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!