Christmas - Mom and Sis DON'T LOOK

I am so excited about this gift that I HAVE to share it...but SERIOUSLY, MOM AND TAYLOR DON'T LOOK.

                           

What is it?  'A piece of art' you might say....but it's something else too.

Give up?

IT'S A CALENDAR!!!

                     

My mom, sister and I have celebrated Calendar Day for many years...even now that they live in Portland, I still get a text on the first of each month celebrating the new beginnings and ripe possibilities. 

 During my search for cool made-by-us gift ideas, I came across a dry-erase calendar made from paint swatches: http://go.tipjunkie.com/dc/1979/theaestheticwriter.blogspot.com/2011/10/diy-dry-erase-calendar.html  I KNEW this was the gift to make for my mom and sister.  Once I started digging through my paint swatches, I realized that I either had to go raid the paint dept. at the hardware store or adapt the idea.

What I ended up doing was re-creating segments out of a Valspar color grouping.  Then my husband printed it on the 48 inch printer we've got lying around.

We decided to make a big one for our public creative studio.  I'll post pics when we get it installed :)

Oats to the Rescue!

I know it doesn't look like much, but I'm super excited about this little green terrycloth pouch.  Jason whipped up some to go with a Christmas gift and we had a few left over.  So there is the set up.

We were heading out to Tillie's birthday party yesterday and the shirt I wanted to wear was not quite acceptable.  It wouldn't necessarily classify as dirty but it smelled.....off.  I REALLY wanted to wear this shirt.  What to do?  I filled one of the terrycloth pouches with a cup of old fashioned rolled oats...

...and added a few drops of my favorite essential oil and popped it in the dryer with the shirt for a few minutes.  You know what?  IT WORKED.  Not by masking the smell with another smell...the oats actually sucked the smell up!  This will certainly not become a replacement for actually washing clothes, but in a pinch, this trick works like a charm.

Don't have a terrycloth velcro pouch lying around?  Just use a sock that has lost its twin!  Pour a cup of oats in it (add a couple drops of amber, sandalwood or your favorite essential oil, if you'd like) and tie it up tight.  A few things to note:

• Don't use it on wet clothes or the oats may turn into oatmeal

• Make sure the sock has NO holes in it

• Don't use the packets of Maple & Brown Sugar - or any other flavored quick oats.  The flavor powder may seep out of the sock and yuck up the dryer.

Christmas Crafting

I've been up in the art loft all morning knocking out Christmas gifts...I'm biting my lip. It's all I can to to NOT post what we've done so far!

Here is a gift that Jason and I made from last year.



Every year I say that I want to make the things I crafted for Christmas to sell...this year I've got some G-R-E-A-T ideas and it's looking like a public art studio is in our near future. I will keep you posted!

Update from the Man Cave

Jason and I went, over 4th of July weekend, to visit my family that lives in Vermont. My father is a pen turner who LOVES to share what he knows...and Jason LOVED learning about turning pens. Now we have a whole corner of the workshop converted into a wood turning shop. Here are some of Jason's latest creations, just in time for Christmas.

Never Done.

Thanksgiving was fast approaching and we were hosting the family meal as well as having friends stay with us - who are AMAZING cooks. Our kitchen is not the best room in the house. The bright turquoise color I chose was a serious lapse in decorating judgement and our spices were in complete disorder. Last Sunday night, Jason and I filled all the pretty chrome storage jars we bought that afternoon up with the random bags of beans, rice and dehydrated veggies that were piled up on the bottom rack. This opened up Pandora's box. After weeding out old spices we re-jarred and labeled everything and added an awesome floating shelf above the stove to hold our 'top shelf' spices, oils and condiments. It was B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L...except that it made the wall color even more out of place.

I woke up at 7:30 the next morning and went straight to the hardware store to pick up paint. By the time our out-of-town friends showed up that night, we had a warm and inviting kitchen...and we cooked up some delicious feasts!

Home Away from Home

Jason took me down to visit friends in Austin for my Birthday a couple of weeks ago. By the end of the trip, we all shook hands in going in halvsies on an old Airstream trailer. Our plan is to gut it and turn it into a dorm/lounge that we can use on the Wells family land near lake Texoma. Two weeks later, let me introduce to you our 1971 27 ft Overlander Airstream that is currently settled in our back yard. It's been gutted and scrubbed down. Now for the lipstick and rouge~

Fruitful

Thank God for soaker hoses....and my husband who bought them. It's not the prettiest garden, but it's the prettiest one I've ever had a hand in creating. We've got peas, beets, sweet potatoes and a swiss chard that somehow snuck its way into one of our seed packs or transplants.

