September 27, 2011: Homemade Scarecrow Recipe

It’s just about a month away from Halloween now and it’s time to start thinking about decorating for the holiday and the season. Halloween is my DMIL’s very favorite holiday and I’m sending her some decorating ideas I found in a magazine. But for me, it’s not so much about ghouls and goblins but celebrating autumn. Every year I make a scarecrow and thought I’d share the directions with you.

Start with two pieces of scrap wood. Shown here is one about 5 feet long and one about 3 feet long. The longest piece becomes the base of the body, going through the head and down to the feet. The shorter piece supports the arms. Just take a short nail (I used a roofing nail) and secure the two pieces in the shape of a cross, as shown.

My scarecrow is wearing an old T-shirt and a pair of jeans.

Now, dress up your scarecrow. I used an old flour sack for the head and stuffed it with plastic bags. A marker made his eyes, nose, and mouth. If you really want to get fancy, you can sew on his features or use things like buttons for eyes. Put the clothes on your cross frame first, before stuffing, and poke the board through one leg of the pants. The pants will hang down until you give them something to keep them in place around the “waist”.

Next up is stuffing your scarecrow. I suggest using plastic grocery bags or crumpled up newspaper pages. There’s no need to stuff him with straw – just stray bits of straw stuffed in the ends of the sleeves and pant legs will make your scarecrow look authentic.

Once he’s stuffed, tuck in his shirt. You can use safety pins to secure the pants to the shirt, if necessary. Now just add the little details. I gave my guy a bandanna and a hat. You could give yours a pair of work gloves and boots, a belt, a vest, or even a pair of suspenders (which will work wonders for keeping his pants up!). Your scarecrow should stand up all by himself - or you can pound the board keeping his body rigid into the ground.

To me, nothing says “autumn” like a scarecrow in the front yard! And kids love ‘em!

August 12, 2011: Recipe for Happy, Healthy Chickens

These days it seems even city dwellers are interested in owning their own flock of chickens. It just makes sense; chickens are easy to take care of and they produce cheap food – always important but especially so in today’s rotten economy. Then again, with so many salmonella and e.coli scares, it’s comforting to know where your food is coming from, too.

I’ve been raising chickens for over two years now (I’ve got a total of 6 right now) and I’ve learned a few things along the way. I want to share those bits of wisdom with you:

A Home for Your Chickens

A chicken coop is easy to make for anyone who is handy with a power saw. My husband made ours without using a plan but forgot to include one thing that would have been really handy – a way to open the top of the coop to clean it out!

Our coop is about a foot and a half off the ground, has 3 nesting boxes filled with straw, a chicken wire floor, and two roosts. The cover over the nesting boxes is hinged so I can easily retrieve the eggs. There’s a front door that closes to keep predators out and a ramp leading up to it. The chicken wire floor is important to keep air circulating through the coop; chickens poop a lot and you don’t want to risk nasty bugs being attracted to an enclosed space.

The chickens live in this home year round, without any type of special provisions for seasonal changes. I was worried last year when it got down to 20 below that the chickens wouldn’t survive – but they did. I didn’t see much of them when there was a lot of snow on the ground; they stayed on their roost and huddle together to keep warm. One of our hens actually got frostbite on her comb but she’s recovered nicely, with no permanent damage.

Egg Production

Chickens will start laying eggs when they are somewhere around 7 – 8 months old. So, chicks born in early spring should start laying by early fall.

Your hens will lay one egg every 26 hours or so, no rooster required. They will continue to lay eggs until there is less than 10 – 12 hours of sunlight in a day. Before they stop laying, they will molt (lose some of their feathers). Although it seems contrary to God’s perfect plan, losing feathers right before the weather turns cold is normal and not detrimental to your hens.

You might hear your hens getting very vocal at times; usually this means they are getting ready to lay an egg. They’ll go to the nesting box and lay there; they like their privacy but don’t mind sharing a single nesting box. In fact of our three older hens, all lay their eggs in one box.

Replenishing Your Flock

Hens will lay for about 3 years or so (sometimes more, sometimes less) so it’s a good idea to introduce new chicks to your flock annually. But don’t just toss the new chicks in with the hens. You’ve probably heard of the term “pecking order”; it comes straight from the barnyard. There’s always a dominant hen in the group, followed by the next most dominant and down to the one at the bottom of the pecking order. New chicks are lower than the lowest hen and they’ll get picked on. It’s best to introduce them to their new digs gradually; set up a small, temporary pen close to the coop so the chickens can get to know each other through the wire first.

