A Day of the Dead Altar

October 30, 2015

...ure, such thoughts have been considered morbid, even unhealthy, for a long time–but that is changing. This year I felt ambitious, so built a much bigger altar, or ofrenda, than usual. Actually, the cats made me do it. Given access to the altar, they’d eat the flowers (ending up muerto themselves as a result, no doubt) and bat the rest of the objets to the ground. For the safety of the cats and my treasures, the entire surface needed to be so tight...

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Cold brewed tisanes, teas and coffee: Your summertime best friends

Mrs. Homegrown

July 25, 2016

Food, Foraging, Herbs

8 Comments

...is book, The New Wildcrafted Cuisine. He uses whatever is in season at the time, an eclectic mix that may include wild mints, elderflowers, conifers like white fir and pine, herbs like black sage and berries of all sorts. Sometimes he adds less-wild ingredients, like lemons or honey. He leaves all these things swirling around in the jug at table, so that the sight of the infusion is almost as arresting as the taste. Pascal’s beautiful infusions sh...

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Front Yard Update: Welcome to Crazy Town

Mrs. Homegrown

May 20, 2016

Back to the Garden, front yard series, Gardening

22 Comments

...lching soon as the wildflowers and other spring annuals finish up. At that time I might have to make some decisions about the sunflowers. It will be interesting to see what the slope looks like without the sunflowers hogging all the attention. There are also summer and fall bloomers hidden in there, who will hopefully come to the foreground later this year. Overall, I’m happy enough to wait and see how this system stabilizes over time. It’s not pe...

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Going to Seed

Mrs. Homegrown

June 24, 2016

Back to the Garden, Gardening, Nature Awareness, Vegetable Gardening

14 Comments

...plant of any type goes to seed. They taste like radishes, pretty much, sometimes they’re sweeter, sometimes they’re spicier. Radish pods are both a bonus crop and a fine consolation prize, because even if your radish roots end up puny or woody or otherwise disappointing, you can always eat the pods. They’re best fresh, picked a handful at a time as a snack or to put in a salad, but you can lactoferment or pickle them, too, using pretty much any pi...

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Waxed Cloth Food Wrap (Made in a solar oven for bonus self-righteousness points)

Mrs. Homegrown

June 2, 2016

Domesticus, Food, How-to, Solar Oven Summer

8 Comments

...it rockets up past 200F pretty quickly even without the clips. So, at this time of year, working at midday, all I had to do was watch the time and temperature to make sure the oven didn’t get too hot. I put the tray in the oven, closed the lid (no clips, making the heating is less efficient on purpose) and waited about 10-15 minutes. The temp would quickly rise above 150F and the wax would dissolve, then I’d take it out before it got any hotter. F...

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