Making It

It hit a surreal 78 degrees (25.5 C) here almost two weeks ago.  Too hot in the sun to even lie in the hammock, let alone do any work.  Last week was grey and miserable, with high temperatures in the 40's, and a dump of the dreaded "wintry mix" precipitation.  We've had sub-freezing temps overnight ever since, and this week is sunny but cold.  Sigh.  Where'd my spring go?

I'm trying to make the best of it and have been quite productive lately.  I got a lot of outside work done during that warm week, while the sun shone.  Now there are many seedlings to attend to indoors.  And I spend a little time outside during the warmest parts of each sunny day.  Otherwise I've been keeping my hands busy inside while I bide my time, however resentful of the vanished warm weather.  Here's a rundown of the projects I've been working on lately.

I painted the nesting box we made all from scrap wood.  Bright colors of course, because if the wood needs protection from the elements, I might as well use colors that make me happy.  Now that we're more or less set up for the broody hen, I'm eager for her arrival.  Still no firm date for that yet.

I finished two new two planting templates - a cool looking hexagonal one for the three sisters planting, and another one for the garlic planting on 6" centers.  I've been using an 8" planting template for the garlic, but after getting carried away with some 350 garlic plants last fall, I've rethought my spacing for this crop.

I also worked on finishing a few projects started with the help of our WWOOF volunteers.  The first is a greens feeder for the chickens.  The idea here is that you plant greens the chickens like to eat under the feeder.  The plants then grow up through the caging and the girls can eat what pokes up.  But they can't tear the roots out of the soil, so the plants in theory should re-grow and continue to feed them for a long time.  Since we move the hens daily throughout most of the year, I plan to use this in the yet-to-be-constructed hoop house which will house the girls next winter.  In the meantime though I'm also hoping it will shield some tiny catnip seedlings from the ravages of cats - both ours and the neighborhood ne'erdowell toms.  The caging for this project was repurposed from a tomato cage that will be replaced with a trellising system this year.

The second is my solar cooking station.  This still needs a bit more work, but it's good enough to supercharge our seedlings with tons of sunlight at the moment.  It mounts to the scaffolding for our solar heating array.  A piece of rebar supports a wooden countertop from the back, and a wooden upright supports it in front.  It's reasonably easy for me to set it up or remove it by myself.  I'm hoping that the solar array doesn't completely shade it out in summer.  I'll watch this, and if need be, lower the station a bit to get it out from under the shade.  All of these projects - templates, nesting box, greens feeder and solar cooking station - were made with salvaged lumber and other free materials.  Only the paint, screws, nails and some other hardware were, in some cases, purchased.

Hand carved wooden spoon and a spoon blank

I carved a wooden spoon (from a spoon "blank") using the awesome woodcarving tools that my husband received recently as a gift.  It's a rather addictive occupation, despite being tough on novice hands, and definitely one best pursued when the weather is fair enough to allow all the shavings to fall outside.  Last year we broke our last two wooden spoons, so it's nice to be able to make some for ourselves.  This one isn't very large, but it could be used with smaller cooking pots.  I put a nubbin on the back of the handle end so it won't just slip into the soup if I set it against the rim of the pot.

Based on a good tip from The Urban Homestead, I made a baking soda shaker from a glass jar with a metal lid.  This is for dish washing, as baking soda is a mild and non-toxic abrasive.  Just take a nail and make lots of holes in the lid, then fill with ordinary baking soda.  The gaffer's tape bands around the jar were my own tweak.  They're there to provide a better grip to wet hands.

Also, a couple of knitted dishrags.  These are made from cotton butcher's twine and based on a pattern for a baby blanket I made many years ago.  Look for large spools of this stuff in a restaurant supply store.  It's much cheaper than buying the small rolls of a thinner gauge kitchen twine in a supermarket.  I recommend you get a couple of spools.  Keep one someplace clean for kitchen uses, and the other one with your garden tools.  You'll find a thousand uses for it outside, but it's not easy to keep the twine clean if you take it to the garden.  These dishrags can be made fairly quickly on days when you're cooped up inside.  They don't wear out as quickly as scrubby sponges, and if you throw them in with the laundry they won't abrade your clothes.  Also, they're thin enough to sterilize just with sun exposure.  Google for a thousand pattern options.  And I'm sure there are crochet patterns as well if that's your fiber art.  I may experiment with dying these later as I have a dying project in mind and these could just be added into the soak.

