Growing Pains…

November 10, 2014

As I explained last week, in my attempt to grow tomatoes inside our house this winter, I snipped the tops out of a couple of our tomato plants a few weeks ago and planted them in 5-gallon buckets.  Well, this week I noticed an itty-bitty, teensy-weensy tomato on one of the plants.  That little girl was definitely not on the tomato plant when I planted it.  So, although the plants are looking a little worse for being indoors, I’m considering the appearance of the pencil eraser sized baby tomato a resounding success!

I’m so optimistic about the success of the tomato plants that I’ve decided to experiment even further.  (Waaahaaahaaahaaa…I’m thinking that this might be how Dr. Frankenstein got started with his experiments!)  A week or so ago I noticed some volunteer lettuce growing in our garden.  This was the result of our spring crop of lettuce going to seed.  After I had saved some of the lettuce seed for next year’s crop, I just pulled up the remaining plants and laid them down where they had grown.  I did not expect it to produce a thick carpet of lettuce, but that’s exactly what happened.  The plants are only about an inch tall right now. 

I dug up a clump of the lettuce and then replanted it in clear containers that I had saved when I purchased lettuce from the grocery store last winter.  I put these containers under grow lights in Charming’s office (which is rapidly becoming my winter green house).  I’m fairly optimistic about the lettuce and tomatoes.  I’m hoping that growing my own lettuce “in house” (pun intended) will cut down on my fussin’ and cussin’ about the poor quality of the often-wilted-before-you-get-it-home-lettuce that I have to buy from the grocery store during the winter months.  I can envision it now…Charming and I chomping on home-grown lettuce and tomatoes in January as the snow blows outside…Wow, it’s great that I was blessed with a very vivid imagination!

It's a girl!  (Tomato, that is.)

Volunteer lettuce that was growing thickly in our garden.

Transplanted lettuce seedlings under the grow lights in Charming's office.
I will thin them out, if needed, when they get a bit bigger.

A Farewell To Summer…

November 3, 2014

As I say farewell to summer, I’m mourning the loss of my beautiful tomato plants.  When I got out of bed this morning, the temperature here was 29 degrees.  I took Jax out for a quick walk around the yard and I saw what I knew had to come…my tomato plants are officially dead.  I mourn their loss as if they had been good friends.  They provided me with enough fresh tomatoes to last through the summer and enough canned tomatoes, tomato juice, pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce and salsa to last until the next growing season.  My home grown tomatoes will truly be missed.

However, this year, I am trying something that I had read about in Mother Earth News magazine last year.  The article made me think that it may actually be possible to grow tomato plants indoors during the winter.  A month or so ago, while it was still warm, I purchased two white plastic 5-gallon buckets from Walmart for under three dollars each.  I put a layer of gravel in the bottom of the bucket and then added a few alternating layers of dirt from my garden and leaves from the neighbor’s maple tree.  I then snipped about five good-sized stems from my then-healthy and vigorous tomato plants and put them in a vase of water to jump-start root formation.  (If this is successful, tiny little roots should grow out from the sides of the plant stems…this actually worked for me.)

I then planted the tomato plants in the bucket of dirt.  They are now sitting beside the window in Charming’s office, where the temperature stays fairly warm.  (As noted before in a previous post, Charming keeps the house warm and toasty with our wood stove…usually around 72 – 76 degrees.)  Since the tomato plants already had blooms on them and are self-pollinating, I’m optimistic about the possibility of having at least one “home grown” tomato this winter. 

Tending and watching these tomato plants will allow me the anticipation of getting that first lovely, red fruit off the vines…almost like the anticipation of that first bloom on a Christmas Amaryllis, which will be here before we know it!

I cut off a branch of an already mature tomato plant,
then re-planted that branch into a 5-gallon bucket of dirt from our
garden, along with dried maple leaves from our neighbor's yard.

A closer-up picture of the tomato branch that I planted for winter.
Note that I chose branches that had already flowered.  These plants
are now sitting in Charming's office for the winter.

Update on the new pup, Jax...He has already bitten through these
rubber rings.  Much to his dismay, they are not nearly as much fun to
flail through the air once the rings are separated.  (He's a lab/pit bull
mix and they are known for their bite strength.  This is our second
lab/pit bull mix dog and we have found them to be extremely smart,
loyal, comical, and lovable.  And I will pine forever for my wonderful boy, Max.
He was the ultimate "good dog".  We firmly believe you get out of a dog exactly
what you put into it...but, Lord, I'll be glad when Jax gets out of the
"puppy stage".)