When your older hens are no longer laying eggs, let them enjoy their days in peace. Put them out to pasture on a compost heap – they’ll pick at it and distribute the contents nicely.

Feeding Your Chickens

Chickens will eat just about anything – including bits of protein now and then. We buy laying mash and scratch at the feed store and supplement this with kitchen scraps. My chickens’ favorite treats? Lettuce and onion. You’ll always have onion ends and the core from a head of lettuce left over so toss it to your chickens for a treat. Mine will also eat potato peels, apple peels, stale bread, tortillas, rice, pasta – like I said, just about anything!

We used to keep our chickens in a smaller, enclosed pen around their coop but this year we opened up an unused corral for them. They are very happy pecking at the weeds and ants there – and they are truly “free range”!

Roosters

I’ve had roosters before and honestly, I can’t think of a single redeeming quality they have, other than allowing you to raise chicks, if you wish (it takes some doing to nurture a fertilized egg so you’ll probably want to stick to edible egg production at first).

I highly recommend only buying sexed chicks. You are very likely to get a large percentage of roosters from a dozen or more chicks. While some may be tame, others can be downright mean – and you certainly don’t want a ratio of more than one rooster to about six hens or you’ll have cockfighting going on in your coop! And I can personally attest to this: roosters are not good for eating.

So, there you have it – a recipe for healthy, happy chickens (and owners). If you have any questions, feel free to post them here and I’ll do my best to answer. Good luck with your chickens!

July 26, 2011: Flower, Herb and Vegetable Garden Recipes

Now that July is almost over, your garden is sure to be producing lots of wonderful veggies and hopefully your flowering plants are just as happily producing! Here are a few recipes I’ve taken from a new book I got on my Kindle, Natural and Herbal Family Remedies: Storey's Country Wisdom Bulletin A-168 (Storey Country Wisdom Bulletin). I haven’t tried them all yet but I’m planning on doing so. Hope you can take advantage of your garden bounty with some or all of these, too.

Rose Water

1 cup fresh rose petals, chopped
2 cups cold water

Add rose petals to the water in a jar. Cover the jar and let it sit overnight. The next morning, strain the petals from the liquid and store the rose water in a clean jar in the refrigerator. To use: Moisten a cotton ball with the rose water and apply to your face. It is very refreshing and soothing, particularly on one of those hot, sultry days sure to come at the end of summer.

Sachets

Don’t toss away flower petals when you are dead heading your plants! Fill a square of open-weave fabric with dried flowers and herbs such as lavender, rose, basil, lemon balm, mint, rosemary, geraniums, sage – any plant that smells good! Gather the corners and secure the bundle with a pretty ribbon. Hang throughout the house or toss into drawers.

Fruit/Vegetable Flour

This is a great way to use up an excess of vegetables from your garden! According to the author, any type of vegetable flour can be used in place of a half cup of white flour called for in a recipe (and makes the dish much healthier).

The process is pretty simple; you just slice the vegetables and then steam vegetables until partially cooked (anywhere from 2 to 10 minutes depending on the density of the vegetable). Place the slices on a cookie sheet and put in an oven set to the lowest temperature. When thoroughly dried (which takes anywhere from 6 to 10 hours), grind the vegetables.

I haven’t tried it but I’m thinking you could cover the pan and dry the vegetables outside on a warm day.

Vegetables suggested for making into flour include tomatoes, carrots, spinach leaves, sweet potatoes, apples or pears.

Vegetable Broth

Here’s another way to use up an excess of fresh produce – make a vegetable broth you can freeze and use in winter soups and sauces. Simply chop or mince a variety of vegetables and herbs and add them to about 4 cups of water in a stock pot. Let it simmer until all the vegetables are tender, then strain.

Suggested ingredients: tomatoes, greens, celery, carrots, onion, garlic, peas, green beans, parsley, thyme, mint, basil, rosemary, sage.

