After

Before

Vernon and Marybell

The move back outside

Well I'm not waiting around for this guy to return. He was supposed to come back next week on Monday. I waited till Tuesday and had to get them back out there. My house was smelling so bad. I could open the window in that room and that helped, but the heat was on at night and was working over time to make up for the blasting cold coming in. I figure the rest of the work won't be as loud, so all should be fine, whenever that guy decides to return. My guess is in three weeks on a Monday. "I didn't say which Monday." is what he's thinking.
So all is quiet for now. The rabbits are happy. I got them Timothy hay and new plastic mats to sit on. They love them both.

Then, the move back inside

So after I got the table built and I could step back and see my wonderful work, I moved the rabbits out to their new new home. They were held up in the spare room, not where I would want to keep them permanently, their pee is quite potent, but it worked for a few days while I put the finishing touches on their new home. Not but two days after moving them out there, the neighbor had the idea to put a window in their cinder block building, right below where the rabbits sit on my porch. Only three feet away, the jack hammer used to make the hole for the window, nearly sent Vernon to his early grave. Poor thing. Marybell wasn't happy either, but in her demure manner, didn't protest as much as Vernon. He would freak out and run around his cage every time the jackhammer rattled against the cinder block. I don't blame them for being scared. That sound was irritating. So, back inside till they were finished.
Well, "finished" is not in a contractors vocabulary. If I had a dollar for every story and personal expedience I have had where a contractor or handy man has started a job and not completely finished, I would be rich. The job began with me walking out one morning to find the said window placed in my strawberry bed, thereby crushing half the beautiful plants that had sprung up in this early spring. I reacted like a mother who's child was stuck under a car; I summoned freakish strength and heaved the large window, casing and all, off my strawberry patch. Next the contractor proceeded to drop the broken concrete block on my strawberry patch. Everyday there were words exchanged, and I tried my best to cover and protect them. The last straw, what I thought was the last straw, was when I saw him applying new concrete mix to seal in the new window. He didn't cover the strawberries before starting, so wet concrete was dropping all over the plants. I started picking wet cement out of my bed and throwing it on the neighbors property. He retorted with, "stop that, or I'll rip the bed out completely." I called the cops and what was supposed to be the last straw was over till it rained, hard, for two days. Indirectly, his last laugh on me is the drain pipe he had to remove to install the new window. It used to run along the side of the building and empty into a drainage on their property. Well the contractor removed the last part of it right before the strawberry bed, so when it rained the first night the water run off ran right into the bed. The next day I saw a big hole in the soil of that bed and wondered what happened. Sometimes squirrels bury nuts in the raised beds and come back to dig them up. I first thought it was that till it started to rain again and I saw the water running right in. It was late afternoon when I put a bucket under the drain spout and late night, last dog pee walk, when it was full and I had to change it out for another bucket. All I have to say is, I'm glad I had so many buckets. I always wondered how rain barrels fill up with enough water to make it worth having, but now I think I'm going to get one.

Rabbits Are Happy

We went to Green Bay, well just south, to a town called Denmark. We picked up our Silver Fox rabbits. The boy we named Vernon and the girl is Marybell. I know, you're not supposed to name your food, but these two will be our producers for many years. I thought we were getting an older buck and a new doe, but it's the other way around by a month. Marybell was born January 1 while Vernon was born in February. She will be ready to breed in June. I suppose I can try Vernon with her then, but we'll see if he's ready then. If not, we'll keep trying till it works.
So in the weeks leading up to getting the rabbits, I worked my butt off taking down the old walls on the porch, cutting the new wall boards, installing them, and painting the celling and floor. Every step of the project there were several trips back and forth to the Home Depot. First the paint color was supposed to be a nice dark brown, but when I started to paint the celling, it was way too red. Had to get that fixed. Then the wall material I used was this white plastic stuff that's used in commercial kitchens. I wanted easy cleaning on the walls that the rabbits would be up against. The problems came when I needed to cut the material. I first thought I could cut it with a utility knife, no way. Then my little hand saw, not bad, it cut, but at that rate I was either going to have a huge arm muscle from all that cutting, or my arm was going to fall off from pain. When I woke up the next day, after cutting one 8' cut, with a sore arm, I want back to the Home Depot to get a better cutting tool. After looking at several other hand saws, different blades for my circular saw, the helpful guy in hardware suggested a diamond tip bur for my dremel tool. He offered it would cut like a hot knife threw butter,. Sold. And he wasn't kidding. It did the job, but in it's proficiency, it also made huge clouds of dust. Once again, back to the Home Depot for dust masks. Which even with long sleeves, dust mask, safety goggles, and a shower cap, yes a shower cap on, it got everywhere. A fine, scratchy dust that I'm sure after breathing in will take a few months off my life. But I got those boards cut and installed. Oh yeah, installed. A different, less informed Home Depot employee sold me these nails that would bend after two wacks. I used dry wall screws. Those too were hard to get started on that material, but after screwing my thumb and setting me back a few days while it healed, I got the hang of it. Just before I thought I was finished, I decided to make a table for the rabbits to sit on. This would give me room to store things underneath. A little more sawing and a little more drilling and a table was born.

