Laundry Day

Sunday is laundry day.

It always has been for me. It always will be. Sunday mornings, I do all my laundry and clean the house while it splishy splashes away in the laundry room/ larder / guest room.... I have a small house.

Today, half way through the pile of clothes that needed to be washed, I ran out of laundry detergent. I still had another couple loads to do and I was in a groove, so instead of putting on a bra and heading to the store, I made my own.

Ok, that isn't quite right, I made a batch of laundry detergent about 2 months ago. I actually like how it cleans our clothes so I have all the ingredients to make another batch.

I found the "recipe" at http://www.yellowbrickhome.com/2011/03/16/diy-suds/ and went to town.

Pretty easy actually

1 Bar of Fels-Naptha (you can use Ivory too)
1 Cup of Borax
1 Cup of Washing Soda (you can actually make that yourself by baking Baking Soda!)

So you take a bar of soap, preferably a laundry soap like Fels-Naptha or Zote, you can also use a soap like Ivory. Each bar cost me .99 cents.

I've heard you can use soaps like Dove, but I think I will stay away from moisturizing soaps for laundry.

You grate the soap using a cheese grater. I had considered using my food processor, but I love it too much to take a chance on breaking it. So hand grate it is and there is only one or two slivers of my flesh in there!

 Once grated, you add a cup of Borax.  A box of Borax cost me $3.89.

Borax is used as a water softener which, in turn, helps the detergent to work better.












Next you add a cup of Washing Soda Powder...

I didn't have washing powder...

So I made washing powder by cooking baking soda in the oven at 500degrees for 30minutes. Basically, if you evaporate the water molecules out of baking soda you get washing powder.

But this giant bag of baking soda cost me 12 bucks at Costco and I have used it for both uses. Win!

By the way, washing powder is caustic, poisonous and no longer edible so don't try to use it for cooking after this process.

 Baking my baking soda into washing powder!

Easy peasy, take baking soda, stick it in a pan, bake it at 500degrees for a half hour, you can see the difference in consistency when you take it out of the oven.

The powder is a finer consistency than when it went in a baking soda.

Then you mix everything in a big bowl and mix well for a few minutes. Make sure that everything is mixed together very well.

Avoid breathing in the powder, it doesn't feel too good inside your nose.

Then store it in a air tight container.

You only need to use a tablespoon of detergent per regular load. I take that to mean a tablespoon for medium fill in a normal size washing machine.

For the boyfriend's grease covered stuff I tend to use two. But that is just because I have issues.

25 Pounds of Strawberry Love!

This is what 13 and a half
pounds of strawberries looks like.

OM NOM NOM NOM NOM!!!

I loves me some strawberries!

I loves going out to Harvold's Berry Farm every June and picking a whole bunch and making them into all sorts of nummy things!

This year I took the boyfriend's daughter with me and put her to work toiling in the hot sun!  Ok, I wasn't quite that cruel, but I did threaten to throw slugs at her...

But those tiny tween fingers picked 12 lbs of strawberries on their own! So in total today I came home with 25 POUNDS of strawberries. For get this... TWENTY-FIVE BUCKS!!


Now I know you are saying, "Holey strawberry shortcakes, Angelina! What are you going to do with 25 pounds of strawberries?!"

my cool hulling tool..
an old grapefruit spoon

And I will look solemnly at you, shake my head and say, "EVERYTHING!"

First thing I did when I got home was wash and hull 12 pounds of strawberries. I spread them out on wax paper covered baking sheets and they in the freezer as we speak.  Once they are frozen solid I will separate them into gallon ZipLoc freezer baggies and those babies will keep me in smoothies and cold snacks for months!

Next I took 5 lbs and made Strawberry-Lemon Jam.  A new recipe from a book my boyfriend's mother gave me for Xmas. Canning for a New Generation by Liana Krissoff. There are quite a few interesting recipes in there so I can't wait to give it a try this harvest season!

Canning for a New Generation: Bold, Fresh Flavors for the Modern Pantry

I am canning another 5 lbs for strawberry cheesecake, shortcakes, ice cream topping and whatever else I want to cover with canned strawberries.

I will go into more detail in a separate post on how to can strawberries as opposed to making jam!

I still have some strawberry jam left from last year, 3 pints, and those go to the front of the shelf to be used first.  I don't use pectin in my jam and last years batch was a bit runny, but it is awesome over pancakes and ice cream so it goes pretty quick.

