Mucky Boots poppies, delivered

If you've been hanging out at Mucky Boots for any length of time, you'll know that poppies are one of the superstars of our gardens. In the spring the orange creamsicle and yellow San Pelegrino poppies bring early colour...





and in the heat of the summer the oriental poppies bloom and bloom.

And all summer long the self-seeding corn poppies keep the blueberries company in the vegetable garden.

Poppies as big as a side plate and as small as a loonie. Poppies in ballet tutu pink and bordello velvet red. Poppies reaching five feet tall and poppies no higher than my knee. Poppies in May and October and every month in between. Mucky Boots would be a much drabber place without its poppies, for which I can take no credit. They were here when we arrived and I haven't done much to make their lives any better except admire them unreservedly - I rarely water them, never feed them, and when they finish blooming I hack them to the ground. And they repay me by growing fresh new greens and sometimes a whole new set of flowers.

For the first time this year I have been collecting the seed pods, thinking I would broadcast them in the field behind the greenhouse and in empty spots in the perennial gardens. (I would love to see poppies deliver a knock-out punch to the creeping bellflower - cheerful exuberance beating out sneaky infiltration.) 

I have been so conscientious about collecting that I now have many more seeds than I can possibly use. So here's your chance to get some of that colour for your own garden: drop me an email at mstanford at shaw dot ca and I'll send you a little packet with a mixture of poppy seeds. 

Johnny Appleseed's got nothing on me.

Bumper crops and bummers

This year marks my fourth as a vegetable grower, and among the many lessons I have learned as I fumbled and bumbled my way from seed to supper, the one that is staring me in the face right now is that I can never predict which crops will do well and which will struggle.

There are so many factors that go into a crop's success. How did I prepare the beds? Did I plant the seeds at the right time? What grew in the beds before? What's growing next door? What has the weather been like? How regularly have I fertilized and watered? What have the various bug populations been doing?

The failures are a disappointment. My tomato crop this year is a bust: the plants are reasonably healthy and I've taken care of them pretty well, but the yield is going to be pretty close to pathetic, compared with previous years. And my two squash beds, the vigorous one and the wimpy one, are going to result in no more than ten winter squash, half of them on the small side. That's pretty pathetic, too, for almost 100 square feet of growing space.

Fortunately there are successes, too. 2012 will go down as a bumper crop for all things allium at Mucky Boots. Every single clove of garlic that Kim planted produced a new head, most of them a really good size. The red and yellow onions germinated on schedule, bulbed beautifully, and are now drying on the front porch. The green onions were thick and juicy and we ate them all up. The shallots grown from Paula's seeds are stars - big and rosy and tasty.

And blueberries - oh, blueberries! We're in the middle of a bumper crop, and I don't think there's anything I'd rather have bumper. (I know "bumper"isn't a verb, but it feels right, and in any case it's my blog.) Blueberries and yogurt for breakfast. Blueberries and cream for dessert. Blueberries by the handful every time I pass a bush. Bags of blueberries for the freezer. The flip side of the success/failure coin is we lost a handful of plants to the heat and drought when we were on our road trip. Rats...

Another success: I grew melons. Or, I should say, I am growing melons. There's still a lot that could grow wrong. But this is the first time, among three attempts, that I have actually reached the melon stage. Four plants, four melons. I am no more surprised than if I had grown four bananas.

Here's a success and a bummer all in one: kale. This was my year to make friends with kale, and thanks to your recipes and encouragement I think I can safely say kale has found a permanent home in my garden. That's the success part. Here's the bummer part.

This is what my kale plants look like now, after I found them infested with tiny powdery white eggs this morning. Yuck. But the next generation is already on its way in a bed far-removed from this disgusting mess.

What will go down on your gardening success/disappointment list this year?

Busy as...

As a bee, of course. It's a miracle there are any flowers for them to be visiting, because the weather has been baking hot and many of the bees' favourite haunts are crispy and dry. (It was 36 degrees in the shade of the verandah yesterday afternoon, which is hotter than we have ever experienced it here at Mucky Boots.)