The Circle of Life

One of the things I love about our home are the toads that come back every year. Lately I've noticed these two...they are inseparable. Maybe they will create a new crop of toads :)

The Art Loft

I have always had some sort of space where my art supplies are stored...and some sort of space where I can make art. The problem was, the space where I stored supplies and the space I made art in were two separate spaces.

We have a little loft in our house that was built over the garage. It is tucked away which made it the perfect dumping ground. Anything that we could not find a home for ended up there...including the cat box and the 600 National Geographic magazines dating back to 1951.

Over Labor day weekend, we changed all that. We found homes for the randoms, slapped a new coat of paint on the walls and ceiling and gave ALL of my creative supplies a well organized new home. I see ALOT of art making in my future :)

Food Fun

After picking up some yum yums from the farm market yesterday and raiding our basil (the only successful crop in the garden this year) we decided to make some pizza dough and have a build-your-own-pizza fun night...



yum.

Chillin

We've got three young squirrels that live in one of our pecan trees in the back yard. Rather than fighting with them, I gave them a section of the wild garden bed to create wallows in so they can keep cool. They took over our fern too.

How close can I get? - Goddess Dressing

My name is Amanda and I am an Annie's Goddess Dressing addict. Jason will wake up and find me drinking it straight from the bottle in the middle of the night...which would be fine except it's REALLY expensive and REALLY REALLY high in fat. I enjoy preparing food...especially if I add the challenge of also making it gluten free, lighter, healthier or vegan. Since this dressing is already vegan, my goals were to make it lighter and, thereby, healthier.

I found some recipes where people used tofu to replace the weight that the fats had, but they would always preface: "It's not quite like the real thing, but...". I'm aiming for 'as close as possible". So, instead of using tofu, I opted to use chia seed gel in place of the oil and a some of the tahini. Chia is an AMAZING salad dressing base that is incredibly nutritious. Here is the recipe:

• 1/3 cup tahini

• 2 tablespoons raw apple cider vinegar

• 1/2 cup water

• 1 tablespoon of chia seeds

• 1/4 cup of unsweetend almond/soy/coconut milk (OR 2 tablespoons of low-fat Veganaise & 2 tablespoons of water - added 3/8/12)
  

• 5 small green onions, chopped (white and green parts)

• 2 tablespoons of lemon juice

• 1 tablespoon of soy sauce plus 1 teaspoon soy sauce or Bragg Liquid Aminos

• 2-3 fresh garlic cloves (I used 3 because I like the extra bite)

• 2 teaspoons sesame seeds (not critical)

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
  
  

I use a Magic Bullet for this recipe – it's the perfect size for small batches of dressing and I can keep the dressing in the container I blended it in. That being said, a blender or food processor will also do the job.

1. Start off by putting the water and chia seed in the receptacle. Put a lid on and shake the seeds up to prevent clumps. Let sit for 20 minutes. (the longer you let it sit before blending the seeds, the thicker the liquid will become)
2. after the chia seeds and water sets up into a gel, blend for about 30 seconds
3. Add the remaining ingredients and blend for another 30 seconds...do not over blend.

It will initially be runny, but after an hour in the fridge, the chia gel will thicken back up.

Wicking Beds

I've heard people who come to visit Oklahoma say that we seem a bit schizophrenic...it's because of the weather. A common local saying is: "If you don't like the weather, wait a minute". Which is usually true...but we are in the midst of the worst drought and heatwave in Oklahoma history. Jason recently bought me enough soaker hoses to fill all of our garden beds...partly to save on water and partly because it's just TOO HOT water for an hour every night and partly because our city has banned watering during daylight hours. That means I get up before dawn (no thank you) or contend with the mosquitoes after sunset. The garden is doing okay. It's been an average of 103 degrees for the last month...and it's only rained (for an hour) twice. It would have been nice to be able to collect that water where it counts. Enter: Water Wicking Garden Beds. They are built using the same philosophy as a self watering pot but on a huge scale. You can either put water in it or store rain water that falls into the bed:

.............................................(image found at: http://www.urbanfoodgarden.org)

Below is a great Youtube video that records the whole process:

...and I found a how-to with basic specs on building a wicking bed here

Too bad it's too hot to actually make one. It looks like our cinder-block composter and the greenhouse frame will have to wait until September.

How Close Can I Get?

