Making Compost Tea

Just as an experiment, I have dug up a portion of the chicken pen floor--which is composted chicken manure--and put some of it into a bucket, which I have filled with water.  I dug three five-gallon buckets full of the composted chicken manure mixed with hay and dirt.  I put the bulk of these buckets into a large rubbermaid-type trash receptacle and put the lid on it.  I want it to "cook" a little longer.  I had put some grass clippings in the receptacle last week after mowing the yard.

I drained off some of the liquid in the bucket filled with the manure/water mixture into a plastic jar (used whey protein container) and poured it on the blackberry bushes, fig trees, blueberry bushes, and tomatoes.  Yes, it goes a long way.

Now to wait and see if it boosts the production of the plants....so hard to wait!

Just a follow up....

Just wanted to follow up on my last post about cutting the cable cord.  I absolutely love it!  I have no problem turning off the television at night during 'prime time'.  I am enjoying the time to read.  Books are always better than the movies anyway.  I am also busy with summertime activities in the garden, orchard and chicken coop.  Sitting on the back porch watching hummingbirds at the feeder is another favorite pastime.  Not to forget yard work!  The more it rains, frequent mowings are in order.  We have been blessed with more rain this year than in the past two.  Love it!  Love my life.  The vegetation and flowers are beautiful this year.

I'm looking forward to the garden harvest.  I have planted three new items this year:  Jerusalem artichokes; Bolivian Sun Roots; and butternut and kuri winter squash.  May the Lord bless these efforts!  I'm picking blackberries every day now.  The blueberries and plums were a bust:  too much rain, birds/animals' invasions; maybe not enough fertilizer.  Looking forward to next year for these.  That's what a garden is for, to provide hope.

I Cut the Cord

I’m sitting here watching of all things, “The Lawrence Welk Show”.  That’s strange for me because when I was a teenager, I had a short-sleeved sweatshirt with an iron-on decal (that I purchased at Kuhn’s 5 & 10 Cent Store) that read, “Help Stamp Out Lawrence Welk”.  I wore it all the time, because I wanted to ‘make a statement’. 

Why am I watching Lawrence Welk?  I had my cable TV turned off, that’s why.  Cable companies are the biggest bunch of crooks there’s ever been.  Their prices just keep rising and the content of the shows keeps falling.  I finally had a talk with myself and asked the question, why am I paying to be advertised to, and why am I paying to watch 50-yr-old reruns?  I had to admit it didn’t make good sense.  So I discontinued the service and bought an antenna from which I get six channels:   CBS, FOX, ABC (which is really ‘GAY’ B C), and three channels of PBS.  And what really amazes me is that I don’t miss any of the 100 plus channels that were available on cable.  After all, I had cable TV for the last 38 years!  Which is where Old Lawrence come in.   

As I sit here listening to the music of the show, I think back to my childhood.  During the summer months, I’d be outside till nearly dark, riding bikes or playing hide and seek with my cousins.  I would invariably walk down to my Granny’s house and sure enough, the TV would always be on the Lawrence Welk Show.  She never missed a week with her date with Lawrence.  She loved to dance and she especially liked to see the dancing segment, where Lawrence would dance with the ladies of the audience.

So now when, I watch Lawrence Welk, or put in a DVD of The Andy Griffith Show, or Bonanza, I can almost believe that outside my door, it’s 1963 and there’s a gravel road running by my house.  The doors and windows in the house are all open.  There’s a window fan blowing cool (cool?) air into the living room.  There’s only one telephone in the house which sits on a little niche in the wall that my Granpa built.  It’s an 8-party line and the phone number has only 5 digits.  There’s a 1959 Ford Fairlane in the driveway.  There’s a ringer washing machine on the screened-in back porch.  And best of all, there’s great family programs on the television.  Shows that really entertain.  Shows that don’t offend or embarrass you.  Shows that you look forward to seeing week after week.  And that you didn’t have to pay a monthly fee in order to watch.

