A Sweet Mother's Day Gift

I put this together for Sister's birthday, but it would definitely work for Mother's Day!

All it takes is a nice candy dish with lid, the correct color of jelly beans, Sour Apple Straws, green apple licorice, skewers topped with luscious fresh strawberries wearing semi-sweet chocolate all tied up with ribbon . . . the memory of the chocolate/berry smell of Sister's birthday gift is making me drool.

Hey, I'm a mama! And I have leftover strawberries. And chocola

Tide Pools

I count myself one of the luckiest of folks because we live so near the coast. A few weeks ago there was an extremely low tide in the middle of the day and we took full advantage to explore one of our favorite tidal spots.

 True's never actually caught a crab, but she keeps trying.

Those anemones spit if you touch them!

This crescent of rock and water is surrounded by a crescent of smooth gray sand. The beach is located in a small inlet in a bay and even when the tide is full the water is smooth and calm and the kids can swim as long as it's warm enough. It must be a marine nursery, because there are tiny shells . . . sand dollars no bigger than your pinkie-nail, thumb-nail sized clams, spiraling shells no longer than the shaved point of your Ticonderoga. The whole inlet is just big enough - five or six acres.

This is a young pirate's paradise. All the kids in our family and extended family know this as Pirate's Cove. 

In keeping with the pirate theme, a few years ago Hubby arranged a playdate for the Grands and Great-Nieces and -Nephews. He filled an old chest with pennies and "jewels" and swords and wooden muskets, eye-patches and tricorn hats. He half-buried the chest in a dune and allowed the kids to find it. Some are still convinced to this day they found real treasure. After all the play and swimming and sword-fights and poking around in the rocks, was a barbecue. It was one of the best days ever. But then, any day on the beach is a very good day. And a day in Pirate's Cove with children you love surpasses "very good" by a gazillion nautical miles.

The Happy End of a Colored Love Affair

Having grown up in rentals, I got used to walls painted apartment white. Used to it, but also heartily sick of it.

When Hubby and I moved into our little house, I figured, "It's ours, so I'm gonna go color crazy". And, boy howdy, did I! Each room was a different color of the rainbow. Over the years, the bathroom was Sea Green (complete with fishing net, glass floats, and shells), the living room was Desert Canyon (peach), the bedroom was Jersey Cream (bright yellow), and the kitchen . . . oh, the kitchen. Remember in the '80s when the Gingham Goose was popular? Well, I stenciled a veritable shooting gallery of geese all around the top of the kitchen walls - on purpose. Which was bad enough, but it took three coats of the next paint color when it came time to cover it up.

One of the bad things about color for us is the mountain o' paint cans in the shed with dribs and drabs of this and that color. Or not having a drib or drab to do a touch-up. Another is trying to match discontinued paint colors.

So this time, when we had to cover that oh-so-trendy paint color known as Brown Paper Bag, I came to a shocking realization. White is good. White is awesome.

The best painting tips I have to give are these:  remove all switch plate covers, heat register covers, closet doors, wood molding that you can before you even start. And always use semi-gloss paint for interiors. I don't care who says what. You can wash semi-gloss. Flat - not so much. Then wash the walls - or, at the very least, the walls around the kitchen stove. There. Those are my tips.

Rolling is much faster and easier than brushing, so you want to eliminate any rolling barriers that you can! Plus, if you remove them, you won't get this:

So now, after several 6-to-8-hour days of painting, the whole interior of our house is sporting at least two coats of 186A310 Ultra White. And it looks so clean and pretty. As does the butt of my painting buddy. :(

Time for a touch-up.

Holy Cow . . . I'm On Pinterest!

For my DIY Dry Cream of Mushroom Soup Mix. AND it's been pinned three times! Now I have five readers and I might as well be famous! So excited!

I realize it's been a long dry spell (again) but (again) I have a good excuse. Our renters moved out and we've been painting, painting, painting.  Remember when you were a kid how it still felt like you were roller-skating several minutes after you took your skates off? That's how my poor, paint-speckled, fingers-frozen-around-the-paintbrush hands feel.

I'll do a real post soon. For real!

Alrighty Then . . .

Methinks my little Buff Orpington, Flower Belle, is telling me it's time to rig up a screen for the top of the brooder.

