Life With The Crew

Arboretum Ramblings

While I took pictures...

(American Wisteria and a sweet smelling tree)

(Oriental Poppy)

(Chinese Tree Peony - absolutely stunning!)

 My poor bored child played in the gravel, hiding and finding a pussy willow bud.

And finally it was her time! 

As much as I love going to the arboretum, I always think about the energy and resources that are involved in keeping it so beautiful, manicured, and "in season" looking.  The water used and the fertilizers applied.  The constant rotation of plants that are most likely shipped hundreds if not thousands of miles and sprayed with pesticides and herbicides.  The tulip display was fantastic this Spring, but now, the bed was completely bare, awaiting new Summer annuals.  What did they do with all of those bulbs?  The bulbs didn't have the adequate length of time to replenish (because no one wants to see ugly brown foliage at an arboretum), so were they all just thrown out - another single use disposable item in this world?

While the arboretum does provide us with many experiences to connect with nature (and to practice my photography), I prefer experiencing natural beauty and wonder in a truly natural and wild setting.

Lots of Action Around Here...

Frog legs appearing.  (From left to right - no legs, tiny legs visible inside the tail, legs have pushed through the skin.)

Duck feathers growing (it looks so painful!)

Raspberry bushes taking over the yard and looking promising.

Green plants emerging from the dark soil (butternut squash, potatoes, basil).

 Green plants being eaten by rabbits (I've also been seeing the groundhog daily).  (Almost all of the kale and calendula that I grew from seed.  This picture shows the butchered kale hopefully now safe behind higher fencing.)

Good food being eaten (homemade black bean burgers topped with local lettuce and Monterey Jack cheese from the farmers market on a homemade roll - yum)

A little girl and a chicken going on lots of adventures.

 

Between the animals, the garden, and the little babe, my days are full and busy.  There are so many new things to discover every day.  Any marauding pests in your yard?  What are you most excited about in your garden?

Shared on the Our Simple Homestead Blog Hop and Living a Good North Coast Life for Reconnecting with Nature.

 

 

 

 

Thankful Tuesday - 5.26.15

Today I am thankful for...

-the healthy body that I use for long runs, woods walks, and piggyback rides.  Having two healthy legs that can take me off the pavement and into nature is not something that I take for granted.

-close proximity to beautiful natural areas.  And a husband that enjoys exploring them with me.

-an adventurous and very determined little babe.  Through boggy areas, over "roots and rocks", up hills, down leaf covered trails - she is a trooper.  

-a partner to share the joys and stresses of parenting with.

What are you thankful for?

Grazing and Gazing

I LOVE the fact that we found a new place to buy raw milk.  The setting is idyllic, the farmer is friendly, the farm is Animal Welfare Approved, the milk is rich, thick, and creamy, and there are cats, chickens, dogs, and even snakes to look at when we visit.  What more can you ask for?  

I love that the little babe has the opportunity to see where milk comes from.  Until we have a cow of our own, this is the next best thing.  The farmer is happy to answer our questions and truly seems to enjoy what he does.  I appreciate how much of a luxury it is to be able to buy raw milk right from the farm.  Right now my fridge is full of dairy products.  Between this source for cow's milk and discovering that I can buy goat's milk for 1/2 price after the farmer pulls it from the grocery store shelves, I am in amateur cheese making heaven.  Chevre, feta, ricotta, yogurt (which my husband makes), and plenty of whey for baking.  This weekend we made mozzarella and it actually worked!

How about you?  Do you have a local dairy to support?  I'm currently reading The Town That Food Saved by Ben Hewitt and hearing about the decline of small family dairies in Vermont makes me glad that I have one to support here in Pennsylvania.

*It is illegal for this farm to sell raw cream - they can sell raw milk, but not raw cream.  Makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?  That is why we purchase milk from them, but have to buy cream from another farm in order to make butter.  The cream has to either be pasteurized or the buyer can sign a "contract" with the farmer to purchase raw cream.  Somehow the government thinks it is safer for me to drink cream that is produced by a conventional dairy (probably tainted with antibiotics, hormones, and other chemicals), heated until all of the good things are gone, and then shipped hundreds of miles to sit on a grocery store shelf RATHER than driving 15 minutes and buying cream that was in the cow less than 24 hours earlier.  Yeah, makes a lot of sense.

