Roost Poll

(magazine or book?)

I have an important question for everyone who is interested in Roost: are you excited specifically because it is going to be in magazine form or is it just the content you're excited about? I ask because two possibilities present themselves to me:

ONE: Roost can be published solely as a seasonal magazine as I originally planned. This means it will come out whenever I can get it together to do it well. It might only come out four times a year, provided I don't get discouraged with it and just do one copy. The benefit is that when it comes out and you get a copy all of the articles will be completely fresh having not appeared anywhere else first. There's the anticipation factor as well- few things can rival the excitement of opening a new magazine!

TWO: Roost could be a website dedicated to high quality articles and tutorials to help everyone become better urban homesteaders with a possible book published at the end of the first year to serve as a permanent tangible resource on your bookshelf that includes all the best projects and information published on the website through the year. I would be the curator and editor of this website but I would use the talents of other writers and urban homesteaders to contribute material in addition to mine. It wouldn't have any of my personal writing on it- that would remain at Dustpan Alley. One of the benefits of doing it this way is that I would have a much longer period of time in which to learn layout for publishing and in the meantime I could get the website up and running with fantastic content within a couple of weeks.

What would you be more excited about? I tend to think a website with a book in twelve months is the way to go but I'm going to let you all decide. I've always wanted to do a magazine but I've also wanted to do a book so either way I'm going to be producing something I'm excited about and that I feel is missing from every one's home reference library. I'm making a poll and I would like you all to participate! There is an actual poll at the bottom of my blog.

This Week At My Urban Homestead

Before I go muck out the chicken run (a very dirty job during the wet season) I wanted to get a few things out of my head and into yours.

I have officially accepted the truth that I am a person who breaks glasses. Philip has been accusing me of it for years and while I never wanted to accept that this is a part of who I am...dammit...it's true. I just broke one of my two liqueur glasses a couple of days ago. There are four glasses in my life that I have treasured: these two that my dad gave to Philip and I for an anniversary, and two gorgeous red antique glasses my sister gave us for the same occasion. The ones my sister gave us got broken on our move to Oregon. Now I have but one of these. So, I'm sad. But as Bonnie* advised the other day: "just get over it!" (Advice referring to my need to move on from the failed business crap and blah blah blah...)

I hope Bonnie isn't in the mental health business. I think she'd be better off as some kind of high school sports coach.

Or maybe she should become a self-help guru!

Because I seriously never considered "Just Get Over It" as a strategy for dealing with my life until she just said it the other day. If only someone had been clever enough to tell me to "just get over" my mental illness. Jesus! Think of all the years of agony and pain I could have avoided!!

Seriously, I know you meant well Bonnie, but that's not a very helpful thing to say to anyone.

Except maybe teenage boys.

Maybe.

Remember that weird thing above (and attached) to the mantel? I took it down last night. It is such a relief to me to take that first step to redoing the living room . Have a look for yourself:

Yes, that is a new hole in the wall. I put it there. By accident. Apparently I am the ruiner of many things besides beautiful glass ware. Oh crap- that almost sounds like self loathing. Sorry!

I made a weird branch thingy yesterday which will miraculously turn into a gorgeous holiday decoration that you will be jealous of when I'm done and I show it to you. It required screws, wood, more wood, scraps, a saw, a hammer, clippers, two cats, and a dog's help to make. Very impressive. (I don't understand why everyone is always lecturing me about how mean I am to myself when I obviously have so much self-admiration. Are you all HIGH?!)

I would like to entreat all of you to refrain from using the word "musings" for an entire year. Yes, please do. It doesn't sound how you think it sounds and it's a word that needs a little break from circulation.

Another little thing...low-riding aprons are not pretty. Do not wear them around your hips no matter how thin you are. Half aprons (cocktail aprons) should ALWAYS be worn around the waist. If you are entirely too stout to wear anything around your waist, then opt for an full apron. This is sound advice if only you will take it. Which you probably won't, so I will be forced to silently ridicule your slouchy schlumpy style.

Does anyone else believe that word verification is sending them secret messages?

Might be time to save up money for another visit to a psychiatrist. (Right after I pay off the last bill for which I am about to be sent to collections.)

Using the word "delight" in a recipe name should not be encouraged. I discourage everyone from doing so.

Another thing I need to release from my head is my yearly objection to the existence of eggnog. Not a good idea. I have tasted eggnog exactly once and nearly hurled on the hopeful friend who served it to me. The idea of a beverage of milk and eggs is repulsive to me. Eggs and milk is something that should be made into breakfast, on the stove, or in the oven. Viscous milky beverages have always made me queasy (milkshakes, for example) or kiefer (the kind that is like runny yogurt). Add alcohol to it and I just think all you eggnog fans have gone over the edge with regards to your stomach. So let's make a deal right now: I will not make immature faces at your beloved beverage as you drink it if you promise not to offer me any. Deal?

I have come to the decision to end my extremely shallow brief affair with Facebook and have also made the executive decision not to join up with twitter. I have been tempted to do so by friends with whom I am sure I would love to twitter with all day long, but I have realized that not having two more places to divide my attention from other things is important. I remain steadfast in my love of blogs and flickr. My computer social life will end there. I decide this in order that I may keep my life from becoming more complicated than it already is.

Another thing: I came very close to offering myself up to help with something because I always do that without thinking- but kept my mouth shut. I did it. What's better than having to say "no" to someone? Not having to say anything at all. So you just try getting me to do a favor right now- you might be surprised at how strongly I am withholding them!

I have some great posts coming up: one about how I have finally started composting at the new house and a suggestion for those without compost bins (like me). I will also be showing off my holiday decoration. There will also be a post about how long you can keep food before it goes bad.

Now it's time to pick up the sturdy rake and remove every last scrap of chicken poop/hay bits and replace it with fluffy clean hay for my girls. This time of year is tough on chickens in the Pacific Northwest. I am wearing dirty clothes to start with and this is most certainly a job for boots.

Have a great Wednesday at your own urban homesteads!!

*Someone who commented here the other day.