This is Jax zipping around and playing with his new toy..a big rubber ball
with a thick rope that runs through a hole in the middle of the ball.  As you
can see, he's a playful little fella so we'll see how long this toy lasts.

Why, That’s Just Outlander-ish…

October 27, 2014

I don’t know if any of you have been watching the Starz TV series called “Outlander,” but I’m kind of hooked on it.  (Charming even likes to watch this show with me…most likely because it has a smattering of blood, gore, and killing in it to make it interesting enough to hold his attention for an hour.)

Anyway…the plot goes something like this…In 1945, after being separated by war for several years an English nurse named Claire takes a trip with her husband to Scotland to get reacquainted after so many years of being apart.  During the trip, Claire touches some big stones at a place called Craigh na Dun (sounds like Craig-na-dune) and is transported back in time to 1743 Scotland.  Although she makes several attempts to get back to Craigh na Dun, thinking that she can figure out a way to again touch the stones and be transported back to the future, she gets caught up in the Scottish rebellion against England and ends up married to a young, red haired, muscular, Scottish (cute as a button) rebel named Jamie Fraser.  The last scene in the season finale has Claire about to be abused by an English officer (who just happens to be her English husband’s ancestor, Black Jack Randall) when cutie-pie Jamie comes crashing through the window and says in his heavy Scottish accent, “I’ll thank you to take your hands off my wife!”

As much as one might think the cute Scot Jamie would make me swoon, that’s not the real reason I watch the show.  As silly as it may seem, I’m fascinated by the shawls and scarves that Claire wears during the show.  In the last couple of episodes, she wore the most adorable little cape/shawl kind of thing.  They’re sort of rustic items, but at the same time they are charming.  Aaaaaaaaahhhhh….I guess I was born in the wrong century.  Even though I don’t live in the 1700’s, I do live in an area of the country that gets cold during the winter.  So, today I started a fairly plain knitted shawl that I think will help chase the chill away and hold me over until the new season of Outlander starts in 2015.

I wanted to make the shawl out of super bulky yarn, which is lofty (light and airy) and soft.  I also wanted a color that would go with jeans since that is what I tend to live in during the fall and winter.  Because there aren’t many yarn stores in my area, I went to Walmart and found something that I think will work well.  It’s Lion Brand super bulky Hometown USA in San Diego Navy.  I started knitting the shawl today and found that I really like the drape and feel of the yarn.  It is also fairly easy to knit, considering I’m using gigantic size 18.5 straight knitting needles.

My pattern is simple.  I just cast on 29 stitches and work in the seed stitch (knit 1, purl 1) for the entire thing.  I’ll just make it as long as it needs to be in order to wrap around my body and shoulders comfortably.  Although it is awkward knitting with the big needles and big yarn, progress is really fast.  I only spent about an hour on this and I’ve already gotten a foot completed.  After I get the shawl completed, I may crochet around the entire outside edge to give it a finished look.  At the rate of knitting a foot per hour with big needles and super bulky yarn, this project can be completed in just a few days!  

Lion Brand "Hometown USA Super Bulky" yarn in "San Diego Navy".
At $2.97/skein, it's a great deal!  (I purchased 7 skeins...all that they had
in stock of this color.  I can simply return any unused skeins.)

Here, I'm trying to show you how thick and lofty the yarn is (the
knitting needles are plastic, size 18.5, that I got for three bucks at
the Shenandoah Valley Fiber Festival in September)

This is the first foot of the shawl, viewed vertically.  Made in a simple seed stitch
(knit 1, purl 1) pattern, it's a great project if you just have a few spare
minutes to work on it.  If you have to stop knitting in the middle of a
row, you can easily see what your next stitch should be.

Here, the shawl is viewed horizontally as it would be viewed if it
were wrapped around your shoulders.  Note that the stitches appear
to form a diagonal/criss-cross type of stitch.  That's the beauty of the
simple seed stitch!

Just The Flax, Ma’am…

October 20, 2014

On Saturday, I took my regular early morning walk around the block with my sister and came home with a hankering for cinnamon raisin bagels.  So I decided to carve an hour or so out of my day in order to make a batch.  Now, anybody with gluten sensitivity knows that a decent gluten-free bagel…or any good gluten-free bread, in general…is as scarce as hen’s teeth.  However, months ago I set out to develop a bagel recipe of my own that was at least half way edible and wouldn’t fall apart during the boiling process.  After much trial and error, I’m happy to say that I’ve had some success.