 

Pass The Butter Knife

We've been making our own butter for about 2 months now.  My husband surprised me with a small hand crank butter churn and it is the perfect size for us.  We can buy a quart of local cream, use most of it for butter, and have a small amount to whip up for a little dessert treat.  I think we should be getting more buttermilk out of it - the butter is pretty soft, but since we use one jar within a week and freeze the other, it doesn't have a chance to go bad.  We had been buying cream from a local dairy that is rBST free, but we don't know how they keep their cows.  We just realized that even though the farm is supposed to be right behind the store and bottling plant, we don't ever actually see a herd of cows.  So I'm thinking that they might be grain fed.  The white butter on the left is from their cream.

The delightfully yellow butter on the right is from a local Amish farm that I know is grass fed, hormone free.  The cream was super thick and produced a firmer butter.  Buying organic butter in the grocery store would be cheaper (almost $5/pound instead of $6 for less than a pound of homemade), but when it comes to something like this, I believe that cheaper is not better.  While I was churning butter this morning and my little babe was fervently telling me, "My turn now please!", that $6 is well worth it.  For a whole lot less money than what people spend on fancy television systems, we have wholesome entertainment, we get an arm workout, we're supporting local farms, my little babe gets a food education and the end result tastes great!

Now we just need our own cow.

***

On a different note - I want to thank Gillian over at Hookin' A Yarn for the Two Good Reads tag.  It always makes me smile to hear that people enjoy stopping by here and reading what I have to share.  

I'd like to tag Tracey over at Clover who shares beautiful pictures of her life on the South Carolina coast and is a knitting fiend.  I'd also like to tag Elin at Smatt Og Smatt.  I just started reading her blog and I am enjoying seeing photos from a different part of the world (Iceland!) and being amazed at her awesome knitting projects - especially the Icelandic sweaters!  

(Tracey and Elin - to pass on the nomination, you simply have to chose two awesome bloggers to nominate, link back to my blog, and display the Two Good Reads tag.)

 Shared on The Self Sufficient HomeAcre for the HomeAcre Hop.

 

A Great Nature Day

-Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterflies.  There were about 15 of these yellow females and one dark butterfly, which according to this website, was also a female tiger swallowtail.

-Green Frogs.  Since the tympanum (eardrum) is larger than the eye, this frog is a male.

-American Toad reproduction and egg laying.  This website has a great explanation of exactly what these pictures show.  The male toad is the smaller one on top.  We saw about 10 pairs of toads in one little man made pond and so many eggs that it is a wonder the world isn't taken over by toads and frogs!

-A lone ladybug.  Which apparently is not a bug at all, but a beetle (completely two different things).

And that is just some of the things that we saw.  We heard Canadian geese, bull frogs, and a ton of birds that I couldn't recognize.  I love outings like this.  I am learning so much more now as an adult and parent than I ever did in biology class.

Joining Chrisy at Living A Good North Coast Life for Reconnecting With Nature.

 

 

 

Thankful Tuesday - 5.19.15

Today I am thankful for...

-my kind hearted, animal loving, talented husband.  This is what he carried home on Friday in his lunch bag while riding his bike - the two little fluffballs on the right.  (They are not dead, they were just exhausted and fell asleep looking like their necks were broken.)

We now have 4 ducklings living in our garage - Lily and Lulu the Pekins and Jack and Nack the orphaned Mallards.  However, we can't get too attached to the Mallards because they are wild birds and so will probably decide to fly off and leave our half acre when they feel the migration itch.  

