Baby Hand Christmas Tree Decorations

Look how much my girls hands have grown. I will be hanging these on the Christmas tree each year so they can see how much their little hands have changed each year. I simply used felt and squeezable acrylic paint. This particular brand of felt was made from recycled plastic bottles in the US.

Leg Warmers

So, I wish that I knew how to rotate pictures. Christmas leg warmers made from socks! One of my best recycles yet.

Baking the Halloween Pumpkin

Yes, these are pictures left over from early November; after Halloween, that I am just now blogging about! If there is anyone able to give me some ideas of how to deal with migraine's sustainably; please let me know! My computer usage slowed down tremendously during the last month and a half. So I will pick and choose what I should catch up on. The above jack-o-lantern yielded so much pumpkin that I will be making pumpkin treats for the coming year several times over, plus I gave some away!

Catching the Fruit Flies

This is a homemade fruit-fly trap. To make this simply pour off some wine or juice into a container (cheap vases work nicely), tape and seal a paper cone with a very small hole in the bottom to the opening, and leave near your bananas for a few days. I have to give my husband credit for this because so far we have trapped four of those pesky little creatures.

Seed Storage

I think egg cartons will do nicely this year for seed storage; and they are stackable.

Mmmmmm. . .Pumpkin Muffins!

Mmmmmm, Smells so good. This is definitely the time of year to make pumpkin muffins. Although, as I learned last year, one rarely uses pumpkin for pies and such. Acorn and Butternut squash taste more like pumpkin than pumpkin does. Even if, I will still bake my jack-o-lantern's after Halloween and find uses for them. I do recommend throwing a few chocolate chips in the muffins.

Happy Halloweeeeeeeeen

Happy Halloween!

Grave yard made with styrofoam and grey paint.

Hands were made using stuff rubber gloves dipped in plaster of paris.

Hanging Jack-O-Lantern made by covering a water or milk jug with paper and painting it orange and the face is glued on. Christmas lights give the jack-o-lantern a night glow. The ghost jars are simply paper mache` using strips of wrapping paper tissue. The jars were also illuminated with white christmas lights.

Block those weeds

A recent tip from a local, organic farmer by trade:

You simply use newspapers under your mulch as a weed blocker. The newspapers will eventually break down and they will add carbon to your soil.

A Very Useful Lid. . .

I cooked up some food in this crock pot recently and as it was cooking, the top edges touching the pot got a little dry. As a result I was given a new cleaning challenge. My solution was to use this handy lid as a scraping device. It was actually more useful than if I had used any other scraping device such as a spatula, knife, or the food scraper end of our kitchen scrubbing brush. I do not use barillo pads since they are infused with cleaning chemicals; and because food particles are trapped on them after their first use.

Homemade Dog Food

The above picture shown are beef livers from our grass-fed cow order. I am not terribly into eating them so they, along with some veggies I've been saving in my freezer (pictured below), are going into the crock to make dog food for my furry friends. I've been collecting veggie parts like the ends of carrots and squash and the mid-base section of broccoli that we were otherwise composting. I use only fresh parts and nothing rotten. I use only the edible parts.

You Deserve Cloth

A few words about waste: "Waste not, want not." The old adage is very useful in times of recession. . .but what about when we prosper? Well if you can imagine that every time you use a cloth napkin, no trees were killed, no waste was sent to landfill, and no bleach from that napkin touched your lips; then you can begin to feel so good about yourself in all these little tiny ways. Herein lies the essence of simply living and no matter what your pocket book holds.

Homemade Graham Crackers

This is my first hand at graham crackers. Most of the recipes do call for white flour, but it just isn't as nutritious so I mixed graham flour with Whole Wheat pastry flour and that turned out pretty good. The girls love them, and that is most important to me. Now I just want to play with neat shapes and edging. I used a combination of recipes, but mostly I followed Nancy Silverton's recipe. She came up all over the search engine when I went on my recipe hunt, so I thought I might want to try her out first.

Homemade Dough for Playing

A good number of Do-It-Yourself projects that I have taken on have the kind of results that leave me plenty of room to improve. Play dough, on the other hand, is pretty much instantly gratifying. I used the recipe below and was pleasantly surprised that the texture and color turned out magnificent and it made for an exciting evening.

1 cup flour, 1/4 cup salt, 2 Tb of cream of tartar, 1 cup water, 2 tsp. food coloring, 1 Tb of oil.