Jason and I recently went up to Vermont to visit my father and family. We ate A LOT of cheese while we were there...if you are a cheese lover, Vermont is the cheese Mecca  you should travel to at least once in your life. My sister, Haley, had recently become an ethical vegan...so she just looked at the cheese longingly. She might love cheese as much as I do, but I thought 'If she can do it, I can try' and when I got home I bought a pack of Daiya cheese. I ate it like Charlie ate his chocolate bar...man, that cheese is expensive. So I decided to search online for a vegan cheddar cheese recipe. I found one that had a long string of "YUMEEEEE" comments, so I decided to give it a try. The flavor, when melted, is AMAZING and the texture is indistinguishable from real melted cheese, except for the tiny chunks of cashews that the food processor couldn't blend. (post note: if you soak the cashews in boiling water for 20 minutes - not offsetting the water called for in the recipe - it will cream amazingly)

I don't think I will ever become a total vegan...I prefer to apply the 80/20 ratio. This will keep me from going on a cheese binge that will require a colonic when I'm done. Enough of that...here's the recipe: http://www.food.com/recipe/vegan-sharp-cheddar-cheese-130826

I'm in Trouble

I think Jason is going to hide the dehydrator at some point... I've been dehydrating EVERYTHING I can get my hands on. We may need to remodel the kitchen to accommodate all the jars of dried pretties.

Lunch with a friend

I had lunch with my friend Whitney yesterday. I brought over all that I could harvest from my own garden and put it together with yummies from her garden...

We had an exceptional lunch and goodie swap... on the menu: veggie packed tuna salad sanwiches and blueberry kombucha tea.

She shared what she knew about Kombucha and I shared what I knew about chia (the sauce on top of the sandwiches was a veganaise/chunky mustard/chia seed spread {yum}.


I will be posting more about Kombucha and chia in upcoming posts...so stay tuned. I'll post more after Memorial weekend.

Multiple Defenses

I just returned from the farmer's market with a lovely little gem of wisdom. Plant collars work pretty well but aren't a surefire defense against cutworms if you put it on with a cutworm sleeping at the base of the plant, which is what happened to another plant last night. I discovered that cutworms cut down a plant by circling the base. If you put a toothpick or scewer at the base of the plant, it can't fully circle it! Problem solved...now I need to find out what is stripping the leaves off my pepper plants.

Lipstick and Rouge

Our neighbor, Dock, gave us this chair last year. I am enamoured with the aging process of things that rust and get round with time. However, rust has a way of making things fall apart. Rustoleum to the rescue!


I was afraid to sit in this chair in clean clothes, but now it's my favorite seat in the garden.

Garden Tea

Last summer, during a dry spell, the plants' main water source was city water. Although they were grateful for some moisture, they didn't look too healthy - with all the chlorine and hard water stuff...especially the rhododendrons. Lately, I've been researching compost tea which gave me a great idea. The instructions state: if you are going to use city water, set it out for 24 hours to let the able chemicals evaporate - like chlorine.

There was a small pale of water that was brown due to the leaf litter steeping in it for a few days. Instead of throwing it out, I watered a nearby plant with it. It seemed to REALLY like this brew...so I found a bucket and filled it with water and leaf litter to set out overnight. Every morning I'll give the herbs and veggies a cupful of water...they have responded amazingly well!

Not only am I conserving the amount of water I give them, I'm giving them a mild nutritional boost every morning...like a power drink. (post note: the mosquitos REALLY love the tea too, so put a wet towel or a screen over the bucket so you don't have to share your yard with blood suckers)

Simple Solutions.....

...that make me feel silly for not thinking of them sooner.

Last year, I went to war with what I finally discovered to be a cut worm. This is a completely illogical creature as it only cuts off stems. It does not eat anything...it just enjoys destroying property. Like this:

So I called Mike McGrath from "You Bet Your Garden" on NPR and he suggested 'plant collars', which is a can or plastic bottle with the top and bottom cut off and buried halfway in the ground around tender, young plants. I have been having friends save bottles for me and I've tediously repeated this 'plant collar' process on dozens of my vegetable transplants.

This morning I was planting new lemon and spicy globe basils to replace the ones that were stripped (because I DID NOT put collars around them) and I decided to used some of the little plastic pots that have been piling up under my garden bench. As I was cutting off the bottom, I glanced over at the new plants to realize that I would be taking the plants out of one plastic pot and stuffing them into another - damaging the roots in the process - and it occurred to me: "why not just cut the bottom out of the pot it's in and bury that one?" Duh.

A cut worm barrier needs to be a minimum of about 2 inches above the surface and two inches below. After I cut the bottom out, I gently pressed the plant down a bit:

After planting it, I sprinkled a couple of tablespoons of pre-minced bottled garlic around the outside and spritzed the plants with the soap/baking soda/olive oil soap spray (last spring blog entry) with a bit of fish emulsion mixed in for good measure. I will keep you posted on how that works.