First Harvest Crop

While most people are figuring out how to get rid of the "weed" in their garden or lawn, we're picking the dreaded dandilion and making hortapita, the cousin of spanakopita, where you use any greens you have. And we have plenty.

Updating the Update :-)

I guess I should explain. I have been, most all of February, reading up on how to raise rabbits for food. I could have posted tid bits of what I was learning, but let's just say, aside from learning what's needed to take care of them, I learned most people don't want to talk about where their meat comes from. I'm not going to change my path for the faint of heart, but I will take the same approach I do when I'm on some new diet, I don't share unless they really want to know. And I know they want to know more when they ask intelligent questions.

2012 Iditarod has a winner

Dallas Seavey has won the 2012 Iditarod Dog Sled Race. Our favorite to win, Aliy Zirkle will come in second. Better luck next time girl.

My March Madness

So as I figure this spring, summer will be way too hot. We had nothing for winter. It's March 13 and it's 60 degrees. We're not going to all of a sudden get a frost so bad it's going to knock out my lettuce and spinach, so I'm planting the first round of the year. If Mother Nature proves me wrong, so be it, if not, I'll be eating my own spinach and lettuce in 45-55 days. Another thing,do you see in the picture, spinach already there. That was from last year. I planted late September or so because it was so warm, it came up a bit like you see here. I covered it with a makeshift hoop house- garden stakes with translucent plastic tied to it. The cold came and in my laziness, I didn't take the hoop house down. It stayed up all winter and instead of rotting the baby spinach, it just went dormant because here we are and it never looked any different all winter long. I'm very interested to see if it will pick up and grow bigger. In all my gardening books I have never come across this bit of information. Maybe it was a fluke cause of this mild winter, but this is just another reason when you are better connected to the land and nature, you can hear and see the subtleness.
First three rows from me, green swiss chard, next two rows, multi colored chard, then Forellenschluss, yeah, a lettuce, then Amish deer tongue, then one row of Susan's red bibb lettuce, all the seeds I had left, and filled in the rest of the bed with spinich. Finished with a low makeshift hoop house.

Rabbit Update

So I have located a woman in Green Bay who has Silver Fox rabbits. She has a buck for me, ready now and a litter ready sometime at the beginning of April in which I'll get my doe out of. She will only be eight weeks old so I'll have to wait another two months or so before she's of breeding age. That's June. Okay. Then, if she mates right away, it takes about 30 days to kindle a litter. That's July. Then it take another 10 weeks or so for them to get to fryer weight. Now we're talking late September, early October before we dine on rabbit. I guess the consolation prize will be all through the spring and summer I'll have the best manure for the garden.