Lastly, I have about 3 lbs of strawberries to send home with Trinity for her and her mother, for all her hard work at the strawberry patch and there will be a few for dessert tonight!

Soakin' It In

Earlier today, as I was procrastinating by walking the boyfriend's dog, Olive, I wandered over to visit with my friend, James. James is married to Sandy who runs Urban Land Army (which she needs to update sometime soon.. hint, hint).  Anyways I caught James just in the middle of laying in his soaker hoses in the garden. Something that I needed to do myself... But I decided to walk Olive another half mile instead.

But when I got home, I noticed it instantly,the glaring omission of soaker hoses in my garden and I was ashamed. So, I pulled up my big girl pants, changed out of my running shoes and got down to the nitty gritty of laying down 75 feet of hose.

 For those of you who might not know why gardeners might use soaker hoses, it's mainly because they conserve water, they get the water directly to the roots and they are much cheaper than putting in a drip hose or underground water system.

There are many different kinds of soaker hose; some are made of recycled tired, some are made of neoprene, some are made of high density fabric and some are simply hoses with holes drilled in them in intervals. All do the same thing, they water the roots of the plants which is where the water needs to go.

They are also good for reducing the amount of water that you use.  You are not watering the sidewalk or the neighbors yard or the side of the house, which might be the case if you use a sprinkler.  The water goes directly to where it needs to go.

Also with soaker hoses you water deeply which encourages the roots of your plants to spread wider and more deeply making them stronger and healthier. This again then conserves water as those wider, deeper roots are able to locate more water and drink deeply, which makes the need to water less frequent.

Soaker hoses are cool.

I am currently using the fabric flat hose by Gilmour. (No, I don't get a kickback from them for saying that, although I wouldn't mind.) These hose are AWESOME!

I've used the recycled rubber ones and the neoprene hoses, but these are flexible, light weight and pretty freaking durable. I have cut through one too many rubber soaker hoses with my shovel and those are a bugger to put back together...  Also they fold up small and store well for the winter, which can't be said for the rubber and neoprene hoses.

I already had one and needed a couple more for my project today so off I ran to the hardware store. I could only find the 25 foot soakers at the local giant box hardware store so I grabbed two. And headed home.  They are inexpensive, ten bucks at the local box hardware store  and you can screw them into each other in order to make them longer.

You can also find them on Amazon: Gilmour Weeper/Soaker Hose 25-Foot 27025G

Slightly more, but you can find the 50 and 75 foot lengths which has been hard for me to do locally. But I am a lover of instant gratification so I just grab the 25 foot lengths and screw them together.

Now one garden bed and my tomato bed are hosed. I need two more 25 or a 50 footer for the second long bed and a 25 footer for my herb bed. I'll get to that tomorrow... Although I admit I do enjoy standing outside in the morning before I head to work water my garden, at least now I can stand and stare at my garden lovingly while cradling a cup of coffee. Win-win!

Caw! Caw!

This morning a baby crow came into the yard.
Her parents are watching, vigilantly
I fear my eyes will get pecked out....

There is currently a baby crow in the yard.  I like crows, I find them entertaining. They make sure that the squished bits of squirrels are cleaned from the streets. They are smart.

Crows are in the Corvid family and that includes, magpies, ravens and jays. They are very smart critters and some can  even learn to speak.

This time of year, the young are kicked out of their nest and become fledglings. They cannot fly yet, but the parents are always close and they will continue feeding them for about another month or so.

So, currently, I have to keep my eyes to the sky while the parents protect their little one.

Meet the Cockadoodleoodler!

It can take weeks before you realize you have a rooster. You go through the stages of grief in losing a potential egg layer...

Denial - No... It can't be a cockerel. It's just a dominant hen... They wouldn't have sent me a rooster...

Anger - You gotta be kidding me! The $&%^ rooster is crowing at 5 in the *&$^ morning!! McMurray's is going to get a earful from me!

Bargaining - C'mon. You can be a quiet rooster... I'll give you extra feed if you don't start crowing until 7AM.

Depression - What the heck am I gonna do with a rooster? That is potentially 7 less eggs a week... Why even go on...?

Acceptance - Well... Maybe I will get a few chicks out of the deal and if not I can make a nice stew with him.

So the boyfriend named him Herb. Herb Cockadoodleoodler. But the neighbor named him Jasper and so that is what stuck.

