One Small Change: A Garden, Canning and Cleaning

I've been wanting to get our garden prepared since, well, since last spring, but I've been talking about it as part of One Small Change since August.  Finally, last weekend I staked it out.  Hubba decided he didn't like it and selected a different location.

I staked it out again and Hubba agreed.

This new location has no underground wires so we can start digging at any time.

Now on to official business: my One Small Change for October was to continue to can and freeze produce.

I added more apple butter and an awesome chunky apple sauce to my September stash.  I have one more sack of apples to process and potentially a few more apples on the tree.  I haven't checked them out since the freeze earlier this week.

I also acquired a food dehydrator.  I'm thinking about drying some of the apples I have left along with making beef jerky.

Learning to can and freeze produce over the last two months has been really fun and satisfying.  I feel I can handle most anything that comes my way next year.

For November, I plan to clean my ovens.  Blech.

Soon after I started participating in One Small Change, another changer wrote this post about her experience with home-made cleansers...  I really need to clean out my ovens, and I like the idea of home-made cleansers.  I  hope it goes well.

Fiber Arts Friday: Crocheted Balls

The other day my sister sent a photo of a crocheted cat toy.  She thought it was super cute and wondered if I could make one.  She said, "It's just a ball.  It can't be too hard, right?"

I'm not a huge crocheter.  But there are a couple of patterns I really want to make that are crochet.  So improving my skills has been on my list for a while.

I decided that I should be able to make a couple of crocheted balls and found a pattern for a hackysack.

I went to my stash and found this bright cotton left over from a weaving class I took a while back.

Here's the result of my experiment:

I think they're a little big and heavy to be a good cat toy.  I filled them with dried lentils so they feel very much like the hackysacks of my younger days.  ;-)  I bet they'd be pretty great filled with lavender.

I wonder what we'll see today at Wisdom Begins in Wonder... it is Fiber Arts Friday.

Solving Problems: Preferred Content

I subscribe to a lot of blogs via RSS.

I like the convenience of it.  It's passive.  My email isn't full of blog posts.  I can see what's been posted to recently and read in any order I choose.

The down side to RSS is that I don't always have a strong enough connection to receive the feeds when I'm travelling and the RSS subscription is specific to one computer.

Solutions other than RSS:

Email Subscription.  Initially this was my preferred method of subscribing, but I already mentioned I like having less in my email.

Google Reader.  I understand there might be some Phone Apps that work with Google Reader for when you're "on the go,"  but I don't like Google Reader.  Perhaps I don't know how to use all of the "features," so I might be willing to give it a try again.

Links from my blog.  My solution was to create a list of some favorite blogs on the Kathryn's Brain home page.  You'll see them if you scroll down a bit on the right sidebar.  --->

What's your solution?  How do you keep up with your preferred content when you are away?  Or do you?

Manure Delivery

This past week we made two alpaca manure deliveries to our friend's garden.

Hubba spent his day's off shoveling the manure into the bed of our truck.

It seemed like a lot... until we dropped it in their (giant) garden.

So Hubba loaded the truck again, then promptly announced he wanted a tractor.

We don't have much manure left.... for now.   I just love making farm deliveries.

Roasting Turkey

Hubba and I used to get whole fresh turkeys from Keller's Farm Store in Albuquerque every 4-6 weeks.

Since we've returned to Colorado, we've had a challenge finding fresh turkey, let alone frozen ones.  I really haven't seen much other than at Thanksgiving.

So I've been asking around, hoping and praying that we would find a suitable turkey source.

In the spring, the chicken farmer at the farmer's market told me he had some turkeys that should be ready for Thanksgiving.  So I made a note and kept looking.

The boy who delivered our hay about a month ago told me the manager at the feed store raised turkeys and that they might be available for individual sale.

Finally, a couple of weeks ago at the farmer's market, the chicken farmer had a sign out that he had turkeys available.

He was embarrassed that they were a little big.  This was his first year raising turkeys and had gotten them a little too early.  I told him not to worry.  I desperately wanted farm-raised turkey and would take a big one.

It was there for me to pick up last Saturday and let me tell you, I got what I wished for...

... a 29.6 pound turkey.

Eek.  I didn't know if it would fit in my oven.  It certainly didn't fit in the refrigerator, barely fit in the sink and was way too big for my roasting pan.

But don't worry, I bought a (recycled) aluminum roasting pan, defrosted the turkey in the sink and roasted it earlier this week.

We've been having turkey sandwiches and tacos for days.  Yum-my.

As for the manager at the feed store?  I'm getting one of his turkeys next weekend.  I plan to save that one for Thanksgiving.

Fiber Arts Friday: Orange Cotton Hats

Quite a long time ago, I was trying to make a hat (Ravelry link) for Hubba that was (a) not too hot, (b) washable and (c) an orangy-red color.

I ended up with a cotton London Beanie.  He liked the hat in spite of some some issues it has.

Then I made one for our friend's young son and Hubba decided he loved his hat.

The young son, decided they would have a private orange hat club, so his dad needed one too.

I didn't have enough of the orange yarn left over and was unable to find more at my local yarn shops, so I went to Ravelry, found some there and knit a third Orange Cotton Hat.

I hope they stay true to their word... that this is a closed club.  :-)

This is, of course, my weekly installment for Fiber Arts Friday.  Please head over to Wisdom Begins in Wonder to see what everyone else has been up to.

Road Trip: Trail Ridge Road, part 2

I haven't been able to post photos for about a week.

The Blogger photo uploader was undergoing maintenance, so I thought that was the reason.  But I still couldn't upload photos after the maintenance was completed.

I re-booted my router and now things are working much better.  Here (finally) are some photos from our trip over trail ridge road last weekend.  Please enjoy.