Relinquishing My Table for the Cause

I used to have a kitchen table.  I used to be able to sit and eat breakfast at my kitchen table. My kitchen table has been lost to the “Growing My Own Food” cause.  It is now home to three flats of vegetable and flower seedlings that NEED to get in the ground.  But this is Maine and Mother Nature likes to point and laugh at us when even remotely think the last frost has passed.

Ellie and Nym are less than impressed.  The table is their spot to lounge in the afternoon sun; their place to launch themselves over to the cat dishes, so they don’t have to get on the floor. It is where they sit sentinel, waiting for me when I come home from work, so that I may lavish them with attention (and so they don’t get trompled by the dog when she does her “OHMYGODYOU’REHOME! I’MSOHAPPY!” dance at the door). They look with disdain at those little peat cups and bits of greenery. I’m convinced that Ellie is intentionally and systematically killing them off, by jumping over them and stepping through them, in an attempt to get me to move them off of HER table!

Eventually, one day…hopefully soon…I (and Ellie and Nym) will see the table again.

Edible Landscaping

Yesterday, two of my friends and I attended an “edible landscaping” class at Longfellow’s Greenhouses in Manchester. Lois Stack, from the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, taught us how to plan our landscape to maximize vegetable and native edibles growth and “make the most of our growing experience.”


The class was fairly well attended, and the slideshow of pictures of her garden (and a few other gardens) made me want to jump up and start planting...even though it was 36 degrees with 10-15 mile an hour winds yesterday.  


The class gave me many good ideas that I will most definitely be employing this summer.  Like how a Cranberrybush Viburnum will grow up to 12 feet high and wide and makes a great privacy hedge, plus you can make the berries into a jam.  How incorporating edibles into your perennial beds gives you more food, but doesn't take away from the sense of beauty in your flower gardens, but adds to them...like Scarlet Runner Beans.  Not only are they edible, but attractive. Same with garlic, when planted at the back of a flower patch. AND, I never realized that artichokes grow well in Maine.  It's just not something I had ever tried.


Originally, my intention was to have the 8x20 garden out back be my sole vegetable garden and the 4x6 garden by the shed and the little garden in front of the house would solely be flowers.  But now I'm thinking of incorporating herbs into the front of the house garden.  And the Kohlrabi that I left for dead in the 4x6 wintered over nicely and already has green leaves, so I think it’ll stay.  I think I may put in some other edibles there, too.  Might be a good place for pumpkins and watermelons.


I also think that I'll get rid of the scrub by the road and bring in sugar maples that I will be able to tap one day.  And the area behind the shed that's mostly scrub and tall grass, I'm thinking fruit trees: pears, plums, apples.  I need to clean out the blackberry bushes, the raspberries and the old apple trees to get rid of the dead stuff.  I feel like I should have done this last fall, but I didn't.


After the class, we wondered around and picked up some herbs and I bought an artichoke plant.  Not that we could plant any of these things outside mind you, with the temperatures still dropping into the high 20's and low 30's at night, and the threat of frost still present.


On the way home, Melissa and Vincent indulged me and we went looking for the Black Crow Bakery in Litchfield, where they make old world stone baked breads.  Talk about amazing bread!  I'd like to bring my camera next time and take pictures of this tiny room with the giant, wood-fired oven, that large, old school stand mixer and the rack of bread in the corner with the handmade name tags for each. There's no one there, it's strictly the honor system.  It might become a every Saturday morning stop, until I can learn to make bread like that!

Breakfast of Champions

Last night I picked up my order of yummy Maine farm products from the KLFI Buying Club.  I ordered:

• Organic Salted Butter from Moo Milk Co, which has farms all over Maine
• Sharp Cheddar Cheese from Sonnental Dairy of Smyrna, ME (this is an Amish dairy that produces amazing cheese!)
• Organic Raw Milk from Tide Mill Farm of Edmunds, ME
• Nitrite free Pork Bacon from Farmers Gate Market of Wales, ME
• Maine Grown Desiree Potatoes from Sparrow Arc Farm of Unity, ME

So my breakfast this morning was nearly all Maine-made/home produced.  Except my toast.  I didn't have time to make bread.  And my tea is a rugged Irish Breakfast...but with raw milk, it was the best cup of tea I've had in a long time!

