Put yourself in their shoes

Nothing wrenches my heart more than the thought of a child with a life-threatening illness. Nothing. When Ana sent out a tweet asking for donations for Malia, the heartache was especially strong. You see, Malia was diagnosed with cancer at 2 1/2, the age our Mabel is now. She's just a toddler and she already knows what it means to fight for her life.  The thought just makes me sob.

Once again, I can't do much myself, but I do have a couple Wolfie and the Sneak items. I have 2 of these 17 x 22" banners ready to ship. $55 ea. shipping incl, all proceeds (price minus shipping) will go directly to help Malia and her family. If you're interested, send a note to nobiting [at] gmail [dot] com and we'll get it all figured out. Even if you don't need a little art for your walls, consider sending the family a donation. The bills are stacking up as the family concentrates on getting their little girl better.

The $3 (plus the odd scrap or two of building materials) trellis

My oldest brother, Todd, has the gardening itch this year (actually it might be garden pox judging by his scratching) and is converting his front yard to a small farm. I promise to get more pictures of his projects, but first wanted to show off his $3 (plus some bits of building materials he had lying around) trellis.

The basics? taking a 2 x 4 and using a table saw to cut it down into lattice strips, while leaving about 6 - 12 inches at the base uncut. Cut some scrap wood  to create 2 spreaders to fan the boards apart. Todd used screws with scrap pex pipe (cut to about 1-inch lengths) instead of spacers to attach the trellis with wall anchors into the brick facade of his house, but any sort of strong, rigid pipe-like material would work.

We're moving our hops to a sunnier location this year, and a couple of these trellises will help 'em reach for the sky.

Are you planning a garden this year?  Check out this great post that spells it out for the beginner gardener.

Practicing Clutter Bug Restraint

Remember this drawing? I turned it into a repeat pattern and sent it off to Spoonflower to have fabric printed. I had an idea that if it turned out OK I'd use it in the laundry room as a curtain. I picked the cotton voile and ordered 2 yards. It's sheer enough to diffuse bright light, while opaque enough to maintain a good amount of privacy.

There are still a few touch ups left to make the laundry room finished, but I'm so happy with it. I've done my best to keep the clutter to a minimum, which is not a strong point for me. This particular nook of the house gets a good amount of sun, making it a favorite napping spot for 2 little kitties, but it also heats up pretty quickly in the summer. The sheers will diffuse that heat while allowing the natural light in. Plus I think the oranges in the curtains tie the weird orange rug into the room design; it might just stay after all!

The sewing table is covered in a tan cow hide, leftovers from a reupholster project. The brown laminate top was just too industrial for the space. Leather, fortunately grips to the table so the sewing machines don't dance around while in use.


That blank wall is tempting me to hang some art, but I'm holding out, waiting on some extra funds to properly frame a photo by Abby Powell. Since we usually take on an anything goes attitude with decorating, I feel like this is the closest room I'll ever have to a Mossy Shed.

There you have it: the quietest, sunniest room in the house. Inspiring space for folding laundry or blah-blah-yawnsville?

Everywhere Are Signs

I've done a little bit of hand lettering for signs in the past, but the most recent one was also the most fun. Now I'm thinking I want to brush up on my skills and do a few more! Maybe we need some hand lettered signs around our place. Hmmmm.

Reading Material

Apparently when I decide to learn about something I take it on through full immersion.  I started out  asking for book recommendations about medicinal herbs and bought 2: Homegrown Herbs and The Herbal Medicine-Maker's Handbook. Then I found out about a sale in the brand new Farthing Collective store and bought 2 Raleigh Briggs titles (Make Your Place and Herbal First Aid). All the while I'd forgotten I'd pre-ordered Easy Growing. Fortunately each of these books fills in where others leave gaps. And for anyone wondering? Rodale's Encyclopedia, while the thickest book in my herbal library and brimming with information, is the last one I pick up when looking for information.

Since I'm finally starting to keep an actual garden journal (outside this here blog), I've also found it handy to rip out pages of seed catalogs, since those descriptions are what enticed me to try out those particular plants.

Maybe this will be the year I remember exactly why I was so excited about starting anise hyssop, shiso and knit bone.

What have you got sprouting in your garden plans?

Help Me Help Them!

Someone help me! I can't stop playing with the wall mock ups of my parents' house! If nothing else, it's a fun way to spend Monopoly money. The above arrangement of the TV on the fireplace is my brilliant mom-in-law's suggestion. The move of the TV makes 2 strong focal points become one.