Fresh Rosemary

It is cold and rainy out today with short blasts of sun through the clouds. I'm feeling tired and am fighting off a big panic attack which doesn't seem to have stemmed from any particular provocation or obsessive thoughts. So I put on some opera really loud, cut some fresh rosemary, and made soup.

That was right after cleaning out everything fuzzy and frightening from the fridge. It really bothers me when I waste food so I'm trying to keep the fridge cleaned out more frequently and eat what's in there. Never the less I found some hairy black beans, quite a few bags of liquefied vegetable matter (can no longer identify the victims), and a black spotted jar of dipping sauce.

Today all I really have for produce is cauliflower, potatoes, onions, and some little baby carrots that I try to keep around for Max just in case he'll get interested in them. While I really wanted to make some Aloo Gobi, I needed to make something I've made many times before that would use rosemary because that's what I wanted to smell and taste. I wanted soup. So I made my favorite rosemary chickpea soup with cauliflower, potatoes, chopped up baby carrots, and garlic in a tomato base. I used a jar of my diced tomatoes for it.

The kitchen smells great.

I'm drinking a cup of tea and imagining that I am in an asphyxiating awesome cloud of zen calm.

I do believe that everyone should grow rosemary in either their garden (or their window if they have no garden). Unless they hate it or are allergic to it. I never loved rosemary before I had a bowl of buttery rosemary garlic polenta at an Italian restaurant on Powell Street called Kuleto's. The rosemary they used was fresh, tender, and fragrant- everything fresh herbs should be whenever possible. I've been hooked on it ever since. Dried rosemary is only fit for making a tea bath to soak yourself in.

I am fully aware how bossy that sounds.

I'm too busy being zen to care.

(much)

Come to my house and I'll make you food with fresh rosemary that will cause you to agree with me.

Excuse me, I need to go rub my fingers on the extra rosemary stem I cut so I can keep my zen.

Roost Gathers Steam

This is a little pastry I made for a slow foods pot luck last Sunday. I wanted to make something that used what I already had on hand and the potluck theme was apples. I didn't have any fresh apples so I used apple sauce.

They turned out quite well but I learned a few things from my experimental pastry and before I offer this recipe up I will have to make them again to perfect it. I am going to save this for inclusion in the first issue of Roost. Since the first issue is the winter issue I think it fitting that a number of recipes be included that use home preserved goods. Or at least use the kinds of things many people do make themselves (apple sauce, pickles, etc.). That's the tricky part about preserving your own food- it's one thing to prepare something for storage but it's a whole other thing to-

a) remember to use it
b) know how to use it well
c) remember why you made cranberry flavored saur kraut

Today I will be working on my raised beds with the lumber I have remaining. I don't know how far that will take me into the project but I will take some pictures for an instructional article on making simple raised beds. This is not a project that has never been covered in print before but I have had enough people wonder how I do mine to warrant a piece on doing them my way. Because I need to finish this project in a timely way I may buy new lumber for it if needed. However, my blog friend Blaize did bring up a very good point which is that I don't look for salvaged lumber and it would be much more economical and ecologically sound if I did.

I have checked in with my local Habitat For Humanity restore and while they do have salvaged lumber, most of what I found was pressure treated. I won't use that for garden beds no matter how cheap because of the much worse chemicals used in them than are used for the regular lumber. What I haven't done is keep my eye on both Freecycle and Craig's list. So what I'm thinking is that for next year's raised bed projects I will wait to do them until I find the materials. Of course...if I could find stone or brick...oh yeah. A girl can dream, right?

But the monastery garden needs to be built and filled soon so that it is ready to plant in early spring. Since the weather is going to turn soon, time is of the essence.

Checking for used sources of supplies for projects is definitely an area I need improvement in. Thanks for the nudge Blaize! Impatience is my worst enemy when it comes to finding stuff on Craig's list or elsewhere.

So here's a little teaser for what is going to be in the first issue of Roost:
(I have each subject with the author who is writing it!)

Rabbit recipes

Simple raised beds

Making cool gifts for any occasion*

Quilt from scraps

Preserving citrus

Information about natural cleaners

How to choose hens for a small flock

Sage- herb of the season

Pantry recipes

*I have decided to go anti specific holiday. I realize that this is one of those things I do that keeps me from being a billionaire, and I'm ok with that. As Max puts it "We're hundred-aires!" and it's good to just dream of paying bills in a timely unstressful manner. I want to cater to the seasons with respect to what that means in terms of cooking, housekeeping, and raising animals. Crafts are great because we can make so many cool things ourselves but why gear it towards the holidays? I need gifts to give in exchange for other things I want and need from my friends. Gifts to give for birthdays and anniversaries are so much more personal. And sometimes giving gifts is best of all when there is no occasion for it.

ROOST

modern homesteading for everyone

After discussing all the possible magazine titles with Philip while lounging in bed (not naked, you dirty minded people!) drinking beer, it was immediately clear that his favorite title was "Roost" (a contribution from Danielle). I happen to love this one too but worry that it isn't direct enough. However, that's what tag lines are for: clarification. I really liked the tag line "civil disobedience you can eat" but I'm not sure it goes with this title.

The next task was to plan the departments. This can change if I ever manage to do a second issue, but knowing what departments you'll have helps to organize content and direct it. It sets the tone and firms up the driving purpose of a publication. Like a chapter index it allows you to quickly asses the contents and decide how interesting or pertinent it sounds to your interests. Truly, any time I see that the main theme of a book or magazine is:

"How to develop leather-skin under the hot sun of Cabo San Lucas."

I pretty much feel alienated right away.

Here are my departments:

Into the pot- cooking, recipes, tips, methods, food prep, and interesting articles about food and eating.

Kitchen Garden- growing your own food and herbs, vegetables, mini orchards, planning, getting the most out of small spaces, raised beds, garden methods, function vs. form, choosing varieties, winter gardening, tips, features of people's gardens.

The Pantry Shelf- food preserving, using your pantry food in menu planning, menu planning, storing food, root cellaring, brewing beverages, How tos on all these things, shelf life of food.

On The Work Bench- how to use power tools, wood projects, fixing household things, making what you need, building, projects, techniques.

