Baker Creek Seed Order Arrived

Here it is, proof that I will be attempting the madness of 2014 extreme gardening.

Did I mention the Dragon Eggs?

1st row:  tomatoes!
2nd row:  2 squash, 2 cukes, 1 sunflower (for seeds)
3rd row:  a summer-hardy spinach replacement, 2 radishes, nasturtium, and one medicinal flower.
For a more-detailed description of each and why they were chosen, click HERE.

Strange Tomato of the Day: Uh, come up with your own caption.

Ahem.

Sit and Stay

You know, it has become really easy to take photos of Stormy now that she knows the meaning of "stay."  Daily training practice has been probably the smartest thing we've done with her.  Makes living with a puppy much easier, and she loves to please!

Afternoon hikes are the best, when nobody else is around.

So far her skill set includes:

A Puppy's Emotional Torture

You know your puppy is spoiled when she cries because you won't let her get in the bathtub with you.  Even though, given the option, she would prefer to never bathe.

How to roast green coffee beans at home using a popcorn popper

I took the plunge, and figured out how to roast coffee beans to perfection.  It is incredibly easy and frugal, so I am morally obligated to share it with you!

For the cheapest method, it will just take some slight very easy modifications to a popcorn popper, and a few attempts to find your favorite roast level.

Green beans vs. roasted beans... yes, they do actually grow in size during the roasting process.

Here are the supplies you'll need... 

On The Road Again

We're starting to know this trail like the back of our hand/paw.

Rooting Store-Bought Lemongrass Stalks

We love green curry.  LOVE it.

One of the vital ingredients used when making green curry from scratch is lemongrass... and if I had a lot of it for free (it is not the cheapest ingredient), I would put it in pretty much every soup, make infused spirits, add it to refreshing teas.  I discovered that it is supposed to grow pretty easily without too much water, is a perennial in my area, that my husband loves the look of ornamental grasses (who knew!), and that it is also a mosquito repellent.  I need this wonderful herb in my garden.

The lemongrass experiment begins.

It took minimal experimentation to figure out how to root the lemongrass.  Here's how it went:

Grimm Painting

Do any of you know what painting this is, or who made it?

(ignore the lamp on the right)

It appears to be a woman/nymph in the ocean casting a net.  I saw it in the background in an episode of Grimm (season 2, episode 20, "Kiss of the Muse"), and, due to my love of all things Poseidon, decided it needed to be in my life.

A potential clue:  This episode of Grimm was filmed in Portland, Oregon, and the large amounts of artwork in the episode may have come from local artists?

If I can't find it, I will have to end up painting it, but I am extremely reluctant to copy something that is obviously someone else's work.

Help me!

How to Sex a Squash

Have you ever wondered how to tell the difference between male and female squash flowers?  Have you been perplexed as to why your squash flowers shrivel and die without making fruit?  Look no further!  Behold, the miracle of Cucurbita reproduction!

Here you see a male flower, laden with pollen.  These should pop up on the plant first.  If you have no female flowers on your plant, just pick these male flowers and fry 'em up.  If you only ever get this type of flower (which happened with my Galeux d'Eysines squash 2 years ago), you'll never get fruit.  I haven't a clue what causes this.

Male:  thin and dusty.

The following is a female flower. 

Saving Money with Green Coffee Beans?

I came across this gem on Reddit... 

You can roast green coffee beans on your own, for about 6 minutes in a popcorn popper.  Or on the stovetop, or in a special coffee roaster.  And theoretically, it is so fresh that you can't find anything as good in stores.

Here's some basics on the roasting process.

Ryan's daily coffee habit is about $15/pound for roasted Peet's coffee.

At Sweet Maria's, their 8-pound sampler plus shipping works out to $6/pound.  I ordered the espresso sampler, and have a popcorn popper... we are totally doing this thing.

But wait, there's more!

As an added benefit, green coffee beans last 2-3 years in airtight storage without deteriorating flavors, while roasted beans last a week before beginning to lose flavor. 