Opening Day of 2012 Iditarod

The race opened yesterday with ceremony in Anchorage, and officially started out of Willow today. I have to say, I've never been as into this race as I am currently. With that new found interest, I have run the gamete of thoughts and feelings. Here are some, in no particular order. It all started with Chloe's interest in Alaska a few months back. Or even almost a year now, after Aunt Penny went and sent her a post card. She claimed it her favorite state. So I set out to help her know more facts about Alaska and in doing so, I too started to like the state and what better icon to learn about, but the greatest race on earth, the Iditarod. We read Balto books and saw the movie. We looked on maps and watched YouTube videos of past year Iditarods. I started to know the mushers names, their lingo, the cities along the trail. That on even years they run the north trail consisting of The Steps, a difficult part of the trail that dumps many a mushers and their sleds. This March 3, I was all set, even stoked, to see as much coverage of the event as I could. I became Face book friends with Anchorage Daily News. I also found www.iditarod.com that for 19.99, you can stream it live. I bought it. So as as I'm watching the official start today I reflect on how awesome this task is and how rugged, and amazing these men, women, and dogs are. This is pretty balls of a thing to do. And in this age of GPS tracking, head & sled cams, live streams and mega sponsors, I'm looking for the soul that these people have for the race. I mean, do they realize the epic journey this race represents. I hear and see it in a few of the old timers, but these new mushers, the media coverage, the high tech gear, the nearly $400,000 it takes a year to maintain a top racing team. It just feels a little like the stats over the screen with a small live video is separating me from the deeper meaning of the race. That triumphant, man and his dogs against wild terrain and even worse weather. I'm grateful for the additional information and the ability to watch as much of it as I can from the comfort of my living room, but the PBS, emotional jerker of a story I was conjuring up thoughts of is just not how they spin it now. It's a little like motor cross coverage.

Please sign this petition

http://signon.org/sign/tell-obama-to-cease-fda.fb1?source=s.fb&r_by=2334454

First wheatgrass shot

A bit of a mess trying to figure out my juicer. And I knew it wouldn't be much, less than half a shot, but oh so sweet.

Time to cut wheatgrass

About two weeks ago I ordered a few things on line. A hand crank juicer, organic wheatgrass berries, a grow light and stand, a seed starter kit complete with heating mat and an indoor composter. All things have arrived. The composter is fabulous. No smell and is working great. I already got some "tea" out of it and watered my little cilantro plant with it. I set up the light, planted some wheatgrass berries a few days ago and let it go. Since it's the very first time I have grown my own wheatgrass I wasn't too sure how much berries to put in, so in this picture it looks a little sparse. I know for next time I can put a solid layer and it will work fine. It will come in just like the dense trays you see at juice bars. This whole tray may only make one shot of juice. In my book, for a first try, it's not a waist of any time. Just a little learning curve.

Funny municipalities continued

Silly me, thought that that would be the ideal place to look for a small farmette homestead, but come to find out cites are more aware of people wanting to grow their own, raise their own, so their ordinences reflect that. In the city limits of Lake Geneva you can have up to 5 chickens. In Milwaukee it's up to 10 chickens. To me this is telling me that farming and farmers have changed over the last 20 years and it's not being done in the country like the dreamy picture we think of the country land to be like. It's being done in urban settings and that our urban planning boards are aware of it and allowing it. Part of all this makes me happy because I currently live in an urban setting. I like living within the city. Sidewalks, shops to go to, parks, schools, the lake, it's all within walking distance and I don't drive my car as much. In fact I put less than 9000 miles on a year because we walk to so many of the places we go. Part of it makes me unhappy because there is certainly more you can do with a large parcel of land, but more over that the country setting does envoke the natural living ideal I'd like to have.

There is something funny about our rural municipalities

I first noticed this when I lived in Madison, then moved back home here;  Madison landlords were much more excepting of pets, especially dogs, than they were here. I found that odd when most of the apartments are in a dense concentration with very little land except to take them to a dog park to run and here there are fewer apartments with more country land to run in than you can shake a stick at. I guess, pun intended.
So I guess this small hoe-dun town with a property of 6 1/2 acres, barns and pasture fencing is following in a similar ideology, that is, that farming and farm animals is not for the individual to do, it's for big Con Agra to do and move that way out of the area so I don't see it. It's like the small farmer got so beat up over the last 50, 60 years that their children and their grandchildren have learned to view it as silly, unwanted, problematic and useless. They have passed ordinances officially changing zoning to ensure no one goes down that path again. The mind set(which is of course outdated)is, get in your car and drive 40 miles or more to the big city, work in an office or factory like the rest of us because that's the way you can make money to survive.