July 17, 2011: Recipe for Organic Garden Soil

Usually I’m the one to provide all the recipes but while browsing around the Sweet Corn Organic Nursery site recently I found this terrific recipe for creating soil that is ideal for growing vegetables. I wish I had found this earlier in the year, but I’m going to keep the recipe for use next spring. You could also try this for starting a garden that will grow late season vegetables. Our growing season is so short I’m afraid I don’t have time.

You can find the recipe for perfect vegetable gardening soil for organic gardening here.

Jalapeno pepper plants we bought from Sweet Corn Organic Nursery - they already have small peppers growing!

While you’re there, check out their other products for amending your soil. We bought some of the MegaPepe fertilizer while we were at the nursery recently and added that to the soil in the containers for all our veggies. It’s too soon to tell what difference it makes, but we’re hoping for some nice-sized jalapeno peppers and tomatoes.

I love fresh veggies and I can almost taste them now! Can't wait until mine are big enough to pick! How about you? How is your garden going this year?

July 16, 2011: Garden Recipes

A few weeks ago I shared with you my recipe for a natural insecticide to use on your garden vegetables. I had some difficulty with the formula and/or the spray bottles; for some reason the spray bottles I used (there were two of them) refused to work after a couple times. I’m still not sure if the problem was the liquid I put into them or the bottles themselves.

In search of a new recipe to combat the grasshoppers which are getting fat and happy on my peas and corn and beans, I decided to try sprinkling a bit of hot red chile powder directly on the plants. Voila! This has worked exceptionally well and it’s a very economical solution.

If you can’t find red chile powder, which is dried red chile pods ground up into a fine powder, in your locale, try using whatever is available in your local market. Asian chilis are even hotter and if you can find them at a good price, you could pop them into the blender and sprinkle that over your veggie plants.

With a dismal start to our garden, we decided to go a more conventional route than sprouting seeds and stopped at a nursery just down the street from our house, Sweet Corn Organic Nursery. There we picked up several different types of tomato plants, fennel, lemon balm and lemon basil. We opted to go with a container garden rather than plant them in our garden plot, which needs a lot of help (we’re striving for having the soil ready for next year’s garden).

While we were at Sweet Corn, we talked at some length with the young man tending the nursery. He was the one who let us know it was grasshoppers having a buffet with our vegetable plants. He also said a lot of his customers spray a mixture of water and dishwashing liquid (dish soap) on their plants and have had a lot of success with that. From my experience, that is a great formula for getting rid of those little white flies that like roses and other plants.

So there you go – two new recipes for natural insecticides. After all, why go the bother of planting your own garden only to taint the vegetables with a commercial poison?

Good luck and good eating!

February 2, 2011: Homemade Air Fresheners

Looking for an inexpensive little gift for your friends or family this Valentine’s Day? Why not give them a homemade air freshener – a gift that’s always appreciated and used. They’re easy to make and the ingredients are inexpensive.

All you need to find are some ceramic or glass containers with a lid. I’ve used small little crocks, the kind with the wire bale closure, and these work really great. You could also use an apothecary-style or canning jar and put a pretty circle of fabric (cut the edges with pinking shears) over the lid and tie it around the neck with a ribbon.

Of course, since it’s Valentine’s Day, you will want to find some decorated containers – or you could just add an arrangement of heart stickers to the outside of a plain glass jar.

After you’ve made the air freshener, use a piece of pink or red satin to tie around the top rim and voila! You’ve got a lovely present that cost pennies but looks great.

Here’s the recipe.

Homemade Air Fresheners (courtesy of Linda Cobb, the Queen of Clean)

4 envelopes Knox unflavored gelatin
2 c. distilled water
Essential oil in scent of your choice (For Valentine’s Day, perhaps rose?)
2 T. salt
Food coloring (optional)

Boil one cup of the distilled water and add the gelatin packets. Stir until dissolved. Add 10 to 20 drops of the essential oil and the salt (to prevent mold – you can also use vodka but hey, that’s better for drinking!). Add food coloring if you wish (red is great for Valentine’s Day). Pour into containers and let them sit, undisturbed until the mixture cools and sets. Cover with the lid; open to smell the scent.

Tip: Use more essential oil to make the scent stronger. The scent tends to fade over time so these air fresheners are best used within a couple months.

If you’d like, you can also add pretty decorations such as glitter, confetti, leaves, etc. to the mixture – really looks nice if you are using a clear glass container.