Wednesday, September 23, 2009

a few more things

gears are starting to turn in my head again (and rather quickly, i might add) so let's bullet point this thing so i can tick it off my "things to do" list. cool? cool.

* canning is still happening at the casa. we put up some more jam and made oktoberfest mustard.





we've also got sauerkraut, er, krauting in the basement. it's creepy and really stinky and all leff's once it finishes fermenting.

* leff and i were at the last green drinks. this time at samudra! check out part of the fantastic spread!



* there were fresh picked chanerelles at the farmer's market last week. i will kill for more of them. yeah, they're that good.



* i'm taking my time with the new profesor layton game. it's fun but the tea brewing is a bit annoying.



* i've got a new blog. (i know, i know...) the nephew project. click through if you wanna'. it's basically just a placeholder at the moment. killed this project. i felt like it would bring a mommy blogger readership and, um, fuck no.

time to get back to the literal drawing board!

Monday, September 14, 2009

a pretty good monday

thought i'd post today to bookmark this really great video (via jens' twitter (via kuu))



and also to mention that i'm getting kinda' witchy in my oldening age. you know, 'cause i just made my own mouthwash. that needs italics and bold. i made my own mouthwash.

i agree. it's fucking insane. here's the recipe. you know you want to do it.

(i used the nonalcoholic clove one as i don't have the brandy at hand).

Saturday, September 12, 2009

homesteading like motherf---ers plus some other stuff

long time, no see, huh? yeah, well, don't forget that there's always money in the banana stand.



once again, a lot has happened since i last wrote. first and foremost, leff and i have a new mode of transportation!! BIKES!! here is mine!



this is leff's!

in all honesty, i'm still kinda' nervous about riding my bike. until today i hadn't been on one since i crashed my brother's bmx into some barbed wire in, oh, 1983.(you should see the scars. nasty business. trust.)

still, it's nice to be able to travel faster than foot speed.

this morning we watched the bremerton aids walk from our front porch. there were some really adorable and dedicated people!





sadly, i've heard that they didn't quite meet their fundraising goal so if you'd like to donate, please click here!

let's move on to other festival type things. i'm not going to comment on the blackberry variety other than to note that these were the only blackberries that i saw.



would you like to see what the inside of a "blackberry slug" (a.k.a. a maple bar with blackberry jam inside) looks like? here:



one bright spot of the "festival" was being able to change my voter registration. the following is not a picture of that happening.



i lie. there were two bright spots when you consider that i got to split these fries at fritz with leff.



now to the homesteading portion of this post! this, dear readers, is the future home of the squirmy family.



yep, we got our worm bin! now we just have to order the worms!

we also got a TON of coffee grounds from samudra today! (do i need to reiterate how much i LOVELOVELOVE them?? because i will!)



leff and i are going to use said grounds to make our front yard more acidic. we're trying to replace the lawn with a moss carpet.

it'll never be as cool as this but we're going to give it a shot.

what else has been happening on the homesteading front? preservation. as in the "preservation experiment of aught nine". so far we've made damson gin with plums from our tree in the back yard.



(recipe here)

and all of these farmer's market peppers



have become all peter pipered.



it should be seriously hot. there are six kinds of spicy peppers in that. (*drooling*)

back to the plums, here's some damson jam that we put up!



i've already have some and, i'm not ashamed to admit it, it's damn tasty. in fact, we're going to make four more jars of it. (and two jars of mustard, a bunch of pickles and some sauerkraut.)

i've also got a ginger beer starter, uh, started. should be ready in about a week.

this week it's meetings ahoy! including the semi annual public kitsap co op meeting AND green drinks at samudra on thursday! whoo!