Wedding Festivities

Since the wedding is a weekend long event, there will be some festivities...entertainment... A few musically inclined people are coming, so we'll be playing a little guitar around the campfire. Dad likes and wants karaoke, so he's in charge of that.

There's a rather large creek, lots of board and card games, and a canoeing company a mile upstream. There will be lots of cooking on the grill and a few kegs of homebrew.

http://terrapinlodge.net/activities.htm has more information about canoeing.

Below are just a few additional ideas:

Guitar around the camp fire:	Frisbee:
Horseshoes:	Darts:
Croquet:	Badminton:

Seed Storage Tips

Plants that self pollinate are the easiest to collect seeds from and replant. Examples of this type plant: non-hybrid tomatoes, peppers, peas, endive, chicory, lettuce (somewhat) and beans.
If a plant freely cross pollinates or requires cross pollination and has another same species/different variety plant nearby, then the offspring is likely to be untrue to parent unless special precautions are made during the growing season. Examples of this type plant: corn, squash, zucchini, eggplant (most plants fall into this category).
The following tips are intended for the collection of "pure-blooded" aka "Open Pollinated"  seeds:

• Allow the seeds to mature fully on the plant. Usually this means allowing the fruit/vegetable to over-ripen or possibly even dry out (depends on the plant).
• Separate seed from vegetable where applicable
• Allow seeds to dry at room temperature in a low humidity preferably breezy environment for approximately one week. A screen works nicely for this, particularly with a nearby fan or in the shade outside where covered from rain.
• Remove any remaining non-seed matter. Sometimes it's as simple as picking the seeds out by hand. Other times, not. Examples of helpful tools and methods:
• Winnow - Sheet of paper-bent into u-shape. Blow non-seed matter off with your mouth or with a hair dryer on low at an angle. This works great with basil.
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• Sieve - Old window screen or wire mesh screen. Sift the matter to separate seed from non-seed
• http://www.seedsofchange.com/ has similar type professional tools:

• Package seeds. Don't forget to label and date them. Here are a couple of free downloadable seed packet designs:

  Cute little seed packet design #1	Cute little seed packet design #2

• Once the seeds are dried and packaged, place them in an air tight container that blocks out all light. Add a silica pack to keep things dry. You can save silica packs from old vitamins or order them online. Silica packs have to be replaced every 6 months but can be recharged by microwaving for 3-5 minutes or backing at 275 F for a couple hours. Mylar or foil lined bags inside a rigid container or a Ziplock freezer bag  inside an opaque container.
• Seeds can be stored in the freezer if they are sufficiently dry (less than 8% moisture in the seed). If not, freezing will kill them. Refrigerator storage is a safe method for one year's storage. Crisper drawer is best (lower humidity). Typically, the cooler and drier a seed is kept, the longer the shelf life.

This article barely touches on the complexities of seed saving. It seriously takes a book to explain it all and Seed to Seed explains it nicely.

Cool Coop Designs

Ok, so I don't have chickens anymore. The neighborhood dogs won that contest. But I still can't help but obsess over chicken coop designs every now and then.

This coop is what I tried to model mine after (I failed miserably, you can't even tell the relation, still working out mind-over-matter). I got the idea from Backyard Chickens: http://www.backyardchickens.com/coops/images/playhouse-coop-2.jpg




This one's also from backyard chickens: http://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=16313-maurice-chicken-coop-car and is just too clever & creative for words.

This is just a photographer person's personal coop (I believe it's personal) at http://jodieotte.com/?tag=americauna

These coops are from design sponge: http://www.designspongeonline.com/2009/11/coop-homes.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=coop-homes







This coop's prebuilt and can be purchased from http://moderncoops.weebly.com/index.html. It's a bit pricey at $525, but it's cute.

Wedding Meals

We're actually having two dinners (and a lunch) since folks are spending the night Friday & Saturday. The lodge has these great outdoor grills (2 of them), so we're going to basically keep a fire going the whole weekend. Friday night we'll grill hens. Still trying to work out the side dishes. Hoping Gramma will make her German potato salad. Mark's mom agreed to bring lots of bread type foodies for breakfast. Saturday for lunch we'll use leftover chicken to make chicken & chicken salad sandwiches.

Saturday for dinner, a whole lamb will be cooked. For those that can't stomach lamb, there will be a little beef brisquet too. Again, side dishes? Maybe a giant plate of rice and salad.

Here's the actual menu:

FRIDAY NIGHT:

-Herb Grilled Hen

-German Potato Salad

-???

SATURDAY BREAKFAST:

-Muffins, Cereal, Sweet Breads

-Rice Pudding

SATURDAY LUNCH

-Chicken Sandwiches

-Chicken Salad Sandwiches

-Chips

SATURDAY DINNER

-Lamb over bed of rice

-Salad

SUNDAY BREAKFAST

-You're on your own. Probably some leftover cereal and pastries

Flowers & Bouquets

Here's a couple of pictures of some pretty flower bouquets. Have no idea what will be in season come wedding time. Hopefully lots of free wildflowers.

