Learn a second language

Any time Gene and I watch a movie and there are chickens in the background, we always chuckle about how noisy the movie chickens are.  It's such a cliche.  Watch any western or medieval movie/tv show and invariably there's a loud clucking flock of chickens somewhere, bawk bawking like the entire flock is laying eggs at the same time: buck buck baw-KAWK!

We got our first batch of three chicks Memorial Day weekend in 2008.  Coincidentally, that's also when I met my good friend, Dena.  The law in our county states that you must buy a minimum of six chicks at once from feed stores.  It's meant to prevent people from buying cute baby animals they can't care for and will eventually kill due to neglect.  Dena was advertising on Craigslist to split a 6-pack of chicks.  I responded and we've been friends ever since, both of our flocks growing as well.  Though Tacoma has about 200,000 residents, Dena and I have found over the years that we know a number of people in common.  Small town, indeed.

I digress.

Of that starter flock, Gwen and Nugget are still with us.  We now have nine hens and I can tell you that hens are fairly low on the noise spectrum, making far less noise than the neighbor's dogs that never stop barking.  Ever.  The exception in our flock is the screechy Polish Crested named Beaker.  That neurotic bird can make a ton of noise when she's feeling insecure or the others are picking on her.

Last weekend I headed for the front yard to do some weeding and get my veggie garden started.  I took the dog - who at some point rolled in something horrific and later required a bath - and allowed the hens to come with us.  It takes them a while to build up enough confidence to stray very far from the bushes against the house but invariably a few always do.  This time I looked up and saw Gwen and Croquette scratching in the dirt where I'd just weeded.  Later in the day Miss Piggy, Curry, and even Dozer joined the dog and me on the parking strip.

I enjoyed the company of the animals while I weeded.  The dog kept watch (when she wasn't rolling in stinky compost somewhere) while the hens aerated the soil and did their best to reduce the various bug populations.  As I worked I listened to them and realized that I can recognize each individual just by her unique "voice".  It reminded me ot an article I'd read some time back that a researcher had discovered that chickens make about 24 different vocalizations. 

Without seeing the girls, I can tell you when Animal is getting picked on, when Croquette has found a black beetle (she's the only bird of the whole flock who makes that particular noise for that particular bug), when a broody Beaker has ventured out of the nest, when Dozer is watching the others, when Curry wants to be picked up, when Nugget is alarmed by the dog, and when Gwen is frustrated that I'm moving her away from where I'm swinging a hand tool.

From inside the house we know when an egg has been laid and when the girls are stressed or scared, such as when a falcon is parked on the telephone wire above the yard.  In the morning we can hear them in the coop, softly clucking their discontent at being locked up while daylight's burning.

Not only does each situation have a unique sound assigned to it, but each bird has a distinct voice.  When Curry wanders into the house we always know when it's her because of her deep "braaaaawkk".  Croquette is our little chatty Cathy, constantly cooing and blucking to us.  Dozer is also chatty but in slightly different situations.

If you have chickens, spend some time learning their language.  You'll come to understand them better and enjoy them that much more.  Besides, it's fun to listen to them and know what they're doing just by the sounds they make.  I'm not sure I could identify the 24 unique sounds, but I could probably come close.

As I was wrapping up my yardwork chores, my neighbor drove up, rolled down his window, and started to chuckle.  I looked up to see what was going on when he said, "you look like Doctor Doolittle with all those animals in the yard with you." 

I looked up to see Rosemary at the top of the little slope, surveying the domain.  Five hens were tilling the soil of the slope right beneath Rosemary, fluffy butts on full display.  And Mira, my 14-year-old black cat, was sitting primly on the stairs, eyeing the hens warily (she hates the chickens with a passion).

The sight warmed my heart and me chuckle, too.

Here are some sample chicken noises:
A broody hen
Hen showing her chicks where food is
The "egg song"
Content hens (eating)
Dust-bathing hens (and this, my friends, is what destroys your yard)

Crying uncle

I spent much of the weekend doing much-needed gardening, even taking Friday afternoon off work because the rainy weather had given way to a day of relative sunniness. I put in 3 days of exhausting labor but am proud of the results.