The Stitch Box- sewing projects, crafts, making household things that don't require power tools, techniques for more professional sewing, textiles, gluing, cutting, decorating, useful crafts.

Home Ec- organizing, budgeting, saving, reusing, recycling, cleaning, anything that helps you run a house more efficiently, greening up your house, household management.

DIY Apothecary- making your own body products, medicine from the garden, salves, salts, herbs, tinctures, herb features, herb lore, teas, stress management, recipes and How Tos.

Hutch and Coop- how to raise small animals, chickens, rabbits, sometimes goats and pigs, coop plans, raising tips, breed highlights, keeping them safe, butchering, healthy animal husbandry.

Are you excited? I am!! This is exactly what I keep looking for on the magazine racks. I never see it. Mary Jane's Farm is pretty cool, but way too soft/fuzzy to truly satisfy my hunger for more homesteading matter. Remember that magazine called "Victoria"? I loved that magazine but after I had bought maybe my seventh copy of it I started experiencing a nasty case of N.O. (nostalgia overload). Everything is so gentle, so soft focus, people are all pretty with long wavy hair, delicate skin, and having precious tea parties every day. Mary Jane's Farm is threatening to be just as preciously nostalgic for "the good old days when life was simple and we all shat in holes in the ground".

A lot of people were really glad for indoor plumbing. And vacuums. Television was like a miracle of entertainment. Kids were not all that sad to stop playing with wooden tops and instead take up playing with Barbies and Legos. Our grandparents may have lived in a simpler time but I've listened to a lot of old people in my time (because I have always loved and related to them) and I've got to tell you that while all of them like to look back, the main thing they long for is the price of everything as they knew it in their youth. Inflation of cost of living is their number one gripe.

Those of us who are tired of gang killings, violent movies, the apathy of modern youth, corrupted governments, and who look back to a "simpler" time forget that back when our grandmothers were canning all their own food and baking their own bread, they were also really poor and they didn't have a whole lot of choice. The governments were just as corrupted then as they are now. People were robbing banks and going on killing sprees, committing suicide rather than face starvation, living on dust and hope alone. Our grandparents did a lot of what they did because they had to.

I still recognize the value of the things they did for themselves and I emulate their life skills and I want to get to a place where I don't need Lowe's to do everything for me. I want to do for myself. But I don't have blinders on about the past. It wasn't a gentle life for most people. My grandfather was one of thirteen children in a fairly poor family. Before he died, if you asked him about the "gentler" past you will hear of child abuse, poverty, harsh winters, and setting off at fourteen to go work.

So when I look at the past I don't idealize it and I don't want other people to do it either. I think it robs our history of its truth. Paris is a city with a lot less disease since it got plumbing. Most of us are living much higher quality lives because of our harsher more industrialized world. That doesn't mean we shouldn't get back our independence- we need to strike a balance between our modern convenient lives and the blessings of running water, and our ability to feed ourselves and care for ourselves without the grocery store.

*****************

I've already begun fleshing out what articles I would like to have in my first issue. I have many wonderful friends who happen to be craft and urban homesteading genius' and many of them are excellent writers and photographers. You know, I almost cried last night in a rare fit of emotional gratitude for the kind of support I've received in so many ways on my blog. (Don't worry, I choked all the tears down. I don't even like to cry in private. I'm tough that way.) I'm not actually sure what I've done to inspire it- but I definitely don't take it for granted.

I was thinking how cool it will be to open a magazine and see some of my favorite blog people featured in it. I won't be using up all my friends' genius at once, just in case I manage to get a second issue out, I'll need to be able to drag invite others into my project later.

The Name Of A Thing

This is my all time favorite magazine. It was well made, well written, had some ads but not intrusive, useful information, wonderfully inspiring (but not annoying) pictures, and it covered both growing and cooking food. I have every copy they ever printed of it. Sadly, they stopped publishing it. Perhaps it was just a year before it's time?

Cook's Illustrated uses almost identical format and paper and also has very high quality content. I always wish for more photographs though. Everything is tested out very well (their trademark, practically) and it treats the reader like an intelligent and curious being who loves cooking not just because home cooking is better for you but because it's fun, it's science, and it's gorgeous.

What neither of those magazines have is a more thorough coverage of the topics that generally interest people who cook and garden. They are often also interested in canning, preserving, sewing, household management, politics, the environment, family, community, and levity. "Household" magazine also lacked levity. Sadly, most publications don't take irreverence as seriously as they take Paris Hilton. However, this ad came from a magazine I love from the early thirties (and it was published all the way through the forties as well) and it had recipes, household hints which featured the constant theme of how to make things last, how to make food and money go further, and how to be more efficient.

It also included a very embarrassing racist cartoon series that it shocks me to see. Not something I tolerate at all in my life.

If you take these three magazines and give it an edgy urban sensibility and some irreverence, you will get the essence of what I want to publish.

Coming up with a name is quite a process. What's in a name? I'm not going to trot out Shakespeare. I promise. Names are important. Anyone in marketing can tell you that. It's a miracle that I, a marketing flop, also know it. I always have. Names are the essence of a thing. It's not always easy to catch that in a phrase, in a breath, in a word.

My publication will be about Urban Homesteading. I can't seem to come up with a better word for what it will encompass. Here's what urban homesteading means to me in plain words:

growing
building
fixing
cooking
preserving
making
learning
thinking
changing
brewing

I have come up with a list of possible names:

Urban Homesteading
Journal of Urban Homesteading
Urban Homesteader's Companion
Modern Homestead

Of course, I could use "Dustpan Alley" as the title. But, on a newsstand that will mean nothing to almost all people.

I've looked up variations of "Urban Homesteading" in the United States copyright library and it seems fine but I don't know how deep a search I need to do. Any ideas on how to make sure a name isn't taken?

Everyone knows about Path To Freedom, right?

And Homegrown Evolution, the writers that recently released a book called "The Urban Homestead"

Interesting that their book title didn't show up in the copyright library search.

Name ideas? I'm going to brainstorm some more and will hopefully return with more ideas. This is one of the hardest parts of the project.