Thank goodness for the echinacea. It has been very forgiving of the heat and lack of rain, and as a result it was Bee Central this afternoon. The word must have spread I was out with my camera because all the bees in the neighbourhood were lining up for their photo op. All I had to do was point and shoot.



The bees love the globe thistle, too, especially once the stiff, prickly balls begin to erupt in softer purple flowers.

Here's one for my personal notebook. Every summer (and this one makes four) in early August I look critically at an unruly, sprawling, poorly mannered shrubby thing and think it's time I took it out. And then every summer, a couple of weeks later, out pop these. Would someone please remind me next year the thing's a fuschia?

And for no other reason than pure delight, here is a photo of the double-decker bee balm I grew from seed a couple of years ago. This is a single stem.

If you ever needed evidence of Mother Nature's sense of humour, I figure this could be it.

Singing in the rain

Kim and Frankie at Spray Lakes.

We're just back from a road trip to meet my parents in Canmore for the Canmore Folk Music Festival. I think you always learn something about yourself when you go on a road trip, and this journey was no exception. I learned that, compared to my parents, I am a wimp.

On the last evening of the festival it was me, Mom and Dad all sitting in a row in our little camp chairs, listening to wonderful musicians work their magic surrounded by the mountains and trees and blue sky. Only it wasn't blue sky: after a blistering hot weekend the clouds had rolled in and the wind had picked up. I was just thinking that maybe I should have brought my rain jacket when the first stray drops hit my bare head. Then the stray drops turned into light rain, and the crowd around me began to move as people lazily reached for sweaters and jackets. Then the wind became a little more persistent and people hunkered down a little more. Then the light rain turned into official rain, then heavy rain, and the crowd started to scramble, zipping up jackets and flipping up hoods, huddling under the tarps they had been sitting on, opening umbrellas. I had just suggested to my parents that maybe it was time to reconsider our priorities when the sky really opened and the rain began pelting down. I hung onto the rain poncho my mom fished out of her bag for me, doing my best to keep it closed while the wind did its best to whip it open.

And then it began to hail.

That was it for me. No more trying to be a good sport. I leaned forward to shout through the din that maybe we should call it quits (my parents' townhouse being a convenient half-block away from the festival grounds) and the forward movement let a big puddle of water that had been accumulating in a dip in the poncho slide right down my back, soaking my butt. But Mom and Dad just looked at me in bemusement, politely wondering how a daughter they had raised could let a little rain get to her. I ran. They stayed, for the whole rest of the evening, through rain and hail and  distant lightning that lit up the night sky, while I warmed up, dried off, and ate chocolate at home.

I am a wimp.


Frankie the Travellin' Dog asleep in the car.

I learned something else: Frankie the Farm Dog likes hotels. We've had this trip planned for a while, and of course we booked Frankie into a kennel. But in the last six months or so he has begun to show his age, and we started to feel awful about leaving him behind. So we did something we've never done before: we brought him with us.

Since it would take two days of driving to get to Canmore, this would mean finding a pet friendly hotel along the way. I was more than a little worried about how Frankie would do, since he's a creature of habit and routine and any changes in his environment make him anxious, but much to our surprise it turns out Frankie quite likes hotel life. He likes elevators, and long hallways, and drinking from hotel toilets. He was a butt-wiggling happy dog in the hotel on the way to Canmore, and a butt-wiggling happy (though somewhat tired) dog in the hotel on the way back home. Go figure.

Happiness in the garden

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know I wage a chronic battle with my perfectionism. Perfectionism and gardening don't mix, because at least half of the charm of a garden is its unpredictability, its determination to do its own thing. A garden can be encouraged, and nurtured, but it can't be controlled.

Maybe, finally, in Year 4 of my life as a gardener, those lessons are starting to sink in. Maybe somewhere in my psyche a little controlling part of me is throwing in the towel and giving in. Because this year, for some reason, I am really enjoying my garden.