Two of the three parking strip raised beds are prepped and ready for spring. The dirt in all three beds settled quite a bit in the past year so I sacrificed one bed to fill the others. I'm pleased to see how healthy the dirt has become: it's filled with wriggling earthworms.

In one of the beds I planted new asparagus roots, potatoes, and green onions. As soon as I get my hands on some strawberry starts, those will go in with the asparagus. Last year I planted asparagus on my front right slope in the hopes that it would be a good fit for that spot.

It wasn't.  In fact, not a single shoot has appeared this spring.  "Uncle!"

I'm going to just give up on that section of the yard.  It's never been a good spot for a garden and is subject to winter erosion.  It won't be hard to let it return to grass - it's nearly there.  (OK, truth be told I'm only going to give up on the left half of this slope; the right half will host my artichokes, more rhubarb, blueberries, and whatever else I feel like planting there.)


Front yard, right slope


Getting back to the raised veggie garden: the second bed contains over-wintered leeks and celery. To them I added some lettuce, spinach, and bush peas this weekend.  I'll do successive plantings in the coming weeks to stretch out the harvests of each.  After I get more dirt for the third bed I'll  plant tomatoes and tomatillos in it.  I'm hoping we'll put in 2 additional beds on the parking strip this spring as well.  Likely plantings include parsnips, basil, carrots, squash, eggplants, and other stuff yet-to-be-decided.


Veggie beds on the parking strip


The left slope in the front yard, which is a combo of herbs and flowers, is newly weeded and even got an infusion of plant starts from my grandma's yard. 


Front yard, left slope

The backyard, after a winter of being ravaged by chickens, got my full attention on Sunday.  Unfortunately my work made me feel like the movie "Groundhog's Day": didn't I just go through this?  A year ago I rototilled the large chicken run, planted grass, and put fences around the more vulnerable plants.  By fall the grass was gone and many of the plants were barely clinging to life.  The hens' larger run was a disgusting mud pit and we still haven't dealt with the drainage issue.

View from back porch


On Sunday I did what I could to make the yard better.  I again tilled the soil, this time by hand, raked, and replanted grass.  I transplanted the remaining plants to other parts of the yard and left only the shrubs and raspberry plants.  The rest will be grass.  It'll be good for Rosemary to have a little more room to crap and run.  The chickens are relegated henceforth to their smaller run, which is probably 7'x15'.  They've been bitching to be let out ever since.


View of backyard from garage toward coop (out of view)

I've officially given up on having a vegetable garden in the backyard.  Last summer did me in and I just can't handle the disappointment of it.  I tried for several years, years that included some very nice summers, to grow things like artichokes, peas, and green onions.  Every attempt was mostly a failure.  Last summer was unusually cool and yet the parking strip garden out-performed the backyard's best years.  "Uncle!"

View of new cut garden

My former veggie garden has yielded way to a cut flower garden containing mostly things from Grandma's yard.  I even got a start from her rhubarb, which I believe was itself a start from rhubarb on my great-grandparents' farm on Fox Island (my great-grandfather gave WA State the 40' of waterfront property where the bridge lands, and if you know Fox Island, the flag pole you can see from that spot was erected by my ancestors).  Keep your fingers crossed that it survives. It's always been a prolific plant and I'm hopeful it'll do well at my house.

Has this rhubarb lasted 4 generations?

The new cut flower garden is joined by a birdfeeder from Grandma's yard, and will be bordered by more grass.  I had gotten rid of over half of the grass since buying this house nearly 8 years ago, during which time my life has changed dramatically.  I hadn't even met Gene when I moved in, and hosted just 2 of the dozen animals that now live here with us.  Having a little more grass will make our itty bitty yard seem more open and make it more welcoming to our friends' young children.

I still feel kinda bad about planting grass, though.  But sometimes you've just gotta cry "uncle".

Sauteed parsnips with rosemary honey

I'd been meaning to drive to Tenino, where my friend Lisa has her Lucky Pig Farm, so that I could pick up some things before Christmas.  I never made it but, luckily for me, she drives through Tacoma weekly and we were able to connect. 

There's always a voice in the back of my head whenever I'm meeting someone in a parking lot to buy a non-commercial, locally raised product like meat or honey.  That voice says, "So, ya got da stuff?"  Cracks me up.