I like this: "Urban Homesteading...civil disobedience you can eat"

The Monastery Garden
Day 3: friends do hard labor

Getting down: A lot of the work of making a raised bed has to be done close to the ground. It may not look like it but this gravel is so sharp it's a punishment to sit on or make any skin contact with. You can't tell from my foot's stoic appearance but my whole leg is crying out for help. Is it fitting that to make a monastery style garden I must experience some pain? Will I be more sharply spiritually focused when I'm done?

Making friends work hard: Lisa B is using a circular saw for the first time. It's liberating to be able to saw wood down to size without someone else's help. Lisa also helped to screw some boards together and then she shoveled a shit-load of soil into my raised beds. I'm planning to do the same for her this week-end.

Taking Shape: It doesn't take long for the beds to start looking just like I drew them on the graph paper. This whole garden has strong western exposure so I'm also starting to fear that it's going to be a stupid spot for anything to grow in. However, it also gets late morning sun from the south and it should grow lots of things well. A person's got to try. Otherwise a spot like this can easily become a machine grease-heap or a place to lay down and die when Jeb Bush runs for president.

Filling it up: There are still four raised bed sections to build but the center piece is done! It's ready to plant. One thing I love about raised beds is they impose order on a garden. Even if you let the weeds flourish there is always an underlying order that is tamable. I find it much easier to plan crop rotations and seasonal plantings when I'm working with raised beds. I spent my whole evening surrounded by garden books and graph paper working out what will go in my new garden. I am putting an antique apple tree variety in the very center box- "Calville Blanc" which is a French variety from the 1500's that has a high vitamin C content, unusual for apples.

Planting it out: there is no time to lose getting vegetables in here. It is questionable whether or not I can still plant beet seeds and get any beets to mature in time for a winter harvest. The same story with carrots. From all the local information I have access to it seems that if they are planted by this weekend there is a fighting chance. There's plenty of time for greens: chard, kale, lettuce, spinach, and collards are all on my list. There's still time for turnips and kohlrabi. The end of September is the time to plant overwintering vegetables like fava beans and peas and alliums.

Someone asked what a "monastery garden" is. That is an excellent question because it really doesn't seem any different from a kitchen garden or potager. Monastery gardens of the medieval period (my inspiration) were planned and planted so that the monks who tended them could be self sufficient. They not only needed to be able to feed themselves they also needed to be able to medicate themselves and the communities that they served. So a monastery garden would include medicinal herbs which most kitchen gardens/potagers don't. Another feature quite common with monastery gardens is that they were planted within a protected enclosure such as one with stone walls.

When I imagine the ultimate garden I don't just imagine one that sustains myself and my family. I don't even just think of one that can heal our skin and provide tonics for our livers. What I think of is a place of both beauty and abundance. I think of a place that is quiet and peaceful where you can hear the insects sipping at summer nectar and listen to the plants stretching their roots when the cool water wicks down to the center of the soil. I think of a place that offers room for spiritual contemplation while performing routine tasks; like a church of earth.

The plan of a garden can lend itself to this sort of prayerful contemplation. The layout and the shapes employed can lead the mind into positive channels...or not. I think the formality and order of raised beds arranged in a thoughtful formation clear the mind of clutter and allow the gardener to walk the prescribed pathways as though in meditation while attending to the needs of the garden. Having a central focus creates a bed to walk around. Having a central bed from which the other beds radiate guides you to the center; it invites you to seek the middle.

So the only real difference between a kitchen garden/potager and a monastery style garden is the inclusion of medicinal herbs and its situation in an enclosure.

It Takes a Bee to See a Flower

Sometimes you can't see what's right in front of you until someone else sees it first. I'm not sure I would have noticed these amazing spiky purple globes if they hadn't been swarming with bees. I noticed the heavy bee activity and then saw these incredible perennial flowers whose name I don't yet know. This is my friend Lisa E's garden and she's going to search for the tag and tell me who this enchantress is.

I am going to have to plant enough of them to be able to pick some for arrangements yet still leave plenty for the fauna of the garden to sip at. How I want my garden to shape up is beginning to be clear. It takes time in a new garden to learn how it should unfold. You can't force ideas onto a space, you have to try out ideas based on what you have. Garden spaces, the light they get, the soil they already have, their orientation to the house, and what you need from them will ultimately reveal what your options are.

This is another flower that has grabbed my attention in Lisa's garden. She told me what it is and I will need to look it up. It cast a spell over me and now I can't imagine having a garden without it. I must find some to add to mine.

This is Lisa's vegetable garden. She has the magic touch. Everything she plants here becomes lush and fruitful. She doesn't know if she agrees with me because she has in her mind the things she's tried to grow that haven't done as well as hoped. All gardeners have those things in their heads but what I see is a dense planting of beets and carrots that, while they could have used a thinning, are bulbing up very well and I can attest that they taste superb.

She made a dinner whose produce came almost entirely from her own garden. That is such a wonderful achievement. She made a salad of greens with beets (and pine nuts and feta), polenta with sauteed beet greens, and a spicy zucchini soup. My favorite was the beet salad but the polenta was amazing too because beet greens are so tender and melt in your mouth.

These are her girls.

I spent yesterday planning my garden spaces. I want to figure out what I'm going to do with some of them now. I want to get my winter garden planted. I missed a lot of summer planting because of our move and then my trip to Scotland.

I saw that one of my local nurseries had a couple of the fruit trees I want to get and I would love to get them settled in now instead of waiting until next winter. So I might do that. Before planting trees you really need to have a solid idea of how all your garden spaces will work together and where the light is coming from. I think I've got that down now.

Today I have to work on my canning talk but this week is largely free for garden work. I hope I can muster up the physical energy it will take to do it and I also hope it isn't hot as hades. I don't have a lot of money to work with but as I mentioned yesterday I already have a lot of dirt, some wood, and lots of seeds. That's quite a bit to work with!

What is everyone else doing in their gardens right now? Is anyone else planning a winter garden?

The Perfect Magazine

When you're in the right place everything tastes better.

Everything you already own becomes more delightful.

You find the details hitting your eyes like shots of sugar.