I think I will dwell in this alternate universe forever.  It is just too sweet, too gentle, and too perfect to let go of.

February 16, 2013

Temp didn’t get over forty degrees today and the wind was right out of the north.  

However, it was warm and toasty in my house and the kitchen smelled like the sweet potatoes I baked.  Mmmmm….heavenly smell!

How was your day?  Hope it was warm and toasty for you!

I Found Him....

Well, I finally found him.  Ain’t technology grand?  I’ve been looking on the worldwide web for my first real love, a boy who was so sweet to me, and whom I treated so badly at the end.  I suppose lots of people have a story like this…. 

You know the one where girl meets boy, in church, no less; girl’s mother doesn’t like him, won’t let her date him; girl secretly meets up with him; their relationship is clandestine and thrilling and forbidden.

I really thought I loved him.  I told him I loved him, in two languages.  He said he loved me.    But…that was 40 years ago.  

You see, I had a problem lying to my parents, and it stressed me more than I ever thought it would.  My Christian conscience was working overtime.  Stress management at age seventeen is harder than one thinks.  Finally, I could take no more subterfuge.  So I ended the relationship.  I was sad and he was hurt.  I’ve regretted that decision ever since.

One day at work a few years ago, I was bored, and since we had internet access, I googled his name.  I was shocked!  His name popped right up!  Turns out, for several years, he’d been living in the opposite end of my state.  He was mentioned in several articles associated with his career.  He has actually done very well for himself and is a high-ranking executive.

Lately, with the advent of Facebook and Linkedin, it became easier to search.  I’ve recently re-connected with my stepson and his family on Facebook, as well as to classmates from elementary and high schools that I haven’t thought of in years.  Just type in a name and there they are!  So easy….

Now that I think about it, this is not a new thing.  I’ve been thinking about my love off and on since 1973.  That was the year that I started my private detecting. I managed to get his current address from the place he worked when he was here, and his forwarding address when he left and went back to college.  You see, he was a European who was going to college on a work-study program.

I wrote him a letter, explaining and apologizing for the hurt I had caused.  I really never expected to receive an answer.  But just in case the letter reached him and he wanted to respond, I gave my uncle’s address.  He and my aunt had been complicit in all the sneaking around I did to date him way back when.  Because he was a foreign exchange student when we met--and the letter had to go to Europe--I just assumed it would never reach its destination.  It was a cathartic process for me.  I was emptying myself of longstanding guilt.  However, in about three months I received an airmail letter.  He had answered my letter!  He thanked me for my letter and explained that he had met someone and was about to be married.  End of story.

That should have been the end of it, and it was for a long stretch of years.

I just bet a psychologist would tell me that I think about my love whenever there has been a big change in my life status, such as job change, marriage, divorce, etc.  And it would be true.  But, why do I do it, and what possible conclusion or closure could I gain from it?   Beats me….

So, back to the search:  I had his name and the industry he worked in.  There could possibly be multiple men with the same name.  Does this particular name belong to my love or someone else?  I had not a clue and no way to find out.  Until yesterday….

Yes, my life status has changed yet again.  I am retired from my job of seventeen years.  I am unemployed for the first time in my adult life.  I am trying to find what life holds for me in this next chapter.  So who do I think of?  My first love, of course, since my habits haven’t changed!  I check out Face Book often, since I enjoy catching up with friends.  It’s sort of like fishing, and since I had just had some good luck re-connecting to my stepson, I typed in my love’s name.  There were no results. 

Then of all things to pop into my mind was his first name.  I suddenly remembered he had been known by his middle name.  So I typed in his complete name, first, middle, last.  And there he was!  Or rather, there was a link to the name of a business.  When I clicked on the link…voila!  It took me to the biography page of the website.  I knew immediately this was the correct name because a photo was included.  My lost love stared back at me, a little older, a little less hair, but same eyes, same nose, same lips.

There was nothing of a personal nature in the biography blurb, just professional stuff.  He’s a very important person to his business, and I’m sure his wife and family think of him that way, too.