Most bagel recipes are pretty much the same…mix some kind of flour, liquids, and some kind of leavening agent to make them rise then boil and bake them.  On my first few attempts, using published recipes from the internet, the bagels wouldn’t rise at all and always broke apart during the boiling process.  So I added an extra egg and more xanthan gum to keep them from breaking apart.  I also added all of the leavening agents I could think of…yeast, baking soda, and baking powder.  Though they were better, they broke apart during the boiling process.

Finally, I decided to add a tablespoon of milled flax to the recipe and that made a huge difference in the texture of the bagels.  I’ll be the first to say that my bagels are not like bagels you’d buy in a store, but they are edible.  My sister, who is also trying to go gluten-free, actually likes them and asks for some whenever I bake them.  I’m including the recipe under the “Gluten-Free Recipes” tab above.  If you ever get a chance to try this recipe, let me know how it works for you.

Since the “magic ingredient” in these bagels seems to be flax, I’ll give you a little back ground on that wonderful ingredient.  Flax is a food and fiber plant that grows in many countries all over the world.  (As it happens, I attended the Shenandoah Valley Fiber Festival in late September this year and a lady was there demonstrating how to spin yarn from flax fiber.  She grows it on her farm in New Hampshire.)  Flax has been used for centuries as a fiber crop.  Once the fiber has been processed and spun into yarn, it is then called linen.  The yarn is initially somewhat stiff just after it is spun, but the more the garment is washed the softer it gets.  Flax plants also develop seeds which can be processed into flax meal and used in cooking.  In addition, the oil from the seeds is often used in many wood-finishing products.

There are many benefits in adding milled flax to your diet.  It is a good source of fiber and plant protein.  Flax is one of the richest plant sources for Omega-3 fatty acids.  Many doctors are now recommending that their patients add Omega-3’s to their diet to help fight heart disease.  Studies have also shown that flax is beneficial in preventing colon cancer and breast cancer. 

Flax can be added to many foods…bread dough, pie dough, pizza dough, smoothies, soups, stews, chili, oatmeal, meatloaf, casseroles, breading for fried chicken, and many more.  I have found that milled flax seed is especially useful in making gluten-free dough more flexible.  (Now I don’t spend so much time cussing the dough as I’m trying to move it from work surface to the pan.)

There are many plants that can individually be converted into either food or fiber or industrial solutions or medicine, but the flax plant can be converted into all of these products.  The flax plant, in my humble opinion, is one of the most useful plants in all of nature. 

Milled flax seed.  I had to put it into a zip freezer bag because
"Mountain Woman" (me) opened the bag with a little more
force than was really necessary...and, yes, it did spill on the floor.

The front of the flax bag (purchased from Costco
in the bulk size).

The back of the bag, explaining the benefits
of flax.  (1 serving of flax = 2 tablespoons, 70 calories)

The bagel-making process...raw dough (shown on the right), boiling
the bagels three at a time (in the middle), and ready to go to the oven
on the baking sheet (on the left).

Fully baked (nice and brown) cinnamon raisin bagels!

A quick shot of Jax snoozing in my chair...not sure, but I think he
likes his new home.

A Honey of a Deal...

October 13, 2014

Here in our neck of the Valley, it has been raining for most of the past three days.  Not pouring down rain, but enough to keep us inside.  This morning I woke up and got ready to step outside for a morning walk and it was (you guessed it) raining again.

Although I’m happy to see the rain after the dry summer, I wish it would’ve held off until after this holiday weekend.  Our county had its annual heritage festival and the attendance was down due to the weather.  I look forward to this yearly festival where my creativity gets re-charged by seeing all of the handicraft displays as well as the craft demonstrations. 

At the festival, I purchased some “raw” honey and some beeswax from a local vendor.  Other than the obvious “yum, yum factor” honey has many uses in my household.  In addition to using honey for making my face wipes (see my “Shine On” blog post from April 3, 2014), I drink a cup of what I like to call “honey tea” every morning before I eat breakfast.  Honey tea is a cup of hot water, a teaspoon of honey and about ¼ teaspoon of cinnamon.  I find that this brew, along with two fish oil capsules in with my daily dose of vitamins, helps to lessen some of the joint aches and pains that I’ve developed as I’ve grown older.  (I think I should note here that I am definitely not a medical professional and this is not an alternative to doctor-prescribed medication for joint pain; it’s just another “Swamp Witch Hattie” thing I do.) 