Suppose you found out there was going to be a publication dedicated to the subject of urban homesteading and let's pretend that you could ask the editor to include certain topics or ask that it address particular questions and curiosities you had about things like canning or growing medicinal herbs...what would those requests for information or topics be?

I'm not saying I know anything about such a publication. I'm just saying "suppose...". You know?

Here are the things I'd want such a publication to include:

irreverence mixed with solid useful information
canning recipes and instructions
recipes for using home preserved foods
growing medicinal herbs
how to be your own apothecary (aka: what to do with the herbs you grow)
how to raise backyard poultry
How to make a quilt out of old clothes
making cheese
How to wild harvest food
How to use power tools
food and environment news
Slow living tips and ideas
how to detox your house
slow life style (you couldn't expect me to not want fashion!?)
great photography
Independent thought


What would you add? The ideal magazine (for me) would be one that's exactly like Cooks Illustrated but with more humor and edge and that brings together all elements of home management: home economy, sustainability, self sufficiency, gardening, animal husbandry, crafts, cooking, preserving. It would be full of practical ideas for creating an efficient well run home. It would probably have to have some fun with modern versus old-school ideas about home management.

What do you think? Don't you wish someone would publish something like that? I know I do. It would be like Martha with a chainsaw in a vintage dress with hair down to her ass. (I know you're lingering on that image.) Isn't it time we had a really nice publication like that? The kind you keep forever because it's just as good as a book? I have a collection of the entire series of the magazine called "Kitchen Garden" (not the British one) and I also have a big collection of "Cooks Illustrated". I will never get rid of them because they are so high quality and excellent references. I love to look through them periodically. I hunger for something exactly like that but which encompasses a more well rounded coverage of related subjects.

I want your thoughts. I want to know your magazine dreams. I want to know your homesteading dreams too. What do you want to learn? What do you want to know? What would you try if only someone would give you the courage and show you how?

It's not likely your magazine dreams will come true, but how will you know unless you wish for it? What I can't believe is that such a thing has yet to be published. And don't tell me about "Mother Earth News". Please. It is too full of ads (it's hard to avoid doing this as making magazines is very expensive) but the main thing? Mother Earth News is much too serious and dry and I think alienates a lot of people who crave a little homesteading activities but who live in apartments or homes in cities.

I'm not dissing "Mother Earth News", in case you were worried. I think it's great, but they lack humor, style, and they leave me wanting more. Something is missing.

I think I know what.

Anyway. I was just wondering. Idly wondering. That's the problem with staying up late at night. You start thinking about things and plotting and planning and dreaming impossible dreams. I am a master at dreaming the impossible.

Please play the "suppose..." game with me and satiate my curiosity. I wish you were in my living room right now so we could talk.

C'mon, play my game!!

Williamson Ranch Update

(plus a gentle reminder not to clothe my ample ass in double-knit)

My birds are still moulting. I don't understand this whole moulting business, I was under the impression that hens do this before winter and kind of all at once. Mine have been doing it for a few months straight through the cold in a very painfully slow operatic style feather dropping dance. They are still laying eggs, just as they have been all winter- though certainly each of them is laying less as we've been having to buy eggs for the last two months. By the way, the chickadee above is Pinny, who has lost her long tail feathers now and looks rather stunted.

I love macro lenses. This is going to be a rhubarb leaf soon. Right now it's just a brainy looking tumor of plant material that is pushing it's way out of a vegetative bud. I am learning to like rhubarb because I have a glorious clump of it, but I admit that I still prefer it in tandem with strawberries.

I managed to get out in the garden on Tuesday to plant all of my enormous asparagus crowns. If they don't take, that's it. No more attempts at growing it. I have to admit that the last two times I've planted it I broke the rules and planted it in clay soil with poor drainage and then had to finally conclude that the garden books mean it when they say asparagus likes a well drained soil. This time I've planted them in raised beds filled with a sandy loam. So we'll know how I've done in two years.

Whoever says it's always grey and rainy in the Pacific Northwest is BLIND. (OK, I admit that it's already been solidly grey for the last forty days, but geeze...aren't people fussy for sun?!) Being out there in the dirt was wonderful. We did have a little light sprinkle while the sun was shining and it sounded so delicate. I have a case of garden fever very bad. It's all I can think about right now. I've had my nose in the National Geographic Encyclopedia of Herbs for a week now while compiling a list of the herbs I will be planting in my monastery garden. I really wish I could get my hands on some mandrake just for the fun of it.

The girls were enjoying the gold light of afternoon though they're kind of mad that the feed has been low. We ran out and I'm waiting to get our bulk order of organic chicken feed in which we should have for them today.

I haven't cleaned out most of the refuse from my summer garden and so I have these wonderful lacy tomatillo ghosts lying around. Their seeds are all waiting for the right conditions to sprout. Nature is brilliant!

I would love a dress made of this tomatillo lace. Simple and delicate and beautiful like a fragile skeleton.

In case anyone was wondering, we are still going strong on the local eating. There have been transgressions (I'm not punishing myself, but I do love an excuse to use that word "transgressions" which implies the need to drop on knees in a posture of humility to beg forgiveness) and yet for all that it is impossible to be perfect, we've done quite well. I have taken to ordering salads whenever we're out now because I'm hungry for greens. Well, since I've had some salads out I'm actually not as hungry for them as I was. However, I am getting ready to beg one of my two favorite farms (Oakhill Organics) to let me put together an order. Their CSA was (as usual) quite full so I just have to hope they'll do it.

At my Master Gardening class yesterday we had a three hour lecture on lawns. Do you know how deeply I couldn't care less about lawn care? All I ever do with my lawns is rip them out to put in things I like better. I don't hate lawns by any means and quite enjoy them in public parks, but I don't have room for carpets of water sucking greens that I can't eat in my own small kingdom. My vegetables take water too, as do my roses, but I get other better benefits from those.