I think she's a few days older than the other girls. She's more robust, definitely more adventurous, and she's taken up residence on top of the feeder. The other little gals are still hanging out under the light.

Chickens make me smile.

My Little Chickadee

We ate the last of our old non-laying stewing hens last spring. We recently had someone else's chickens on the property, but they were moved out last weekend. Who's gonna turn the compost pile? Who do I feed the icky bugs to that I find in the garden? Who's gonna eat the stale cereal and the leftovers we no longer want? And more importantly, how much longer are we going to be able to stand these anemic, tasteless, store-bought eggs?

I'm bemoaning these things to Hubby and what does he do?

Gets me a little cheeping box, and inside - four chicks! I carefully checked them over for pasty butt or splay leg or other defects. They look healthy. And so cute! I got a Rhode Island Red, a Buff Orpington, an Isa Brown Sex Link, and a Plymouth Barred Rock. All standard-sized breeds with good egg-laying/meat crossover.

My brooder this time is a smallish-but-deep plastic bin - maybe 20 gallon? I put straw in the bottom, got out the heat lamp, washed up the chick feeder and waterer, and we're in business!

I'm glad we got four distinctly different types. My very first flock was eight Plymouth Barred Rocks. They were awesome. I got eight because I really wanted six and all my research told me there would be  a certain percentage of loss. Not necessarily so. I couldn't tell them apart, so I called them The Collective from Star Trek. I loved that flock. They layed and foraged well. But when they got older - 3 and 4 years old - the eggs dwindled sharply and I couldn't tell who was and wasn't laying. I began butchering 1 or 2 per weekend and started over - with different breeds! One of my favorites was an Easter Egger (Americauna). I couldn't get over those green eggshells.

So, for the next four or five weeks, we're brooding. I'll have to rig up a screen for the top of the bin for when they begin trying out their wings, but for now, chick starter, water, warmth is all they really need.

I've decided to name them from the old Mae West, W.C. Fields movie, My Little Chickadee. The Buff is Flower Belle, the Isa Brown is Aunt Lou, the Rhode Island Red is Twillie, and the Barred Rock is Badger.

True approves.

April is "A" Month

"A"sparagus . . .

and "A"rtichokes . . .

nom nom nom nom! So good! Love Spring!

If you're thinking about perennials in your garden, these might be worth your time. Artichokes are the big producers here, but results may vary in your zone.

Homemade Ant Repellant

Where do they come from? What do they want from us? Is it water? Sugar? Most of the time it's as if they're wandering around looking but not finding - and they don't stop!

My daughter-in-law has an ant problem in her home. When she moved in, they were firmly ensconced in the kitchen and the upstairs bath. She's used Terro (which is an awesome product by the way - ants eat it, take it back to the nest and within several days, just seem to disappear. BUT it does take several days . . .) but there were SO MANY ants, that it barely made a dent. She put all her groceries but her canned goods in the refrigerator. Even her sugar is in tupperware in the fridge. Even now, if one of the babies drops a Cheerio, the ants are right on it. THEY KNOW . . .

We had a similar problem in our home. When #2 Son was 15, he accidentally spilled a soda in his electric alarm clock and quietly cleaned up the mess. Thank goodness he wasn't electrocuted! We didn't know about it until the ants moved in to the clock - and by that time, they'd nested in the adjacent electrical outlet. We ended up having to tear out that wall to roust them out.

Because of that and many other incidents, we became fanatics about foodstuffs in the kitchen - AND ONLY IN THE KITCHEN! And the ants still regularly made inroads. A friend gave us an ant-repelling  recipe for mopping with and we came up with a recipe for a spray-bottle deterrent.

Mop Bucket Ant Repellant

1 gallon water
1/4 cup dish soap
1/4 cup lime juice

Spray Bottle Ant Deterrent

2 cups water
1/4 cup vinegar
2 Tbsp lime juice
2 Tbsp dish soap

We ended up LOVING these recipes because:

1. They are made up of ingredients normally found in the kitchen
2. They aren't toxic to children or pets
3. They actually CLEAN as well as repelling ants
4. They work!