Honey also has natural anti-bacterial properties.  I often put a dab of honey on minor cuts or scrapes and cover the area with a Band-Aid.  This seems to make my scrapes heal faster. 

In my opinion, honey straight from the source, is one of God’s great gifts.  It has lots of practical uses around the house and tastes great with a dab of butter on a gluten-free biscuit!  

The ingredients for "honey tea"...cinnamon, raw honey, and
a cup of water.  (The yellow rectangle is a block of beeswax
that I bought when I purchased the honey.  I'll use that to make
plaintain ointment, which is good for minor cuts and skin irritations.)

My morning cup of honey tea.  I drink it down in just a couple
of gulps.  The taste is not something that you'd really want to
savor, so I drink it fast and move on with my day.

The Jewel Is In The Weed…

October 6, 2014

Have you ever heard of jewel weed?  It is a wild plant that grows in damp areas such as on the banks of rivers or in moist areas on the side of the road.  Jewel weed just happens to be nature’s antidote to poison ivy.

Jewel weed has a type of liquid/juice on the inside of its stems that resembles the consistency of the liquid in the aloe plant.  If you happen to catch poison ivy, you can simply break off the stems of the plant and rub it on your skin.  Since most people don’t have the time or the inclination to go searching the river banks or roadsides when they’re busy scratching their poison ivy, jewel weed soap is a good thing to keep on hand.

I made a batch of jewel weed soap about a month ago.  I drove the back roads in our county and found a patch growing along the river banks.  It was conveniently located at a spot where the river crossed under the road via a culvert so I didn’t even have to trespass on anyone’s land.  (Be careful if you decide to go looking for jewel weed during the summer months…it is often located right next to patches of poison ivy.  There are also snakes to worry about as well as road traffic, so be safe as you’re collecting your plants from the roadside.)  I stood by the side of the road and pulled a bunch of the stuff out by the roots…about a trash bag full…and took it home.  Jewel weed is propagated by seeds that pop open when they are mature, so there is no need to be concerned that pulling it out by the weeds will make it disappear from the landscape.  The plant drops its seeds and they easily root the following year.

In our back yard, I used the garden hose to hose off the roots and remove the debris that naturally gets stuck in the plants.  I then cut the plants up into pieces big enough to fit into the stainless steel cooking pot that I have dedicated to cooking up batches of “Swamp Witch Hattie potions,” as Charming calls them.  I covered the plants with distilled water and brought the pot up to temperature.  I let the plants simmer for about twenty minutes until the water turned an orange/brown color…sort of like tea, but not as dark. 

When making soap, I always wear latex gloves and eye protection as lye is used in the process.  I also keep a spray bottle of vinegar on hand in case the soap does splash on me.  Vinegar is supposed to cool the burn, although I have not yet had to put this to the test.  While there’s nothing to fear, if you are extremely careful, you must continually remind yourself not to let the stuff splash on you or the lye can burn your skin.  I use the following basic method to make the soap, but there are many different methods and ingredients that can be used.  Read over the instructions before you assemble your utensils and ingredients.  Then read your instructions again several times and visualize yourself performing each step.  This will make the process go much smoother and you won’t be so stressed about dealing with the lye/possible injury

Utensils that you will find useful:  a hand-held immersion blender (unless you’re fond of stirring for hours), a food scale, a wooden spoon, a (dedicated to soap-making) candy thermometer, a high-sided container to mix the soap in such as the removable crock from an old slow cooker, a bowl to mix the lye with the jewel weed tea, some sort of soap mold, towels or a blanket, a knife or some other type of blade to cut the soap with, a plastic mesh screen or something similar to rest the soap on after it has been cut.  Remember to weigh all ingredients on your food scale, subtracting the weight of the container that holds the ingredient or your soap may not turn out right!

Distilled Water 13.5 ounces (or jewelweed tea) – again, remember to subtract the weight of the container when you’re measuring.

Lard 40 ounces

Lye  5.4 ounces (be sure to measure in plastic container & wear gloves)

Essential oil or fragrance drops such as lavender or citrus, optional

I make soap outside where I don’t have to worry about ventilation.  I heat the lard to room temperature before going outside and pour it into the crock pot container.  Also, while the lard is heating up, I assemble my utensils in a box and then take everything outside to make the soap.  Using the glass bowl, add lye crystals to the jewel weed tea.  (Always add the lye to the liquid…NOT the liquid to the lye or you may suffer injuries.  The water will smoke & be hot, so do not touch the bowl until it has cooled down.) Stir with a wooden spoon until clear.  Cool to 100 degrees.  Slowly add jewel weed tea/lye mixture into lard bowl.  Mix with spoon and then with stick blender until trace.  (Trace is when the mixture starts to make “traces” when stirred with the spoon.  At this point, it will resemble the consistency of pudding. Do not over stir.)