Looking for a farm 2

So, as much as we purchase good food and spend good money on it, I don't think raising my own would cut out any cost. I'm quite sure buying land, the feed, and the slaughter will cost way more, but it is my hunch, just as my tomatoes from my garden taste 3000 times better than any organic tomatoes from the store, I'm sure my meat, from my animals will taste that much better too.
I went to look at this property a few days ago. 6 1/2 acres and a house that is in need of a ton of work. That's ok because I'd like to do my own repairs; adding solar panels, deck out the kitchen, that sort of stuff. So a perfect house is not what I want to buy anyways. The property is in this little unincorporated town. As out of the way as this country town is, it still has a very residential look to it so I was very curious as to what the land was actually zoned. Even though there is a pole barn, pasture fencing, and a chicken coop, the neighbors are very close. Good thing I called the county before I got too attached to it. It's zoned residential. Not even in small unincorporated town America do they want farm animals. I'd have better luck farming in the inner city. There the people are too busy shooting eachother to notice a few chickens.

Looking for a farm

I have embraced urban gardening, but always dream of having a few acres of land, raise a few chickens, a pig or two, Spring lamb sounds good. Alright, maybe I'm hungry for dinner, but really, that is the point. To raise these animals, know what kind of food they've eaten, what kind of life they've had, and have the very best meat for dinner. I'm so tired of hearing about meat pumped full of something, whether it's ammonia gas to "clean" the meat, or growth hormones. I have been feeding my daughter organic, local or free range since she's been eating meat; around 18 months. Side note, I got so much flack from my side of the family for not feeding her meat right away. I started her with a diet of ONLY organic, all vegan till about a year old, them I added fish, then chicken, then cheese(very reluctantly) them meat(reluctantly). I also breast fed her to 18 months. I took and still do take being a mother very seriously. I am ultimately responsible for her growth, health, education, and her safety. That to me means I am very much on the hook for feeding her food that will provide her with nutrients and sustenance.

Simple and easy. Give it a try.

Seed Savers

http://www.facebook.com/seedsaversexchange

The catalog is dog eared and ready for me to place this years garden order.

I got the indoor composter

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004X5KB0W/ref=cm_sw_r_fa_asp_dnT3D.098VTV3?ref=nf
That's right, I copied the URL address and posted it to my blog. If you had met me a few years ago, I had no computer ability what so ever and like most things I do well, it was born out of me being tired of doing it poorly, so I read up on it till I feel I've made some considerable improvement. At least proficient enough to do these tasks. It makes me happy.
 So without further adieu, I will enlighten you on the fabulous benefits of this little indoor composter. This composter differes from the more widely used system of layering vegetable matter with "brown" matter, like leaves and grass clippings by using probiotic enzymes to ferment the waste. It uses no oxygen, or anaerobic, to ferment, which reduces the smell to, if any, a pickle like smell. I can deal with that. Also, according to the company representative and their YouTube video, you can put all your food waste in it. This includes meat, cheese, and cooked food. This is the biggest difference from the common compost pile that should never have these in them. I'm sceptical, but am excited to give it a try. All left over scraps from our plates will go into the composter along with the usual scraps from trimming and cleaning vegetables. Sprinkle with the probiotic mix and away she goes.

Never too early continued

I would have to go to someone else's house to gather their leaves or cut their grass. Let me tell you, that has to be the number one best reason to live in an apartment, you don't gain any equity, but you're 100% out of doing yard chores. So, you can see my limitations. I end up with way too much of the 1 part and not enough of the 25 part, making it almost impossible to get a compost pile to work right.
Look for pictures of the indoor garden. May-be even a video. There's always a funny moment or two when you're trying to turn a small corner of your bedroom into a garden.

Never too early

No time like the present. I'm going to build an indoor garden space. I've been looking into purchasing a self contained unit from a pricey indoor growing shop in Madison, but I think I can do a little more research and build my own. This will primarily serve as a seed starter, but I'm hoping to get spinach and lettuce out of it year round. Eventually when I see my way to a wheat grass juicer, I will use it for wheat grass flats. The most interesting purchase will be the indoor composter I have my eye on. It uses probiotics to decompose the vegetable matter, resulting in a "tea" you can then pour on your garden. If after further research to find out this is safe, healthy, and excepted by organic standards, I think this will be the best way for me to compost. I have tried for two years to start a compost pile with no success. You need a ratio of 25 to 1, 25 being brown matter like leaves and grass clippings. This 25 part has been the down fall of my pile because I live in an urban area. I have no grass to cut, and hardly any trees with leaves.

