Tiny Home?

We bought a used tiny cabin from some nice folks in mountain brook for $800. Only 8x8. We'd been exploring options for a camping / weekend stay type solution for our property which is 90 minutes from our main home and think this will be perfect. Also we'd been wanting a place to store a few garden tools we'd prefer to keep dry and not stolen. Had the cabin moved 90 miles by a tow truck company for $400. It's a bit teensy and empty at the moment, but thinking about putting a tiny wood burning stove (like you see in boats) for heating and some cooking, a futon and hammocks for seating and sleeping,  some solar panels for power, the upper loft for storage, a canopy, picnic table, and grill (or Cobb stove?) for outdoor living space, an outhouse and potentially an outdoor shower for an outdoor bathroom. 

A friend of ours built his grill from scratch using river rocks and I think it's just beautiful (pictures to come of that).

These first two pictures are the before shots before we bought the place.

Moving day:

Cabin in its new home (little knocked up from the move but help together rather well). Note: always make sure grounds super dry before moving these things. Truck for stuck. Neighbor with tractor came to the rescue but it was a bit of a mess. "City people" mistake. 

My new chicken flock

Here are my babies as of 4/9. First round of them I bought on 3/21 from a farmer on one end of town. From him, I bought 2 Dominiques, 2 Ameracaunas, and 2 Buff Orpingtons (supposedly). 1 of the yellow chicks died 2 days after arrival. The other, suspiciously began developing dark feathers. Then one week later I bought 2 marans (ostensibly blue marans) from a farmer on the other end of town. 1 ended up being a black copper maran. I sure hope the one blue ends up a girl. She's my favorite!

Today, I finally bought a coop. Really thought I'd have more time, but they're already really good at flying and clearly ready for a larger home. Made a temporary pen outside, and they ran around very very excited. I think they're ready for their new home (with a heat light of course).

Anyone know what the yellow chick with dark feathers is?

Here's a picture of them when I first got them

Chickens for the urban backyard flock

I'm a little torn. These are my top contenders all available from breeders near Birmingham except Araucana which I can't find anywhere.  Incidentally all the eggs from these birds are either brown or blue except the hamburg which is white. White egg birds are usually smaller (and eat less). Leghorns have the highest egg ratio for feed cost of any egg layer but they're flighty and not usually as friendly as these listed below

Heres a good chart comparison: http://www.sagehenfarmlodi.com/chooks/chooks.html

Blue Maran: has a really beautiful color and lays an unusual dark brown egg. Marans come in lots of colors but blue is my favorite and luckily there's breeder of just that color. They don't lay as many eggs as some of the others but if you tried to sell eggs, these would likely be popular. 

Buff Orpington: chunky little golden colored chicken that lays light brown pinkish looking eggs. Known for being friendly. 

Black Australorps: black obviously. Feathers get a pretty green irredescant color to them too. Broke records for most number of eggs (355 in a year or something).  Their eggs are pinkish brown.

Dominique: all the birds I've mentioned have been "heritage" breeds but this one has more heritage than most, I think. I see this chicken and think pilgrims. They're not as chunky and slightly more graceful than most the other chickens I've mentioned so far. Their eggs are a light brown but not pink. More of a yellowish brown.

Speckled hamburg: this little chicken is one of the prettiest but it's flighty too. That's good for free range birds that need to escape predators though. Their white eggs are small just like them. 

Amerecauna: they have cute feather puffs on their cheeks and lay blue eggs. Have had these before and they seemed super sweet, even the roosters 

Rhode Island Red:

That's the chicken in the back on the ameraucana picture. Their feathers are irredescant. Eggs are medium brown and they lay a lot! 

Deleware:

Fat white chicken with coloring under the wing

Aracaunas:

These are rumpless chickens with huge feather tuffs on their cheeks that lay blue eggs. They're really hard to find though in my parts. I've all but given up. They come in all colors

Free DIY Pallet Garden Shed

This man is amazing. He made this really pretty shed from pallets and oil drums, uses wooden dowels and dove tail joints instead of nails, and stains it with motor oil. It's a fairly long series of videos and the sound cuts in and out, but it's still relatively easy to follow along with what he's doing. I need to do this... We desperately need a garden shed, and how cool would it be to make one for free? I think I'd simplify with an actual purchased or scrapped door though, even though his door is lovely. His skills with wood working are quite a bit more advanced than mine, though.

I included some pictures of a few other pallet garden sheds that ranged from decent looking to amazing too.

Warre Bee Hive

This is a vertical top bar bee hive also known as the Peoples Bee Hive. It produces slightly less honey than the Langstroth hive, but requires far less maintenance as well. There are no frames with preformed cells like you see in the Langstroth hive, but rather top bars that the bees draw out their comb from. The bees will spend more time developing the comb thus the slightly reduced honey output. There's a sloped roof to draw off moisture/water and a quilt layer on top (made from shavings) for insulation.  Typically, the beekeeper only needs to enter this type hive twice per year (spring to increase hive body boxes up to three and fall for harvest and reducing hive body boxes down to two).  The bees in this style hive are typically less stressed and more docile. See picture below for the components of this hive.

