Drying herbs...

I clipped bunches of basil today and now we have it going in the dehydrator. My kitchen herb garden has been doing well this year. I have had parsley, 2 kinds of basil, lemon balm, and chives growing in it for at least one year. This year I added thyme and oregano and planted a few beets and carrots. The carrots never sprouted and I have five beets growing. Better than nothing!

Snake season...

Snake season has arrived early this year! We have been having lots of HOT weather and not enough rain (which is very bad for San Diego) so that means that snakes are out in full force.

This snake was slithering around on our property and it's the only kind of snake I've seen on our property (thank goodness). Actually, Noah was getting out of the car and almost stepped on it! He was none too pleased to say the least!

According to this site this snake is a Pacific Gopher Snake (or locally called a San Diego Gopher Snake) and is not poisonous but it will bite/attack. We have lots of gophers so he is welcome to stay as long as he wants! He does sound a bit like a rattlesnake when he feels threatened but he's just a wannabe. Since we do live on a larger property than we did when we lived in the city, we are always aware of our surroundings and keeping our ears alert.

He was not very happy with my picture taking so I backed off and let him be...probably better for both of us in the long run! Go eat gophers big snake!

Thanks for stopping by!

Farm trip...

Hannah and I went to a local farm over the weekend and it was rejuvenating to be there. There are a lot of projects that we want to do on our little suburban homestead and it's hard not to get caught up with what is not done yet. So going to the farm was a nice breath of fresh air for me.

We went to Suzie's Farm in South San Diego, what a great place! I had been with the kids for a picking tour about 5-6 years ago but since then the farm has changed quite a bit, they've developed it a little bit at a time, added fields form planting and it is wonderful.

We went with a small group of Girl Scouts, the field trip title was "Imagine You Are a Backyard Farmer". We got to tour the greenhouses and see their setup for their seed trays and sprouts. We saw the warehouse building where they have aquaponics set up and we were not allowed inside so we looked from afar (they didn't want their secrets revealed!). We took samples of some sunflower sprouts (delicious!) and then emptied the tray into the compost piles. They test for listeria and other bacterias pretty regularly so we didn't want to put our sample tray (about a 1/4 tray full) back into the greenhouse. This was a "no photo zone" so I only have pictures in my mind. After the tour we went to the picnic tables and the girls made strawberry bruschetta and strawberry salsa.

Then we walked the fields. Wow what an experience. There were lots of chickens in a fenced off space for eggs for them to sell, I think maybe 150 hens with another 150 chicks in a separate space. The rows of veggies are long and beautiful. Lots of weeds within the rows, it makes me believe that they are needed for attracting good bugs and bees (this is an organic farm) and for adding nutrients to the soil. We walked and picked beets, carrots, herbs and a few greens (kale and a few others) and strawberries. The berries are enormous and delicious and organic. Lots of berries.

This is a wild radish. I found a seed pod on the plant and am going to try to plant them here on my homestead.

Hannah and her friend walking across the field to see the chickens.

The chicken coop, there were 4 of these.

After picking carrots, they went a little wild with carrot picking.

A little swing fun.

So you should go to Suzie's Farm if you live in the San Diego area. It's a great place, we had a blast. Right now they are busy with strawberry pickings on Tuesdays and Saturdays and in May they host an event called Strawberry Jam. Oh and they host a CSA box. You should check it out!

Thanks for stopping by!

Etsy shop...

Did you know that I have an Etsy shop? I'm just starting out but I have some of my reusable bags listed there. If you didn't know about it go check it out and add it to your favorites! I have so many ideas for the shop that my name doesn't really match everything. I need some ideas for a new shop name, can you help me out? Right now it's SoReusable but when I opened the shop I just had my bags to sell.

I'm still building the shop and my plan is to add other products to my shop like lip balms (like those that I posted yesterday), soothing salves and other balms for various needs (baby rash, itchy skin...). I also have diffuser necklaces to use with Essential Oils, Essential Oil travel bags/cases and eye pillows for relaxing. And I may even decide to sell some of the home made items that I can like my jams, jellies and pickles. The ideas are a-plenty!

So, if you have any creative Etsy shop names that I could use, send them my way! I'd really appreciate it! I can only change the name once, so I need a little help...and I know there are some creative people who are great with words out there!

Thanks for stopping by...and thank you for your help!
Jen

Lip balm

I decided to make a lip balm the other day. I have been thinking about doing it for so long and I finally did it today and don't know why it has taken me so long to take the plunge! It was so easy and it took maybe 10 minutes of my day. And the result? Four lip balms tubs and one tube. I'm totally doing it again!