When ants appear, we spray their whole track and the threshold or windowsill where they're coming in with the Spray Bottle Ant Deterrent. We leave that for a while, then wipe it down or, if it's on the kitchen linoleum, mop with the ant repellant recipe. That sends 'em packing!

I'm not saying we never have ants in the house anymore. They still want to check us out a couple times a year, but they don't seem to want to move in after the initial scouting foray and subsequent cleanup with the homemade repellant. I wish you luck with your ant adventures. Hope this helps!

How to Peel, Seed, Chop an Avocado Without the Mess

Is there anything better than fresh, ripe avocado? Other than fresh guacamole? We had tacos and guacamole with chips last night for dinner and it got me thinking about my avocado eating journey.

Believe it or not, I went at it totally backwards in my early avocado-eating days. I cut and picked all the tough skin off my avocados, then cut the meat off the seed. Talk about green cuticles! But backwards and messy was how I started out in the kitchen. I (slowly!) learned some tips and tricks as I went. Here's a tip about the non-messy way to get at the meat of an avocado:

1. Cut the avocado right through the skin down to the seed from the belly button all the way around and back to the belly button again.

2. Twist the two halves away from each other (one half away from you, the other half toward you).

3. With your knife, flick out the seed and the woody belly button. Sister chops into the seed with her knife and lifts it out, but I found its easier for me to flick it out if the avocado is nice and ripe.

4. Slice or chop the avocado while keeping the skin intact. (Look at that - I STILL managed to get some avocado on my thumbnail!)

5. Place the top of a spoon between the skin and meat of the avocado and gently scoop the meat out of its shell.

6. Enjoy!

Here's the recipe for last nights' guacamole. It's big because I was feeding a crowd. You can pare it down as you like.

Guacamole for a Crowd

5 ripe avocados, chopped
2 tomatoes, diced small
1/2 red onion, minced
1 bunch cilantro, chopped
2 serrano chilis, minced
1/2 lime, squeezed (haha)

Mix well and scoop up with your favorite tortilla chips.

Planting by the Signs

Gardening by moon signs has always intrigued me. It's something that's always made sense to me because the pull of the moon moves water. And water - and how water is stored in veggies - controls everything from how quickly and vigorously a seedling comes up to how long a winter squash will last in storage.

But, making sense of the intricacies of the lunar calendar is quite another thing. Here's what I understand:

The moon takes 29.6 days to go around the earth. It goes through the 12 phases of the zodiac in that time. The zodiac is divided into the four elements. Water - Cancer, Pisces, Scorpio; Earth - Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn; Fire - Leo, Aries, Sagittarius; Air - Gemini, Aquarius, Libra. Basically, water and earth are fertile signs, generally good for planting and pruning for growth, and fire and air are barren signs, good for weeding, tilling, harvesting, and pruning for control of growth.

Somebody way back in the antiquities of time figured out a way to tell which moon phase they were in. They assigned parts of the human body to each sign. I've heard, "The moon is in the feet," and "Don't cut back the brush now, the moon is in the loins!".  Do I understand how to tell which of the 12 phases we're in? Nope.

Several years ago I bought a lunar calendar with zodiac and gardening hints printed on it. Since the moon is in each phase of the zodiac for only 2-3 days, it was hard to keep track of the things to do (today plant above-ground plants with seeds on the outside) and schedule them in my relatively short growing season AND have a life. I gave it a try, though. My idea was that I would plant a crop (say, bush beans) whenever it was convenient and plant bush beans again during the correct moon phase - carefully recording the results of each in a garden diary. Well, 2011 was a very cold, wet spring and I ended up having to replant beans twice after the seed rotted in the ground. Plus, I found that I didn't have enough garden space for that many plantings of each crop. In my frustration, I quickly lost interest in the moon, the zodiac, and the diary.

These days, I loosely follow the Synodic schedule. When the moon is waxing (or getting bigger) I plant above-ground crops, transplant, and prune for growth. When the moon is waning (or getting smaller) I plant below-ground crops, weed, prune to limit growth, till or cultivate, and harvest. The reason for this is that I can simply look outside and see where I am on the schedule. Are there days on the moon wane that I transplant? Or when the moon is waxing that I weed? Sure. If I have a half hour that I can weed, I use it no matter what the moon says! Can't hurt, right?

