Naturally Simple Blog

I don’t know that I have ever been so tired in my entire life.  While I do appreciate the prompt customer service I received from the companies  I ordered my plants from, I wasn’t planning on the arrival of these items until my husband was back from his trip around the beginning of May. I can do it by myself but it is hard and I am feeling sorry for myself a bit, this evening.
The biggest problem is that all the areas I wanted to plant in weren’t ready.  I was planning on having this week to work on planting my veggies and next week to get those areas ready. Oh well, if I have learned anything over the years it is that few things go as planned.

I knew I was going to have to put up a second chicken wire fence  for the pumpkin and winter squash this week.  ( I am trellising many of my veggies to save space).  I had also planned to dig the vegetable beds in anticipation of planting today.
I wasn’t expecting to have the added work of prepping the fruit areas.    The back area where I put the berries, needed to be dug, leveled and weeded.   We had to dig giant holes for the grapes in order to make sure their roots had plenty of unhindered space to grow.  There is still a lot of the old tree’s root system under there and we had to cut a lot of roots out of the way.   I am thanking my lucky stars that the bush cherries seem to be arriving according to the original schedule they sent me.
Here is the breakdown of what we planted this week:
3 Concord Grape Vines (I still have to find a spot for one)

2 low-bush blueberry bushes

12 raspberry plants

2 hops vines

2 pots of ginger root

kentucky wonder pole beans

scarlet runner  pole beans

trionfo violetto  pole beans

small sugar pumpkins

straight eight cucumbers

double yield cucumbers

sweet snow peas

more radishes

mesclun greens

baby spinach

more simpson lettuce

romaine lettuce

carrots

curly parsley

basil

rhubarb chard

silver beet chard

morning glories

moon flower

more nasturtium

decorative gourds

transplanted hostas out of the front yard to shadier spot by the back retaining wall.

I spent a lot of time looking for something worthwhile to do today and then the Universe answered the question for me when many of my fruit plants were delivered Tuesday afternoon.   What better way to spend our day than outside working on making our own little corner of the world more sustainable?
We planted grapes around the arbor and potted blueberries and ginger root.   You can see the rain barrel in the corner waiting to be decorated and put together.  We still have one more grape vine along with raspberries and hops vines to plant.  I think Friday will be our next grand planting day as it is the day to get the bean seeds and cucumber seeds in the ground, as well.

We also took some time to water and tend what we have already planted.  The kale and lettuce I planted in mid-March are coming in nicely.  I recently planted chard in front of those greens.  The theory being that by the time we have eaten up the kale and lettuce,  the new greens will be producing and I can plant some hardier greens (Malabar Spinach and Mustard) along with some pretty tomato or pepper plants in their place.

I am  happy with my early peas.  I think they look pretty good despite the snow and cold they weathered.

We did take some time out for fun though at a potluck held in honor of one of our favorite little girl’s fourth birthday.  Isn’t the magnolia tree fantastic.  I am jealous of all her beautiful flowers.

Tansy’s post on dandelions reminded me that I intended on sharing my favorite recipe for the greens.   I love to roast the really tender young leaves in my roasted root vegetables.   It is very simple.   Chop up some of your favorite root vegetables.  I used sweet potatoes, white potatoes and carrots this time.   Then I stirred in a few cups of cleaned dandelion greens, some rosemary, garlic and olive oil.   Then just bake in the oven until the vegetables are tender.   It is so good!

Compacting is a way of life around here as it is for my good friend, Tansy.  She has recently developed a good way to keep track of her progress by blogging about it on a weekly basis. She calls it Not Buying It which I think is quite witty.   I thought I would join her in creating a weekly post about my strengths and weaknesses in this area.

I didn’t do a great job this week because of the sick children and the fact that I have been really busy trying to get some big projects done before my husband leaves me for weeks (work).
Clothing

I mended a couple of items, sewed a few buttons on and fixed a tie with fusible webbing.

I started a tye dye stack of clothes that we will rejuvenate by dyeing if the weather ever warms up.  That is definitely not an indoor event.

I rescued a few items that fit  from a friends’ throwaway pile.
Food and Garden

We planned our two week menu using items from our pantry first.

The highlights of the week were Reubens with homemade sweet potato fries and deep-fat fried candy bars.  (Okay that was the teenagers’ idea but I would do it again

Dear husband made his fantastic fried rice for me rather than ordering Chinese.
Dear husband also built homemade “Earthboxes” to conserve the amount of water used when gardening this year.   The downside is that we had to buy some of the materials new but we checked at the Restore and Craigslist.  Neither had what we needed.

We made some self watering planters from two liter bottles and old shirts.  I promise I will get to that post later this week when we are done creating.
Indoor seedlings are still growing well I am using  homemade fertilizer to feed them–seaweed/nettle/chamomile infusion.
Didn’t plant much in the last week due to the sleet and snow.  The kale, lettuce, radishes and peas seem to be hanging in there.
Household

Used homemade chest rub and teas to help provide a little relief from the nasty virus.
Cold-processed a batch of shampoo bars this week.  I am waiting for them to cure so I can get some gardeners’ soap in the mold next.   Is it odd that I am excited to be running low on coconut oil so I can use the little bucket as a tomato hanger?