This BDDW credenza is a little too rustic for my parents' taste, I think, but holy hullabaloo, do I love everything they make.  The dark wall mutes out the TV, combined with the dark wood of the credenza the space doesn't seem to compete as much with the textured fireplace. (Painting and credenza from the BDDW site.) Thanks for the fantastic suggestions, Abbey!

Consider yourself an armchair decorator? Send your suggestions and I'll play with 'em and forward them to my mom!

Seed Bug

The bug bit and I'm ready to start planting. I bought a couple pounds of Kennebec potatoes (not from Johnny's, from a local source) to put in the ground and I've placed a seed order from Sow True seed. We had several weeks of spring like weather to tease us all into wintry restlessness, and with the return of cold now I have to sit back and wait.

Each year I go back to the Lazy Gardener's Seed Starting Chart on You Grow Girl, though some of the seeds I've ordered that aren't on the list. To fill in the blanks on the missing data, Weekend Gardener is a great resource!

Obsessiveness is borne of restlessness, and if you don't believe me you can check out my Google Doc worksheet. There are some math errors on there, I'm sure, and some dates that are off, but the good thing about planning well in advance is that I have wiggle room!

Food Forest Example

A while back I posted a worksheet to plan a food forest garden. I've used it a couple times, but thought I'd share this one since it's time to start thinking about spring gardening.

This particular food forest/guild will be planted in a Charlotte, NC community garden and will be about 20-feet in diameter. The plum tree will be the center, the outer circumference will be planted with daffodils, garlic, chives, and crocus and act as a deterrent to deer and squirrels.*** The other layers of plants that will benefit the tree and each other mutually, including gathering nutrients and attracting/deterring insects.  The idea is to have a garden that provides it's own nutrition, mulch and soil building, while providing an assortment of food to those that tend the area. It's a commonly used permaculture technique to provide larger yields and require less work; just the way I like it.

Filled with herbs and fruit, this could be quite a tasty garden!

***Though I don't think there's actually true squirrel or deer deterrent!

Fishing, Barbie, and GMOs

Wikipedia image by Michael Maggs

Lately there's been a lot of talk about fly fishing around the ol' homestead.  We've done a little fishing lately (Charlie much more than I), and the idea of fly fishing seems much more entertaining than sitting around with a string in a lake.

From The Essential Fly: Anatomy of a salmon fly

The flies themselves are works of art. There's a whole culture based around tying flies, and while I'm sure the people that tie them wouldn't liken themselves to the comparison, fly tying seems a lot like playing with a Barbie Styling Head.

Wikipedia image by Michael Maggs

Not that I think we'll go salmon fishing anytime in the near future, but I've been especially intrigued with salmon flies.  Partly it's the actual flies, partly it's because I've been thinking about what a GMO salmon fly would look like. Let's just file that under "inspiration marinade" for a while.

And yep, I mentioned Barbie, fly tying, and GMO in the same post.

Early spring flowers are already peeking up through the soil. I read an old bit of farm lore yesterday: When you see daffodils starting to bloom, it's time to sow your peas. I'm still wary of the 2 months of frost we have, but maybe I'll try it out.
{And yes, I'm aware there isn't a daffodil to be seen in this drawing, but I thought it was spring-y.}

A weekend of progress

This is how we started off on Saturday. Pulling down the old ceiling which was water damaged from a roof leak and a couple of tiles were actually falling down.

Inspired by Abbey's ability to get stuff done, I set a goal to finish the room this weekend. So what if it was totally unrealistic? By 7 PM Saturday the room looked like this. (We're waiting to see how much/if the bead board will settle before trying to pull it flat around the edges.)

Then on Sunday morning I woke up at 6:30 while the other 2 2-leggers in the house slept for.another.2.hours. and touched up the paint, moved the orange rug back in and did a little bit of laundry purging.

When we demoed the closets to make the laundry area we saved the wood from the shelving. My granddad built the shelving from construction scraps and old army crate wood. I liked the idea of reintegrating them into the house somehow--you know, keep his industrious spirit a part of the place. The legs to this low table came from some of those shelves. I asked Charlie to make me a 56" long x 22" wide shelf in different types of wood so we wouldn't feel obligated to make it all matchy matchy.I like how it's rustic. Add a few houseplants on it and then we're really talking!


So maybe it's not totally finished, but it's so much better than this, right?