Combine flour, salt and cream of tartar. Add water, food coloring and oil. Cook and stir over medium heat. When a ball forms in the center of the pan, remove & knead.

Beginners Water Collecting. . .

The water collector has collected to capacity since our rainy season has begun. We now need to figure out an over flow collection system. I either need to come up with another container, or redirect the water to other beds, to the street drains, or into the yard. Mainly, you want the water away from the house so that it protects your house from rot, however, the water can go back into the water table on your property.

More Mystery Greens. . .

Just two weeks ago I noticed the lettuce on the left that decided to sprout, and now it is growing like crazy. I added the sprouting potatoes to the other side of the planter and they are actually much larger than shown--they are taking over the whole planter!

Mulch

Max is now spreading the wood chips around in our beds. Most people are spreading bark dust. Bark dust is the same thing as the wood chips, except they've been processed and chemicals are added. Since our wood chips will serve the same purpose without the chemicals, they are an excellent choice to the organic gardening that we are going for; plus they are free.

Grass-Fed Cooked with Homegrown

Last Spring we placed our order for one quarter of a grass-fed, humanely raised cow after watching the documentary, "Food, Inc.". If you have not seen this documentary, it is a must-see. I highly recommend reading or viewing anything that journaled by Michael Pollan.

The meal shown is the round steak cut, cooked with red and blue potatoes from the back yard, and organic carrots. Very delicious. I think the crockpot is one of the best inventions yet.

Cracker practice

My first attempt at replacing the crackers in our cabinet didn't turn out like a Ritz; but I wasn't really going for that anyway. I was actually hoping that it would taste a bit more like the Original Kashi cracker, which we love in this house. It wasn't quite as sweet or salty, but I'm eating them in my lunch anyway. The more plain flavor tastes pretty good with hummus though. The kids are still hooked on Kashi for now.

Mushroom Village

A good recyclable use for the dry, melded together, grey play-doh that normally would be tossed and replaced with brightly colored new play-doh is to make beads or mushrooms (or any shape for that matter). In this case, we squished the old play-doh into little mushrooms, baked at 300 for about 1 hour, and then we painted them. Voila! A Mushroom Village!

Mint Candy

This afternoon, I attempted to make mint hard candies using the mint essence that I made last month. My recipe was to boil 2 cups of sugar with 4 Tb of water until when dropped into water it forms a hard ball at the bottom of the cup. I then added the mint essence (2 Tb) and let it boil off the alcohol for 30 seconds or so. This mixture was poured on top of waxed paper and it hardened very quickly. So the longer it boils on the stove top, the harder the candy will turn out in the end. I will be breaking up the candy and filling baby food jars and altoid boxes that I have saved.

Downspout Construction

The downspout was cut and screwed back together so that it had one bend in it for the redirecting of the rainwater into the "collecting tank". The water that we are collecting at this point will merely be used as grey water for watering plants in the yard. I'm not certain how we will redirect the over-flow just yet as our monsoon season begins to set in here in Oregon. Maybe I will learn to grow rice somewhere in my yard?

Rainwater Collecting Begins

This is the start of our Rainwater collections. The lid is essential so that mosquito's do not reproduce, to eliminate debris, and to prevent evaporation. The spout was recycled from our old water heater that went out a few months ago.

Mint Essence

Those three jars contain mint essence, simply made of fresh mint leaves soaking in vodka. It tastes really good in coffee; but my initial intention for making it was to make my own mint candies.

Generic Jars

The more homemade items that replace their store bought versions. . .the more the need arises to stay organized. I am beginning to realize that it takes some clever at-home packaging to really see what is in the cupboards, refrigerator, and freezer. I'm starting to feel a certain success with all these generic jars though!

Garlic Harvest

So there it is. . .my fully ripened garlic bulb that I planted last January. The only question I have is; what the heck is that bulby-looking thing growing on it's stem/plant-part?

Blueberry Season-Yummy!

The yearly blueberry picking ritual yielded us 2 big bags of blueberries to take us through the year. That is approximately half of what we harvested last summer so I plan on making up for this with the apples this fall. We usually pick ours at Blueberry Hill Farm off of Roy Rogers. That family is absolutely kind and wonderful. I have a wonderful gadget that I'm dying to use for my applesauce making anyway.

Mint Harvest

I have a lot of mint growing in my yard. This plant likes to take over the yard so I will just need to find a few uses for it. I am drying it around the house by hanging it upside down using strings leftover from my sewing spools. Next weekend I will be soaking the leaves in Vodka to make mint essence. This will be especially useful in candies and ice cream. I've even boiled some of it and I am freezing it as ice cubes in bags to use as a scented spray for the car.