Pelmenyi.  These are meat dumplings from central Russia.  I've been meaning to make them for ages now.  Some unpasteurized whey graciously donated by Sandy, defrosting my freezer, and unfriendly outdoor temps, were the impeti to finally undertake the project.  And they are a project, believe me.  It would be much more fun and go so much faster to have another set of hands to help with assembly.  But I'm on my own this week.  My recipe uses the whey plus one of our eggs in the dough, and three kinds of ground meat (pork, veal, and lamb - discovered while defrosting the freezer, and all local and pastured, of course) plus onion and spices in the filling.  Traditionally these are kept in huge sacks on balconies over the many months of the Russian winter where there's no danger of thawing or spoilage.  They are boiled and then served either with vinegar, or with the super high fat content smetana, to which our closest equivalent is sour cream, though it contains only roughly half the fat of smetana.  Green onions are sometimes added as a garnish with either topping.

Unfortunately, while working on the greens feeder I manage to bash my thumb with the hammer.  I've never been unlucky or clumsy enough to do this before, and I can assure you that it's an experience I neither recommend nor care to repeat.  It didn't seem like that hard of a bash, but 'tis enough, 'twill serve.  It hurt like the dickens, and still requires a lot of caution when doing everyday tasks.  I'm really hoping that I don't lose the nail, 'cause that would seriously screw up the fast approaching heavy spring workload.

It's very satisfying to see a few things made with my own hands that will endure and be useful for many years, mostly with very little expense.  My head is full of little homesteading projects I want to undertake this year.  Last year about this time I had the sense that things were finally starting to come together on the homestead.  And indeed, things did run better last year; more things turned out the way I hoped.  I have that sense this year too.  It's a good feeling, though hard won.  If my productivity holds up (and I freely admit that it's extremely fickle), it could be a great year for progress on the homestead.  We'll see.

I will probably do a post on the three sisters' template around planting time.  If you simply must have more details on any of the other projects, leave me a comment and it may inspire me to get into the nitty-gritty.

Something from Nothing

Today is absolutely gorgeous.  Gorgeous.  The temperature outside is as warm as inside - in the middle of March.  The sun is shining, and the breeze is so gentle.  This weather is insane, but you know what?  I'll take it.  I puttered around outside most of the morning, just finding stuff to do rather than spend time indoors.  I pulled the covers entirely off the cold frames, planted some burdock, smoked the bacon I'm in the process of curing, admired the purple crocuses, watched the cats chase flies, set the hammock up, and generally basked in the finest day of the year so far.

A pile of grapevine trimmings has been hanging around since my husband did a severe pruning a few weeks ago.  I'd been meaning to check them out, but what decent weather we've had lately has been devoted to more pressing chores.  But today - ah, today.  Any excuse to be outside would do today.  So I made these.

Now I know they aren't exactly works of a master craftsman.  But I was pretty pleased with them.  For an hour's mucking around on a balmy day, a few snips here and there with hand pruners, and not a clue as to how to go about making a wreath, I'd say they turned out fair enough.  Maybe it's just that I get a kick out of making something from nothing, out of finding a use where other people only see garbage or something to be gotten rid of.  It tickles me every single time I manage to pull something like this off.

If I'd had more grapevines, or longer grapevines, I could have made more wreaths or bulked these two out a bit.  Many pruned vines were too short to be useful.  The vines were clearly starting to dry out a bit; if I'd worked with them a few weeks ago I think they would have been more flexible.  Still, the vines and especially the curlicue tendrils were surprisingly resilient.  Given my total ignorance of the proper way to construct a grapevine wreath, it was a very forgiving medium to work with.  Next year I'll encourage my husband to make the cut pieces as long as possible, and then see what can be done with them when they're freshly cut.