I’m so thankful to live in Maine, where we have such an abundance of small farms producing a vast crop of products.  My ultimate goal is to not have to hit the grocery store every time I need food (which can be two, sometimes three times a week, depending on if I’ve forgotten something).  I want to grow what I can, bake my own bread, get my eggs from my own poultry and maybe start raising broilers for the freezer.  I’ve already started making calls about purchasing freezer beef and pork from local farms.  And I’ll get my dairy products (and whatever else I can’t produce myself) through KFLI and/or the Wednesday Farmers Market in town.  I want to learn how to render pig fat and bake with lard like my great grandmothers used to in Newfoundland.  I want to milk a goat, make cheese and handmade soap. I want to make a root cellar, can more veggies, make jams and sauces and store crops for winter.

I am weirdly, deliriously happy at the thought of doing these things. I am beyond help, so I’m just going to go with it!

While I’ve still got a lot to learn with this camera, I’m unbelievably happy with the first shots!  Now if Mother Nature would cooperate and give me an evening without clouds and rain (maybe a glorious sunset, if that’s not too much to ask?), I’ll continue my snap happiness.

 

On a side note, today I pick up my order from the KLFI Buying Club, so be on the lookout for pictures from that and tomorrow, three friends and I will travel to a local nursery for an “edible landscaping” class.  The woman who is teaching it is from the UMaine Cooperative Extension.  Can’t wait!!!

Snap Happy

At work. Can't focus. Got the new camera on the brain.

I just order a Canon Rebel and it arrived today...at my office...at 9:00 this morning.

Since this time, I have struggled to stay on task and get actual work done! I'm hyper aware of the 18 megapixel beauty with the telephoto lense sitting in a box under my desk.

Just. Want. To. Play.

Hurry up, 5:00-I've got pictures to take!

Spooooooon!!!

Ah, the rally cry of one of my favorite cartoon characters...The Tick!

What does The Tick have to do with anything?  Well, tick season has begun here (okay yeah, I know, weird segue).  It starts just before black fly season and doesn't end until November (if we're lucky and we get a good freeze that month).  

Unfortunately, tick season means avoiding the snowmobile trail behind my house when walking Sadie, because inevitably, I end up with a tick crawling on me somewhere. Normally, my tick radar is on high alert and I just know when I've got one on me.  But this morning, it wasn't crawling on me...it was EMBEDDED in my knee!  GROSSEST. THING. EVER! I found it when I was taking a shower, thinking it was a scab to a cut that I didn't realize I had.  And god was it sore!  Then I thought I saw the scab move.  Not having my glasses on, I flung myself out of the shower, soaking the bathroom in the process to put on my glasses and see that it was exactly what I feared.  A tick!  

While I was able to pull it out, I don't know if I got the head out.  My mother thinks it may have come out when it bled (I know, too much information), but to keep an eye on it, so it doesn't bullseye. 

Ugh, yuck!  This is the first time I've had a tick IN me, rather than just on me.  Talk about paranoid now.  My tick checks include stripping down and turning my clothing inside out! Thank god the dog is treated against fleas, ticks, mosquitoes and biting flies.  Now if only someone would make a nontoxic, human version that did the same thing!  

Stinky Poo

So my wonderful, sweet dog who NEVER rolls in stinky stuff decided that her first foray into rolling in anything but leaves, clean grass or snow, would be in chicken shit! The perils of free ranging chickens is that their poop is EVERYWHERE!

Sadie and her stuffed chicken

The worst part was that I thought it was me, that I had brushed against it or, worse, gotten it in my hair. I changed my clothes, I checked my boots by the door, but I kept smelling it. I was about to put myself in the shower until I bent down and sniffed her head! Oh, but it was awful! 

I think, even Sadie couldn't stand the smell of herself, because she didn't put up much of a fight when I led her down to the bathroom and put her in the tub.  The dog shampoo that I had did NOT get rid of the smell of chicken poop, no matter how many times I applied it. My own shampoo, though, thankfully did!

Since the incident, I have to keep a close eye on her when she goes down back, near the coop and she wants so desperately to roll.  You can just see it in her face! And apparently rolling on the front lawn is just not as much fun as rolling on the back lawn.

Free Rangers and Digging in the Dirt

My little flock started free ranging yesterday!  They were leery for, oh about 30...maybe 40 seconds and then they were off exploring!
 

They couldn't wait to get out this morning, heading for the spot under the pine tree up by the driveway that they fell in love with yesterday.  It was a sweet spot, until two neighborhood cats started stalking them and the Bantams sent out the warning call that had me flying out the door to find out what was wrong.  Damn cats!  Since then, they've been sticking closer to the coop and digging in my garden.

