oh lovely.  My kids were NOT amused!  We pull around back and after some Spanish/English/hand gesture communication with the guys, they take a big scoop with their tractor and dump it into the back of the pick up.  It was like being in an earthquake and was kinda fun!  Compost fell on the roof, the windshield and filled up the back of the truck.  It was then that I remembered that my mud boots were still back there for when I had to get out of the truck....OOPS!  The kids and I tied a tarp over the whole thing.  Brendan got to show off his new Boy Scout knots and we all got to walk through the mud...oh how I wish I had my boots!

We got the load home and started to unload.  As you can see, it was quite a job!  It took us about 3 hours to get the whole thing emptied.  The compost was a bit...um...riper than I had wanted.  Compost is suppose to season and break down.  We were stepping through manure.  I was so afraid that the kids would balk at this and really give me a hard time about working in it.  They did great though!  They got used to the smell even!  We emptied the whole truck in the driveway and returned it just in time.

Getting the topsoil was an adventure as well - though not as fun.  My wonderful husband called around and it wasn't until Saturday that we got someone to come deliver free dirt.  We had to pay for delivery, but hey, we didn't have to shovel it or pay for it!  What was suppose to be top soil is just dirt with rocks and debris.  Oh well.  You get what you pay for!   At this point, my nephews were here and ready to work. 

Step one, we lined the bottom of the planters with cardboard - which means we got to go dumpster diving!  It started to sprinkle while we were diving through dumpsters.  Oh the fun!

Next we hauled dirt.  My nephews, Kyle and Kevin, did an amazing job hauling one layer of compost followed by one layer of dirt.  Lots of loads! 

We all helped pulling rocks and debris from the dirt.   For every one we got, 5 more went into the planters.  There was just no way to get it all.  The kids worked tirelessly with Kyle and Kevin all day and into Sunday smoothing out the soil as they dumped load after load.  I cooked a big dinner and fresh sourdough bread to send home with the boys.  It was a great weekend and we got the planters in thanks to family.  It looks like this farm thing is really going to happen! 

Construction Begins!

The wood is here now it is time to build!  Bryan got to dust off all of his toys that have been sitting in the garage.   You know what?  They still work!  We had to cut the  8 foot boards onto 4 footers for the ends of our boxes. 

The kids got to help too!  Brendan loved using the drill to screw the boards together.  He is such a boy!  Gotta love those power tools!   

Samantha gave it a go as well, but wasn't as excited about it. 

I had fun watching Bryan work up a sweat while I took pictures.  This really was more of a one person job, but we all chipped in and helped.  At the end of the day, we had some really big planter boxes all ready to be filled and Bryan had some serious bragging rights!  Am I the most blessed girl ever or what?!  



My New Favorite Place!

Ladies and Gentlemen, let me introduce you to my new favorite home improvement store!  This place is amazing!  Here is how it works: When someone wants to remodel their house and it needs to be gutted, they can call a contractor who will come in, break up the cabinets, floors, roof, fence, etc and then haul the pieces to the dump.  OR, they can call Whole House Building Supply!  This little company will come in and take out all of the materials carefully and then sell them.  If, as a buyer, you are really lucky, you might see something that you are looking for come up on a demo day!  Then you can be the one to go in and carefully remove it from someone else's house and buy it for pennies on the dollar.  It is pretty awesome!  

On this shopping day, we headed straight to the warehouse.  As you can see from the picture, they had tons of wood!  We got 2x10 pieces for $0.75 a foot and 4x4 posts for $1.00 a foot!  What amazing prices!  They have tons of other stuff too.  It was fun to poke around at all of the vantage doors and hardware.  There are new things too, like a jacuzzi tub that was never installed and is now being sold as used.  Oh, I wish I had a place for THAT!  

 

Bryan and Aaron worked hard hauling down the perfect pieces of wood.  Aaron cut them all into 8 foot lengths so that they would fit in the back of the van.  He was a perfectionist, so it took longer.  We were so thankful though because the boards are all just right.  Assembly will be much easier!