Lisa brought me a fresh chicken.  I roasted that guy up with some thyme from my yard, olive oil, salt, and pepper.

While the chicken was roasting, I made these parsnips.  I had dug them out of my garden a while back, pleasantly surprised at how big they'd gotten.  Parsnips are easily one of my favorite winter vegetable.  I love the sweetness they develop after being cooked.

SAUTEED PARSNIPS WITH ROSEMARY HONEY
adapted very slightly from epicurious.com

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 pound large parsnips, peeled, halved lengthwise, cored, cut into sticks
Coarse kosher salt
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon rosemary-infused honey

Heat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add parsnips.  Sprinkle with coarse kosher salt and pepper. Sauté until parsnips are beginning to brown at edges, about 12 minutes.

Add butter, rosemary, and honey to parsnips. Toss over medium heat until heated through and vegetables are glazed, about 5 minutes. Season to taste with more salt and pepper, if desired.

I finished off the meal with some aspargus from my pantry and voila!  A 100% local meal.

On a side note, I'm in awe of how big my kitchen looks when the counters are clear... wow.

Well preserved

Even though I've declared the canning season over, I'm still preserving various foods. 

Local bell peppers were dirt cheap a couple of weeks ago.  The farmers market had them 3/$1.  I bought them like crazy, then getting home with my bounty... and scratching my head about what to do with them.

After hanging onto them for longer than was probably reasonable, I decided to fire-roast them, whir them in the food processor, and freeze in ice cube trays.

This winter I'll use these cubes of deliciousness in pasta sauce, pizza, breads, and soups.  Yum!

I also recently got a dehydrator over the summer.  It was $15 on craigslist in a nearby city called Buckley.  Unfortunately, there's no easy way to get there from here without going through stripmall hell.  I hadn't been there in years, so what the heck did I know?  It wound up being a pretty - and pretty long - drive on a late summer evening.

These little black cherry tomatoes were picked as little green orbs and ripened in a box on the floor of the dining room.  I didn't get a single ripe tomato straight from the yard.  Every single one was ripened in the house.

Same with these tomatoes.

The big box of tomatoes became just 2 pint jars of shriveled burgundy chips.  They're slated for many of the same uses as the bell peppers.  I dried them to a pretty tough state to avoid problems of spoilage due to moisture.  Some went into olive oil and the rest are just in jars.  Hubbie picked up a tub of dried tomatoes and wryly said, "this jar is really expensive".

Such a romantic, that man.

Fifth time's the charm

After 4 summers in a row of failed attempts, I have finally succeeded in cultivating eggplant.  Behold the fruit of my parking strip:

Isn't it pretty??  There are some slug nibbles but it's otherwise good.  The flesh is smooth, deep purple, and feels heavy for its size.  Perfect!

Nevermind.

Tomatillo salsa verde

Two years ago I was bitten by the canning bug.  That summer I made my first batch of salsa verde and we loved it.  For reasons I can't remember - probably due to a September wedding and honeymoon - no new jars were made last year.

When it came time this spring to plant our veggies, I insisted that tomatillos be among the selection.  Indeed, I devoted about 1/6 of my total space to them, hoping for a bumper crop.

Summer 2010 had other plans for our heat-loving plantings.  Out of some 8 plants, I got just 1 dishpan full of useable fruit.  At least the fruit were unblemished, as earwigs and slugs don't seem to like them.

I had also planted 2 jalapenos for the umpteenth time, hoping that *this* was the year I'd get some peppers.  I finally did get some but only after I had given up and bought some from sunnier eastern Washington.  Now I was stuck with 35 jalapeno peppers and nothing to do with them.

Oh yeah... tomatillos + jalapenos = salsa verde!

This is a quick and easy recipe.  Pop open a bright green jar for Super Bowl, marinate some pork in it, or eat with your favorite enchilada recipe.  It's one of my favorite things to make and can.