Here are three online stores that sell these hives:

http://www.beethinking.com/collections/all/products/warre-hive?variant=441204841

http://www.thewarrestore.com/apps/webstore/products/show/1136749

http://handsoffbees.blogspot.com

Flow Bee Hive Prototype -- Honey On Tap

This is a bee hive prototype made by a father and son out of Australia that I think is just cool. The bee hive design has windows that make the activity within the hive highly visible without need of disturbing the bees. You can even harvest the honey without disturbing the bees. Plus, with a traditional hive, you'd normally only extract once per year, but with this hive design, you can harvest one frame at a time throughout the year (multiple times) so that you can try honey at different times throughout the season. No need for expensive safety gear, smokers, or extraction equipment in order to harvest (although you might still want it for inspecting). It's really a very pretty bee hive design. Since the bees are less upset during harvest, I think this would be a perfect hive for an apartment dwelling urban bee keeper (*cough*).

Seriously though, I'm considering buying this and sticking it in my apartment back yard. Always put off having a hive because our rural land is 90 minutes away and we live in an apartment in the city, so it just never seemed right to have a hive and keep a close eye on the bees, but this style hive is calling to me. Only draw back is no chance to extract bees wax, but I think it's a very fair trade-off. 

The complete 10-frame flow hive is available for $600 (but they have several other options). A similarly sized 8-frame traditional cypress hive with veil, gloves, smoker, brush and hive tool is about ($375) plus extraction equipment ($150). So that's $600 vs $525. Some might still want veil, gloves and smoker to do inspections, which might cost around $85. In that case, it makes it $685 vs $440 (plus potential shipping and bees) for start-up costs on one hive. 

Checkout this page for more info and to make donations to ramp up production on the prototype: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/flow-hive-honey-on-tap-directly-from-your-beehive and check out the video:

I suspect/hope that once production on this takes off (which I think it will), the price might drop some. It's not terribly complicated a design, really, to warrant a huge price difference b/w the two hives, I don't think, just a matter of mass producing them. 

Seed Kits

Been piddling around with the idea of making a seed kit for a while now, and finally after having recently purchasing a seed kit for my mother-in-law as a gift, I finally bit the bullet and made on of my own. Despite hours of searching, I just couldn't find a kit that was exactly what I wanted.

The thing that bothered me about the seeds kits I saw online was that they usually included varieties that only grew well up north. They weren't packed with the hot humid summers and somewhat mild winters of Alabama in mind (no great overwintering plant varieties).  They weren't selected with the 4-season harvest garden in mind (little Elliot Coleman inspiration there). And either the kits were low variety count or else huge survival seed vault kits. Don't get me wrong, you can grow a pretty awesome garden with this kit, and you can save the seeds for a long time, but the intent here is to start a perpetual garden with a fairly large variety of seeds but low volume of each seed type for a fairly average sized garden. I DID want to follow the survival seed mantra of long term seed storage though, simply because every time I've ever bought a pack of seeds in the past, I've never planted them all, so if it comes in packaging that offers long term storage, then GREAT!.

Anyhow, this kit is over 20 varieties open-pollenated  heirloom veggies and herbs that will grow well in most areas of the USA, so check it out and see what you think. They're packaged in used cigar boxes (just love cigar boxes), so would make a cute gift. The individual seed packs are packed in paper then collectively packed in a double Mylar bag to make it moisture and light proof, then a desiccant is packed in each bag to keep moisture levels low enough for freezing, thus you can achieve much longer seed storage.

Anyhow, I'm excited. Check it out and let me know what you think. Opened a new store on big cartel: http://southerngreenliving.bigcartel.com/

Who's My Pretty Baby

I'd never heard this song before until I was looking for a sound track for the background on a short video blurb of my son walking for the first time. Just think it's such as cute and sweet little song though. Have listened to it about 100 times in a row now. I'm hooked on her now (Elizabeth Mitchell)

What to do with Garlic Scapes

This is our first year to grow a large planting of hard neck garlic (about 12 lbs worth). We plan to harvest all this garlic and replant it all to expand our supply. In the name of increased productivity, the garlic scapes (flower bulb) had to be cut off yesterday to prevent them zapping the bulbs. Virtually all of our garlic had produced scapes by the time we cut them (Music, Chesnock Red, and Inchillium Red). I honestly would like to see them bloom, but tough luck. Note: soft neck garlic, like you normally buy at the grocery store, doesn't normally make a flower bulb and basically is a clone. This flower allows the hard neck to cross pollinate and produce hybrid offspring from the seed garlic made within the flower bulb. Garlic scapes are sort of like eating the chives from onions + mild garlic flavor.

Garlic scapes on hard neck garlic

About a year ago, we travelled to Asheville, NC and stopped at a farmers co-op and had a breakfast biscuit. That was the most heavenly biscuit I ever ate. I have a thing about good biscuits, and this was one the best. Little did I know they'd put garlic scapes in it. I didn't even know what a garlic scape was before then, but I was bound and determined duplicate that biscuit (which has resulted in coutless failed attempts). If I ever do properly duplicate it, I promise to post a recipe.