The recipe:

6-7 Tbsp Jojoba Oil (I used Trader Joes, but you can buy it here)

2 tsp Beeswax (buy it here)

1 tsp honey (raw is fine, but you do heat it up)

5-6 drops of Wild Orange Essential Oil (buy it here or I can help you get it at a 25% discount!)

You also need:

A wooden stir stick (I used a kabob stick)

Some containers (here are some, I used these and could have filled 5-6 of them)

Here's how I did it. I mixed the Jojoba oil, honey and beeswax in a "double boiler". It was a glass measuring cup with all the ingredients in it in a small sauce pan with boiling water. Once the ingredients were melted and mixed together I added the Wild Orange oil, mixed together and poured it into my little containers. I actually cleaned out one of Noah's lip balm tubes and re-filled it!

 

Here is the oil, honey and beeswax with my kabob stick as a stirrer. The honey wasn't easy to melt so I mixed it up quite a bit.

All melted and ready to pour.

And poured! I used a little drip on the stir stick I was using and man does it taste delicious! My kids are in love with this lip balm! Let me know if you try it, or if you need some of this delicious Wild Orange Essential Oil (really, the best!) I can hook you up!

Thanks for stopping by!

Volunteer growth...

I went out to the garden yesterday and found a cute little sprout. I am pretty sure it's a volunteer pumpkin - a giant pumpkin - since it is growing right where I had pumpkins 2 years ago! I suppose I need to re-think that garden box plan and leave it there. It may get huge!

I also have a huge tomato vine growing in another box, I planted it last August hoping I would get more tomatoes but it hasn't taken off until now. Now it is full of little flowers that are getting fat with fruit. I am so excited about tomatoes, I love growing them! Rebekah eats them right off the vine...red or green, she doesn't care. So I grow a lot of tomatoes every year and make tomato sauce, salsa and put them in salads for most of the year. mmmm...

Thanks for stopping in!

Lundy Sweet Lundy...

Every year my family has taken a summer camping trip to Lundy Lake Resort in the Eastern Sierras. I have probably been going since the late 1970's...phew! Long time! But we still go and it is so beautiful every time that I thought I'd share pics from our trip last summer.

Here's a caterpillar who will be a swallowtail butterfly. We were thrilled to spot it, but then couldn't find it again.

Here we are fishing on the famous Lundy Lake.

The girls hanging out in the hammock...a very popular spot to play, hang out and just relax.

The crew...

Rebekah and Bella (she loves Bella)

We walked to the Tufa with all the kids this year. We have to do it every few years because it's beautiful!

We visited Travertine Hot Springs outside of Bridgeport, CA. What a fun treat for everyone.

We took a ferry boat across Saddlebag Lake and went on a beautiful hike. This was our lunch spot. After this hour of rest and lunch it hailed ferociously on us, we got drenched and cold. But it was a hike we will never forget!

Ben with Bella at lunch.

And my kids cooking up some breakfast at camp. They love camping!

Thanks for stopping in!

Edible weeds...

We have lots of weeds on our property and many of them are edible, some are not. We have not identified all of them all but we are in the process of it!

We have dandelion pictured below. It's the leaves that are long and jagged. The leaves are good in salads and they are chock full of nutrients. It is a diuretic and is a stimulant to the system, in particular the urinary organs and most use it for kidney and liver disorders. Many decoctions or teas are used in combination with other herbs to help these ailments.

We have sour grass (below picture). I used to eat this when I was a kid. My kids sure like it now. I find bits and piles of it all over the house.

We have nettle (below). This grows in certain areas of the garden not everywhere. I am sure it has to do with the soil composition and shade availability. This is an awesome 'weed' to have or use in cooking. It is a powerful herb to fight allergies and it can be used to help when you touch it and get all itchy. Just put some of the leaves in your mouth, chew and spit the whole glob on the itchy-ness and it should go away.

This one looks like wild chamomile (below), but I really have no idea what it is. It grows low to the ground and has little white flowers. I'm not sure if that's what it is but it sure looks like it!

This one is NOT edible and is considered a deadly weed. It is called Nightshade (below picture) and is of the tomato family. When it grows larger it has black berries that kind of look yummy but beware, even though some websites say that it's edible and others say that it's not, we will stay away from this plant. We are cautious.

We have little mallow. Many people add this to their salads or use it as greens for soups. We have not ventured that far in our culinary travels.

We have horehound (below 2 pics). I am pretty sure this is the one that is edible but we are waiting to view the flowers. If the flowers are white then it's safe but if the flowers are pink/purple we are pulling it up! It is better to be safe than sorry!