Rustic Wedding Decor Ideas

• I only wish I knew the name of this flower:
  
• Old wood makes nice rustic signage
• Antique cake stands are beautiful (and hard to come by). Old wine crates could also work
• Twine strung with old family photos


• Random drink dispensers: galvanized buckets, glass urns, a wooden canoe, old milk jugs, mason jar serving glasses,...


• Lighting: mason jar tea candles, table lamps (already at the lodge), strung lighting







• Fall like decorative items: pumpkins, corn stalks, fruits (lemons, limes, apples)

Asparagus - Part II

You definitely have to be patient with Asparagus. It's now August afer initially planting my roots in March. I had sworn off buying asparagus roots ever again, because none of my roots had surfaced by early May. I was sure they were all duds. But then in late May and early June, they all started to slowly sprout up. Before too long, all but 1 had sprouted out of 18 planted. Not too shabby.

Towards the end of July we decided to change homes. I figured the asparagus was still small, and I would try to transplant them to a new home. Put the roots (and small stalks) in a bucket with hardly any dirt. I had every intention of replanting them in their new home right away. "Right away" turned into a couple of weeks with no water. The plants all appeared dead. I was fairly certain they were, but replanted them anyway. They have since all ALL resprouted. I may have set back the maximum productive capabilities, but they're alive!

This is truly a miracle vegetabe, in my honest opinion.

Growing Vegetables From Seed - Part II

Several plants in our garden were grown from seed this year. Some with better results than others.

The successful veggies were corn, tomatoe, oka, squash and gourds. Corn we started straight in the ground and it grew without any effort very quickly. It produced the yummiest corn I've ever had straight off the plant uncooked (you have to eat it right after you pick it though). We planted two varieties of okra, one grew great and the other not so much. Tomatoes were everywhere.

The unsuccessful veggies were lettuce, beets, and radishes. The lettuce grew, it just tasted awful and bitter. The weather was too hot for these guys, and we should have planted them much sooner. While the beets that grew performed well, there was a huge mortality rate with these little rascals (about 75%). They don't handle transplanting at a young age too well, and they didn't grow too vigorously to begin with. Once we got them larger, they seemed very hardy though. Will have to research this plant a bit more and keep trying because it's greens are great in the hot summer (when the lettuce plants go bitter). I keep hearing how easy radishes are to grow, and yet we never grew any roots. This has happened both years we've tried to grow radishes.

Don't you just love squash flowers? I've heard of gourmet restaurants that take the flowers and fill them with brie, then batter in tempura, and deep fry.

Our squash and gourd plants went crazy. We didn't even plant any gourds on purpose, they just didn't die in our compost last Halloween, and when we spread out the compost, they started growing everywhere. We thinned them down to a few, but the few grew the best of any plant in our garden.

Check out the visitor in our compost


Here's a
complete list of the vegetables grown in our garden this year.

The Penetrable Chicken Coop

If you are likely to become attached to your pets, chickens in my case, you might be better off not buying non-free range non-flying chickens. Whatever you may have read about cooped chickens being safer from predators is not true. Is there such thing as an inpenetrable coop at a reasonable cost for chicken ownership on a small scale?

Still trying to figure out which animal in Alabama broke into the coop. There was a hole large enough for me to climb through. The hole was at waist level. Scratch marks were all up and down the side of the coop. The inside bridge where the chickens walk up into the coop from their run was broken, so the animal was heavy. The animal only killed the chickens and didn't really eat them.

• RACOON: Most likely candidate at this point based on climbing abilities and claw marks. I think they eat chickens and maybe even chew through wood


• FOX: Not sure what fox marks would look like, but don't think they can climb and aren't big enough to chew a hole at waist level


• DOG: Claw marks don't look like any dog I've ever seen but the fact that the animal only killed them and didn't eat them leads me to believe it's a domesticated animal, unless the wild animal became spooked and ran off.


• RATS: Maybe the rat chewed the hole and some other animal got in? I hadnt' seen any rats around before now, but they might have wanted some chicken foodies.


• BADGER: Do they even live in Alabama? I don't know much about these animals anyway

How exactly do you prevent an animal from chewing through wood to break into a coop?

• Build a metal coop? I guess this is the best solution as far as coop structural integrity goes.


• Put hardware wire around the whole outside of the wooden coop? This just doesn't sound attractive at all. Not that the coop I had was attractive (before the hole), but I was at least TRYING to make it attractive. I just happened to be unsuccessful.


• Use the hardest and thickest plywood (I went on the cheap side). Can they still chew through this too, whatever it is? The wood was new, so it hadn't rotted.


• Build an electric fence around it? This sounds like a lot of work for a couple of chickens.
  
• Have a watch dog? This would probably work, but there's probably a bit involved in training a dog not to eat your own chickens. Maybe if you buy it as a puppy while you have chickens, but how do you keep the chickens alive while you train the dog???




• Have more feral variety of chickens that can fly well. These are typically chickens that are better for eggs than for meat, but that's fine with me. I didn't want to butcher my chickens anyway. This type chicken will definitely have to wawit until I move to the country-side and can let them free-range though

It's a bit depressing to say the list. Probably spent several hundred dollars at this point. The coop is ruined (and useless to begin with apparently) and no more chickens.

How in the world do small timers like myself have affordable urban chickens? I really would rather spend less than $500 in initial startup to have these animals. Just have a trained watch dog I guess.