Garlic Scape Cheddar Biscuits

Anyhow, now I have 2.5 lbs of scapes grown from 12 lbs of garlic (lots of scapes right?), so did my research on what I can do with all these rascals.

STORAGE OPTIONS:

• Fresh: Store fresh in a flower vase for looks until you're ready to eat (might not want to store them this way for too long though)
• Refrigerate: Store fresh in fridge for about a month.
• Freeze: Food process or just blanche then freeze. Note: I like to make it into an pesto and then freeze it. It's very garlicky but not so much so that you can't enjoy it. Honestly, I still like traditional basil pesto better, but it is still really good, particularly if you're looking for creative uses for it b/c of the quantity you have (see recipe below).
• Pickle: Can them in vinegar brine like you would cucumbers
• Dehydrate: Food process, or finely dice then dehydrate to make a garlic spice. Mortar and pestle or crumble in hands afterwords to get a finer consistency. If you make it very fine, you can make a blend (salt, dried garlic spice, etc..) otherwise it will be more of a chive spice consistency
• Maybe others, who knows'

VARIOUS USES:

Garlic Scape Pesto
~1 cup grated Parmesan or Tallegio cheese
~1-2 fresh lime/lemon juice + zest (or about 3 Tbsp)
~1/2 lb. garlic scapes - originally I weighed out a pound's worth but my giant food processor started filling up at what I'd estimate was half of that. And I quickly realized that was PLENTY of pesto. So I mostly just size it by the size it takes to fill up my food processor before processing. Chop it up and it goes down to about the half-way mark. Then add cheese, nuts, peas, and salt. Blend. Then add oil and blend (thus all the approximate marks).
~1/2 cup olive oil (however much it takes to get the consistency right)
~1 cup of toasted pine nuts, almonds, pecans, or walnuts- I prefer pine nuts but they are pricey. Once my pecan trees start making nuts, I'll probably just start using that in most recipes calling for nuts.
~1 cup of steamed English peas - this just dilutes the garlic-ness a bit and also gives it a good consistency. Can't really taste the peas.
~1/4 cup of fresh basil (if you have it, if not, no biggie) - when I made mine, I had garlic scapes but only tiny basil plants, so I went and nipped a few to add in
Salt to taste


Note: If you plant to eat it soon, just put it in a tall jar and top off with olive oil, then put a top on it to prevent oxidation. Or you can freeze it but be sure to get rid of all the air in the ziplock bag. Previously frozen pesto has a milder garlic taste. Can serve over toasted bruschetta or pasta with a side of grilled red bell pepper and/or steamed broccoli

Garlic Scape Pesto

Scapes as a Substitute for Garlic
Use them like garlic, as an aromatic in a wide variety of recipes. Scapes lose a lot of their bite when sautéed, more so than garlic cloves, so use at least three or four times as much scape-age as you would clove-age.



Scapes In Stir Fry
Scapes are popular in Asian dishes anyhow. Use in place of scallions or chives. Really you can use them in place of scallions or chives in any recipe, just about.

Asian Stir Fry with Garlic Scapes

Grilled Scapes as a Substute for Asparagus
Another great, and very different, way to showcase scapes is to grill them, tossed with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper, over direct heat for about two minutes. Flip them once, halfway through, and finish with an extra sprinkle of flaky salt and maybe a bit of lemon juice and zest. They'll be charred in spots and just soft enough, and their flavor will have sweetened and mellowed dramatically. Grilled scapes are surprisingly reminiscent of asparagus, and surprisingly different from raw scapes.

Grilled Scapes - Served Like Asparagus

Roasted Garlic Scapes
Take the scapes and put them in a lightly oiled roasting pan, top with salt (kosher or sea salt works best). Put the loaded and covered pan in a hot (425°F) oven for 30 to 45 minutes or until they are beginning to turn brown. serve as a side or main dish. Tastes like roasted garlic but creamier. This is also good drizzled with a light cheese sauce.



Sauted Scapes
Just tonight I boiled then sauted fresh beets in balsamic then tossed in some diced scallions at the last second. I usually just leave it with beets and balsamic but the scapes were a great mild garlic addition.



Scape Quiche
Or could just as easily just include them in an omlet

Garlic Scape Quiche

Garlic Scape Mashed Potatoes
Only add a little, then taste. This stuff's weird how you sometimes need a lot to equal a garlic clove and other times not. So best to add too little than too much.

In Flower Arrangement
Weird but cool, plus they're pretty to look at up until you EAT them.

Garlic Scape Flower Arrangement

Or let let them bloom

Garlic Flowers

Garlic Scape Vinegar
1 cup of white or rice vinegar with 1-2 fresh bruised green scapes. Let infuse 10 days for max flavor. Can replace scapes to keep pretty green color going. This could just as easily end being pickled scapes as well. Just cram more scapes in. Then you're primary eating the scapes vs the flavored vinegar.

Garlic Scape Flavored Vinegar