Here it is, all laid out the way we want it.  I was thinking that I had room for two 20 foot beds, but I must have measured wrong.  We are getting two 16 foot beds instead!  All of our lumber is cut into 8 foot sections, so this should be easy.  The extra lumber will be used for the chicken coop.  YAY!   I'm getting excited!!!

Grapefruit and Oranges - OH MY!

Boy do we have an abundance!  These trees were here in our yard when we moved in.  The grapefruit goes crazy every year!  Unfortunately, no one in our family likes them.  I usually have a couple of friends who come over and pick a few, but really, how many grapefruit does a person really need?  Each year we watch the fruit fall and splatter on the patio, making a big mess. 


This year is going to be different!  We have decided to donate the fruit to the food bank.  YAY!  I am excited to get picking and see how many pounds we end up with!  I have given notice to my friends that they have one week.  That means that after next weekend, there will be no more mess.  WHOOT!

Now for the oranges.  These, we LOVE!  But what to do with them?  I have heard of pickling them in salt to use in cooking.  hmm...not sure I would use them.  The juice doesn't really freeze well.  I might try again, but it tends to separate and not come back together well.  I can't find much on preserving them other than canning in heavy syrup - blah.  I guess, we will just start eating oranges morning, noon and night.  Manna from heaven! :)  If anyone has any great preserving ideas, I am open.  Please share!

Blessings and Garlic

Things have been busy here.  Due to the crazy schedule of the kids and me homsechooling them, not much has happened around here to move the garden along.  I wonder sometimes, what I am thinking, putting in this garden!  What I want and reality are colliding, more than I would like.  However, I am tough and don't give up easily.  Time is like everything else, you make due with what you've got.

On that note, I wanted to plant some garlic.  Back in late December / early January, I researched it online and found that it is really quite simple.  My garden hasn't been put in yet, but I have some room in my flower bed in the back, in between plants that are already established.  One afternoon, I grabbed my son and a couple of heads of garlic from my kitchen and headed out back.  Why not?  Let's see what happens.  We used a ruler to measure out a grid.  We pulled our heads of garlic apart and planted the cloves 4" apart, just under the surface.  We watered occasionally and pretty much left it alone.  I went out the other day and low and behold - GREEN!  We have garlic growing!  I am so excited!  I only planted what I had a little space for and only what I had in my kitchen, so it isn't a lot.  It is a good start though!  SO easy!  We also planted some carrot seeds, but those haven't done anything.  I don't know if the birds got them, or if there hasn't been enough water....who knows.  I will try again later when my beds are in.

Another blessing has happened!  A few weeks ago, my son and I decided to go for a bike ride.  We were riding through our neighborhood when we saw a man out front who looked like he was taking down his picket fence.  I slammed on my breaks and struck up a conversation with him.  It turns out, he gets tons of this fencing for free!  He has enough fencing to wrap around my new garden.  He wanted to get rid of it and would be more than happy to give it to me for free!  God is good!  I got his contact info, and just today went over and picked up the fencing.  It is a bit weathered.  Some pieces may have to be replaced, but over all it is perfect! It matches up nicely to what we have in place already.  Oh, did I mention?  It even came with a gate!  I am so excited!  The dogs, of course, had to check this new stuff out.  Little do they know it is the beginning of the end to their reign in the back yard.

Bodi, the wanna-be sheep herding farm dog

This afternoon, Bryan and I are going to head up to the salvage yard to see if they have lumber that we can use for the planter boxes.  Hopefully they will be built this weekend.  Next weekend, my wonderful nephews will be coming down to haul compost for us! 

I thank God daily for his provision.  The fencing could have been a huge expense.  The garlic is growing beautifully with out the purchase of special seeds.  Things are moving all in His perfect time.  We are blessed.

Canning Day!!! Spicy Chili Beans

 

      After several days of wanting to can, only to realize that I was missing one thing or another, it finally happened!  I spent yesterday canning.  I got my pinto beans soaking overnight and into the next morning.  Then I drug out my wonderful, amazing, incredible camping stove.  (I really love this stove, can you tell?).  I got it all set up and ready to go.  My new pressure canner fits wonderfully on there too! 