From the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving

Tomatillo Salsa
Makes ~4 8-ounce jars

5.5 cups chopped, cored, husked tomatillos (food processer much faster than knife)
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped, seeded jalapenos (remove membrane and seeds to reduce heat)
1/2 cup white vinegar
4 tbsp lime juice
4 cloves garlic
2 tbsp cumin
1/2 tsp salt (be conservative on the salt - tomatillos seem to get salty quickly)
1/2 hot pepper flakes (omit if using whole jalapenos)

1. Prepare canner, jars, and lids.
2. In a large, stainless steel saucepan, combine ingredients and bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring constantly.  Reduce heat and boil gently 10 minutes.
3. If you prefer a smooth salsa, puree with a food processor or stick blender.
4. Put salsa into jars and leave 1/2 inch headspace.
5. Process 15 minutes once jars have come to a boil in a water bath canner.

There were enough tomatillos and jalapenos from my garden to make 11 pints and 3 half-pints of salsa verde.  It's pretty dang spicy... and pretty dang good.

Purple veggies

When I pulled up all of my potatoes I made a nice little discovery: the purple beans I had planted were just 8" tall but covered with beans.

OK, this was the entire crop.  But aren't they pretty?

I pulled up a few of my "Cosmic Purple" carrots.  They're still small but check out this color.

I've left the rest of them in the ground and will plant a fall crop in the front yard in the hopes of getting more out there.  Last year I regretted not having planted more carrots.  Home-grown carrots are just so... so... "carroty". 

The orange carrots are basic Nantes variety, nothing special, but still tasty.

Squash & Windows

A few of my yellow squash got away from me:

Oops.

The front garden is going gang-busters.  I dug up a 5-gallon bucket of potatoes recently and tonight we'll have the gorgeous head of broccoli that is looking perfect.

Last weekend I spent many hours refurbishing one of the original double-hung sash windows in our 1924 Craftsmen home.  It's not done yet - I still have to replace the glass and paint the frame - but it's now 100% functional.  That's more than I can for any other window in our entire house.  Most of the other windows can open a little but not all the way.  My next project will be to get them all to 100%.

Should you ever wish to tackle such a project, I highly recommend the book "Working Windows" by Terry Meany.  (Disclaimer: Mr. Meany doesn't know who I am nor do I get a dime for endorsing the book.)

I'll post pics as soon as we can locate the battery charger for the camera.  I know I saw it around somewhere...

Squash-n-Dash

August is the official opening of a perennial sport in the Pacific Northwest, called "Squash-n-Dash".  Here's how you play:

1. In the spring plant 2-3 summer squash plants of any variety.  Most people plant a variety of zucchini or yellow squash.  My plant of choice was yellow squash and the egg shells were to prevent blossom-end rot.

2. Weed, water, and watch for the next 3-4 months.

3. In August, you'll start getting squash.  Lots and lots and lots of squash.  So many squash, in fact, that you now have enough to give to friends, co-workers, neighbors, and strangers driving slowly past your house with their windows down.

4. Go to farmers market and purchase, for $2, the type of squash you didn't plant because "oh, wouldn't those be great grilled?!".

5. Later that day, a neighbor, friend, co-worker, or person driving slowly past your house with the windows down will drop off a box of squash bounty, grin widely, and dash away. 

You, my friend, have been an unwitting player in a game of "Squash-n-Dash".  It's the rick-roll of the gardening world.

On a positive note, I got to introduce my 62-year-old father to the wonder of grilled squash.  He texted me the next day to tell me that he'd bought his own set of BBQ skewers so that he could start grilling vegetables.

Wonder if he'd like some squash?

Herbage

Would the real parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme please stand up?

I cheated last week.  I used stock photos.  I hang my head in shame and confess my sins to you now.  The above pics are mine.  Really.

I'm so sorry.

Moving on.

I'm trying to expand my herb vocabulary, by which I mean planting herbs beyond the ones shown above.  I recently bought a stevia plant, a natural sweetener, and a savory plant, a key ingredient in herbes de provence.

Unfortunately it's been too hot to transplant so they, along with a few lemon cucumber plants, are languishing in the shade of my lilac until either the temps cool a bit or we get some rain.  I have a feeling it's going to be a while.

Last summer a friend gave me several bunches of fresh herbs, which I dried hanging from a hook in the kitchen.  I'm ashamed to admit that there are still lavendar bits on the lamp shade.  Maybe I should dust one of these days.

Nah.  It'll only get schmutz on it next time, right?