I should qualify that: I mean my vegetable garden. The perennial beds around the house are still a bit problematic for me. But every time I walk through the gate into the vegetable garden I stop for a moment to take it all in and I feel a distinct sense of peace and joy and satisfaction.

Not because the vegetable garden is so orderly this year, but because I have allowed it to be less so, and somehow the beauty of it is enough. It feels to me like my garden is full of happy, relaxed plants doing their thing instead of being continually fussed with. And because I have done more companion planting this year, each bed is a lovely co-mingling between flowers, herbs and vegetables. 

So here's a quick tour of what's making me happy in the vegetable garden these days.

The last few fennel plants that didn't get eaten are going to seed in a sea of softly waving fronds.

The pink popcorn plants are producing tassels...

...and the Leaning Tower of Hollyhock looks like it's dancing.

The deep purple clematis and bright red poppies in the centre of the garden are looking more muted but just as beautiful, in a different way.

The onions, planted in Eliot Coleman's groups of four, are close to being ready to harvest.

The most recent additions to the garden, the melon and cucumber plants, are beginning to flower, and there are even two small melons. This thrills me, since my previous attempts to grow melons never made it past the seedling stage.

Kim was working in the vicinity the day I moved the melons and cucumbers from the greenhouse into the garden, and helped problem-solve the issue of a trellis. Instead of constructing something new, we decided to experiment with using already made structures, in this case a large chicken cage with doors removed, and the lid of the brooder box Kim had constructed for the broody hens in the chicken coop. 

So far, so good, although we'll see what happens when the plants get larger!

Want to add some happiness to your garden? Plant bee balm, especially a double-decker variety like this. 

Pure joy. Guaranteed.

Ick

So there I was, sitting with Kim in a lovely park in downtown Duncan, watching a 100 mile hot dog eating contest.

(I feel a need to digress for a moment to explain that we didn't set out to watch a 100 mile hot dog eating contest - we were in the neighbourhood having lunch and were drawn in by the fun everyone seemed to be having.)

(I should also pause for a moment to explain that a 100 mile hot dog eating contest is one in which the hot dogs and buns are grown and made within a 100 mile radius. Yes, people do grow wheat on Vancouver Island, and make hot dog buns out of it.)

(I should also clarify that no claim was made as to the condiments on said hot dogs.)

Back to the story. There I was, on a lovely sunny afternoon, watching four grown men gamely chowing down on tasty hot dogs but apparently very dry buns, when all of a sudden something hit me in the chest.

(I need to explain that if I had had my camera with me at the time, I would certainly have taken a picture. But since I didn't, and because I don't want to violate anyone's copyright by using their photo in my blog, I have decided to provide you with a handy link to an excellent picture of what hit me in the chest. For the sake of dramatic impact, it is very important that you click on this link.)

(In case you didn't read the fine print accompanying that photo, I would like to inform you that the object that landed on my chest was about an inch-and-a-half long. That's the body. The antennae were at least another couple of inches. Are you understanding the title of this post yet?)

So there I was, no longer watching the contest but instead paralyzed in my chair, goggling at the enormous insect sitting on my chest. The paralysis ended with a convulsive, repulsed flinging of said insect onto the ground, whereupon it crawled back towards us and began to climb up the leg of Kim's chair.

Kim leapt to her feet, and between her dancing on the spot in a mixture of phobia and ex-Science-teacher fascination, and my incoherent sputtering and pointing, we began to attract more attention than the 100 mile hot dog eaters. First two little kids crossed right in front of the stage to come and see what was going on. Then the people behind us stood up and craned their necks to get a better look. Then the parents of the kids came over with their cameras to take photos. Then one of the kids managed to convince the bug to crawl up its arm so he could parade through the audience showing everyone.

I suspect it was a welcome diversion for both the 100 mile hot dog eaters (chewing and chewing and chewing those really dry buns) and their audience (trying gamely to keep up the level of enthusiasm despite the slow pace of eating).

Who says life in a small town can't be exciting?

