The Front Porch Swing

[perchie.girl]

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I love to learn about medicinal stuff. do you know the tree names?

deb

 

[perchie.girl]

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You are soo funny.....

I am doomed too. I am going to be 59 in four days. so (55) was a good year.

 

[perchie.girl]

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Most definately you need stainless if you are using an acid... even tomatoes are too Aciddiy (is that a word?) for Aluminum. From what I am reading if you do the bone broth right thos bones will crumble to the touch when they have give up all their goodness. And you can use them in the compost heap or as a bone meal for plants... Which ever plants need bone meal... LOL.

deb

 

[perchie.girl]

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Do you still have some of the crystals? um er Mother? What ever its called. Any hoo the Nurished kitchen site uses fruit juices... too.

deb

 

[lazy gardener]

And I'm awondering about veg garden. I'm finding planting and weeding this year a little more back breaking than I used to. So I'm thinking, what do you all think, about making it all perennials. Can you get a decent harvest with just perennials? What other perennials could I add to the mix? Are there annuals you would sadly miss and crave?

So I have chives, rhubarb, strawberries, garlic, spinach, rasberries, squash volunteers from last years dumps, many many herbs, can you live off that? Hoping so.

How big was your last garden? Most people cultivate way more soil than they need. There are a lot of energy and back saving strategies that you can incorporate to allow you to still garden. But, if you don't really enjoy gardening, cut back to the absolute minimum: perhaps a big plant pot or 2 on the deck with a tomato and cucumber, a window box for lettuce and herbs. Use lettuce as a decorative border in your flower garden. A purple cabbage would be a decorative accent plant in the flower garden. Scarlet runner beans are both decorative and tasty. (though i have my personal preference for beans, and won't waver in my own yard!) Other back saving strategies include hay or straw bale gardening. Be sure to locate it near a hose, because it needs lots of water daily. Trellis gardening: you'll never have to bend over if you're growing pole beans and cucumbers on a trellis. Same with tomatoes in tall cages. I won't even grow a bush bean b/c i want to stand up straight (for the most part) when i pick beans, then i can pop them right in the pot instead of having to bend over to pick bush beans then wash the mud off them. Mulch. If your garden is covered with a deep layer of mulch, all you'll have to do is plant, and harvest... no weeds. Grow only what you'll use. Perhaps one zucchini, one tomato, one cucumber, one 4 x 4 or 4 x 8 bed for all of your greens. Potatoes and corn are plant it, mulch it, and forget it until harvest crops. A well planned garden that is work free has no visible soil after it has been growing for 3 - 4 weeks. The wide row greens have expanded to shade the soil, the paths are covered with mulch. Any visible soil is covered with mulch. You can walk through it after or even during a heavy rain without getting any mud on your feet. Bottom line is: grow what you love to grow, and love to eat. If you don't enjoy the growing, visit the farmer's market! There's no shame in not having a garden.

Yes, it's a math thing ... and I was born in an easy year for doing age math ('65). I've been saying "I'm almost 50" for so long I have confused myself. I have to think about my sister, who is a year older, and then subtract 1. And still that's sometimes too much math. So ... even with truth things can get confusing!

We're doomed. Doomed, I say. DOOMED!

(stil not worth telling fibs ...)

Leslie, there's no shame in not knowing how old you are. Some years when my birthday rolls around and i do the math, i figure out that i've been the wrong age + or - for the last year, sometimes off by 2 years. I almost always have to stop and do the math if someone asks for my age. Which is 58 if i'm counting my fingers correctly!

Um, so at this point I guess confessing to loving a steaming bowl of Campbell's creme of tomato soup with a big blop of butter and a balogna sammich would be a sacrilege??

No shame here either Blooie. If you like it, enjoy it. Ever had fried cheese? Not the deep fat battered cheese, but take a chunk of real cheese (I like sharp cheddar) drop it in a frying pan, and cook it until it melts, and all of the liquid yellow fat melts out of it. You're left with a crisp "cheese chip" full of holes. Totally yummy! An other good one is toasted colby cheese sandwich with sliced tomato!

I need to find people who want to trade eggs for plants

Now, that's a win/win situation. I'm trading eggs for raw honey.

 

[perchie.girl]

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I have one of those BIG crockpots that will take a very large chicken. And a workbench in the garage that NO one uses.... Hmmm
Thanks for giving me some ideas.... My big issue here is its Grandmas Kitchen and she hates having extra stuff on the counters. Bad enough I am a lousy house keeper....
deb

 

[Tomtommom]

We made homemade yogurt for the first time on Monday. Got a gallon of organic milk for $5. It was on sale

The regular stuff was $4.09. I never buy organic, too expensive. Anyway. Some Fage yogurt was $1.50 So a gallon of organic yogurt for $6.50 that not bad at all! The kids love it. I used old pickle jars for the yogurt (so thrifty

).

We made homemade icecream yesterday. DH had an icecream machine (been in storage for years)... dummy didn't check to see if it still worked

So we ended up trying different ways to make it. We succeeded in the end, but man, stirring for an hour in a bowl within a bowl is a bit much. Kids thought it was great though. Oh childhood... haha


I miss my husband so much. .. He needs a new job, something with less hours. I've been there, I was a General Manager at a restaurant until October 2012... working 50+ hours on the job and then at home you're on call and doing things like schedules. You're never off work. Ever. Now he's the General Manager at a restaurant.... same load of crap. Phone ringing all the time. He's on the computer at all hours, checking sales and making schedules etc. Sad to say for us college drop-outs that never learned a trade, fast food managing is about the only thing that pays decently..... but there's got to be something better. Neither one of us is dumb by any means.. we just get easily distracted. We don't know what we want to do for a living. We just want to live.

I've worked from home for a while, doing artwork on commission basis.. but with kids it's hard to focus. I kind of miss working, but when we both worked we REALLY never saw eachother. One came home, the other headed out the door. We had money, but what good is money when life is passing you by?

*sigh*

I want less stuff. Less clutter. It helps us focus on the important stuff: being together. That's all the kids really want. Spend time with us. They're still at an age that they enjoy that. The 6 year old loves playing board games with us and loves cooking and baking with me. I love the internet, but I wish this whole 'connected 24/7 via cell phone' crap would go away

Jobs shouldn't be able to call you at all hours. I want the simple life. I need to declutter so I can focus on that again.

 

[lazy gardener]

Rocky raccoon has tripped the trap 2 nights in a row, but not been caught. He's taunting me. I heard the trap spring around 5 AM this morning. I think i need to add about a foot of extra wire to the back end so he has to go past the spring pad to get his treat. Yet an other project to add to the never ending list.

 

[perchie.girl]

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Very interesting..... http://www.egyptianwalkingonion.com/

deb

 

[perchie.girl]

Um, so at this point I guess confessing to loving a steaming bowl of Campbell's creme of tomato soup with a big blop of butter and a balogna sammich would be a sacrilege??

Now I am hungry.....

I like my sammich with lots of mayo too. A blop of sour cream would be nice too.

deb