One day I might go back to the control-group/moon-phase-group/diary thing, but not this year!

A site that may help if you're considering gardening by the signs is the Facebook page "Planting by the Signs". It has day-by-day gardening and zodiac posts.

Good luck!

(Edited later in the day) Oops! I forgot the most important part! The way you can tell if the moon is waxing or waning is this:  If the moon is waxing or getting bigger, the right side of the moon is lit. Its right side is round and smooth like a D. If the moon is waning, the left side of the moon is lit - the left side is round and smooth like a C.

DIY Tile Shower/Tub Surround

Something I'm pretty proud of is our bathroom redo. I'm a long-soak-in-the-tub kinda gal, so the tub/shower - actually, the whole bathroom - is pretty important to me. We have an electric tile saw, so when we were planning the bathroom I decided to give tile a try.

We have a friend who has lays tile for a business. He had a bunch of left over or mis-ordered/rejected/whatever tiles he let us look over and for $180.00, we got enough of a neutral tan-on-cream tile that we ended up doing the tub surround plus our little bit of kitchen counter space and sold the rest on Craigslist.

We got a nice, deep, cast-iron, 5 and 1/2 foot long soaking tub from our plumber friend for $200.00, plus the shower/bath hardware for another $140.00. Then, we picked up enough hardibacker board for the job both from our plumber friend and on Craigslist.

For another $100.00, we got a jar of tile spacers, water seal, tape for hardibacker, thinset mortar, two tub corner shelves, and grout.

We started by placing the tub.

Hubby leveled it, put insulation around it and in the walls, covered the walls with plywood and I painted the plywood with a good water-proof sealer. Hubby then screwed hardibacker all around the tub surround, leaving 1/4 inch seams. I taped up the seams with fiberglass tape and in a blink was ready to tile.

All the on-line stuff I read said to lay out the tiles as I would want them on the finished surround, measuring carefully and adding spacers to be as accurate as possible. Welllllll . . . I'm not much for measuring. I decided to lay the 13-inch tiles in a subway pattern - staggered - so any misplacement would be less noticeable and then I just went for it.

This is probably the messiest job you'll ever do. It's worth it to stop and wipe up blobs and spills as you go and try to keep the area as clean as possible. Otherwise, you may end up having to scrape off dried mortar and could scratch your tub.

It's hard to cut round with a straight saw! I had to make a bunch of little cuts, about 1/4 inch apart (like a comb) and carefully cut each little comb-tooth off to go around the on/off handle

I love these little corner shelves!

After carefully taping each tile to the next to keep them in place at the beginning of the project, I found that the later rows didn't need it. They rested on rows that had already dried and since there was no movement, I quit taping.

All grouted and cleaned up - just need to lay a bead of caulk!

With the hardware and shower curtain in place.

I decided not to tile the side (face?) of the tub because the tile and the flooring were complementary in color, but not a match. So, I bought a couple of tongue-and-groove cedar boards and varathaned them and Hubby and I put them in. The cedar on the tub matches the cedar ceiling. I think it all looks pretty good. For a little over $620.00 (maybe $650.00) we got a very comfortable soaking tub and shower with tile surround that would probably have cost $1500 to $2000 to have professionally done. 

We did it in a little over a week. It was February and I was cutting all this tile in the rain on the porch with my glasses steaming up every time I went in and out - no fun! But, while the week was hell, it was so worth it! I can handle just about anything for a week!

Emergency Car Kit

We were finally able to get in to the mountain property yesterday. We tried at the end of March and there was still too much snow to make it.Yesterday - no snow. The road's in pretty good shape for the amount of runoff it takes each spring and it looked like there had been a grader in there recently. When you're 7 1/2 miles off the highway, up a dirt road, at 4000 feet, and partly responsible for the upkeep of that road, you notice some things.

We ran into a gyppo logger about halfway in who said he'd been up last week, but it was snowing and the wind was blowing so hard, they only got about 2 hours of work in before they had to pack up and get out. I'm glad we stopped to talk to him because his story explained the four trees downed across the road further in.

So, yesterday we cut up the downed trees and left them on the side of the road because they're not ours. If the landowner doesn't pick them up by next fall, we will. Each would make decent firewood. Ouch! It hurts to leave good wood by the road!

