2013 ICAD

Tammy, at Daisy Yellow, is hosting Index-Card-A-Day again - starting June 1st.  (Thanks to Karen at I am Rushmore and Mail Me Some Art for letting me know about it as I somehow missed Tammy's post.)

I'm so excited!  I was able to finish the challenge last year, and I hope that I can do this year too - but I'm so busy this year it will be a challenge to do the challenge, but I'll try.

Here is one of my favorite ICADs that I made last year:

Do yourself a favor, and join in.  Seriously, it is a good thing, Tammy is a great hostess, and creating something every day is, even though it can be difficult, wonderful.

such a bad gardener

Here's a photo my husband took of me yesterday, while I was working at the local Farmers' Market.  See I'm wearing one of my knitted cotton headbands!!

I'm soo behind on my own garden - and yesterday, after the Market and then after work at the garden nursery, my husband and I set to work on the trellis bean/pea bed.

D'oh!  I know I planted the sugar-snap peas too late, but I also planted bush lima beans (instead of pole ones).  Oh well! I'll think of this as an experiment.  And that's one of our four hens, Bucket the Buckeye hen, in the background.

Just got home from work (at the nursery) - have to plant some seedlings in another bed!  No rest for the wicked, I tell you!

busy in the dirt, and cotton headbands

Busy with my own garden, the co-op gardening, and my job at the garden nursery.

I had knitted up a couple of cotton headbands to keep my crazy hair in place.  I only had three colors at home (red, white and black; I use cotton yarn for my pennant strings) and was yearning for more.

Then out of the blue, and totally coincidentally, one of my sisters sent me cotton yarn in the mail!!!

I'll be knitting one from every color - here's what I have done so far (I didn't take a photo of the black or white one - because truthfully I cannot find them - they're probably in the laundry basket).  Will spend some time today, looking through my Step-by-Step Needlecraft Encyclopedia for more simple stitch pattern inspiration for the rest of the handbands.

may day

I love May Day aka Beltane.

I especially love it because it's our wedding anniversary!

anniversary flowers from my husband

community cooperative

Back in January, four of us decided to start a community agricultural cooperative.   We have been busy with many different community projects, such as the community garden, kitchen incubator/community kitchen, food hub, and growing food on parcels of land around our community for our own benefit, for produce sale, and for donation to the local food bank.

planting fava beans

Another of our projects is to work on a mobile farm stand.

Sunday, two of us went to check out a 100 year old grain wagon, with the thought of retrofitting it for our mobile farm stand purposes.

Along with all the cooperative projects, I'm also helping manage our community's Farmers Market this summer, which opens the first Saturday in May and ends the last Saturday in October.

And I'm working part-time at a local garden nursery! 

Now, I need to plant peas and beans in our yard - it's a lovely sunny day today.

seedlings

Ahhh, this year, the seeds are sprouting!!

I did get a real set-up this time - I had been so discouraged that whenever I had tried in the past to start seeds indoors, they all died.

A few years ago, I stopped by a dollar type store and bought the little 'greenhouse' which has three shelves, each shelf fitting one flat perfectly.  I now have the warming mats (they were a bit pricey, I must admit, so I only bought two so I only have two flats of seed starts), and the grow lights (I was able to find two grow lights at Walmart for only 10 dollars each!!).  But you know, the cost was well worth it as this is the first year my seeds really sprouted.  I do not have a south facing window in my house.

Here's the set up.

And here's my little cucumber plants, with their second leaves already.  I planted the seeds nearly a month ago!  Grow, little ones, grow!

the cucumber pickle from dehydrated cucumber experiment

I really don't know why I dehydrated cucumber.  And probably will never again.  Zucchini on the other hand - well, I just toss it into stews and it works great.

What I did was make some pickle brine (from a tested recipe), and then put the dried cucumbers in the pot and heated it all up together.

dehydrated cukes in bowl - not in the pot o' brine yet

After the jar had cooled a bit on the counter, I popped it into the fridge.  Refrigerator-type pickles.

A few weeks later, I tasted the pickles.  Oh my, they are really really really sour. Maybe I'll use them in a relish or something.

The cucumbers seemed to re-hydrate okay.  But next time, if there is a next time, I'm going to use a bread-n-butter brine recipe.