Ah yes, the garden has been dug and the bean trellis has gone up!  I'm very proud of my bean trellis.  Its an old futon frame that I repurposed.

There's still a lot to be done before I can start planting; like fencing around it so my chickens don't dig up all my seeds!  That kind of defeats the purpose of growing my own food.

On a side note, the chickens are no longer sticking close to the coop as of a moment ago, when I went to check on them. There were two little Bantams hanging out in the coop, one of them sending out a warning squawk (which is why I went out in the first place).  For a moment, I thought I lost them.  Seriously, I couldn't hear them or see them anywhere until I started walking the perimeter of the property and there they were, over to the right of my tenant's driveway, in the brush under the apple tree, happily digging for whatever!  Fearless, I tell ya! So much for keeping them close and within view.

KLFI

Today, I volunteered with the Kennebec Local Food Initiative (KLFI) for the first time...the first of what I hope will be many!

KLFI is an organization promoting local food, local farmers and community.  They have the ultimate goal of bringing a natural, local foods store that houses a cafe and an educational kitchen to our downtown.  This is something I have longed for for a very long time.

I learned out KLFI last year, when I was doing a bit of research on local farmers markets and stumbled upon their website.  They had a sign up for their newsletter and I thought, “What the heck?  They sound like a very worthwhile organization.”  Not long after, a coworker and I were talking about the Co-Op in Belfast (one of my favorite places!) and how we needed something like that around here to give the one little health food store in the area a little healthy competition (no pun intended…no really, I only just realized how lame that sounded as I was rereading this before posting). Then a KLFI newsletter went out with a survey, asking how interested people would be in a healthy foods storefront, how likely we would be to frequent it, etc. etc.  It was like they overheard my conversation.  I knew I needed to be involved somehow, but I just didn’t think I had the time…or rather, I didn’t know if I was willing to make the time.  I’m very much not a joiner, very much a homebody.  But then something clicked last week and I found myself just sending them an email, telling them I wanted to volunteer. Once it was sent, there was no turning back! And I'm glad I sent that email!

Sarah, the director of KFLI, met me at the door of the old bakery downtown and we just got chatting.  I immediately felt welcomed and when I told her about my conversation with my coworker, she started nodding and smiling, because they are looking to base the KLFI storefront on a cross between the Belfast Co-Op and another place in Waterville called Barrels Community Market.  It just seemed like one more nudge telling me I'm supposed to be involved this organization.  The experience was everything I hoped it would be; everyone who showed up was so friendly that I just felt like I was in the right place!

So right now, KLFI is doing an online buying club...kinda like a CSA share, only you choose what local, organic foods you want to purchase from what is available from the Maine farmers and producers that they work with. They offer organic beef, chicken, pork, seasonal fruits  and veggies, raw milk, grains, honey, bread, yogurt, butter...the list is long and everything looked so fresh and yummy! I was really wishing I had signed up for the buying club when it first began.  But better late than never, right?  The next round of ordering is Sunday and I can’t wait to see what awaits me!

Words of Wisdom for the Day

Never give chickens guacamole. The after effects are not pretty...trust me!

More Scenes From a Sewing Room

Yesterday, I had the urge to serge! I really wanted a new top - something springy; something feminine and flattering. Something I could make using the lovely, gauzy, teal floral fabric that I bought for all of $6 two years ago.

I dug through my patterns and found an old one that I'd never used (don't ask me the name or the pattern number, because its sitting at home on my cutting table, while I'm sitting in my truck on my lunch break). I pulled out the instructions and was amazed to find that it used less than a yard and a half of fabric and consisted of four pattern pieces.

Now I've said it before and I'll say it again, I hate pattern instructions. I often don't use them for anything more than a glancing guideline. This was no different...and I know I stitched this top completely different from how the pattern suggested, but you know, it worked just the same!

The only time consuming part was zigzag stitching the raw edges. I should have broke out the serger, but I was lazy and didn't want to set it up. It would have been faster and cleaner if I had, though and I'll know for next time, because this was such a simple shirt and I will definitely be making it again!

I did have one issue...the size. Its about a half size too small in the waist. So I either I need to drop 5 or 6 pounds before I wear it, or I need to add a panel to each side. Panel it is! :-)

Ahhhhh, learning experiences!