Made homemade lotion and bath oil. All that swimming wreaks a bit of havoc on our skin.
I found some paint on Freecycle that I think will work for a project I have in mind for my daughter’s room.
Utilities

The furnace hasn’t kicked in much despite our snap of wintery weather but I haven’t taken down the window blankets or the plastic on the windows yet, either.
We do a good job of turning lights off and appliances when we aren’t using them but  I need to find some power strips to put the computers and that sort of thing on.

Took the rugs outside and beat them rather than vacuuming.  Okay the vacuum doesn’t work that well anyway but we still did it.
Gifts

I am working on a birthday gift for a friend and an end of the year gift for our HSAP coordinator.

see weaknesses
Exercise/self improvement

When it is nasty out,  we exercise on the free use equipment at our community rec center and have an annual pass to our community pool.  We usually go on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

My daughter and I are taking English Country dancing lessons as well.
Homestead

I am not sure what to put here that I haven’t already covered somewhere else.
Education

Using our local library as a source for many educational projects.  They have a fantastic selection of DVD’s from the Teaching Company.
I am using some old wooden boxes to make a Cuisenaire rod game.

Using paper Steve rescued from the recycle bin at work to print off schoolwork.
Purging

This was my strong area this week,  we cleaned every closet in the house and took loads of clothing and old stuff to Goodwill.  We are also re-using items when making planters for the garden.
Weaknesses

Not really a weakness but my garbage-can-turned-rain-barrel seems to have cracked during the winter so I have to find a new one for that.   Until then,  I am stuck using “expensive water” on my garden.
Bought gifts for my nephew and niece for their birthdays.  It was a combination of not being able to come up with a good idea or time to make something.

We bought bread instead of making it which I had been doing a good job of keeping up with.
My son and I grabbed lunch at the coop on Thursday and we ate out on Friday because we went to the rally.  I can’t remember the last time we have eaten out twice in one week.

Fifteen years ago, my daughter developed the same weeping eczema I had sufferred from as a child.  I was told by an endless stream of MD’s that there was nothing to be done to prevent the rash but “here use this (insert harsh chemical creme here) to clear it up”.   I have always been one to look towards prevention rather than a cure.  A friend of a friend, recommended using a naturopath, so I began to look around for holistic doctors in in my area only to find the practice of naturopathy is illegal in my state. (This spurred along my herbal studies, but that is not the point of this particular rant)

After the birth of my third son,  I decided that I would never again have a baby in the hospital so  I went looking for midwives.  I was to soon to find that the only legal midwives in Iowa were Certified Nurse Midwives and (at the time) none of them attended homebirths. At this point, I decided  that my needs and those of my unborn child outweighed bureaucratic red tape and opted to have a homebirth with a plan to work to change this “out-dated” legislation at some point in the future.
When I first moved to town,  I was very excited to find a local farmer from whom to buy locally-produced, fresh millk and cream.  I procured a few gallon jars and happily filled them once a week.   I was looking into building my own cheese press and buying a churn (why my mother won’t give me her dust collector is beyond me, but again, I digress) when I learned from a friend that our “milk connection” had been busted!

Shortly after my milk connection dried up,  my certified professional midwife was charged with and convicted of the felony of practicing medicine without a license.  I began to be fairly cross with the the fact that government regulation was shoving decisions down my throat but still I naively insisted that we must work from within the system to change the laws.
In September,  I posted a legislative alert concerning proposed regulations to be  imposed on companies that make bodycare items, which could be potentially devastating to home-based businesses.  I struggled to understand why government officials could possibly be considering a law which so clearly favored corporations and large businesses.
Now there is this idiocy, which honestly doesn’t surprise  or confuse me.  I have decided that the  the rugged individualism our country was founded on has all but disappeared.   I live in the land of government regulation and corporate conformity.    I would explain the flaws in this law but I will let the gentle folk at The Handmade Toy Alliance do so instead. I am sure they can do it with much fewer expletives than I could contain myself to at this point.

I have decided that I am fed up. I have had it with government regulation that promotes corporate well-being over the well-being and security of individuals.  Consequently,  I plan to join Mary at Attachlings in practicing some good, old-fashioned civil disobedience.

It is beginning to seem to me that  this is the only way it is possible for use to return to a more sustainable, locally-based economic system as long as the the government (aka corporate lobbies)  keep throwing road blocks in the way.

Judy at My Freezer is Full has tagged me!  Green Meme #2.  It was the first time I was tagged, too.

I am pretty excited about these so I thought they deserved their own entry.

These are the first candles I have made from beeswax I obtained locally.

We went to a local orchard today to pick apples. It was one of those lovely Autumn days that makes you grateful for the Earth’s abundance.

Today we are pickling the cucumbers I grew and some banana peppers that I picked up quite cheaply at the Farmer’s Market yesterday. I have a really nice watermelon that we bought at the co-op, too.   I might try pickling the rind.  I have never done that before but my husband enjoys pickled watermelon rind, so I will probably give it a whirl.

