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It’s been a quiet week. According to the Johnny’s Seed Catalog, once you reach 10 hours of daylight, you can plant cool season greens in a cold frame. My favorite sunrise/sunset calculator says that for my latitude, this occurs on February 15th. Alas, while that may be true on paper, we have a nice sized hill to the west, so even though sunset yesterday was supposed to be 5:01 pm, we actually lost sun in the yard at about 4:15 pm. We ARE gaining about 3 1/2 minutes of extra daylight a day right now, so it IS coming.
In the meantime, we do our best to take full advantage of the sunlight we do get. The best thing about February? It’s NOT January.
Miles Away Farm Blog © 2011, where we’re sucking it up, one photon at a time.
The last of my mother-in-law’s red potatoes, grown this year, and a Yukon Gold as well. The skins on both were a bit worse for wear, and so the potatoes ended up mostly peeled.
Years ago I took a class taught under the nutrition department at San Jose State University. The professor was really just a foodie (an expression that likely hadn’t been invented yet) and the class turned out to be a grown up version of home ec, where we explored different ethnic cuisines both across the US and world-wide. For the final, we wrote up and prepared for the class a dish that represented our own ethnic heritage. It was one of the best classes I took during my first stint in college.
This was actually three different carrot varieties, including one called “rainbow”. Why seed catalogs don’t just put together a mixed color carrot packet like they do with lettuce is beyond me. My current favorite carrot (at least for Colorado) was Napa, which had great taste, wasn’t too long, and grew well (no splitting) in clay soils.
I am a connoisseur of seed catalogs. I spend hours pouring over them, comparing prices and circling what’s on my “wish list”. Ever wonder why anyone would order from a catalog and pay shipping when you can just go down to your local hardware store and pick up a packet of seeds? One word. Selection. You just can’t beat a catalog with 18 different varieties of carrots, complete with information on type, length, season, soil preference and color, along with a tantalizing picture. Read the rest of this entry »
Clean? Seriously, who cares? Now rub my belly.
Or… more than you wanted to know about me and natural cleaning products!
I hate house cleaning (OK, who doesn’t). When I was a pre-teen, my mother had this wonderful pen and ink drawing of a woman in a long dress. In her hands was a broom, broken in half. The caption read F*#K HOUSEWORK. (Click here to see a copy if you’d like.) I understand exactly. It’s not the actual work which I mind. I love jobs where I can really see the results after I am done, and my detail oriented side will get out a toothbrush to get into that grimy corner that a sponge won’t reach. It’s just that it never ends. You sweep the floors, and a few days later, they need to be swept again. Such is the nature of entropy. Read the rest of this entry »
All plants in the cole family (also known as brassicas) have this clover-like appearance when they first come up. This is some type of mustard.
I love to grow things. I really think it’s genetic. When you trace my mother’s ancestry back to my great great great grandfather, who lived in the Yorkshire area of England, and look at the census form under occupation, it says “gardener”. This same grandmother ran a floral shop in Twin Falls Idaho for years. Read the rest of this entry »
I have a bit of a love hate relationship with Christmas. On the one hand, I understand the feeling of belonging, joy and contentment everyone is striving for, and at times, have experienced them myself. But the mish-mash of obligation, sentimentality, rampant consumerism, outright greed and a religious story I simply do not buy into (no offence meant to those who do) often leaves me understanding what Scrooge meant by “bah, humbug”.
What I DO love, of course, is the cooking. Nothing like a great pot of soup on the stove and cookies baking in the oven to make me feel all warm and snug and allow me to share my love with others in, what to me, is a genuine way. One of my favorite holiday traditions is drinking wassail, which really just means a hot mulled cider of some sort. Read the rest of this entry »
This is NOT all of them – but most of them are in here somewhere.
I have a lot of herbs and spices. A lot. At one point, in an attempt to get all of the little bulk bags organized many years ago, I ordered glass jars from Penzeys spice company, and made spread sheet labels for all of the jars. (That may seem a little extreme, but I’m a terrible speller, and this allowed me to spell check everything. Is Rosemary with one R or two? You get the idea.) I had 75 labels! I think when I was teaching myself to cook, buying a new herb or spice made me feel all grown up and sophisticated. I
Years ago, I was able to visit the island of Grenada, and see an actual nutmeg tree. This is what the spice looks like on the tree, before the hull breaks open to reveal the nut inside.
remember buying some mace for a recipe, and then having it sit in a cupboard for years until I realized it was related to nutmeg, and I could just substitute it in until I had used it up. I’ve never bought that one again. Read the rest of this entry »
This pheasant was a recent visitor to my feeders, cleaning up the spilled seed, along with the Junco on the right.
I have a background in Ornithology (the study of birds) almost by accident. When I went back to school in the mid ’90’s to get a degree in Biology, I was determined to come out of school with experience I could put on a resume (with my first degree, I had failed to do this, and I had learned my lesson). While looking for a summer job, I saw a posting for field research with the Montana Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit, in the mountains of Arizona. The job was “nest searching”, that is, looking for the nests of birds, and monitoring them to see if they were successful. It paid a whopping $500 per month (it’s gone up considerably in the last 15 years) and we worked 12 days on/two days off (still the case today) while camping and living in tents. But most importantly, no experience was necessary. Sign me up. Read the rest of this entry »
Our recently plowed field is now tucked in for the winter.
In the past, I have always loved snow more than I have hated snow. I love the way it transforms the landscape. I love the way it blankets and shelters the earth and all its growing things. I love that there are animals that are so well adapted to snow that this is the season when the thrive (I saw a great Nature special the other day on the Wolverine. What a wicked cool winter loving animal). Read the rest of this entry »
I woke up this morning and listened to a report on NPR about how the long-term unemployment numbers have not been this high since the great depression. Our house in Colorado has not sold. Our income is down considerably. I left a good paying job that I loved to move to the Inland Northwest to farm, but getting the farm going is slow due to limited cash. It’s cold and rainy. My husband is in Walla Walla most of the week. Was I nuts? Read the rest of this entry »
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