Drying your own herbs is so cheap.  I love that because I'm on the frugal side.  Why buy it if you can make it yourself?  Tie it up tightly with some twine, hang it up, and then crush it into jars when it's crinkly.  Easy peasy.  I'll collect some and hang it pretty soon.

Next up is heading to my grandma's house for some mint.  I'm going to dig some up and put in a pot on my back porch.  G-man loves mint tea in the winter and it's silly to let all that mint go to waste.  I'll also cut a whole bunch down to dry.

My yard also has:

• marjoram - new to my garden this year
• dill - I hope it will ripen next month when it's time for pickles
• chives - plan to snip it & freeze it
• lavendar - I dried lots last summer, so won't do any this year
• parsley & cilantro that have both bolted... darn
• basil - whomever said to plant basil under tomatoes ignored the fact that tomatoes get bushy and basil needs sun... liar liar pants on fire!
• oregano - this stuff's like mint: once you have it, it'll sprout out of any crack or crevice it can find in the yard

Once I get my herbs put up for the winter, I'll figure out how to use them!

Front yard

It's official.  The veggie garden on the parking strip is a wild success.

The tomatoes are so gorgeous and lush that the basil I planted under them never had a chance.

I turned my back on the tomatillos (back, left) for a week and they went from about 8" tall to nearly 3' tall.  They've grown several inches since I took this pic last weekend!  The celery (rear right) is growing well; it was another experiment.  This weekend I'll rip out the lettuce and bolted spinach.  The leeks - middle left - are coming along very well, though I think they need more dirt.

The potatoes grew so big that I had to stake them up to protect the adjacent plants.  Our cold, wet spring stunted much of the garden so that when the heat finally turned up some things, like the parsley and peas (front) bolted instantly.  Oh well.

Anyone going to want some yellow squash?  I feel a bumper crop coming on.

Artichokes

I've tried to grow artichokes for 4 years, sometimes from seed and other years from starts.  Always in the back yard.

It appears that this year's $2.50 artichoke planted in the front yard looks to have been worth its price, with no fewer than 5 chokes on it!

Happy dance!

We're officially giving up on the backyard's veggie garden.

Vote for your favorite farmers market

I voted!  Have you?



More pictures of Rosemary & the garden coming as soon as I get them off the camera.  I'll have plenty of yellow squash to foist upon give people pretty soon!  And artichokes, oh my.  Can't wait!

Did anyone else get the Simon & Garfunkel earworm from yesterday's post?  I've had "Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme" in my head for d-a-y-s.

When it's too hot to cook

SmittenKitchen.com is one of my favorite food blogs.  Deb's recipes are fresh and vibrant.  Most of her stuff is desserts but she does branch out into the savories from time to time.

Last week she posted this recipe for mango slaw with cashews and mint.  Since it had been too darn hot to cook, and G-man was at a Mariners baseball game, I made it for myself.

Regretably the main ingredients are not grown locally.  At all.  The only local things were the mint and onion, which came from my yard.  I added some frozen shrimp to make this a main dish, had it with some chilled wine, and voila: a no-cook summer dinner perfect for 90-degree weather.

My dining entertainment was provided by, well, nothing.  Here are my carrots and potatoes, neither of which is having a stellar season.  I suspect both will be cancelled for the 2011 season (i.e. we're going to seed 1/2 of this bed with grass and move the rest of the veggies into the front yard).

As for the recipe, it needed a little oomph.  I think it was missing fish sauce because it lacked that certain je ne sais quoi for which Thai cuisine shines.

Independence (from imported foods) Day

Time got away from me and I didn't get a chance last week to show you the yumminess that we enjoyed on the 4th of July!  It was, except for condiments and minor ingredients, an entirely grown-in-Washington meal.

We had brats from Cheryl the Pig Lady. (note: I've since found a closer supplier of pork and befriended her.  I'll post a blog about her soon!)

The sauerkraut is from my garden last summer.  In fact, I had an accident with the food processor shredder blade while making this particular batch and suffered a very deep cut in my right thumb. It was pretty bad... and then it got worse with an infection.  Even now, a year later, I still don't have full feeling in the pad of my right thumb.  

Lesson: use both hands to remove the blade from the food processor.  Respect the sharpness.  I'll make more sauerkraut this fall when my cabbage is ready.  And I'll be super careful with that food processor.