I had wanted to do the pickles last night but my melissa was dry and needed to be cut, sifted and stored away before it lost that lovely lemon-y scent.

There were some good-looking cayenne peppers at the Farmer’s Market too.  They are still green but really nice size.    I want them to ripen more before I preserve them so I threw them in a paper bag with an apple.  I know that sounds odd but I read online somewhere that the  ethylene gas the apple gives off signals the peppers to ripen more quickly.  It seemed to work so I have kept doing it. Once they have ripened, I will string them on fish wire and hang them in the window to dry.  I like things that are useful and decorative.

Time for an Independence Days Update 

Plant something:   Transplanted Catnip and Mint

Harvest Something:

We harvested cucumbers,  tomatoes,  green peppers, beans,  melissa, catnip and horehound.
Preserve Something: 

I have the herbs drying on my rack in the kitchen to be stored for winter use other than not much was done.  I am not really behind though because my tomatoes are just beginning to ripen.  I definitely need to put away some pickles this week.
Manage Reserves: 

We are in the middle of a major re-org around here so a lot was done in this area.  We cleaned the garage and put up shelving that units that we had to make room for more storage and a workbench for my husband.
One whole shelf unit was devoted to equipment to preserve stuff such as my canner, my food mill and pestle, my dehydrator and empty jars.  I have one more shelf unit to put up and that will store some of my bulk food tubs so that they are no longer stacked on the floor in the kitchen.
I went through my cupboards in the garage and got rid of some old preserves to make room for the new.  I also got rid of some old cans of paint and made room for all of our dyeing, soapmaking and candlemaking supplies in a cupboard that can be locked. This made some room in my herb closet for new herbs that are coming in from the garden and from my herb order. I am also bagging up herbs that are older to be sold this week.  I try not to let anything in my herb closet go for longer than a year.  Its not that some things won’t last longer.  I just like for them to be fresh.

I also went through the homeschool stuff.   I threw out old crayons and colored pencils that were worn down to the nubs and replaced them.  I boxed up last year’s work and got our crate ready for this year.  We picked up an used school table at the University Surplus store for $20 and some cheap stacking crates so I am busy trying to organize the study nook downstairs also.

We had paint leftover from when we painted the living room last year so we painted over some marking on the table that was not necessarily age appropriate. We are touching up the desk while we are at it.
More science supplies have been ordered and I cleaned up enough old stuff off the game shelf to make room for them.  Much of this was accomplished by buying one of those organizers that usually holds nuts and bolts in a garage and using it for science experiment stuff.
In general,  we sorted through stuff and made a yard sale pile and a Goodwill pile.  The Goodwill stuff is already sent away and I put an ad in the paper for the yard sale.  I admit to not being able to get rid of baby clothes and cloth diapers yet although I did sort through them and delegate some of the more worn stuff to the rag pile.
Cooked something new:

We were awfully busy this week so I didn’t do a lot of fancy cooking.  I did make a nice herbal tea that was a new blend for relaxing with fresh chamomile, borage, catnip and lemon balm.  I wish I had fresh herbs all year long.  It was divine.
Stored Something:

I stored away some of the things I have ordered in bulk from Frontier including  of vegetable broth powder.  I also have ten pounds of lye stored away with the soap making supplies.

I also stored away enough pencils, colored pencils and other supplies to last for the whole school year.
Prepped:

This is the time of year when I place a giant Frontier order.  I have a wholesale account.  I order the herbs that I am not growing, carrier oils and essential oils so as to begin preparing ointments, tinctures and other medicinals we will need in the winter months.  Most of the order was consumables however I did order  an inexpensive otoscope with extra replacement bulbs,  a couple of packages of sea sponge tampons, and a couple of tea balls.   I considered not ordering the stuff this month but it would be silly not to take advantage of the free shipping.
Our lamp oil is also on sale this month so I ordered four gallons to be housed in the cupboard with a lock.  That reminds me that I need to replace a broken lamp shade.

In all good conscience  I have to admit that I respectfully withdrew myself from the August Buy Nothing challenge.  We got a largish settlement check from the drunk driver’s insurance company and my husband takes his vacation in August so this is the only time we have to get our yard back in order.   We decided not to put a tree back into the front yard so we are spending the money to build a grape arbor where the tree was.  We bought quite a few tools this week so that we could do the repairs ourselves rather than pay other people to do it.  We also bought materials to make cushions for some barstools that we rescued from the curb as well as the materials to refinish a dresser and coffee table that we found.  We live in a college town and the end of July is a phenomenal time for such things.  College students dump “stuff” with reckless abandon when they are moving out.

That is more money than I have spent in ages but it is stuff that will help us out around here.
I learned a new skill this week as well.  Two local knitting shops are doing a fundraiser for the food bank I volunteer at.  They had people knit squares and Saturday morning a bunch of us got together and crocheted them together. I should add that although I can crochet a cable from here to China,  I never knew how to start the next line.  So with a little help from friends, I learned how.  My daughter and I are already planning how make our own blanket.
The crazy thing is that until I sat down and did this,  I didn’t think I was getting much accomplished this week.  I think that I utterly deserve to attend Fiddlemama’s hootenanny this evening.