SNOW 2

Not what ya want, to say the least. Leaving the head in can lead to infection, so out came the razor blade and matches. I grew up with a grandmother who grew up on a farm. No amount of animal care, including minor surgery was too daunting for her. So channeling my sweet little Yaya, I burned the end of the razor blade to sterilize it, let it cool off a bit and proceeded to make two super small cuts around the ticks head. Did I say this is all happening on my dog? Not on a piece of wood, or bit of clay, anything other than a live dog. All the while Morgan couldn't have been more calm and allowing. She totally knew I was taking care of her. I could feel her trust in me which gave me the confidence to poke into her skin and cut. The tick felt strong in her skin, but I knew I had cut just perfectly because now it was completely free of her body, nothing left. Few! This might even out my karma for the time I took Chloe to the emergency room to remove a tick.

SNOW!

Well finally we got some snow. And it hasn't come without some tell-tail signs that it is very much needed. While it was fun, if that's what you can call it, for a time, those who look just a few months ahead know without a good layer of snow the water table will be effected, the lake needs to freeze or it will not have a chance to flip, a very important ecological phenomenon and the bugs will be out of control this Spring. Speaking of bugs, because it has been so warm those dreaded ticks are still out and about. As you can see from the last post we had a great day hiking at a local prairie preserve. You're not suppose to take anything out of the park, but tell that to the two ticks that hitched a ride out on my dog. I only noticed them tonight, one crawling on the outside of her fur, which caught my eye and prompted me to look further. Embedded just above her right shoulder blade was another. I have this little tool that has come in handy over the Summer that gets them out pretty good but as I tried and tried to get a good grip in it, I ended up rippin it's body off.

Yet another day without snow

A walk at Kishwauketoe.

January and no snow

Perpetual November

I have always thought I hated winter. Living in Wisconsin, it can start as early as late October with cold rain and snow mix, moving into more snow and even colder temperatures. Dreary days, gray days, biter cold, all lasting sometimes well into late March. April sometimes doesn't bring any hope with cold rain and late blooms. But no snow, not even a dusting, is driving me more nuts than the usual pattern I've come to deal with. I'll also be the first one to admit I don't like change. Obviously some change is welcome, like changing my underwear, or changing my hair style. As it turns out, even the change of the seasons is just as important to me.
The landscape, the sky, the air, it all feels a lot like November, in my book, the shittiest month of them all. If I had to pick one month for the winter weather to get stuck on, it would be December. The snow is new, the cold isn't too bitter and it ends with Christmas and a little drinking and celebrating on New Years eve. Despite the over consumerism of Christmas, it still is "the most wonderful time of the year".

Prologue 2 continue 4

Now with the beds in place at home and the community garden established, all I had to do was plant and tend. Something in my bones told me, last year was going to be a good year for berries. It was a cool Spring. Berries like cool, not cold, but cool. And was it ever. As the planted gardens creeped along, my daughter and I were taking foraging to an art. Everywhere we went, we would see raspberries over flowing. We'd stop, pick some and remark how we will have to remember this spot. The cherries were unexpected and the blueberries were cheep. All three are still holding strong in my freezer.
It was in this last Summer that I found a new way of gardening that satisfied me way more than planting. It was foraging. It's all right there. It's already done the weeding, the survival of the fittest, the trimming. All I have to do is know which one to eat and when to go and get it. Some challenge, some reading up, but lots of reward.