After looking around the place to see what'd happened over the winter, we burned. We have some humongous slash piles from cutting firewood and clearing defensive space around our camping area. The only times it's really safe to burn is in early spring (as early as we can physically get there) and late fall. In those two seasons there's enough moisture to discourage wildfires. Even then we have to be hyper-vigilant! Of course, we burn 4 foot piles and make sure they're out-out by noon as the permit requires. After the piles were out, we did some repairs and loaded some firewood.

We probably have about 20 or so more piles worth. It's not gonna be a one-season thing.

This fire's out!

Several more burn days worth

What should've taken us half a day turned into a full - and exhausting! - day.

So, all of this brings me to what I REALLY wanted to talk about. The car kit. People carry all different types of emergency kits in their cars, preppers carry bug-out bags, soccer moms carry granola bars and juice packs, dog people carry leashes and dog treats and that towel to get the mud off Spot's feet. I got to thinking about all the things we routinely carry when we go up to the Spread.

Chainsaws (2),  chainsaw gas and oil
shovel
snow chains
tow chains
come-alongs
tie down straps
bungie cords
rope
assorted tools (screw drivers, wrenches, etc)
flashlights
binoculars
granola bars
water
dog treats
Chukit! and ball for the dog
the normal emergency kit (flares, first aid stuff)
two flat sheets (less bulky than blankets)

Everything from flashlights on down pretty much stays in the truck all the time. The stuff above flashlights we add when we go to the mountains. It's saved our behinds more than once! Do you carry a kit in your car? What would you call it? Emergency? Bug-out? __________?

A Hatch

I'm thinking there was some sort of insect hatch near the Sacramento River on Interstate 5.

We went through at dusk and at first it sounded like we were driving through a soft rain. Then a heavier rain. Then a hailstorm. For about 10 miles. As my grandson would say, "Eeeeeeewwwww". I didn't take a picture of the grill, it was just too gross. I'm so glad I don't live anywhere near that area! We have enough bugs where we are - sometimes too many - but that was almost biblical!

Happy California Cows?

Ummm. They don't look very happy to me.

While driving north on the Interstate 5 corridor, we passed a couple of areas that looked (and smelled) like feedlots. Excuse the 70 MPH photography!

Not a single blade of grass for these grazers. I don't know if they spend their lives here, birth to slaughter, or if they come here to fatten just before they mosey on over to the freezer. On the edges of the acres and acres of cows, there were what appeared to be sludge ponds, or maybe water reservoirs. They could have even been recently seeded rice paddies.

Then, after those, were verdant rice fields - all around the barren feedlots. The cows can probably see and smell them.

We've lived near dairies, have kept chickens, rabbits, goats for meat, and an uncle worked a dairy for years. I know what a barnyard smells like and don't find it offensive at all - but the air for miles around these lots smelled absolutely contaminated and corrupt. Polluted. Not even like feces, but like ammonia. We rolled up the cracked windows and recirculated the vent in the truck, but we'd already been hit by the smell and I don't think our efforts helped much.

Now don't get me wrong, I love my french dip sandwiches and rib eye steaks just as much as the next person. I understand it takes a certain amount of animals to supply the demands of this meat-eating populace. But if given a choice between the above-pictured cows and this one:

(Can you see him?) I'd much rather eat the one grazing as he was meant to. Which is why, when it's time to fill our little freezer, we buy a quarter grass-fed beef from a local farmer. Good stuff. Thank you Peter @ River Bar Farm!

If you're travelling Interstate 5 and catch a hint of ammonia in the air, QUICK! roll up your windows and recirculate the air in your car! The smell lingers for a ways.

Ticky Tacky

Something I noticed while visiting in southern California . . .

Their houses are all the same. Or long rows and patterns of just the same, only to change to some different style of just the same.

Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky,
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same.

There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

And the people in the houses
All went to the university,
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same,
And there's doctors and lawyers,
And business executives,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

And they all play on the golf course
And drink their martinis dry,
And they all have pretty children
And the children go to school,
And the children go to summer camp
And then to the university,
Where they are put in boxes
And they come out all the same.

And the boys go into business
And marry and raise a family
In boxes made of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

This song applies only to the houses though. The people are diverse, the houses . . . not so much.