Squash

I like winter squash. I like eating it, and ever since I read The Resilient Gardener, I have devoted two entire garden beds to it.

I haven't always been successful at growing it, however. It took me a couple of years to learn that I shouldn't bother starting seeds early in the greenhouse because the seedlings don't like being relocated, so by the time they recovered from their transplant shock their direct-seeded siblings had caught up and even surpassed them.

And germination has sometimes been problematic. For those of you who haven't examined the anatomy of a squash plant, flowers come in two varieties: male...

...and female.

That bulb at the base of the female flower is the potential squash. If fertilization is successful it will grow and grow and turn into dinner, and if not it just turns yellow and falls off. For my first few years of gardening I thought I had a problem with dying baby squash, but it was really a problem with fertilization. I haven't really paid much attention to this in previous years, thinking the birds and bees would take care of pollination for me, but I also haven't been entirely happy with the resulting yield. So this year I decided to help Mother Nature along and do some pollinating by hand. It's quite simple: you pick a male blossom, strip off the petals, and dab the naked stamen in the centre of the female flower.

My big problem: my plants can't seem to synchronize their male and female parts. One day I go out to the garden and all I see are male flowers. The next day: all female flowers. I've read up on this and the experts say eventually the plant should start producing both at once, but I haven't got a lot of time to dawdle. This is Canada, after all, and winter squash takes a long time to mature.

This morning? Happy male flowers, like this quartet. I had to go hunting under every big green leaf to find a single female counterpart.

There's something else a bit odd going on in the squash department. I already mentioned I allocate two 4x12 foot beds to winter squash, and this year they were side by side. Initially I thought I would plant seeds of the same type in the same bed, but at the last minute I thought it might be fun to compare the progress of the plants in each bed. So I have a hill of butternut squash in one bed...

...and another hill in the other bed.

Notice any difference?! 

These hills were planted on the same day, and since they are side-by-side, they have roughly the same exposure to sun and weather.

And it's not just the butternut variety. Here's the lush bed...

...and here's the wimpy bed.

The only variety that's doing well is the zucchini, way at the back. So what's going on? 

Here's my theory: last year the wimpy bed held onions. Maybe squash don't like onions. And last year the lush bed was where I grew garbanzo beans, and like the conscientious gardener I am, I treated the seeds with an inoculant before I grew them. (This is supposed to help any legume plant fix the nitrogen in the soil, making it available to the next crop that comes along.) 

And here's a confession: I have faithfully used an inoculant every year except this one. This year I hadn't laid in the year's supply when the day came to plant the peas, and I was too darn lazy to hop in the car and go get some. Lazy and a bit skeptical, not really believing it did any good.

So Mother Nature took the opportunity to teach me a little lesson: inoculant works! 

You read it here, folks.

Surplus

We've reached the point in the season where we can't keep up with what's ready to eat in the garden. That means it's time to switch into preservation mode. And for me, with vegetables, that largely means freezing.

I've gone the pickling and dehydrating routes, and neither seems to totally fit the bill. I enjoy pickled beets and beans and cucumbers, but there's a limit to how many I want to eat. I understand the economic and health advantages of dehydrating - you don't have all those additions of salt and sugar, and you're not paying to keep things frozen until you eat them. But with the exception of dried tomatoes and fruit leather, I find the end result not very palatable, even disguised in soups and stews.

So most of the excess vegetables around here get vacuum-packed and popped in the freezer. Instructions generally call for blanching vegetables first in order to destroy the enzymes that will cause them to deteriorate. I do that with hardy greens, like kale and chard and beet greens: they get blanched, refreshed in cold water and squeezed dry before being popped in the freezer. But with other vegetables I find blanching makes the thawed product too mushy, so I just clean and chop into chunks and freeze.

The only exception: cabbage, which gets fermented into sauerkraut, of course!