While my husband was walking around campus, he heard a very distinct distressed peeping sound.  Looking around, he saw two ducklings walking down a road between two buildings.  Some ladies came out and said that a mother duck had built a nest behind a HVAC chiller, but that she had disappeared with the other ducklings.  The ladies had been watching for the mother to come back and had not seen her for a couple hours.  There is a duck pond just a short distance away, so my husband carried them there, thinking that he could reunite the ducklings with their mother.  When he set them near the pond, they immediately joined a group of other ducklings, but after a minute, the mother of that group realized that they were intruders and she attacked them.  My husband said she picked them up by their necks and slammed them onto the ground.  Then another female did the same thing.  When two drakes got interested and started making their way toward the commotion, my husband knew he had to get them out of there or they would be killed.  So my wonderful husband loaded them into his lunch bag and pedaled home.  Luckily we had an extra heat lamp in the shed and so had them warm and toasty within minutes of arriving home.  

We don't know exactly what will happen with these Mallards.  Will we put them in the pen with the Pekins and chickens?  Will they get along with the Pekins?  Will they fly away as soon as they have the chance?  However, I am thankful that my husband happened to be in the right place at the right time.  He seems to be a bit of a duck magnet - this is at least the third time in his life that he has rescued baby ducklings from certain death.

Here are some photos of Lulu and Lily getting some sun therapy.  We're thinking that LuLu might be Lou - he is much bigger than Lily.  

What are you thankful for?

 

Love For The Chickpea

Not the garbanzo bean, though I do love those.  (Hummus recipe here.)  But the cat, Chickpea.

He is a big and handsome guy, though kind of neurotic.  Granted, he lives in a house full of dogs that love to chase him, but he always seems to be slinking somewhere or running down or up the stairs at the speed of light, launching himself over the half door with a bang.  He yowls at all times of day, caterwauling like he is stuck somewhere or dying.  We actually did not plan on adopting Chickpea - we wanted his brother, Garbanzo.  (The third brother was named Bean.)  But after deciding that we had the space and resources to adopt a fourth cat (we were young and insane), when we went back to the adoption center, the only one left was Chickpea.  Maybe that should have been a sign, but we figured since they all looked alike, why not?  

"Pea" has pee problems and so has to be on special diet cat food.  He has been blocked twice - not the cheapest experience.  However, he is a really big love bug and soaks up any attention that he can get.  Even though he is the biggest cat, he seems to be at the bottom of the pecking order.  Sometimes even Maizie (the rabbit) bothers him, so Pea is always happy for pets.  Our bedroom is in the midst of being painted right now and the dogs are locked out of the room, so Chickpea lounges on this wooden chest like a king on a throne, soaking up the peace until the painting is done.

Impulse Buy

Since my husband and I don't know what our plans will be after he graduates from business school, we agreed that we would not get any more animals this year.  In the chance that we would be moving somewhere, we want to keep things as simple as possible.  A lot can happen in a year, but the current count is 5 dogs, 4 cats, 1 rabbit, and 4 chickens.  However, my husband and I are apparently too much alike (meaning, we have no willpower when it comes to animals) and so we were suckered into bringing home two ducklings from Tractor Supply on Saturday.  We were just running in to get pet food and I didn't even think that they would have chicks or ducklings this late in the season.  Well, the chicks were gone, but they had ducklings - 25% off!  Who can resist a cute bargain deal?  They barely had any water in their feeders, they looked kind of miserable, and well, 25% off?!  How about three?  Three little ducks, no big deal.  Well, maybe two, because they are messy and loud.  (We kept 9 ducks in our backyard several years ago.)  And so we left the store with our cart piled high with a bag of chick starter, pine shavings, and our little peeping cardboard carton.

It was a total impulse buy, just like those darn packs of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups at the end of the check-out aisle.  Totally unplanned, slightly guilty, but it still makes you happy.  For some reason, this makes our little homestead feel more complete.  We don't know their sexes, but their names are Lily and Lulu.  We'll have to wait and see if they develop curled pin feathers, which would mean they are males.  They are Pekins, which we have not kept before, so I'm excited to see what they will be like.

I'm such a sucker for a cute face.

How about you - any duck experience?

Shared on The Self Sufficient HomeAcre for the HomeAcre Hop.

In The Month of May

 

In the darling month of May, the sun is here to stay.

The April showers have gone, the days are growing long.

Singing birds, flowering trees, grass of green, buzzing bees.

Ferns unfurling, grape vines curling; new life reaching towards the light.