These are only a few of the edible (& some non-edibls) weeds that we have, there are so many more out there! What do you have in your backyard? Have you been adventurous and eaten them? I think it's kind of important to know what you can and can't eat...especially with kids!

Here are a few books available to read more about foraging! Edible Wild Plants: Wild Foods From Dirt to Plate, The Wild Wisdom of Weeds..., Backyard Foraging: 65..., and Identifying and Harvesting Edible and Medicinal Plants. 

Thanks for stopping in!

Hiking trail...

We live in a suburban neighborhood with hiking trails for people, dogs and horses. One thing I love about it is that we can cross the street or walk around the "block" and find a trail to hike on that takes us to the tops of the hills around us. 

This hike is one of the kids favorite, you can see the boys and Rebekah running ahead. The dogs love it too because there is a huge flat section at the top where they can run and explore the hills and bushes. At the top we can see into El Cajon, we spot the playgrounds we go to, the area that the library is in, and the stores in the shopping centers we frequent, they like to play "I Spy" and find Michaels or Kohls.

This was taken on a different morning. Same hike. Same kids. Same dogs.

The dogs like to walk together. We have tried to have two people walk them separately, one in front and one behind but the person behind gets dragged up the hill to join the other. They want to be side by side...silly dogs.

Thanks for stopping in!

Garlic...

Last October, Hannah, Rebekah and I went out and planted a bunch of garlic. We use garlic a lot in our kitchen and it is super easy to grow.  So we dedicated an entire box to it. We first divided the box into square feet with twine so that we could have guidelines for clove placement.

Then we divided the garlic bulb into individual cloves and put them out where we were going to plant them.

Then we dug a hole for each clove and dropped it in about 4-6 inches down. When we were all done we had planted 96 cloves of garlic and 8 elephant garlic cloves. Phew that's a lot of garlic!

Since then we have had to protect our little box from squirrels or raccoons so we enclosed it with chicken wire. I also had to add a plastic snake to the box and we haven't had any little critter hands digging any more cloves up lately. I talked about that in this post last week.

So we are hoping to have a lot of home grown garlic in a few months! Stay tuned!

Thanks for stopping in!

Oranges....

We have several types of citrus trees on the back third of the property. We purchased the house with five full grown trees: 1 mandarin (we call cuties), 1 navel orange, 1 bearss lime, 1 lemon and 1 other orange tree that never really survived after a year. The last orange was bitter and no one really cared for it, and then one day we noticed that it had died. Not really sure what happened with it. But in the meantime we were planting more trees and (kumquat, rio red grapefruit, yosemite orange and a honey mandarin). We love the citrus trees!

Our trees bloom at different times of the year and start the cycle of growth and it is beautiful to watch. There are tons of flowers that bring in the bees to pollinate. The little buds start to grow and they grow! The mandarin (I think its a mandarin) tree that came with the house overflows with fruit every year around Jan/Feb. We start picking them in December and are still picking in February/March. It's wonderful! Sometimes we get outside and pick a bunch of oranges and juice them for later. We simply put the juice in pint jars and freeze.

When our mandarin tree is empty of fruit we move on to the next tree and sometimes the fruits are ready simultaneously. The mandarin are so sweet and juicy, the peel just falls off when you start peeling. But as you can see in the picture below it is not empty yet!

Our goal is to have our trees bearing fruit year-round. We started with 9 trees and now have over 25, including peach, plum, apricot, nectarine, apple and cherry. I'll have to write about them when they are bearing fruit. Being able to go outside and pick fruit for your family for the next few days or while you are just working around the yard and want a quick pick-me-up is fabulous. We always have some type of fruit!

Thanks for stopping in!

Garden workers...

We put our chickens to work while we are working in the garden. I would never be able to let them just roam around free because they pull up plants and eat what we want to eat. So while I am out there, I allow them to come in and work the soil. They do a fantastic job of tilling and eating all the white grubs, pill bugs and such but they also eat the good stuff like the worms. And I don't want them eating all the worms so their work day is limited.

I love them working around the boxes to get the bugs we don't want. We put down a couple of bales of hay for Thanksgiving (we ate in the garden) as mulch because it was all dirt. Hay was so much prettier and then it started to rain. It rained a lot. But then we started to get some green "grass" in the garden sprouting from the hay and the ground was green! Wow it's beautiful! The chickens like to eat and peck at the hay sprouts a lot.

Here's one looking at me, wondering why I'm bothering her work.

Working in the box. Lots of white grubs in there. Ick!

Thanks for stopping by!