As always, I felt quite out of place in my class. There just aren't very many people with my interests there. And the double-knit polyester pant wearing woman with the very bad hair and the medical inability to smile is really hard not to stare at. (I'm sure there are people who really do have medical reasons preventing them from smiling, but I'm just being sarcastic here. I've tried being friendly with this plastic-fiber clad person with the awful hair and she just stares at me like an emotionless basilisk.) As a side note, if this woman didn't happen to have very large breasts I would assume she was a man. Please let me remember not to let go of every ounce of feminine allure just because I'm getting older. Please don't let me cut my hair very very short and perm only the top portion. Please...please don't let me ever convince myself that double-knit polyester will suit my generous bottom.

Looking at some of the ladies in my class has inspired me to get more vigilant about putting on mascara. I feel quite fat and ugly most of the time and it's easy to let things slide when you don't feel so great about yourself, but I have to remember that mascara makes my eyes much nicer and such a small detail can remind people that I care about looking nice even though I'm not obsessed over it and even though there is no chance of looking like a princess, there's no reason to look like an ogre either.

Clearly I am learning a lot more at my master gardening classes than just the difference between pruning subshrubs and caning plants.

I haven't yet gotten an official answer about my trees but the Directrice* had a look and she says it's frost damage and sun scald that has occurred and that I should wait and see if my trees survive. So I don't have to trash all my trees. That leaves me with the problem of replanting some of them in more felicitous locations. I am in love with my new garden plan which is so much better than my old one. Furthermore, after living here a couple of years I've come to realize that I don't want sweet cherries in my own yard. They don't preserve satisfactorily for my taste and I can get loads of them for cheap from u-pick sources when they are in season here. I also don't want to fuss with my half dead nectarine. So a few trees may be ditched and the rest replanted.

This weekend I'm going to a rose pruning class at the Heirloom Roses which is near by. I will also hopefully be acquiring a few new roses. It's time to get some new ones established. I was spoiled before by being so close to Garden Valley Ranch from whom I got the majority of my bare root roses when I lived in California. Now I'm close to Heirloom Roses. I think it's wise to always live close to a first class rose source, unless you're April, of course.

It's time to get ready to do some freelance work and also consult the lists of available roses for sale so I can compile my rose wish list. I always have one of those going at this time of year.

Happy Friday everyone!



*The head hauncho of the Master Gardening program. I call her the Directrice.

Life In The Fast Lane
Master Gardening and Dying Kitties
(never a dull moment)

Ozark The Emperor

Ozark is 13.5 years old and is dying of FIV which, if you didn't already know it, is kitty AIDS. Ozark is hanging on like a general because that's the kind of guy he is. We've been talking to Max about him dying because the signs that the end is nigh are pretty clear.

He has become very gaunt, especially near his tail where his back bone is so visible that you can count his tiny vertebrae, he has started peeing on any heap of comfy clothes he sees lying on the floor. He has never been a cat who's had "accidents" inside. This cat prefers to do his business outdoors and once held his bladder for two whole days while we made him stay to protect a bandage on his foot- he refused to use his litter box. Incontinence is one of those signs that a kitty's body is breaking down. He's hardly eating anything, and only very soft food. He's still drinking water but not much.

He walks very slowly and holds himself in a defensive huddle. He has started looking unsteady when he's standing up, as though he might topple. I was afraid to check on him in Max's room when I came home from class yesterday because I am sure that at any minute now I'm going to find him dead. I don't want to have to hold his dead body and say goodbye to him. At the very same time, I fear that he is in pain and wonder if I shouldn't take him to the vet and see if they think he's in pain and if he is, perhaps euthanizing him would be merciful. Poor little guy.

Master Gardening Class

I have certainly learned my lesson about writing about local people and events and how even though 99% of the people in my town don't read my blog, the day I describe them on my blog and use pithy observations or use any kind of criticism, they will find their way to it and I will eventually get myself lynched. So. Carefully onward...

Although I expected a largish proportion of older classmates (retirement is a great time to really dig into the garden), at 38 years old I didn't expect to be the second youngest person there. The class was filled with kind, enthusiastic, and eager septuagenarian students. I admit I felt a little out of place (how surprised is anyone to hear that?). Happily there were only a couple people who looked as though they needed an expression readjustment due to perpetually soured features (who knows, could be a medical condition?).

It will be clear to anyone who visits Dustpan Alley regularly that my plant interests are intensely focused on edible and flowering plants. I'm not a huge fan of ornamental shrubs, nor am I particularly dying to be able to name every conifer variety that is native to Oregon. I admire the native plant society's efforts to preserve the native plant variety in my state. Variety everywhere is a matter in need of great attention. However, I can tell right now that the Directrice of the program would like me to get very excited about Pieris Japonica which she loves (as does every gardener in Mac) and would be shocked to find out with what venom and viciousness I ripped it out of my front yard. I particularly hate Pieris.

I have only a 10,000 square foot city lot. I must be ruthless about what is growing on it if I am to be a productive urban homesteader. I need edible plants, plants that are multi purpose (like roses that feed the beneficial insects, provide joy in my home as cut flowers, and make medicinal rose hips). Every garden must have things in it that particularly please the insects and birds, because without them, well, us humans will die off.* Yet, there are many things besides Pieris that please both the birds, the bees, and me.

Speaking of my lot size... I have to admit that it gave me great big pangs of unattractive envy that fully 50% of the students have acreage and are there to learn to tame their property. Every other person who stood up to introduce themselves said something like this "Hi, I'm Janet Shrewsbury, my husband and I just bought our dream property of seven acres..." or "Hi, I'm Roddy, I have an acre and a half in Sheridan and I just want to learn what to plant in it..." or "Neiner neiner! I have five acres and my dream farm house and you don't!! You only have a city lot and a stupid boring ranch house!" Oh the pain of it.

I felt exactly like a person who has just quit smoking and is totally at peace with not lighting up ever again but finds themselves suddenly at a party where almost everyone is smoking and the temptation is surrounding you. I have come to a place of peace with the fact that I really do have all I need. Seriously, I have yet to reach the potential of the square feet of dirt at my personal disposal and even if I had, if I need to grow more than I can grow here on my lot, there is a community garden here in town that I plan to support, there are obviously plenty of people with property they barely know what to do with and might be willing to let me farm small parts of it for part of the crop.