Those are local grape tomatoes, and lettuce from our garden, topped with a homemade raspberry vinaigrette.  I made the raspberry vinegar last summer and the honey was, of course, local, too.

Look at this warm German potato salad!  The pickles were from my last jar of dill pickles that I made 2 years ago, the parsley was from my yard.  Does the mustard I used count as local if my friends who brought it from Germany last year bought it in Germany and presented it to us as a gift?

Yes, the irony of German food on the American Independence Day isn't lost on me. 

We also had local corn, a distinctly American feast.

About 3 hours later we were ready for dessert, which was a royal treat.  I made my favorite lava cakes from TastyKitchen.com.  They're so bad but so good.

I topped the cakes with even more terrible things: a modified (read: "somewhat healthier") version of this vanilla ice cream and homemade hot fudge sauce.

Notice how yellow the ice cream is?  That's due to the deep orange color of our girls' egg yolks right now, caused by diets rich in bugs and greens.  G-man thought I'd made lemon ice cream!

Let's get back to the potato salad for a minute.  Last summer 2 friends visited from Munich and taught me how to make a true German potato salad.  They bickered back & forth in German like an old married couple as they made it, cracking us up.  If you don't like dill pickles, leave them out: this was a serious point of contention between the 2 Munichers, who couldn't agree whether pickles were authentic.

Warm German Potato Salad (recipe vaguely adapted from one found at allrecipes.com)

Ingredients
4-6 large-ish red and yellow potatoes (waxy type)
1/2 stick unsalted butter
1 small onion, diced
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon honey
2 tablespoons spicey mustard
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
1/2 medium-sized dill pickle, diced

Directions
1. Place the potatoes into a pot, and fill with enough water to cover. Bring to a boil, and cook for about 20-25 minutes, or until easily pierced with a fork. Drain, and set aside to cool. Once cooled, cut into thin slices and put into a large bowl.

2. Place the butter and onion in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Cook until the onions and butter are brown.  Remove from the pan and set aside.

3. In a small bowl whisk the butter-onion mixture with vinegar, water, mustard, honey, salt and pepper.  Adjust ingredients to get the desired level of tangy sweetness, then pour over the potatoes.  Add pickles if desired, then top with parsley.  Serve warm.
 
Because of a lack of highly perishable ingredients this recipe will keep well for a BBQ.  It can be chilled then brought to room temp quickly in a microwave.  Leftovers are great if heated slightly.

A photojournal

Here are some pics of a typical day for me.  I'll spare you the pics of my office.  These are pics from my lunch break and from my bike ride home.

Thursdays means the downtown farmers market in Tacoma.  It's only 5-6 blocks from my office building.  I came home with 2 lbs of red cherries for the hubbie.

My boss and I laughed about Infinite Soups a lot.

Fast forward to my bike-ride home.  I have to cross I-5, where I used to spend over 2 hours daily.  In the distance is the Tacoma Dome, which was built with wood downed during the 1980 Mt. Saint Helens eruption.

I love the old homes in my neighborhood, which was built in the 1920s. 

About 2 years ago I found 3 cases of pint-sized canning jars on this corner.

This house is the reason I took my camera with me on this trip.  They've used their space so well, both on their parking strip and in the miniscule front yard.  I ride by their house all the time and have enjoyed watching their veggies grow.  I anonymously dropped off some eggs in appreciation.  Hey, we've got about 5 dozen eggs right now!

Something tells me that they and their neighbors will have an abundance of squash this fall.

This house is a couple of blocks away.

I'd bet money that this yippy Jack Russell has an invisible fence.  I kind of like tormenting him a bit when I ride by on my bike.  I'm not proud of that.

This guy, Bill, lives down the block and kitty corner from us.  His front gardens over the years inspired my own.  We had a nice chat over the rotten weather and animals destroying our plants (his: dogs, mine: chickens).

(No idea why this pic wouldn't rotate.)  Here's Bill, showing off his garden to me and sharing my lament over the crappy cold weather.  He's on planting # 2 or 3 by now, too.

Need inspiration in your yard?  Take a walk.  Talk with your neighbors.  See what they're doing that works and what's not working.