Mix in essential/fragrance oil with the spoon. 

Pour soap into molds.  Cover top with cardboard.  Then cover with towels and/or blanket.

Let sit in place for 24 hours (in a dry and warm place…like a craft room).

Next day, remove soap from mold onto cutting mat and cut into bars.  Can trim edges with vegetable peeler to make uniform. 

All of this sounds a bit complicated until you actually do it.  Although it is probably cheaper to buy soap from the store, everyone should be aware of how soap is made…even if you never HAVE to make it, at least you’ll know HOW to make it.  

Jewel Weed...I pulled this plant from the river banks and then
transplanted it into a planter.  It will grow in a planter if you keep
it moist and sitting in a shady place.

This is jewel weed "tea"...I simmered the plants in distilled
water then strained the liquid into a plastic jug.

Cutting the bars of soap with a vegetable cutter after the soap
had set and hardened for 24 hours.

Lovely bars of jewel weed soap after they had been cut.  They
need at least three weeks of drying time before they can be used.
(It takes that long for the lye to de-activate.)

Falling Leaves and Saving Seeds

September 29, 2014

I’m back.  It took me a bit longer to get back to writing than I had originally thought it would.  The main reason for this is because it’s been a bit hard for me to even look at my blog as it’s chock-full of pictures of Max the Wonder Dog. 

On August 14^th, Charming and I had to make the extremely difficult decision to put our beloved Max to sleep.  As it turned out, Max had cancer and didn’t respond to treatment.  Since then both Charming and I have been a little out of sorts.  We found the adjustment so hard that, after the first couple of weeks of mourning, we both started trolling petfinder.com in a vain attempt to find another dog just like Max. 

Of course there can be no other dog like Max and both Charming and I realize that.  I think I now understand why, in the “olden days,” when a woman lost a child her friends and family would encourage her to have another child as soon as possible.  Although we all know fully well that you can’t substitute one child with another, Charming and I were open to the idea of trying to find another dog to fill up our time and immediate thoughts in hopes that we would be able to move forward.

So to make a long story short…a couple of weeks ago, we got another dog from a rescue group in Kentucky.  The pup is (by our vet’s best guess) a little more than a year old.  He is a lab-pit bull mix; the same as our dear Max.  He was in a high-kill shelter in Kentucky when he was rescued by the Bourbon County (Kentucky) Rescue League.  We arranged to “visit” with him when the rescue group made their regular trek to Petco in Germantown, Maryland.  (That was a two-hour drive for us, but it was an enriching experience to see so many dogs and cats find their “fur-ever homes”.)  Our new little guy is a bundle of energy who does take up quite a bit of our time and energy.  He looks a lot like our Max, but he’s much smaller and probably won’t weigh above 50 pounds when he reaches full maturity.  He has one lab ear and one pit bull ear, if you can believe that.  We’ve named him “Jax” and there are moments…like when he’s stretched out on my lap with his legs up in the air, waiting for a belly rub…that we realize that he is a true gift in his own right. 

Moving on…I have been busily canning up the remainder of the vegetables in our garden.  I’ve also been drying and saving seeds.  If you’re an avid gardener, working towards self-sufficiency, or a Prepper then you’re always planning for the future.  The seeds that I save from this season should be viable for the next two or three years.  Saving my own seeds allows me to start the seeds indoors, often before seeds and gardening paraphernalia even show up in the stores.  It also ensures that I get strong, healthy plants that are not genetically modified and have not been exposed to harmful pesticides.  I like to know what I’m eating.

Below are pictures of my seeds saving process as well the finished product, complete with my hand-made seed envelopes.

Dried Napa Cabbage and Large Bunching Onion seeds that
have been drying for about a month in a warm, well-ventilated
room in our house.

Seed packets that I designed, using the "draw" and graphics
features in my word processing application.  (I "drew" in lines
to make it easier to cut uniform lines and then folded and taped
the edges.)

Voila!  Seeds for my garden and extra for family members.

Our Jax is a bit camera shy, but...

I was finally able to snap a picture of him before
he got away.