Jasper Cockadoodleoodler

So, meet Jasper. Jasper Cockadoodleoodler.

Yes, I live in a neighborhood in Seattle. No, roosters are not allowed. No, I will not tell you where in Seattle I live.

Now, keep in mind I talk with my neighbors and I ask them to tell me if there is a problem with my birds and their sleep cycles. If there is an issue, Jasper will sleep in my stew pot.

But otherwise, he is sweet. And he is a good looking bird. I believe that he is an Ameraucauna, he's got the blue grey feet and, hopefully, he will be a good sire of many baby chicks. And again if not, he will be delicious.

I have come across many people who have tried to give away their roosters in the romantic and naive hope that they will live out their life on some farm somewhere and never even have an inkling that there is a pot out there that, potentially, cooks chickens.

I admit I tend to look on those people with a slight bit of disdain. Do not get me wrong, to each their own, but I believe that if you are going to raise farm animals you should know how to dispatch a unwanted rooster or an injured hen, quickly and efficiently. I would say the same about goats, pigs, rabbits and other small farm animals allowed within the city limits.

I don't mind having a rooster, even one who crows at 6AM, but if it becomes a problem with my neighbors, I will not try to push my responsibilities off onto someone else and will take Jasper... Out, so to speak.

Laura Ingalls Wilder

I blame it all on Laura Ingalls Wilder.

As a young girl I loved the Little House on the Prairie television show. I watched it every week and yearned to be friends with Melissa Gilbert's Laura Ingalls.

I read the Little House books over and over until my copies were tattered and dirty from reading in the tall grass of the field by my house in the hot summer sun. I wanted to be a pioneer girl. I wanted to run through fields of tall hay and milk cows and draw water from the well and climb hay stacks and make maple candy and sugar.

I just re-read the books after 30 years. They reminded me of why I am so enamoured by self sufficiency.  It's all Laura's fault.

I still want to live in a little house on the prairie. I still want to be a pioneer girl and make my own bread and tat my own lace and churn my own butter. I want to give these books to every little girl I see and tell them, "Read this. It's about a strong woman in a strong time doing strong things."

Bubble, Bubble, No Toil or Trouble

A few weeks back I culled about nine meat birds. We have been enjoying lovely roast chicken dinners almost every Sunday since. I love roasting a bird on Sundays because you have a yummy dinner with the one you love and you have left-overs for the rest of the week.

I try to roast them whole, so that I can take advantage of the whole bird. Once we are done with Sunday dinner, I pick off the rest of the meat, put it in a storage container to use for dinners later in the week and freeze the carcass for broth.

I don't like to waste food, and I find it much more cost effective to can my own broth for future use. Store bought broth can be a couple bucks a can,

So I decided to do some math... I purchased the birds from Murray McMurray's and spent $97.33, including shipping for 25 birds. This came up to $3.89 per bird, what it would have cost me to purchase them from a local supplier or farm.

In the 9 weeks that I had the meat birds I purchased 10 bags of feed at $18.00 a bag.  I had 25 birds including the meat birds, this came up to .72 cents a bird per bag. Each bird cost me approximately $7.20 to feed. (We will gather that the meat birds ate a larger share of this, but I am not going to try to calculate how much more...)

Cost of bedding was another $9.00 a bale and I purchased five bales of shavings. This would come up to $1.80 a bird.

In total is cost me $12.89 a bird. At this price it was still cheaper than buying a organic bird from my local Co-op!

I have chicken livers in the freezer to make pâté, as well as, gizzards, hearts and feet in order to get the most bang for my buck. I use the carcasses for broth and I can get one or two more dinners from the left overs. The other week it was chicken enchiladas.

When I have two or three carcasses in the freezer I make broth and can it. I use the broth for gravies, pastas and soup base. It tastes better than the store bought stuff and, again, it is cheaper.

The broth isn't all that exciting, veggies and chicken bones. I keep onion skins and carrot peelings in a bag in the freezer and use that in making my broth. Throw in some celery and today I found a great deal on leeks, so I threw those in too.

Bring to a boil then drop it to a simmer for an hour or two. Strain it with cheesecloth and can it. With broths you do have to pressure can them and process them according to the canner instructions. I processed my cans at 10lbs for twenty minutes.

I now have a dozen pint cans of broth for use ready to go on my larder shelf. When you take into consideration that some stores carry chicken broth for $1.50 a can, I find that canning it myself is cost effective.