Not sure what I'll do with these yet.  The nice thing is that if I decide I don't have any use for them, they can either be gifted away, or composted!  Okay, now I'm heading back outside.

P.S. to those who entered the homesteading books giveaway, I haven't heard back from one winner.  So stay tuned.  If I don't hear from her by tomorrow evening, I'll draw another number.  You still might win!  And if you entered but didn't check to see if you won, well check it out.

Random bits

It's catalog time again.  I don't know how it happened, but I've been added to mailing lists for catalogs I would never even bother opening, let alone order anything from.  Also, my husband and I both ended up on Johnny's Seeds mailing list.  We don't need two copies.  So I'll be spending some time today on the phone taking us off those lists.  I remember hearing about a family that lived in a large apartment building.  In December they put out a box and sign near the mailboxes, inviting anyone in the building to leave catalogs in the box whose mailing list they wished to be removed from.  I thought it was a fabulous idea.  It almost makes me wish I lived in an apartment building.  So much material saved from the landfill.  I've put a similar offer out to relatives and a few more consumerist friends, but so far no one has taken me up on it.

Since buying a shotgun I've started reading a couple of hunting blogs.  NorCal Cazadora is good, as is A Mindful Carnivore.  No doubt there are others as well.  I'm so new to hunting and guns that I don't even know enough to ask the stupid questions.  So it's nice to have access to the worlds of thoughtful and experienced hunters.

I had another one of those funny moments when my brain slips back into pre-homestead, pre-frugalite channels.  We have an air rifle, and a supply of lead pellets the rifle uses.  I had thought to do a little target practice.  I know an air rifle shooting pellets is nothing like a shotgun with shotgun shells.  But I feel that any familiarity with any sort of gun can only be a step in the right direction.  For some reason I put it off for about a week because I hadn't thought to pick up a couple of paper targets at the gun store.  When I came to, I couldn't believe the train of thought I'd gone through.  Paying for paper targets?  Perish the thought!  I set up the clever soda can target box my husband had cobbled together.  (Clementine crate lined with newspaper, and a can on a string attached to a screw at the top.)  Flipping the can over the top and out of the way, I put a junk mail envelope in there with two small black marks made with a sharpie marker.  I already know I can hit the can at the distance I was shooting.  That's a pretty big target.  The small marks give me a much better sense of my accuracy.  I still can't believe I was thinking about paying for a piece of paper headed for the recycling bin.  Sheesh!

This coming weekend I'm hosting a cookie baking party.  It's a more social version of the holiday cookie exchange.  Instead of just passing out plates with cookies to friends, I bring the friends and their doughs together for the baking.  Then we divvy up the cookies at the end.  It's always fun to see what kinds of cookies people bring.  I used to ask folks to bring copies of their recipe too.  But now that everyone has email, it's trivially easy for those as want the recipes to get them.  I host get-togethers so rarely these days.  I'd like to do it more often, but it seems I only find the time for such things when the garden is not in full swing. 

I made my first ever batch of duck confit, with duck raised on grass locally.  I'm not sure if the birds were in rigor mortis, or if duck is just a lot more tightly put together than chicken.  The ducks were slaughtered the day before I brought them home and cut them up.  It took quite some doing; almost an hour to break down two birds.  I know my butchery skills are rusty, but it doesn't take me that long with two chickens.  Anyway, the legs were cured for two days, then poached in duck fat, and stored in a wide-mouth quart canning jar covered completely by their own fat.  The confit is supposed to sit for two weeks before sampling.  I'm hoping I can wait that long.  What I really want now is a baguette worthy of the name to smear the confit over, to see if I can reproduce a simple, unctuous, perfect appetizer I once enjoyed in Europe.  I made just a modest quart of stock from the roasted carcasses, and put the breasts into the freezer.  At some point we'll have a feast of duck breast.