The collars reduce the amount of water it can soak in from the surrounding soil, so it is important to mulch with well crunched up leaves inside the collar (making sure you don't create a cutworm bridge) and often check the inside soil for dampness. Once the plant matures, you can cut the collar off with a pair of shears. Another option I read about is to affix two Popsicle sticks around a stem with twine. I'll try that out and keep you posted ~

A trellis for our Tomato Tree

Jason and I found a HUGE young tomato plant at the Cleveland County Farm Market today. As I was carrying it around, people came up and asked "What kind of tree is that?". I've been learning about how to prune tomatoes to create a thick bushy plant and felt like this would be a great one to prune. Jason wasn't too keen on the idea and our tomato cages were not big (or pretty) enough to cage this beauty in so I told him I wouldn't prune it if he made me a trellis tower...so he did :)

Serendipity

Jason and I went out to a little town near Lake Eufala - Checotah - to do a sign installation. I've been through this town many times and never saw the town until today. While Jason went to work, I decided to walk around the neighborhood and check out the front and backyard gardens scattered around. One garden really pulled me in...I stood at the fence for quite a few moments soaking in the roses and vegetables and statuettes and other bobbles and ornaments decorating this back yard. An older man turned the corner from a hidden part of the yard and saw me gawking at his space...he invited me in to take a look AND BOY WAS IT AWESOME.

I followed him around, asking "what's this?", "what's that?", "what does this do?", "what's that for?" He was so gracious and come to find out he is a master rosarian who is (or was) president of the Tulsa Rose Society. After 20 minutes or so of him showing me around, Jason pulled up to the yard and joined in on the tour. Other than rose gardening, Troy (that's his name) had quite a vegetable garden...here is what I found so exciting...all of the vegetables were covered in these jars:

These are gallon size glass pickle jars that he cut the bottoms out of. Once he planted the seeds, he put the jars on top to create a micro climate. He was taking all of the jars off today, now that the last cold spell is behind us. I don't know if you can tell how big the tomato plants are in the picture, but they are twice as big as they would be - even if they were started in a greenhouse at the same time!

I CAN'T WAIT TO GET AHOLD OF SOME JARS AND TRY THIS OUT!!!

Green house

I have been trying to post for a month and could not find the time! So, I will be retroactively filling in the gap between here and the February post. The biggest upgrade so far this spring is the addition of our greenhouse...this will be a lengthy process and may not be complete until it's time to take the plants in for the fall, but it is already becoming a functional staging and storing area for spring gardening. We bought a metal greenhouse frame last fall, but recently decided to create a wooden frame around it to hold windows and the awesome door we found at the Cleveland County Habitat for Humanity Re-store when we went to pick up the two pallets of re-purposed bricks....here is the inspiration: The greenhouse will be attached to the east side of our workshop in front of a window that is near the workshops gas furnace so we can easily warm the plants during the super cold nights. The north side will have no windows (which will help keep the brunt of the winter wind from getting in) and will, instead, have hangers for 'shovels and rakes and other implements of destruction' (name that movie). The south side will hold a very open screen door that lets in ALOT of light with a clear plastic insert for the colder months. The east side will have a bank of four windows that we will be scouring The Restore for and the ceiling will be framed in corrugated plastic sheeting. Enough of the explanation...here's our progress:

It was so hot Saturday before last that we decided to start the digging after sunset...

The next day we put in and leveled the gravel and sand, then laid the landscape fabric...

We started laying the bricks last Saturday night...

and finished on Sunday afternoon...

by Sunday evening, we had the inner frame set up and all the pots, soil and amendments set up in their new spaces....

Next up is the stem wall and frame :)

First Toad

It's started warming up enough to begin clearing some of the leaves out of the beds. I lifted up an overturned pot in one of the shady beds and found what looks like Jim Jimminy (Jason's toad) hanging out under there. Last year we didn't see any toads till mid April, but I wasn't digging around quite as much.

We planted a variety of little bulbs all over the property last fall....they've all started popping up through the dead leaves.

Lovely.

Adding a bit of Reality

I spent the day refining my Vision. Jason likes seeing examples...so do I.

Dreaming

This morning was the first spring shower. Between that, the sporadic warm weather days and a shock of blooming bulbs, I'm itching to get outside and dig in the dirt....instead, I drew up my plan with my handy dandy computer drawing tablet. It was almost as fun (without the backache tomorrow)

New Renovations

Okay, so it's been a while....I've actually been chastised for the length of time that has lapsed between this post and the last. In my defense, it has been very busy for the inhabitants of the Wellstead....lots of work and play.

The first phase was getting our new room ready...we turned the garage into our master bedroom with a spacious laundry room/closet.

Jason and I have been promising the kiddos their own rooms by Christmas, which didn't exactly work out, but over the holidays, we began renovations and I am glad to say we are finally at a (momentary) resting point.


(ignore the messy bed)

The next step was turning our old room into Tillie's new room:


I can't tell you how much FUN I had getting her room together. The big reveal is tonight :)

Once we can see the floor in their current room, we will give Jesse a makeover for his room too. One step at a time (breathe).