So, now the mystery is solved.  But my guilt is still unresolved.  I’ll just have to do as I’ve done in the past:  lay it down and move on.  At least for a little while.

I get a song running through my head written by the Man in Black, Johnny Cash, who, I’m guessing knew a thing or two about unresolved guilt.  “…No, I never got over those blue eyes…, I see them everywhere..., I miss those arms that held me…, when all the love was there…”

I can move on.  But I still sing this song.

Say ‘Hola’ to the Ollas

Say ‘Hola’ to the Ollas

It has been a really dry spring here.  In fact, over the last year, we had a dry late summer (of 2011), a very warm winter—again on the dry side, and now a dry spring.  I’ve had to water—a lot!  I would love to have a drip irrigation system.  But.  The systems are a little on the expensive side.   

I’m going to try an experiment with a low tech alternative.

I collect the empty coffee tubs at work.  I don’t want them to go into the landfill.  I’m not a rabid ‘green’ person.  It’s just that they make excellent storage units, scoops, and other various around-the-house uses.

I took a t-pin and punched some holes in a few of the tubs.    You'll have to take my word for it.  My camera didn't pick up the tiny holes.

I have set them at the blueberry bushes and the fruit trees.   

 I fill them twice in the morning and twice in the late afternoon.   If I do this, it means the fruits will receive about a 2 gallons of water a day.

So far, I likey!

I HAVE MADE JELLY1

I have made jelly!

I can’t help thinking of Tom Hanks’ line from the movie, “Castaway”, “I have made fire!”

Today is Saturday, my favorite day of the week, a day I get to choose what project I’m going to tackle.  I was walking back from feeding the chickens and hanging out a load of laundry and I routinely check on the plants and plantings on my way back to the house.  I discovered that the spearmint was about to leap out of the tub it’s planted in and invade the surrounding landscape.  I decided I should try my hand at making jelly, something I’ve never done before in my whole life.

I checked the cupboard and sure enough I had a box of Sure Jell.  I didn’t know how to use it but I had it.  I put the box on the stove top.  I got on the trusty internet and browsed for some mint jelly recipes.  There are many from which to choose.

I got out my water bath canner and washed jars, lids and rings.  I got the jars in the canner and started the sterilization process.  I gathered the mint, washed it and put it in the pan with water to make the infusion the recipe called for.  I also put the lids in a skillet of water to ready them for the sealing process.  Meanwhile the box of  Sure Jell is still on the stove top, which is now complete covered with pans of various and gigantic sizes. 

I smell something burning.  I don’t know where it’s coming from and I’m beginning to panic, when I catch site of a little smoke rising from the stove.  I shift the gigantic canner and there is the smoldering box of Sure Jell.   Not too burnt, just the outer box has a small hole in it.  So glad it was no more than that.  I make the decision that I can carry on with the project without having to make a trip to the store for more Sure Jell.

 

I used the recipe as far as the quantity of water mint and sugar, but also got a second opinion from the Ball Blue Book of Canning.  BBB doesn’t use Sure Jell, so for a third opinion I pulled out the insert, slightly scorched and brown, from the Sure Jell box.  Now the little packet of Sure Jell was slightly injured during the scorching incident, and about a tablespoon of it hardened up so that it was unusable.  I make the decision to continue on with the remaining ingredients.  

I used the recipe as far as the quantity of water mint and sugar, but also got a second opinion from the Ball Blue Book of Canning.  BBB doesn’t use Sure Jell, so for a third opinion I pulled out the insert, slightly scorched and brown, from the Sure Jell box. 

When I raised the jars from the boiling water bath, I hear immediate ‘pop!’ ‘pop!’ ‘pop!’ as the lids seal on the jars!  I have to say that is a most satisfying sound.  It means all your hard work—from planting watering and growing the mint, preparing the jars and lids, and cooking the jelly—has come to a wonderful fruition. 

 

 

I could hardly wait for it to cool to taste it on an English muffin!  

I pronounce that it is very good!