As of the end of November we've exceeded our harvest tally from last year by about 145 pounds.  And there are still hardy leeks and a few cabbages out there to harvest, plus a trickle of lettuce and spinach coming from the cold frame.  I'm curious too about the gobo still in the ground.  I wonder how it behaves over the winter.  Does it become sweeter, as many other roots do?  Will it hold until spring?  I don't know.  Yes.  I'll definitely need to dig up a couple at some point to see what I find.  Probably better to do that sooner rather than later, since the ground is going to be frozen pretty soon.  Daytime temperatures are still peaking just above freezing, but the nights are all frozen now.

I'm planning to experiment with repurposing an old wool sweater into felted mittens.  We have a few old sweaters with holes in them, and I'm hoping to get at least a couple pairs out of the first sweater I felt.  This video shows how to do it, and makes it look pretty easy.  I'm no great shakes at all as a seamstress, but that project looks manageable.  It would be nice to revive the old skill of making something so useful from worn out sweaters.  I'll skip the decorative buttons though.

Two and a half weeks to go, at most, for the turkey.  We plan to have her for New Year's Eve dinner, unless we can't get a grass-fed prime rib for Christmas.  I feel very lucky to know of three local-ish farms that raise beef entirely on grass.  None of them are in my county, but there's one each in two adjacent counties, and another at the near end of Lancaster County.  Our chances of obtaining the cut we want from one of them are good.  Prime rib is such a luxurious thing.  Most of the meat we buy all the rest of the year is either whole birds or ground meat - essentially the cheapest kinds of meat, albeit from local grass-based farmers.  So, we content ourselves with the cheapest (not cheap) of the best kind of meat all year, except for this one winter feast.  Feast days are very important to me.  I love the traditional dishes that make up our very different Thanksgiving and Christmas meals.  Though I deeply enjoy prime rib and Yorkshire pudding, I wouldn't want to rob this singular day of its significance by indulging in them at other times of year, even if we could afford to do so.  The rarity is what makes me appreciate them, treasure them, and celebrate them.  I'm really looking forward to it!

Sewing Competency - First Baby Step

I spent far more time than I would have preferred yesterday tackling a very basic sewing project with the help of an experienced quilter and all around sewing perfectionist. I'm very pleased with the way my cloth gift wrap turned out. I think it's beautiful, and it's probably one out of the five wraps I have planned that I'm going to keep at home for our own gifting needs. Not least of all because it's probably going to be the most perfectly executed one.

The idea behind these gift wraps is that the fabric on one side, at least, is suitable for the holiday gift-giving season, while the other side is more suited for festivity in general, and thus appropriate for birthday gifts. I was talked into the purple color above as a Christmas color, because purple is associated with the Catholic season of Advent. I come from a Catholic background, so there is some relevance there. But also, I just like the color purple, and it picked up the accent color in the print fabric above. So each cloth gift wrap is essentially a perpetual replacement for paper gift wrap. Each of the wraps I plan to make uses two full yards of fabric, so I'll be able to wrap rather large gifts with each one. Getting the wrapped gifts to look neat and tidy is probably going to require some practice, or else some sturdy (and re-usable) wire-edged ribbon.

While I'm glad to be able to report some progress on my sewing competency goal for 2009, I can say with a high degree of certainty that this is never going to be a hobby I engage in for fun. That's just fine, I think. My goal was only to get to a point where I could say confidently, "yeah, I could do that;" provided of course that "that" meant a fairly uninvolved repair job, or a simple project designed to use up scrap fabric that would otherwise go for rags or into the trash (such as a colored bed sheet my husband spilled bleach on). An improvement in my ability to reduce household waste was all I was aiming for.

(Sorry for the washed out pictures: it's a rainy day so I had to use the flash.)

After the four-and-a-half-hour lesson, during which time we managed to complete just one extremely simple wrap, I now need to find the motivation to finish off the other four wraps that I purchased fabric for. I am somewhat hampered by not having, as my mentor does, a room set aside just for the purpose of sewing, as well as sundry tools designed to make the process easier. Given that I don't ever envision throwing myself wholeheartedly into things sewing, I'm pretty reluctant to spend money on such tools, useful though I know them to be. While there is satisfaction in having completed one small project, I don't enjoy the process of sewing enough to invest in more than just the basics.

