Swiss Chard

Gardening IS possible almost year round in OK, if one is willing to learn how to cook with the marvelous abundant greens that like fall and early spring.

Oh boy, I need to learn how to re-arrange these pics! Anyway, You simply saute onions and garlic diced in 3 or 4 tablespoons butter, then add the diced stems, saute a minute, then add the rest of the chard sliced into 1/2" ribbons piling it high as it cooks down rapidly. Saute' just until softened and then sprinkle with some gomasio and tamari OR a bit of himalayan pink sea salt and enjoy.

I'm serving this with baked sweet potato (mashed with butter and maple syrup) and a baked homegrown ham.

Knitting Swiffer Covers

Ravelry.com ought to get some sort of major award for what they've done in creating an awesome web community! Most recently some of the ladies there have shared their patterns for swiffer covers for those of us not into throw away lifestyles. I've just knit 2 different styles and dd#2 has caston and 1/2 knit yet a third style. http://www.elmore-pisgah.com/ and http://www.rmyarns.com/ are my favorite places to buy cotton yarn for dishcloths, washcloths, baby sweaters, and now swiffer covers. Great prices, quick shipping, friendly service, and no driving an hour to the store to be assaulted by toxic synthetic chemicals in the air from candles, cleaners, and potpouri.

Manuel's Rye Starter

Making a sourdough starter isn't really difficult, keeping it going has been more the hurdle I don't always make it over. I'll let ya know how this one goes in a few more days, I hope to make sourdough tortillas and bread.

Rendering Lard

Today's work was rendering 25 pounds of lard in preparation for some soapmaking. I'm doing a workshop later this month and need to replenish our home and a local store's supply of homemade soaps. Haven't gotten any further on my barrel-ponics setup yet.

Dividing chives

Yesterday I dug up and made 4 new plantings of the chives. This is the first year my chives have actually done well, and they make a lovely little bush with purple flowers, so I figure that even if I forget to eat them, I do enjoy watching them grow, flower, and go to seed. I actually did dehydrate some for winter use and plan to do that again before winter.

We got the hoophouse frames up and while I was going to share photos, internet explorer crashed on my while attempting to load, so it'll have to wait another day when I have time. Today it's off to a gardening friend's house to return some pots and glean a few 'mater's and make either salsa or tomato sauce. I haven't put up anything to speak of food wise, and I would like to dry some more okra and make salsa and basil/garlic tomato sauce this week.

May everyone's fall gardens be bountiful!

Aquaponics -- cutting barrels

After reading the entire barrel-ponics manual and printing off the lists of pvc parts, taking inventory of tools, etc... I couldn't stand not making at least what progress we were able to today. I don't have the right size holesaws for the drill, so those will have to wait till payday, but saw and ruler and a colored pencil (no sharpie was to be found) we could find.

I know we own a T-square, but it was not to be found, so this yardstick ruler did the trick.

We still have to clean up the edges and cut off the lips of the grow bed barrels, but I'm happy with our progress for the day. I finished the additional cuts in the flood tank section after the photo was taken, in case anyone notices only one hole is cut out. Don't know who made this adjustment from the original floodtank design, but after seeing it in the photos, it seemed 'cuter' and more lumber saving. Used that for a simple real work math example for the kids of how to use those equations: circumference = 2pir, so if we need 8 sections (drawing topview of bottom portion of floodtank yields 4 sections up and 4 'windows' how wide does each section need to be?

Aquaponics - great project to kickoff the new school year!

Everytime I think about academics, look at textbooks, I'm reminded anew of why I do so many difficult, time consuming, and widely different things. I want my children to know how to Think, have wisdom, and have practical skills, and that just doesn't come without hands-on projects, living creatures and plants, real raw materials and real tools.

Years ago I heard of aquaponics, but had too many other projects going at the time, though I did have the hoophouses up, one had french angora rabbits in it and the other just a few in ground veggies. Since moving several years ago to a larger property and house, we've added sheep, gotten out of milk goats for a season (I want superior genetics and Saanens since that's what my chief milkmaid is interested in), added bees, and studied applied aromatherapy. The large hoophouse has sat behind the barn unassembled, we got out of the rabbits due to high feed costs and time required for chores/grooming, and the small hoophouse is setup for the chickens.

So, after reading quite a few posts and looking at some system setups from the Backyard Aquaponics forums, the kids and I started assembling these things to turn them into our very own fish and food farm in the backyard. I chose this location because there was an old concrete pad with a flat area of sand and an electric pole from the previous owners. I've been praying about that old permaculture adage of doing what you can with what you have where you are. Now just need to pray in the remaining supplies, pump,tubing, right growing medium, new greenhouse film, and get to work!