Even though we're now adding a steady stream of food to the freezer, we're still enjoying everything the garden is giving us. In fact, I think that's one of the major differences between Miriam the First-Year Gardener and Miriam the Fourth-Year Gardener: I'm much more inclined to enjoy the food I am growing every day rather than waiting for a special occasion (as I am famous for doing with fennel), or for the vegetable to get bigger (meaning I never got to enjoy baby carrots or potatoes), or freezing it all before I could enjoy it fresh (I think Kim scarcely got her hands on a fresh strawberry our first year here). Now my philosophy is eat fresh first, preserve second.



This was supper last night: two kinds of kale, a rainbow assortment of chard, red and yellow beet greens, red cabbage, broccoli and snow peas, all home grown and cooked in a stir fry with some onions and leftover chicken.

That still amazes me: home grown!

Gump Jr

We're not so creative with chicken names here at Mucky Boots. There's Hector, which isn't bad as a name, but after that came Hector Jr (son of Hector), Hector Jr Jr (a slightly smaller son of Hector), and this year we're back to Hector Jr again for the new generation.

We're having the same problem with Gump's offspring, now that he's beginning to have some. Gump was one of the chicks we hatched last year, and the only cockerel we kept. We were looking for a replacement for Pee Wee, who had begun to get aggressive with the hens, and even though there were some nicer looking cockerels in the bunch we chose Gump because we fell in love. He was always sweet, always a little out of things, always in his own little Gump world, and as a result his tougher male siblings picked on him and made his life miserable. How could we not chose him over the others?

Gump has grown into an excellent rooster. He's a conscientious guardian of his flock, foraging tasty treats for his hens and keeping an eye on the sky for overhead predators. But as he matured, even though we were grateful for the role he plays in the flock, we began to miss the dopey little fellow he had been.

No more. Now we have Gump Jr, offspring of Gump and the one Buff cockerel Kim decided to keep this year - partly because we knew he was going to be enormous, and partly because he's a chip off the old block. He's so much a chip he's practically a clone. Most of the time he's clued out: where's the food? Where's the door? Where are his feet? Those feet are gigantic, and at the end of equally giant sized legs - if we didn't know his parentage we might suspect an ostrich played a role in his conception. He hasn't quite figured out how to coordinate them yet, so when he runs he's the most awkward thing on two legs, but as a result he's entirely, completely endearing.

Here's scratch-eating Gump Jr style...

...and Part 2, when I stopped being so distracted by the bunny.

Yes, we're suckers for the underdog, here at Mucky Boots. And I like it that way.

Best things ever

Okay, maybe not ever, but there are two things making my life a lot happier these days. 

Happy Thing #1: Gluten-free Breadsticks
I do much better when I stick to a gluten-free diet, but man, do I miss bread. Not regular bread, but  the kind of rustic loaf that's crusty and crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside. If I wasn't intolerant of gluten I would probably be living on bread (which, come to think of it, I did for a couple of years in my early adulthood, which is probably when I developed said intolerance...).

When we quit our jobs and began our new lives Mucky Boots, one of the things I planned to learn how to do was bake bread - gluten-free bread. I knew it was theoretically possible to make good gluten-free bread (even though I had never tasted any myself) and I was determined to find a recipe good enough to satisfy my hankerings. And I tried. I really, really tried. I bought books. I trolled through blogs and websites. I bought every kind of gluten-free flour (there are sixteen different kinds in my pantry at this very moment) and every necessary additive like guar gum and xanthan gum and gelatin. And every single loaf turned out more like cake than bread, unpleasant to eat unless toasted.

Until this. Just look at this!



It tastes as good as it looks. Crunchy outside: check! Chewy inside: check! Gluten-free: check, check, check! Plus it's easy to make, versatile (I have used the dough to make flatbreads for pizza, and it would make wonderful crackers), and it keeps in the fridge for a week so you can bake fresh as you need.

The recipe comes from the Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef, and the secret ingredient that makes this dough so unlike the usual sloppy, sticky, pourable gluten-free dough is psyllium husks.

Strange but true. You can eat this bread and be regular at the same time.

I am a happy, happy woman.