Once we figure out the roasting and his favorite beans, we could buy it in bulk and add this to the food storage and just rotate it out yearly.  Every time we watch a post-apocalyptic movie, Ryan does mention that he'd miss coffee the most.  Will this end up being a part of the 2014 food storage plan?  Time will tell.

And now, it's time for me to further my research on r/roasting.  Mmmm.  Should arrive tomorrow, and just in time too, since we only have 2 days' worth of coffee left.
 
... Here's hoping my husband likes it.  He's a good sport, but coffee is sacred.

Just a quick tomato note...

This weekend I picked 13 pounds of tomatoes.  Some of them are looking pretty darn small, but they're just as tasty.  I fertilized pretty well after the last harvest, and the plants perked up and started producing a bit faster.

Last night I canned 6 more quarts of tomatoes... my original ridiculous goal was 10 gallons, so I am just 3.5 quarts away.

I am totally going to reach this goal that I thought was impossible.  Blows my mind!

2014 Plan: The daily diet

Last week's 2014 post was about how I'd reduced the amounts of food we are planning on getting.

Allow me to explain...

When cooking, this will be the weekly dry goods allotment for 2 people:

• Flour products:  27 servings
• Oats, 14 servings
• Popcorn:  14 servings  (good thing this stuff keeps for longer than a year)
• Legumes:  10 servings
• Rice:  12 servings
• Cornmeal:  4 servings
• Hummus or garbanzo sprouts:  3.5 servings
• Quinoa:  2 servings
• Millet:  1 serving

This breaks down to, per person* per day:

• 1 serving oats for breakfast
• 1 serving for lunch (quinoa/millet/bean salad, soups, vegetarian sushi)
• 1 serving for dinner (burrito/taco salad fillings, stews/chili, veggie meatloaf or burger patties, cornbread, corn chips)
• 2 servings of wheat (bread slice, pancake, tortilla, pot pie crust) 
• 1 snack (hummus, sprouts, popcorn)

Throwing it up on a Fitday calculator, that's about 1050 calories.

But wait, there's more! 

Puppy vs. Pool

Stormy failed her pool test today.

I dropped her in randomly as a surprise, and then ran inside and watched from the kitchen window.

She did head straight for the shallow end, then headed toward where she had seen me last and unsuccessfully attempted to crawl out without using the steps.  She then held on to the edge of the pool and cried.

We'd been practicing, and I totally thought she could do it!  I could only handle about 2 minutes of the crying as I waited for her to figure it out, then I went to lead her to the steps. 

Jeez, it was one of the most pitiful things I have seen, and the look on her face makes me feel like a horrible person.

So much for the doggy door.

 Learning to use the contraption.*

Off Leash

Wow, Stormy is loving these off-leash hikes.  She loves posing too!

All tongue, all the time.

Order from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds... and Dragons

Maybe I went a little overboard.  

But to be fair, my goal for next year is to go totally overboard with the garden.  456 pounds of produce isn't gonna come easy!

Mom, if you want any of these for next year, lemme know... I'm sure I'll fill the solarium this spring with more seedlings than we can handle.  May have a few extras to give away to my locals or your friends too.

Here's the edibles:

Backpacking With Your Poodle

In honor of National Preparedness Month, Stormy would like to show off her new backpack while she stands funny because she's not used to a strap under her belly.

Pretending to be a working dog.

She isn't supposed to carry any substantial weight until she is 18 months old and her bones stop growing... at 9 months old, she has a long way to go. 

Tarantula Adventure

Yesterday Stormy and I went on a 2-mile hike, and I was cutting it a little too close to dusk.  On our way back we saw a fuzzy tarantula.

"I'm a-gonna eat yer foot."

And now, for a video of Stormy and the spider.

Epiphany about Anxiety and Choices

A few weeks ago my husband let slip the secret to inner peace.

I've always been a bit anxious.  And when things aren't going right in life, or there are huge injustices going on that I must endure, the anxiety goes through the roof.  I associate anxiety with stuff being wrong.