All I had were small jam jars, but that’s ok.  This little farm experiment is all about using what you have and not crying over what you don't.  I put my beans in, spices on top of that, water on top of that and a lid!  I then shook them, to get the spices mixed in.  Only problem is that now my lids and the rims of the jars were dirty! <sigh>  I had take all of the lids off and wipe them clean then put them all back on.  There is a bit of a learning curve here though.  I have never used the pressure canner and assumed that you needed to cover the jars.  I don’t know why I thought this, since you don’t do this in a pressure cooker…but I did.  I got the whole thing loaded, then double checked my instruction manual.  OOPS!  Everybody out of the bath!  The water was hot, so this was tedious work with the little jar lifter thing I have.  It took a while to set the whole thing up again with only 3 inches of water (before the jars are put in). 

 By the time it was all loaded up again, the bottom layer of jars were submerged!  It worked though.  I turned on the gas and watched the pressure gauge go!  10lbs of pressure and 240 degrees for 75 minutes.  I didn’t realize it when I started, but we were actually low on propane.  The stove went out a couple of times, so I had to keep an eye on it.  With the flame turned down and a little prayer, we made it the full 75 min.  Everything came out great!  Bryan had to help get the lid off of the cooker.  Apparently, you have to use Vaseline to lube the seals so you can open it.  OOPS!  Now we know.  More learning.

                For dinner we had a wonderful taco salad with hamburger cooked in spicy chili beans. Mmmm….Samantha (my super bean lover) was in awe over the beans.  She kept on saying how amazing they were!  Everyone loved them, except Brendan who is very anti-bean. Lol  

                All in all, my fist canning experience with my new canner was a success!  I can’t wait to do more!

Spicy Chili Bean Canning Recipe:  (8oz jars)

½ c pinto beans – washed and soaked overnight

1 Tsp Cumin

1 Tsp Chili Powder

½ Tsp Salt

½ Tsp Garlic Powder

½ Tsp Onion Powder

Birthday Fun!



Not my actual cake (I didn't have one)
I found this online and thought that it
was cute!



Yesterday was my birthday.  I am blessed by the grace of God, to have had another year on this Third Rock.  When I turned 36, I decided that I would just go backwards to 34.  Yesterday I turned 30 again!  Now if I could just get my body to realize that it is 30, I would be set!



Our local feed store - Right in Down Town San Jose!



In celebration of my birthday, I dragged the kids to the feed store in town.  We talked to the man there about chickens and he gave me the names of some good local breeders.  He said that I should be able to get a juvenile (Pullet I think it is called?) hen for just $15!  All of the ones that I saw online were about $35.  This is good news since everyone that I talk to tells me how stinky the chicks are.  I would also be worried about them becoming dog treats!  This way, I get a hen that is getting ready to start laying and not have to worry about keeping them alive in the house.  WHOOT!



Did I mention that it was big?  It's big.



Last night, Bryan and the kids gave me gifts.  Bryan gave the the biggest, baddest canner to beat all canners.  I love the fact that it is called the "All American" company.  The entire thing is made in the good ol' USA!  The kids each gave me canning books, so I am ready to go!  I went out today and got some beans to get started with.  I also picked up the ingredients for soup.  I am going to try to get both of those canned this weekend.  We will see how it goes. :)  Oh, did I mention that this sucker is big?  Take a look at this pic.  It doesn't even fit on my stove with out touching the Micro hood!  I guess my super camp stove is going to come out of storage and I will be canning outside!  On the upside, it will keep the heat out of the kitchen this summer.  With our winter being so dry too, it looks like it shouldn't be a problem for me to can now too.  I just hope we get some good rain in a few weeks!  This is our rainy season and there isn't a cloud in sight! 



My sad dog bathroom. 
I can almost envision my tomato
 plants now.



More good news:  I talked to my awesome, wonderful, amazing nephews and they agreed to come down and take out my lawn.  They will use a sod cutter to take out the Bermuda grass and then haul in compost to put on top!  We can't rototill because of the sprinkler lines.  This should work though!  I love it when things come together.  God is so good and provides exactly what we need - including a wonderful family. We are blessed.