Still to do: Add ornamental trim around the door area to the washer/dryer to keep the look of woodwork uniform with the rest of the house;
hang bi-fold doors to hide the washer/dryer area;
paint trim white;
add sewing table top;
replace blinds with something (anything!) more attractive;
change the rug - I don't want to keep the orange rug, but since we already have it (no more money to spend on this project), for now it stays.

Furniture Funk Friday

All this heavy political talk, let's move onto something lighter, shall we? My mom is on the hunt for a media stand for below their flat screen TV. Despite the scale of everything in this room, the TV is big, but so is the wall. I think the TV is something like a 50", the cabinet I've posted in this poorly photoshopped image is 53" long, and pretty much true to scale with the wall.

The rest of their furniture is a collection of modern masterpieces from Eames, Eileen Gray and the ilk.

My mom and I were both thinking the West Elm cabinet in the {may I reiterate: poorly} mocked up picture up top would work, but now we're both thinking something warm and darker will do the trick. Perhaps something in walnut? Maybe even a fauxdenza?

Some immediate thoughts include both the Ledge by Urbancase, Gus* Bathurst Credenza, but when it comes down to it, knowing my dad's affinity for furniture with honest, straight forward materials combined with geometric form, this Skram unit would fit the bill. 

The question is, what would work with their other furniture and the scale of the room? Any suggestions?

Coconut Pumpkin Custard

Here's another sneaky way to get some veggies and vitamins into your diet: Coconut Pumpkin Custard! This post by Susy Morris, aka Chiot's Run, sparked an interest in custard, but I wanted a recipe for something not too heavy on the dairy. Miss M has dairy sensitivity, and easing up on the dairy keeps us all happier. After a little bit of searching for something close to what I had in mind, I found Gluten-Free Pumpkin Coconut Custard. Though I'm not sure custard usually has gluten, am I mistaken?

I roasted the cheese pumpkin I had on hand, and made a puree from it. Then went to work on the custard. I stuck pretty close to the recipe, which is unusual for me. I used closer to half a cup of sweetener (about 1/4 maple syrup, 1/4 molasses) and added about 2 teaspoons of grated, fresh ginger. While the custard was cooking I toasted some unsweetened coconut flakes and cashew pieces for a crunchy topping.

The result? A not-too-sweet, flavorful dish I can give the little one instead of sugar-loaded, organic soy yogurt!

A bonus? I saved the seeds from that delicious pumpkin to grow my own this coming summer!

Follow Up Politics

Good news! The NWF and Scotts have called it splitsville, which is especially good because all the facebook and twitter urging/activism I was doing was making me feel a bit obsessive. I was just *so* disappointed in them. 

The thing is, though, Scotts MiracleGro will continue to try "owning" the profitable realm of organics. While their corporate friend Monsanto will continue to "buy" rights to plants.

Even if you aren't wary of GMOs, we risk losing the resulting joy of simply pushing a seed into the ground to watch it flourish.


Farmers should be able to sue Monsanto, not just vice versa.
Monsanto is more than represented in the FDA. And another, similar petition here.

cramming vegetables every which way

I posted about watching Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead and the quest for a juicer, but haven't updated you since then. We found a juicer on Craigslist, a Champion 2000+, and though we haven't used it all the time like I thought we would, we've used it a handful of times. It has certainly inspired a different mindset in my dinner preparation, albeit accidentally. I went a little overboard buying produce to juice...as in the fridge was crammed full of collards, kale, chard, turnip greens, spinach, cauliflower and fruits.The result was a week crammed with veggies in every manner possible. Here's a little recap:

Creamy cauliflower and greens soup with grilled hummus sandwiches (I saw on Facebook Jen was having them and totally loved that idea)

This is a chicken, chard coconut curry sort of concoction. Martha Stewart has a recipe for Chicken Spinach Casserole, that's pretty good, but I didn't want all that cream. Instead I subbed the half and half with coconut milk, added curry powder, ginger and lemongrass and deleted the bread crumb topping.

Last night we had leftover stew. Basically the liquid is a quick chicken broth mixed with leftover cauliflower soup with shredded chicken, carrots and chard.

Thursday night I made a big ol' batch of green juice. The colors (before mixing together into a muddy green) were fantastic thanks to kale, apples, lemon, oranges, and carrots. Oddly enough, kale juice has a faint banana flavor to it. Who woulda known?

What's your favorite sneak-a-veggie recipe?