Prologue 2 continue 3

I couldn't wait. After all the other community gardeners had packed it up for the Fall, I went back and planted garlic. All winter long I thought now and again about what it might be doing under all that snow. As Spring came and the snow melted, I was greeted one day, by garlic scapes. So green against the dark, baron, dirt that was to be our garden. I can only say, the thrill of planting something and it coming up is one kind of joy, but something coming up after all that cold is even more amazing. I was over joyed.
Right about that time is when I wanted to improve upon the two little raised beds at home. I wanted the one by the stairs to be more in the sun light, so it needed to come out and away from the stairs. Back to the Home Depot. This time I needed to put the seats down to haul all the materials home. Once home, I carfully deconstucted the first bed, using some of the old cinder blocks and some new and created an entirely new bed. Twice the size, too. I'm not doing this again. When the first one was made along the stairs, it took up a bit of my designated parking spot. After I was done moving and creating this newest bed, I had no spot at all left. But my tomatoes wre going to have great sun that year.

Porlogue 2 continued 2

I got to work and created the second bed. It's had a few things in it, sugar snap peas, a lavender plant that lasted through one winter, but died the next, and countless herbs, but currently it's a strawberry patch. Purslane, which is an edible weed, started to grow this last summer and I expect it back this year. If I keep it cut back it won't chock out the strawberries. It's one of those "got to get used to" greens, but very high in vitamins. Plus a few years back all the high end restaurants in New York were serving it, so who am I to turn my nose up. Just need to elevate my palate is all.
And if that wasn't enough, it never is when you're hooked on gardening, I started to petition the city to create the first community garden. We all laughed at the first city meeting, that this was the first meeting of a three year long attempt. It took two, but the seven 8x12 beds were constructed 2010, a compost donation was distributed to each bed and planting began Spring of 2011.

Prologue 2 continue

Well, needless to say, I wanted more raised beds and by then, my then husband was working in some other womans bed, and I couldn't bribe my dad, so I went to the Home Depot myself. The boys loaded up the cinder blocks, dirt, peat moss and my very own shovel. Like a full size, dig a whole in the ground kind. Up till now, I just had small containter gardens; only needed a trowel and if I had to dig in the earth, I always borrowed my dads.  With this new bed was going to come new independance. No more bothering my dad for his tools or roping him into my "projects". Then the day came, he, walked right past me digging in the raised bed dirt and said "Where did ya get the shovel?". I'm sure with some dismay, for he couldn't have fogoten, or did he, did I ask to borrow his shovel and he forgot already. "I got my own. It seemed like I was bothering you every time I needed to use one, so I just go my own." "Oh?." he said. A ring of disapointment. At that moment, I realized it's not that he didn't want me asking to borrow his tools, he like being needed, but he sure wasn't going to argue about being left alone.

Prologue 2

For many years now I have had some form of a container garden at all of my various apartments. One year I had a tea garden with the likes of lemon balm, mint, of course, and even a little rose bush for rose hips. I guess that little rose bush taught me what a rose hip is and isn't. It's not the bud of a flower. It's not the end of a flower. It is the fruit of the rose plant and apparently the one I got didn't have any, so neither did I.
More recently, I have lived in the same apartment for the last five years. The first year I had my dad and then husband put in a small raised bed on the side of the stairs. Just two cinder blocks tall, four wide by six long, lined with black landscaping fabric and filled with dirt/peat moss mix. Looking back at that request and seeing what I have been able to accomplish since I've gotten divorced and my dad "doesn't want to get involved with my projects" anymore,  it does seem rather feble of me not to have gotten out there and done it myself. In my defence, I was a new mother of a six month old baby. Any extra energy I had wasn't going to get waisted on lifting cinder blocks.

Prologue

Bon jour. I'm so excited I got this thing up and going. My journey for the next year will be chronicled, oh there's spell check! This is going to be fabulous. Chronicled in this blog; urban gardening, foraging, recipes and stories about what really tastes good, and pictures.
I think it could be helpful to some if I spend a few sentences sharing a bit of my background.
I don't think my true pasion for what I'm about to undertake this year was as strong in years past. It has been only in the last two to three years all of my dabbleing, reading a bit hear and there, living a little more there and here, that it all started to come together into this ultimate design of my life. I am as in the moment as I could be. I can see my past and I haven't a care about the future, for I know that it's one day at a time kind of a life when you're working with nature as your gardening partner.
I know enough to give it a go, and I also don't know anything, enough to still be amazed and appreciate the wonders of it all.