Here are the fabrics that will go into the rest of the gift wraps I plan to make.

Check back with me before the holidays to see if I get these done!

Fingerless Gloves - Easy Knitting Project

It's getting cold again. We had a hard frost overnight. The hens' water was limned with ice when I went out this morning to feed them. Our heater is finally kicking on, even with the thermostat set at just 64. I rummaged through the coat closet to find my beloved fingerless gloves. Then I realized that I hadn't ever posted about these marvelous homemade treasures.

For those who want to be frugal and have to sit still to work or study, winter can be a hard time of year. It's no problem keeping warm when it's time for housework or cooking. But sit down for an hour or more, and the circulation slows and the chill creeps in. It goes without saying that layering up will help, and I even wear a comfy hat inside. But I found that my hands get cold as I write, type, or hold a book. And when my hands get cold and stay cold, I'm unhappy. Enter a simple knitting project!

A few winters back, I decided to turn my very rudimentary knitting skills to the task of keeping my hands warm. I found a cute knitting pattern for fingerless gloves in Interweave Knits magazine, but it required knitting in the round with double-pointed needles, which I'd never tried before. (I'd previously only knitted flat things, like scarves, baby blankets and afghans.) I wasn't sure that I could do it, but I knew that the local yarn shop would help me out in a pinch. So I invested in the double pointed needles, bought some yarn, and set to it. As with many knitting techniques, it took only a little bit of trial and error to figure out. I soon found that knitting with double-pointed needles wasn't as daunting as it had seemed. I was able to produce one fingerless glove in a long evening. And the pattern was simple enough that even I could manage to make two roughly symmetrical gloves.

After making a pair for myself, I felt confident enough to make a larger pair for my husband, who works from home most of the time and who had also complained of cold hands. I decided that his would be more snug than the pair I made for myself, which were quite loose and baggy when made according to the pattern as given. Some "fingerless" gloves actually have short, truncated fingers on them. These are completely fingerless gloves, which don't interfere with typing at all, but still keep the hands warm. For those of you who knit, here's what I did:

The pattern is worked in p1, k1 rib stitch, 24 stitches per row, evenly divided on three dp needles. For my husband's gloves I started with smaller gauge needles (US size 5, I believe) and gradually increased the size every few rows until I was working with size 11 needles. That made a tapered tube so that the part of the glove that covers the wrist is narrow, and the part that covers the hand relatively wide, especially around the thumb. The length of the gloves is up to personal preference. It's easy to just eyeball the length as you're working them. When the glove is the right size to fit on the wrist/lower arm above the base of the thumb, bind off three stitches in the middle of whatever row you're at. This will form the hole for the thumb. On the next row, cast on three extra stitches at that point and continue working for a few more rows, until there's enough material to cover the knuckles and at least part of the first bone of the fingers. If in doubt, add an extra row or two after the thumb hole. Better a little long than too short. Bind off when you have the length you want, then make a matching glove following the exact same pattern. Either glove can be worn on either hand.

Here's a picture of my handmade fingerless gloves on my husband's hands. You can see how snug they are around his lower arm and wrist.


He really likes them, even though he resisted the idea at first. Knitters with good eyesight may be able to tell that I worked both pairs of gloves with two yarns knitted together. I let him pick out the colors from among my yarns. He chose one navy blue woolen yarn and a green acrylic yarn to go with it. It took less than 1 skein of each yarn to make the pairs of gloves.

If you're trying to keep warm on a tight budget, these gloves can be cheaply made with acrylic yarn. They're also nice gifts for friends or family for the upcoming winter holiday. If you're an experienced knitter, you'll be able to knock out one glove in an evening. Less experienced knitters may take a few days to complete this project.