Happy Thing #2: Aprons
I have a small issue with stain management. I accumulate stains like nobody I know, and I am more useless than anyone I know at getting them out. I think I'm doing all the right things, but somehow my pile of fit-to-be-seen-in-public t-shirts keeps getting smaller while my shockingly-stained pile grows and grows.

The stains come from all sorts of activities. Working in the garden, of course, but I have learned my lesson there and don't venture into the garden unless I'm wearing my Dirty Clothes. But also things like eating.The likelihood that I will spill on my white shirt is in direct proportion to the stain-making potential of the food I am eating. I can drink water without spilling, but as soon as I have a glass of berry juice in my hand an accident is practically inevitable. And there's cooking. Grease splatters, beet juice droplets, chocolate sauce - they all find their way to the front of my shirts.

But there's this thing called an apron. It's a garment that is easily donned, that doesn't restrict your movement or feel too hot or too heavy, and when you need to quickly look presentable because the neighbour has appeared unexpectedly on your doorstep, it is quickly doffed and hidden in a drawer. It comes in a variety of styles, and is easily made by even the most novice of sewers.

But the best thing about it: it protects your clothes from stains. Why didn't I know this? How could I have four aprons in my pantry and somehow not realize I could wear them and keep my shirts from being wrecked one by one?

Now I am a convert. And to celebrate, to mark this turning point in my life, to show my confidence that this simple garment will change my life forever, I have bought two new t-shirts.

White, of course.

Stampede

No, not the Calgary version, the Mucky Boots version. It happens every day about 6 pm, when Kim calls the chickens for their daily treat of scratch.

You better not get in the way, that's all I can say.

Wondering about Kim's t-shirt? Here's a closer view.

Kale without a hangover

(Please know that I am not a food photographer. If I was, I would have special light deflectors for eliminating those funny glints off the egg, and I would have a hand thrown pottery plate with the perfect colour for setting off the cooked greens without making them look anaemic. You're just going to have to trust me when I say this meal was delicious, even though the photo may make it look just a touch unappealing...)


You may know that this is my summer for overcoming my aversion to kale. I planted two different varieties this year (Red Russian and Lacinto), determined to find a way to make culinary friends with it - it's just too nutritious and too hardy in the garden to keep avoiding it any longer.

I've been eating it for a few weeks now, always chopped into oblivion and mixed in stir fries with other greens I like better, like chard and baby bok choy.

But yesterday...yesterday I made it the star of the show for the first time, using a recipe from Julie called "Joe Beef's Kale for a Hangover". (Joe Beef is a chef and restaurateur in Montreal, and the recipe comes from his book The Art of Living According to Joe Beef.)

I didn't have a hangover, but I was tired after a long and busy day, so this was my supper. And maybe it was that I was so tickled there's a chef named Beef, or maybe it was that this meal was amazingly quick. Or it could have been the beautifully oozing fried egg. Maybe it was the bacon. (Yes, I think it was the bacon.) In any case, I shovelled back this kale-centric meal like nobody's business, and not only survived, but am looking forward to making it again.

When I have enough kale, that is. In fact (she says with shy pride) I am eating the kale in my garden faster than I can grow it. I'm going to have to plant more...

Soap box

Don't worry - I'm not about to start proclaiming or declaiming or exclaiming. I just want to tell you about the soap mold Kim made for me.

After a post-Christmas hiatus on soap-making, I geared up production again last week and tried making milk soap with goat's milk. My first batch (made with a recipe from here) wasn't so hot - it took forever to harden (after two days I sliced it anyway, but it was still too soft), it's greasy to the touch, and each slice has a dark centre, all of which sent me back to the Internet on a quest to figure out what happened. And here's what I learned.

The Gel Phase: this is something you either want to happen or you don't want to happen. It all depends on preference. More specifically, many people who make milk soaps don't want it to happen because they believe it makes the end product darker, and apparently light-coloured milk soap is something to be desired. Other people believe the quality of the end product is better if the soap does go through the gel phase. Which leaves beginners like me scratching our heads.