Anyway, because I have a limited amount of space, I am not going to dedicate much of it to native specimen plants. I fear that my Directrice and I do not have the same Utopian dream. She assures me that that's what's "wonderful" about master gardeners; that they have all different passions. I hope she means that.

So a part of me is chomping at the bit to get to the part where we learn about pruning fruit trees and growing food, but I have to admit that I am truly a plant geek and I found myself getting rather keenly interested in our discussion of slime molds and the difference between gymnosperm and angiosperm plants. The plant world is full of incredible symbiotic relationships, wild habits, and weird fruiting bodies.

Back to the property issue- I think perhaps it's good that I am not in a position to own a piece of acreage, nor am I likely to before I am myself a septuagenarian, because so many other people out there are in the same boat as I am and would like to know how they can grow more of their own food and take part in rural kinds of activities on their limited space. We can't all have farms or our own meadows to run across in dirndls while strumming "The Sound Of Music" on acoustic guitars. Lots of us would like to figure out how to make a small space yield the maximum amount of food and healthy miniature eco-systems. I'm by no means the only person doing this, but we need a lot more people doing it, talking about how they're doing it, and showing others how to have the wholesomeness of farm life on a city lot.

I keep trying to compile lists of blogs out there that are doing the urban homesteading thing without acreage and my list is still somewhat small so if anyone has links out there to share, please do, baring in mind that I don't add blogs to my list that post infrequently. Here is my list so far (remember, these are people who are living on city lots):

The Tardy Homemaker
These Days In French Life**
Her Able Hands
Wordy Diva
The Apartment Farm
Spadework: From Plot To Plate
Bliss
Homegrown Revolution
City Farm***






*Not as dire a pronouncement as you might imagine.
**I'm not actually sure whether Riana has acreage of her own or not, she does have access to acreage. But either way, I include her because she does things on a scale that anyone can relate to even if they don't have more than a city lot.
***Riana's sister's blog.

The Yogurt Cheese Experiment

Once, a long time ago, back before the Universe decided I needed the excitement of my first broken bones and a renewed relationship with poverty, I discovered why Meyer lemons are not the ideal lemon. Many a Californian has a deep love for the Meyer*, but I'm going to go against the grain here and suggest that the ONLY thing a Meyer lemon is good for is for making lemonade. A Meyer tastes great...but they are lemons with all the fight and zap bred out of them. I suppose that most of the time it is not an attractive quality to be able to make anything curdle.

If anyone told me that I made them curdle inside I would feel very wounded.

However, one of the uses to which lemons are put is to curdle milk. To make most cheeses you need to curdle the milk. You can do this with rennet, a very disgusting liquid or tablet that is made from the stomach linings of mammalians, (I reckon we could harvest human rennet too, but for obvious reasons we don't), or you can use a vegetable rennet, vinegar, or lemon juice. If you are going to use lemon juice it must be the really sour kind.

Not Meyers.

I know this from personal experience.

This holds true for any baking in which lemons are featured. Lemon curd is best when the lemons are Eurekas or Lisbons. This is true of marinades too which involves the acid of the lemon to slightly cook the food you are marinating.

If you want to suck a lemon though, always choose the Meyer.

I am a little afraid of trying to make farmer's cheese again right now (paneer is basically an Indian farmer's cheese) because motivating to do anything that takes actual EFFORT will hurt my head, but I'm trying to work up the courage to make feta. (Do you hear the angel's singing?) Not sheep feta or goat feta...I like cow feta. I miss it. I want it. I need it. Feta is one of my all time favorite cheeses.

So here's the plan: make yogurt cheese which is similar in texture to cream cheese and is about the easiest cheese to make (I will tell you how in just a minute). Next I will make a farmer's cheese but give it the Riana treatment (she cures it in brine which makes it similar to feta) and then, lastly, after I have seen a new psychiatrist, I will tackle the more involved craft of feta making.

To make yogurt cheese you need:

2 pounds yogurt (32 ounces)- make certain it is a "live culture"** yogurt like Nancy's.
Cheese cloth
A colander
A bowl to set the colander in
A long wooden spoon
A tall pot
Fridge space

You line a colander with the cheese cloth. Set the colander in a bowl that is large enough to catch the whey that will drain from the yogurt. Dump the yogurt (or pour it if you're one of those more elegant types) into the colander and stick the whole mess of it in the fridge for a few hours.

My colander is not blessed with enough holes for this to work really well. So after a few hours I skipped to the next step which is to gather up the cheese cloth and knot it over the handle of a spoon like this, and rest the spoon on the edge of the tall pot. More pressure from being suspended will force more whey out which is what will make the yogurt thicken.

Put the pot in the fridge and let sit for up to twenty four hours. You can eat it at any time, really, it all depends on how thick you like it. I'm going for cream cheese consistency because I have some pepper jelly that I would love to eat (I would have to make homemade crackers for it too) and it's perfect with cream cheese. So I will check it in the morning.

It will last up to two weeks in the fridge. When it's at the consistency you desire, you put it in a container, and keep it in the fridge. Or just eat it.

If anyone else makes it, will you please tell me how it turned out and what you ate it with? I'll bet it would be incredible with home made bagels (Which Riana has written about making and included the recipe so you can troll her flickr pages for it if you like.)




*Don't be offended Claire! I do love a good Meyer, but I have to report the truth about their culinary usefulness. If I could give you a thousand Meyers...you know I would!!!

**"live culture" means that the healthy bacteria that makes yogurt what it is have not been killed off during the pasteurization process. If you are eating yogurt for health benefits, then it should always be a live culture kind. Otherwise you're just eating custard.***

***Yogurts that have stabilizers and sugar and weird crap in them are not the wholesome food many Americans think it is. My favorite of the yogurt impostors is Yoplait, but I haven't eaten it in years because it's total junk. For a brief period of time I let Max eat "Gogurt" which is a hideous fake yogurt for kids (by Yoplait) with all kinds of dyes in it that turned Max's poop blue. I draw the line at blue or green poo.