Planning Ahead for Holiday Gifts

I dread the holiday gift-giving season. There are several reasons for this. First off, I don't enjoy shopping of any kind, unless it's for cooking ingredients. Not many people on my list enjoy getting cooking ingredients as gifts. Believe me, I've tried, and found those ingredients in their cupboards months or years later. Secondly, I don't enjoy getting gifts from other people unless it's something I really want or will find useful. I would always prefer to receive no gift at all, rather than get something I have no interest in. I feel badly that someone has spent money or even a little time on getting me something that I never wanted and for which I can only muster socially polite appreciation. And I absolutely hate the fact that the gift-giver felt so obligated to conform to the custom, even though they didn't know me well enough to pick something I'd appreciate (or know I'd be perfectly happy with no gift at all). I've tried communicating this to people as politely as possible. It seems though that the almighty holiday gift giving spirit is impervious to all logic or social pleas. Lastly, the indifference that results from too many gifts - those I give and those I receive - bothers me. I've stopped giving my nephew anything for his birthday or Christmas, because he gets far too much on those occasions. Instead, I give him stuff at random times during the year.

Still, as much as I resist and resent the holidays, I do find myself trying to come up with gift ideas throughout the year. This year I have a few ideas for do it yourself gifts. I like these ideas because they won't cost me much money, but they will show my affection because they involve my time and effort.

So here are a few ideas I've been keeping on the back burner for homemade gifts.

Homemade vanilla sugar and/or vanilla extract. I while ago, I purchased a quantity of vanilla beans to make my own vanilla extract, after noting how terribly high its unit price was. While vanilla beans and vodka - the only ingredients in vanilla extract - are expensive, they're still a lot cheaper than the finished product. Following these instructions, I made a large batch for my own use and have enjoyed baking with it. The rest of the beans from my order have been stored in cane sugar to preserve them. That sugar now packs an incredible wallop of vanilla flavor. While I might not have enough nice bottles to make a lot of vanilla extract, we have plenty of canning jars to hold vanilla sugar. Slap a nice ribbon on the lid, with a handwritten label, and there's a cheap but thoughtful homemade gift. Even people who don't cook much can usually find a use for vanilla sugar. This is the cheapest and easiest of my potential gift ideas.


I got into making solid perfume shortly before I kicked into frugal mode, and spent a small fortune on essential oils and botanical extracts. Making solid perfume is a pretty easy process, but people seem fascinated when I give them some and tell them I made it myself. And it's not just women either. My male cousin expressed interest and perhaps even a tinge of jealousy when I gave his wife a batch scented only with grapefruit essential oil. He said it smelled nice and he'd happily use something like that on his hands at night. The stuff can be called solid perfume, but, containing beeswax and jojoba oil, it's also a lot like a salve or a balm. I have enough materials to make gifts of this stuff for several people.

Garden stepping stones. I found an easy project for making stepping stones with botanical designs on them in a garden DIY book called Garden Patterns & Mosaics. I experimented by making a few of them last summer. All that's required are some simple wooden frames, mortar mix, and some pretty foliage to press into the surface to make the design. This wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea, but I know a few people who might like to have one or two of these for a pathway or their gardens. I'm going to make a few more of these this summer and see if I can turn out some nice enough to give away as gifts.

Ultimate sawhorses, made with scavenged 2x4's pulled out of dumpsters. Last fall, looking at all the wood we'd dumpster dived for, I figured the obvious thing was to find a plan for some sawhorses. I hit the jackpot with this page, which although it wildly underestimates the time needed to build the sawhorses, does give good instructions for the novice carpenter. I first made a pair of these for myself, and they are indeed rock solid. Then a family member wanted a pair, which I duly built. Now there's another person who could use a pair. If we can find enough halfway decent wood in dumpsters this year, I'll seriously consider making another pair. I also found some other nice but simple woodworking projects in the book, Dream Backyards, at my local library. There's a nice design for a planter box. It would be a great use of scavenged materials as a gift for someone who enjoys container gardening.

Baked goodies. I'm a pretty good baker and cook. Good enough that family members pay me for various breads and prepared foods for parties. So I know they want these items. Therefore it's a no-brainer for me to gift them a few loaves of bread, scones, holiday cookies, or whatever. Maybe not the most exciting gift they receive, but at least I know they want it and will use it. And it costs me very little in materials.

What about you? What creative strategies do you have for giving gifts that don't cost a fortune but are genuinely appreciated by the recipients?