But here's what I figured out. If you want the gel phase to happen, you insulate the soap really well during the first 24 hours, to keep in the heat. That means wrapping it in blankets or towels and not peeking. If you don't want the gel phase you do the opposite: as soon as the soap is poured into your mold it goes into the fridge, if not the freezer. Those were the instructions I blindly followed with my first batch of milk soap, but apparently it was not enough, because that dark circle in the middle of each slice is a sign of a partial gel. And if there's something gel-lers and non-gel-lers agree on, it's that you don't want a partial gel.

So in my second batch I went for the gel phase and got a much better product. Yes, it's a touch darker in colour, but still a lovely creamy tan.

Super-Fatting: even though this makes me think of my arthritis-is-flaring-and-I'm-too-sore-to-exercise physique, what I'm really referring to is a component of the calculations that go into a soap recipe. Most beginner soap makers follow someone else's recipe, but at some point you may want to experiment with a different combination of oils, or be forced to experiment because you run out of one oil or another. That's when a soap calculator comes in: you enter the amounts of each of the oils you are using and the calculator tells you how much lye and how much water you'll need. (You can find a reliable soap calculator here.)

But there's another input to the calculation, and it has to do with how much oil you want left in the soap not taken up by the lye in the saponification process. If you are making a nourishing facial soap you will want a higher superfat number (more oil left) than if you are making a laundry soap. When I got an unpleasantly greasy first batch of milk soap I wondered if the superfat percentage was off in the recipe because of the fat in the milk. It turns out that a standard superfat percentage for soap is 5%, but for milk soap it should be 3%. Sure enough, when I ran the recipe I had used through the calculator with a superfat of 3%, the calculator called for a greater amount of lye than I had used in the first batch. I adjusted it for the second batch and got a much better product.



But wait...wasn't this post supposed to be about a soap box?

Until last week I had been using assorted found objects as molds - milk cartons, plastic trays, silicon muffin cups - because I found the commercial molds available all over the Internet way, way too expensive. Many of them are fairly simple boxes made of wood. And who do I know who likes making things with wood? Kim, of course.



Here is my lovely soap box. It's made from scraps of cedar, with a top that helps insulate the soap as it hardens, but which lifts off easily.



With a lining of parchment paper...

...and a removable front, it's a breeze to slide out the hardened block of soap for cutting.

Kim constructed the box to my specifications, but I think I got the proportions a little wrong - the bars of soap are a bit too wide to fit comfortably in the hand. Luckily for me Kim's game to make me another one!

Morning harvest

This is what came out of the garden this morning: two heads of Bambi lettuce, the first bunch of new carrots, the first bulb of fennel, the first batch of snap peas, a baby bok choy, two small heads of broccoli, some spinach, and some Chinese stir-fry greens. And a handful of calendula and chamomile blossoms. I feel rich!



And if you're sharp eyed you might have spotted the kale hiding behind the bok choy. I am actually eating kale, and sort of enjoying it, chopped beyond all recognition and disguised among the other greens in my almost daily stir fry. I haven't been quite brave enough to try one of the recipes all of you have suggested - the recipes where kale stands proudly as kale - but I'm working up to it.

Really. I promise.  

Feta update

It's good! It's really good!

If I sound surprised, it's because I am. Our jar of home-made feta has been hiding out in the fridge in its brine for the last three weeks, waiting for us to muster enough courage to eat it - I was really worried this was going to be one of those interesting sounding experiments that turn out badly. But this morning, as Kim was looking for things to add to her scrambled eggs, it finally seemed like the right time to have a taste. So we took the jar out of the fridge, held it up to the light, opened it, smelled it. It looked right and it smelled right, and when we finally tasted it, it was briny and creamy and intense, just like feta should taste.

Success! Now the problem will be rationing our $28 feta so it doesn't all get eaten today.

As a side note, just look at that breakfast: home grown eggs, strawberries and greens, and feta from our newly initiated kitchen dairy. No, the bread's not home-made, but this plate still gives me a happy sense of accomplishment.