The Garlic is Almost Ready for Harvest

A friend at work who is also growing garlic gave me the tip that my garlic bulbs may be near their harvest time. This weekend I decided to poke around and see what is happening under the dirt to decide if I wanted to harvest now or wait. I used my daughters toy hand spade and carefully uncovered a beautiful looking garlic bulb. I do think I will give them a week or two longer though. I planted the sprouting garlic cloves last January, and now I have full grown bulbs by July to August! Yummy!

Blueberry Bushes

I have two blueberry plants but only one (this one) is producing berries. It is full of nice, sweet, ripe fruit though.

How to Cook Your Life

I want to stop a mention a documentary recommendation. I recently watched "How to Cook Your Life" by Edward Espe Brown and have taken some kind of internalized, Zen inspiration from it that is allowing me to move more freely through my self-sufficiency journey. I recommend this one to anyone.

Salad and Strawberries

Food taken straight from the backyard doesn't get anymore environmentally friendly or sustainable than this! No oil was used to ship it, no pesticides used to "protect" it, no fertilizers used to boost it. Instead it is just simple dirt and seeds growing into plants a few steps away from the kitchen it was served from. I am nearing the end of this strawberry plant's season but I will be transplanting several of them to the front yard to hopefully increase the fruit potential for next summer. I have heard it through word of mouth that strawberry plants need to be moved occasionally so that they will continue producing fruit the following years to come. I will be putting this to a test and will report next year.

Dead Ant, Dead Ant

I am now putting together a bed that I will used to sprinkle various seeds until something sprouts. The picture on the right is the reason that I

decided to do this. I had around 10 Beans starts that I had growing in my window in the earliest of Spring. Everyone of them went through transplant shock and they all died. The remaining plants that I now have are all seeds that I sowed directly outdoors after the fear of frost vanished. I am now believer of starting most seeds in the place they will continue life to the end.

The blocks in the center that almost a circle is the platform that I intend on placing a water collecting barrel to catch the downspout water on the side of the house. This may be either a late July or mid-August project to look forward to.

I have to mention my experience with the ants b/c it is the human side of me that is on a Journey and having not reached my destination that made me cave into letting my husband use the ant spray. While I was digging and leveling the ground where these planting blocks were to be placed; I ran into an ant colony and my mind quickly reverted back to being a kid and being covered and repetitively stung by these ants. Without thought of how it would impact the soil, the ants, or my dogs or children if they encountered this dirt (or if it had drained and gotten into the water supply which would be drunk by any random individual); I quickly asked my husband to spray the ants so that I could continue building my planter. It didn't even cross my mind once b/c I was sucked into a deep connection with the ant attack I was under at age 4 or 5. The next morning I was hit by the dread of what I had actually gone through with (and without any thought about it that previous evening). When I was able to begin my work with the ground again I was relieved to see that very few ants had actually died and that it was still swarming with some very busy tiny creatures. I quickly shoveled the affect soil out and into a different location so that it could be transported into a safer place. I haven't yet thought of where that might actually be, but I think I'll be more aware of my fears next time so that I don't make the same mistake twice. Yikes! That would be one reason why this blog is about the journey. It did hit me today as I was working that having a raised bed is good cause for leaving the living things alone while I work on the upper surface.

Urban Wildlife

Once again, this just a shot of the wildlife that I get suckered into feeding. The wildlife here isn't so wild anymore though. I came within a foot of that squirrel before she decided that she I was too close. I accidentally dumped half of the bag of bird seed out between the trees, so we received lots of visitors today. The smaller squirrel farther away is one of four babies that show up in our yard and play. They play and wrestle as if they are wired on sugar and chocolate though most of the time. In the near future, I will try to capture some of that on video. It is a must see.

The Art Box

My husband and his friends have been working diligently on house repairs, including the latest set back-the water heater replacement.

It was very evident that the water heater was quite old once we pulled it out, after it leaked all over the floor. The bottom end had a rusted out hole that only time could have created. Although I will still be shaking my fist at the ghost that lives in the attic just for an outlet.

Once the new one was installed. . .the box became known as both 1. the choo-choo train, and 2. the art box. A box is still the best toy yet!

Potty Training Shirts

I can see that I am a bit out of practice with my sewing machine; however, both turned out to be wearable and more useful potty-training toddler shirts. Refashion success!