Planning The Urban Homestead Spring Garden
(for the new urban homesteader)

When planning your garden for the upcoming spring season you have to make a lot of decisions about what you're going to plant, whether or not you will be starting seeds yourself or buying transplants, and on top of all that you must figure out where you are going to get your seeds from. For a beginner urban homesteader it can be challenging to figure all this stuff out (though usually it's pretty fun too.) Here is a good selection of vegetables to start with:

Beans. Try growing a couple of different kinds of beans. For the urban homesteader, space is often an issue so if you have space restraints, stick with the pole bean varieties. A couple that I have had good luck with are: Kentucky Wonder (OP) and Blue Lake Pole (OP)

Broad Beans (Fava). Fava beans are very easy to grow and are an incredible treat to eat fresh shelled. Fava beans should be planted in early spring (as soon as your ground can be worked). I have mostly grown one variety and it is not being offered in any catalogs right now so I can't give a personal recommendation for this year but I can tell you that in England the standard is Broad Windsor (OP) and there is one variety that looks a lot the one I've been growing called Negreta (OP) which I will be trying in the fall.

cucumbers. Cucumbers are easy to grow and satisfying to pick fresh out of your garden for a salad. What to choose: slicing cucumbers. A couple of kinds that I have grown myself that were really tasty are: Straight Eight (OP), Fountain (F1), and Armenian (OP)

Kale. Kale is a very easy dark leafy green to grow. There is no better source of vitamin C or calcium in the vegetable kingdom. You can plant it fairly early in the spring as it is a cool weather vegetable and it may bolt in the hottest part of summer. You can do a second planting of it at the end of summer for fall and winter eating. I have (strangely) never planted kale before. I am going to be planting Red Russian (OP) and White Russian (OP)

Lettuce. All you need to think about with lettuce is that if you live in a very hot region you will want to look for slow bolting varieties. All lettuce should be planted in spring, earlier than your tomatoes. I have had good luck growing Simpson Black-seeded (OP), Tom Thumb (OP), Red Sails (OP) and lettuce mixes from a couple of different catalogs.

Hot peppers. Everyone who loves peppers wants to grow bell peppers but getting good results is tricky. Hot peppers are easier to grow in my experience. Plus I hate bell peppers. Growing your own cayenne is easy and jalapenoes are also pretty easy for most gardeners to get good results. I have not done these from seeds and have bought organic seedlings that were the "Long Thin Cayenne" variety.

Squash. Summer squash is one of the easiest vegetables to grow. Some I've really enjoyed growing are Black Beauty zucchini (OP), Yellow Crookneck (OP), Eight Ball (F1), Cocozelle Bush Zucchini (OP). There are so many other kinds out there and you can do so much with them so don't be afraid to try out a lot of different kinds!

Tomatoes. If you're new at growing tomatoes I suggest you stick to buying transplants from your local nursery. Most nurseries now have a huge variety of both hybrid and heirloom varieties to choose from. The hybrids tend to produce more fruit but in many cases have less flavor than the heirlooms. Here are some of my absolute favorites: Sungold (F1) (an orange cherry tomato), Black Plum (OP), Aunt Ruby's German Green (OP), Siletz (OP), Marzano (OP).

There are so many other things you can plant, such as the root vegetables. My list above is simply a guideline to the easiest vegetables to start with if you are doing a vegetable garden for the first time. It will give you a taste for the possibilities and your chance of success with all of the vegetables I've mentioned above are extremely good. My only caution to the beginner is to not try to grow absolutely everything the first season.

A couple of things I don't recommend anyone try to grow as a beginner is: celery, melons, or fennel. I've been growing a garden for eight years now and I still can't get any of these to grow well in my garden.

What should you start from seed yourself and what should you buy as transplants? I would start off only starting vegetables from seeds that can be direct sewn (put directly in the ground) which includes: lettuce, cucumbers, kale, beans, and squash. In the beginning I would buy your peppers, tomatoes, and eggplants as transplants because they are harder to start from seed indoors and take a long time to get big enough to put outside. Without the right conditions (proper heat and light) the results can be very disappointing.

I've labeled each variety I've listed with information about whether it is open pollinated (OP) or is a hybrid (F1). Does it really matter? Hybrids are not necessarily a bad thing but they are more limiting because until a hybrid has been stabilized over a long period of time, you cannot save their seeds to plant the next year and be sure of what you're getting. Often hybrids don't grow true from seed. When you plant open pollinated seeds you can be sure that if prevented from randomly crossing with other varieties in the same family of plants you will get the same results again and again. As a general rule I prefer to plant mostly open pollinated varieties. Hybrids are not the same thing as genetically engineered seeds.

Genetically engineered seeds are dangerous and evil.

Yeah, I know, you expected me to say that. How do you avoid growing them? You buy seeds only from seed companies that have taken the safe seed pledge. Is this important? It is if you want to keep the environment safe for pollinating insects, for humans, and for other animals.

There are a ton of great seed companies out there but I am going to provide links only to ones that I have had some personal experience with. All of the companies I buy my seed from have taken the safe seed pledge.

Territorial Seed Co. - they are local to me and so carry a lot of varieties of seeds that do well in the Pacific Northwest. They carry predominantly open pollinated seeds and have a very good reputation amongst consumers.

Seeds Of Change - This was my favorite seed company when I lived in California. Their seeds are very good quality and I love their catalog. I don't use them as much now because they carry a lot of varieties that do better in warmer climates than the one I live in now.

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds - I've bought seeds from these guys occasionally and was very happy with the results. They carry a lot of weird varieties and the only danger with this company is assuming that "novelty" translates into "tasty". Sometimes there is actually a reason why heirlooms have faded from use. However, for the sake of bio-diversity the work they do to provide unusual and heirloom vegetables is important.

Seed Savers Exchange - seeds aren't just plants we grow, seeds are little capsules of the earth's history. What's magical about heirloom seeds is that in each heirloom seed is the history of someone's family, a history of origin, and a history of human survival and enginuity. A history of life that can be germinated again and again. Seed Savers started as a group of people saving and exchanging family heirlooms and has grown into an organization dedicated to protecting biodiversity and our heritage in seeds. When you buy from them you are supporting their endeavors.