Ryan, on the other hand, is pretty darn easy-going.  His own description of how he deals with it is this:  Do what you can to fix the problem, then put it in a mental box, stick that box on a mental shelf, and don't take it out again until there's a point where you can do more to fix the problem.  As someone who constantly thinks about everything simultaneously, this is really hard for me to understand... how do people put things in boxes and just ignore them?

Purple Haze: the Mt. Diablo After-effects

I left for a hike a little late, which meant I returned to the car around 7:30, after sunset.

Slightly smokey pollution is pretty.

The fire on Mt. Diablo has left just a bit of haze, which is making for reddish sunsets and sunrises.  The purple of this sunset held me in thrall.  Just needed to share it.

Tomatoes: Pressure canning vs. water bath canning

I tried several different methods....

After consulting with the pressure cooker manual, the internet, recipe books, and my grandma, I dove head-first into a canning adventure over the past several weeks of insane tomato harvest.  I was met with some frustration, as I kept losing liquid in my jars.

LDS Home Storage Centers

I had this post scheduled to pop up in 2 weeks, but recent developments demand I do it now! 

The whole thing that started the idea for buying dry foods in bulk was when I looked around at all the stores, frustrated because I remembered when I used to be able to easily get black beans for $0.89/pound.  $3 per pound?  Seriously?  What happened? 

Turns out there is an LDS cannery in the town next to me, and man, their black beans are cheap.

Fall Plantings

I just barely squeezed in my fall plantings this year, and I'm trying a bit of succession planting to spread out the harvest.  We have a sweet potato plant that has spread vines over a large section of the tallest raised bed, so I am using that as a cover to protect the seedlings from too much sun since it's been pretty hot.  As soon as the weather cools, the vines will get tossed over the side of the bed.

Here's the fall crop plan:

2014 Plan: Changing up the amounts of dry goods

Here are my latest calculations!
After realizing how incredibly much food I was getting for 2014, and that making my own oxygen-free buckets was cheaper, I made some changes.  I reduced the amount for 2014 a bit, and increased the long-term storage a bit.  Some pails will contain two types of food at once.

Mt. Diablo Fire Update

Watching the fire tonight as it crested the mountain was strangely moving.  Spiritual and romantic even, holding hands while we watch our mountain burn.  Makes me really feel connected to the things that are important, and distant from the things that are not.

Fire on Mt. Diablo

Speaking of National Preparedness Month, these are some photos I just took of the fire on Mt. Diablo.

2:15pm:  Please let that be a sharknado

It is kind of ironic that right after I blog about not being hardcore about emergency preparedness, this happens.  Maybe the gods are trying to tell me something after all.  I may have to rethink my stance.

Puppy and Nature Love

Yesterday afternoon Stormy and I went on a hike at a new spot, just a 5-minute drive from the house.  We only went 3 miles, but it was rather hot and dry and uphill so I brought the backpack and some water bottles.  She drank twice as much as I did, and didn't spill a drop.

You know it's time to head home when your shadow is taller than you are.

National Preparedness Month

When double-checking the CDC emergency guidelines for yesterday's post, I saw that this September is the 10th annual National Preparedness Month!

HERE's a link to the CDC website on preparedness, brought to you by the US Department of Homeland Security.

In a nutshell, their minimum suggestions are:

A Poll

I am taking a poll here... would you rather:

A)  See whole posts on the homepage (this is the current setup)

        or

B)  See 1/4th - 1/3rd of the post, and have the rest hidden behind a jump break?  (I changed the previous 4 posts to this method as an example)



Option A means that you don't have to click lots of links to read stuff, but Option B means it is easier to scan by the posts and just read the ones that are more interesting to you.  If nobody has a preference, I might switch to B as an experiment.

I'm open to suggestions!

Retirement Ahoy!

If retirement* is an ocean voyage, then I have just passed the planning/financing stage and have hired the deck crew.

