Renaissance Woman

I rarely do this, although perhaps I should start doing it more.  I just read this blog post, and think it's a really good one for the environmentally-minded as well as the locovores.  This is from a woman in New Zealand who has gone back to the land and is living on Haleltree Farm.  I love how the Internet connects us. Let's share the information.  It's important. Enjoy: http://www.hazeltreefarm.com/2011/06/chicken-eggs-when-home-grown-bounty-is.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Cluttercut+%28Cluttercut%29 *April 13, 2014 - sorry, but this link no longer is active.  I looked on the Hazeltree Farm Facebook page, and they haven't posted anything since 2012 - which is sad.  I hope they are okay.

Well, I've had a request to send pictures of the garden out there.  So here you go.  Don't let it be said that I don't answer a request. It's amazing how every year I put the same plants into the same ground, but each year the garden has a different personality.  Something new that I love about it.  I haven't done enough to the ground this year.  Actually, I did NOTHING to the ground this year, and I think that was a mistake.  But Nature is still there, sending up food for us to eat.  It does give one a sense of security. And I love the art that shows in my garden - love the green: (right above the lettuce is the window to my office - where I am typing this right now!) And I've saved my favourite for last.  These violas offer themselves up all over the garden.  This particularly determined one likes the shade of the rhubarb:

Recently I made a new friend - a young woman with a shared need to save the environment.  We had a short "chat" on Facebook yesterday - she was feeling frustrated, as we all do from time to time.  Her frustration stemmed from not doing "enough" environmentally.  As a woman in her early twenties with a one-year-old and a full time job, this precious soul doesn't have a lot of time.  She wants to change everything she does right now, but she is bound by her finances, time and relationships.  Nonetheless, she feels like she's failing because she tried to do too much at once. I understand her frustration.  As soon as you know better, you want to do better.  But one simply cannot change everything at once.  Even wanting to make so many changes can cause one to be overwhelmed and subsequently block the action that needs to be taken.  We've all been so overwhelmed that we couldn't get started on a project.  It's the same with maki...

I obviously didn't read far enough.  Those Tattler canning jar lids are made of plastic.  They are re-usable and BPA-free, but still plastic.  However, there are glass jars and lids available: http://www.weckcanning.com/ I'm disappointed.  If anyone out there knows of lid like the Tattler that are actually made of glass, please let me know.

As many of you may know, I've been working on an article about my Great-Grandfather's WWI battalion.  I'm not finished yet, but I thought I would start sharing parts of it with you.  I find it fascinating, but I don't expect everyone out there to have the same passion I do for it.  Please ... just humour me.  I'm going to do it in short bits so it doesn't take up too much of your day. "Do Your Little Bit":  The 143rd Battalion C.E.F., or the BC Battling Bantams “Victoria children yet unborn Will read a page that we’ll adorn” [1] I first found out about the BC Bantams (143 rd Battalion Canadian Expeditionary Forces, also called “The Battling Bantams”) while researching Jack McCurrach’s (my great-grandfather’s) experience in World War One.   Having ordered his war records from the Canadian Archives, I was able to trace his route from Canada through England, to France and back.   Jack signed up in July of 1916 with the 143 rd Battalion C.E.F. ...

OMG!!!  I didn't know anyone made these anymore.  Being a historical archaeologist, I've found lots of bits and pieces of these glass "liners", but I did not know that they were still in production anywhere.  And here they are made in the US (and they'll ship to Canada). http://shop.reusablecanninglids.com/ As soon as I have some extra cash (okay, as soon as I can justify spending extra cash after the extra money I just spent on caning materials for a chair that I'm going to re-do and will blog about) I am going to get me some of these.  Oh - caning and canning.  Tee Hee Anyone interested in a bulk order?? P.S. - please note that I've discovered that these are not glass jar lids, they are BPA-free plastic - please see http://sandiratch.blogspot.com/2011/06/canning-lids-plastic.html

Daniel's class came to our house the other day.  I wanted to show them our composter, the push mower, the clothesline (which allowed us to talk about where electricity comes from, peak oil, energy conservation), how I make my own laundry detergent, etc.  We also made ice cream and I made fresh bread to share.  The kids also got various samplers from the garden - spinach, lettuce and rhubarb as well as some old sunflower seeds from an old sunflower head.  They had no idea what a sunflower looked like when it was old and dried - one thought maybe it was an armadillo. And we read a great book called "One Small Place in a Tree".  Actually, I found a great website with all sorts of environmental books for children:  http://www.childsake.com/ The kids were great.  They asked good questions, behaved very well, and gave me a group hug after we were all done. They also asked for a handout with websites and the recipes for the ice cream and the laundry det...