Sorry for that horrible metaphor, but I just couldn't think of a nautical pun that involved something besides seamen.

(See the first post for the beginning of this tale:  A New Path)

Yesterday I told my workplace that I'm leaving in January.

Food Storage for the Apocalypse... Or for Fun... Or for the Apocalypse...

"Do you know something I don't know?"

I was asked this in Home Depot while I was buying food grade buckets and gamma lids, by customers and the employee who helped me find more (there was only 1 on the shelf, I needed 7 more).  I was asked this by a coworker, and a few friends.  They know I'm in the science field, and think I might have been tipped off about something that would require food storage.

Is there impending doom on the horizon?  A looming economic collapse?  Terrorist threat?  Klingon attack? 

Mason Jars Galore

My parents came for a visit last weekend, and I gave them 2 gallon ziplock bags of tomatoes.

In return, I got 12 quart mason jars, and 36 pints! 

 

About to be sanitized.

Digital Scale, and a Bean Harvest

I decided to get a kitchen scale, because I want to be really precise with the weighing of produce.  If our goal is for each person to eat 1.3 pounds of produce a day, and grow half that amount, then I'm going to need to measure it! 
 
I'm used to accurate digital scales in the lab, so it'll give me just the extra hint of science to spark up my day.

My World is Your Oyster

It is really interesting that within a little less than 2 months of being revamped, this blog has just become more popular than my original blog Leaves In My Hair (which had a full year's run back in 2010, and 30% more posts), and Stormageddon Comes (for recording puppy adventures) combined.

Perhaps it is that this blog combines all the concepts - gardening, pets/family/life, saving money, domestic talents, etc - into one.  Perhaps it is the more frequent updating. 

Tell me what you'd like to see more of here.

• Recipes?  
• Ranting?  
• Homesteading fantasies and research?  
• Cute puppy photos?  
• Food storage posts?  
• Random daily life happenings?  
• Garden updates?  
• Nudity? 
• Anything?

Well, maybe the nudity isn't up for grabs.  I'm not that desperate... yet. 

I'm getting some private feedback, but I'd really, really, REALLY like to get some comments!  Don't get me wrong, I am happy to just talk (or type) into the wind.  But interaction with people keeps me motivated.  :)

The 2014 Plan: A Year of Frugal Foods

It looks like a significant portion of my posts are about the plan for foods in 2014, or will be about the plan.  Because I have had a few requests for it, I am adding a new page to the top of the website for easy access.

It'll partly involve Domestic Goddessry and Gardening, the 2 main themes of this blog, so I might as well just put it right in the middle.  BAM!

Here's a direct link:  A Year of Frugal Foods

Check it out to see past and upcoming posts.  If there's anything else you'd like to see in there, let me know.

Wow, I really need to come up with a better name for this plan.  Any ideas?

A Request for Price Checking

This post is mostly for my mom who is going to check prices in her area for me, but if any of you have some leads, I am totally open to them!


These are the current lowest costs I have found for each dry good, per pound:

Tomatoes Galore - Goal Within Sight

This weekend I picked a ton of tomatoes.

We got a total of 235 off 4 plants, for a bit over 4 gallons...

• Sunsugar:  116
• Lemon Boy:  68
• Early girl:  33
• Celebration:  18  (it finally started producing!)

I am only counting them as 2/3rds the usual weight, because most did end up a bit small despite being fully ripe.  The plants are starting to look a bit stressed, so it is probably time for a heavy fertilizing or a rain dance.

Here's 2.5 gallons, ready for canning.

Lots of yummy red ones this time.

Superpails vs. Homemade Storage

To make the shipping from Rainy Day Foods worth it, it means getting about 2 years' worth of dry goods.  I had been wanting to go with them for the popcorn, and their Superpails.

That one extra year of dry goods needs to be packaged properly so that it stores for 25 years, just in case it takes us much longer than expected to go through the dry goods.  Here's what you need for one basic "Superpail" long-term storage bucket: