On the last day of March.

It was surprisingly sunny today. After several days of downpours of rain and cold temperatures, there was a break today and I got my gardening for the week done. I harvested the rest of the first batch of radishes, which will be turned into dinner tonight (one more day without the grocery store!).

I re-sowed radish seeds to replace the ones I harvested. I sowed some more onions and our first outdoor lettuce seeds as well as chard, carrot and broccoli seeds. And, I transplanted my broccoli starters into the garden. This one was pretty exciting. I was so proud of my little guys. I raised them from seed in the safety and warmth of the living room, and now they are outside in the big, bad world of the front yard. Good luck, little broccolis, I hope you fare well.

And, lastly, I'm starting my pepper seeds inside. These will probably be a colossal failure as I just read about how large varieties don't do well in our climate and the two varieties I bought have the words “Giant” and “Grande” in their names. Oops. That's what I get for impulse buying seeds.

The fruit trees are doing their thing. The plum tree has lost it's flowers and is in leaf stage now, but the cherry tree is in full bloom.

And so is the pear tree in the front yard. This one is my favorite; maybe it's because it's at eye level, but I think the blooms are just beautiful.

Although the don't smell very good.

And the sad little apple tree, whose prune job makes you want to cut it down and start over, is starting to bloom too. I'm hoping with a few years of loving pruning we can get this guy back on track.

Cheap eats.

We are running a little low on food over here at the homestead. I haven't been to the grocery store in nearly two weeks. I don't particularly feel like going right now either. So, I've been stretching the food that we do have. I have one more meal written on the dry-erase board, the Radish Pasta. I need to harvest those guys first though. Beyond that I have beans, rice and flour. So, last night I made English Muffins so we would have some breakfast food. It's one of my staple recipes now. They are really pretty easy and really delicious too. It makes a lot, it's easy to freeze and it tastes way better than store bought (plus it just has these 6 ingredients in it!).

4 cups white flour

1 ½ tsp. Salt

1 ½ cup warm milk

½ tsp. Sugar

1 packet or 1 tbsp. Dry active yeast

1 tbsp. Olive oil

Semolina for dusting (optional)

• Put sugar and yeast in a small bowl. Heat milk to lukewarm and add ½ cup milk to yeast and sugar. Let yeast proof.

• Sift flour and salt in a mixing bowl. Make a well in the center.

• Add yeast mixture, remaining milk and oil to flour mixture.

• Beat until dough holds it's shape. It will be kinda sticky still though.

• Cover with oiled plastic wrap and let rise for about an hour.

• On a well floured surface roll dough to about ½ inch thick. Using a 3” cutter (or the mouth of a mason jar or large glass) cut out little muffins. Place on a floured baking sheet or floured cutting board or whatever works, cover with a towel and let rise for a half hour. Dust with semolina if you have it.

• Cook on a griddle over medium heat, about 5-7 min for each side. Let cool and enjoy.

*Side note: I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I needed to find a griddle at a garage sale. Well, I found this one in a free box last weekend! Score!*

Mmmm....breakfast.

YES!

I love radishes. I really, really do. A nice radish with some blue cheese. Knock me over, I'm in heaven. I harvested the very first of my radishes and in fact, the very first of my garden today. I've been very anxious about pulling the radishes up; I've read if you leave them in the ground too long they rot easily and are prone to disease. I pulled up about seven of the largest today and left the rest to grow a bit larger until next week. But, I've done it! I grew these from tiny little seeds. And now I just ate them. They were delicious. Succulent and sweet at first, then earthy, then a little spicy. Mmmmm......radish. I should be able to harvest the whole first sowing within the week, which will be enough for a couple meals.

I am an organized freak sometimes because I do things like writing the meals we have ingredients for on the dry-erase board on the fridge. When I get home from the grocery store I write up everything we can make from what we have, and I slowly erase the list as we eat it. It makes sure I use everything of what I have and I don't forget about something I thought would be neat last week. But, for the first time I wrote something up on the board without going to the grocery store! It's a radish pasta that uses the root and the greens and it sounds pretty delectable and I can make it in a couple days with my first big harvest.

I also got back on the rye bread horse and tried a new recipe. Success!! It's way too salty, but I'll cut that in half next time. It's a good flavored sandwich rye and it actually rose this time and cooked all the way through. It's been a successful couple days on the homestead.

Next week is the start of April and lots of new things are popping up on my garden calendar to plant like carrots and chard and peppers. The garden beds are really going to start filling in quickly now that the weather is getting warmer and rain is broken with some sun. Hooray, Spring!

I live on a bike route.

We got a notice in the mail today that Sunday Parkways is going right past our house. We sit on the corner of 17^th Street, and it's going to head right up 17th. Sunday Parkways is an event that Portland started in the last couple years, which is based off Brazil's highly popular Carfree days. They do several around the city each summer. Last year I rode the route in SE Portland (which was honestly a little annoying because it was so crowded with bikes! And small children on bikes who can't control themselves!). But, it was great to see that it was such a success. Unfortunately, Mike is riding in the Reach the Beach ride the day before Parkways in our neighborhood where he will ride from Portland to the Oregon coast, and we will likely be playing on the beach instead of watching thousands of cyclists ride past our house without fear of cars. Maybe they will keep the same route for next year.

Goodnight, car.

I have been a slacker this last week. I even bought bread at the grocery store. But I have a good excuse! I swear! My brother and sister-in-law are coming to visit and my house was on relative alert. Not only relative alert, but the first members of my family to see my house and my first overnight guests alert. Sheesh. So, I bought a baguette at the store. That's the beauty of still living in the city; I have the option. I really did want to bake some bread for their arrival. It was on my to do list every day and every day it got pushed back to the next day. Oh well.

My brother is coming to visit me because he bought my car. They will be driving away in it in three days. It's my last three days of being a regular, car-owning person. I'm getting a little nostalgic, thinking back on all the trips to Malibu and drives through Hollywood and trips to the Oregon coast I have been on in that car. It's seen my life transform from requiring a car, and a nice one at that, to only requiring my own two feet. And I'm glad it's going to a good home, where it will be used and loved. Here's to you, car. Have fun in Colorado.

Picture Update.

Today feels like Spring. The sun is shining, there is zero chance of rain and it's a warm 53 degrees. Tomorrow should hit 60. We bought a lawnmower yesterday. I really do feel like a homeowner now. That somehow sealed the deal. So, this afternoon we did some yardwork, and I took some Spring progress pictures.

The indoor sprouts: Broccoli, Onions and Cauliflower.

Mike mowing between the beds:

The radishes are doing great:

Radishes close-up. I want to eat them.

These look like grass, but apparently that's what spinach looks like when it sprouts. Who knew?

My $3.99 rose from Lowe's. It's doing pretty good. There were only about 2 leaves on it when I planted it.

Pea sprouts!!

And, finally, the plum tree. It's starting to get some leaves and it's dropping its flowers. But, the pear tree is right behind. It should burst into flower any day now.

Why I Cook from Scratch.

I cook from scratch for a lot of reasons. Most of them are a broken record; it's healthier and it's cheaper. I am definitely of a whole food philosophy though. I don't buy low-fat, low-calorie, imitation anything. I cook with butter, and with milk and cream. When I come home from the store Mike looks through the cupboards and says, “But what is there to eat?”, because I buy ingredients; I don't buy food. I buy flour, milk, sugar, eggs, onions, vegetables, noodles and cheese. I have made it to the point where I don't even buy bread at the store anymore; I make it myself with the flour. One of these days I'm going to find a tortilla press and a griddle at a garage sale for cheap and I'm going to stop buying tortillas too. I am half tempted to just start buying whole milk since we don't really drink it; I just use it in my cooking, so that I can make my own cheese and butter.

So, why do I do all these crazy things? On top of which I don't own a microwave and have no intention of buying one (I don't like them), and I don't have an electric mixer, just a hand crank egg beater (although I would love a standing mixer). I do it because it tastes so much better and not only is it good for your body, it's good for your soul.

Food reheated in a microwave and on the stove are totally different. You can taste it. Sure, it means I have more dishes to do (and I don't have a dishwasher) but it's worth that time to me to have something that tastes fresher and has been heated with real heat. Meals prepared from whole foods taste so much better because it has the time I spent slicing each carrot, chopping each onion, washing each leek put into it. People joke that the secret ingredient in their cooking is love, but I don't think it's that far off. I really do think about that when I am preparing a meal. I think about how this meal is going to nourish me and my family, which may just be Mike (and maybe the residual sauces to Lemon), but it's my family and I put my love for them into my cooking. I think the same thing when I go out to the garden to check on the radishes and look at the pea sprouts. I think about how my time I am spending and the love and care I am putting in my garden is going to feed my family. And then I am thankful that this isn't the old west and there is the grocery store down the street because my family would starve and I have no idea what I'm doing. But, it's the thought that counts.

I can't wait to take the next step in whole cooking, taking the food from the seed to our plates. If I had the land I would grow my own grains and mill my own flour for my bread. That would be the ultimate. But I think the farthest I'll make it is my own chickens, and maybe a goat for milk. But a girl can dream, can't she?

Rain, Rain, Go Away.

I had a dream last night that I woke up and looked out my window and overnight my plants had grown to a couple feet tall, bushy and delicious looking. It was just a dream.

It's been a sloshy mess here in Portland the last few days. I have patiently sat inside and watched my radish starts get pummeld by downpours, hail and hours on end of drizzle. I am really hoping they don't go south, but my faith is wavering. There hasn't been much on the gardening calendar this week, but tomorrow I have a lot to do! I'm sowing more kale, radishes and spinach outside (so even if the guys going right now get rotted out or frozen, there will be another batch close behind), sowing the first outdoor onions, starting my tomatoes inside (yeah!), and starting some herbs inside, including cilantro and epazote. I'm excited about this one. It's a spice I have never seen in the store before but is apparently pretty ubiquitous in Mexican cooking. I'm hoping it will become my not so secret ingredient to really push my Mexican cooking over the top. In case I haven't mentioned, although I'm sure I have, I grew up in Austin and could eat Tex-Mex every meal for the rest of my life and be happy. Please refer to this blog: Homesick Texan, because it's like the greatest thing ever. I need to throw a party so I have a good excuse to make the queso.

The Seed Club.

I came home yesterday and there was a giant pile of seed packets on the kitchen table. Apparently Mike had found a free box filled with seeds, so he grabbed them. Most of them are exceedingly old, like from 2003. But there were a few from 2007. There were about eight packets of beets, five pumpkin, four endive, several beans and the list goes on. Since we aren't having much luck with our spinach seeds we planted so far outside I decided to give these a try, even though they are seven years old. You never know, maybe they will sprout better than the new stuff. I also threw out two rows of black-eyed peas and some endive, just for fun. If they sprout, it's free food, if they don't, no harm done.

I set out to make rye bread yesterday too. It all seemed to be going well until I put it in the oven and I think it actually shrank. Total rye bread failure. The only other time I have ever had a total bread failure was also with rye bread. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but I want to try out a couple other rye recipes and see if I can't find one that works. Besides, the flavor of the failed loaf wasn't very good either. It was a little sweet, a little caraway; maybe nice for snacking, but we wanted to make Tempeh Reubens and it just wouldn't meld well.

Just to prove what I giant dork I am, I got really excited when I got an email promoting the Grow Portland Seed Club. That's right, it's a volunteer driven seed club that provides organically grown, open-pollinated seeds that thrive in the Pacific Northwest climate. I think I am going to volunteer and go help pack some seeds. It helped that the seed packing get-together in my neighborhood is at Amnesia Brewing. That might have convinced me.

I also discovered this awesome endeavor: The Portland Fruit Tree Project. Also volunteer driven, you can register your fruit trees and get people to come out and help care for them and harvest them in exchange for providing some of your harvest to community food banks. God knows there is no way I will be able to eat all the plums that we get even if I make jams and jellies and preserves until my head explodes.

So, even though it's pouring down rain all day today, and for the next five days, I think this is a pretty darn cool place to live where you can find free seeds on the side of the street, volunteer for non-GMO gardening concerns while drinking beer, and have a hoard of volunteers come and help you harvest your trees.

Going carless.

It's been a week since my surgery and I am glad to say I am doing just fine. I still have another week until I get to take off all my dressings and bandages, but I'm getting by all right.

Honestly, there isn't much news on the garden front. Everything has sprouted so far except the peas. So we have radishes, kale, spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, onions, scallions and lettuce. I thinned the broccoli sprouts and we ate the ones I pulled. They actually tasted like broccoli! Even with just their one unidentifiable leaf.

I do, however, have updates on the homesteading front. I sold my car. It is still in my possesion for a couple weeks, but it's not my car anymore. I think most people would probably be stressed out and worried about living without a car, but I am really, really excited. I walked to the bank yesterday. It was so nice. I really love walking places and I am thrilled that I am going to be required to do a lot more walking soon. It's the way people have gotten around for thousands upon thousands of years. These car things have only been around the last hundred and frankly, I don't like them. They are stressful. I have to admit when I was riding my bike everywhere last year, the one time a week I might actually get into my car and drive it felt like a real luxury. The idea of not working my muscles to get to the store seemed so novel and I felt pretty fancy.

But, thats just it. Americans walk only a few thousand feet per day on average. We are disconnected from the activities that make us human. This is the reason I am so interested in gardening and cooking and baking and getting places under my own power. It's a reconnection to being a human animal. Without it there is so much missed in the human experience. Two of my friends are taking this to the higher level and are embarking on a walking adventure. They are going to leave Portland and walk to St. Louis, retracing the steps of Lewis and Clark. I'm sure they will learn a lot about history, development of civilization and themselves.

I remember as a kid at a sleepover at my friend's house when we walked up to the Circle K on the corner and we bought candy and sodas for the night ahead. I still remember how awesome I thought it was that we just walked there. I remember the joy of walking and talking with friends, enjoying the summer sun in the afternoon and getting somewhere autonomously. The house I grew up in, though the city has gotten closer to it now, was a 20 minute drive from anything when I was young. I didn't have the opportunity to ride a bike to the movies or walk up to the store. Don't get me wrong, I loved growing up on some land, with space to play and imagine and not be held in by the confines of suburbia. But, I still remember the joy that a walk to the local market gave me.

There is a movement that seems to be happening in my generation. Living in a progressive city I think it is magnified here. People are giving up their cars, growing Victory Gardens, learning to sew and knit and make things with their own two hands. It's a rebellion against the twinkie and cable TV lifestyle so many of us grew up with. Sometimes I think it's almost a third-wave feminism. It's the pendulum settling somewhere in the middle where women have equal rights and opportunities but they can still bake a loaf of bread or mend a pair of pants and don't have to feel bad about it. It's what women have been doing for centuries, and there is something very comforting in making the same motions with your hands to cook, bake or mend that your great-great-great grandmother also made. One of the other blogs I follow turned me onto this book, Radical Homemakers, which I really want to read. It looks like an articulation of what I am thinking.

Anyway. Here's a picture of my plum tree. Isn't it pretty? I'm so happy that every year in early March I'll have a big puff of white flower in my backyard.

Also, Mike and I took Lemon to Kelly Point Park last weekend and she played in the water and it was really cute. See?

Break time.

I'm on break from gardening this week. I had surgery on my arm yesterday and got the plate and screws taken out. Compared to getting them in, this is nothing. I'm sure I'll be feeling fine in a couple days once the incision starts to heal, and I'll be back to gardening in a week or so.

I got a lot of things started before my surgery so that my gardening calendar for the next two weeks is almost empty. I planted some cilantro, lettuce and cauliflower seeds. My Siskiyou Sweet onions are sprouting and the broccolis continue to grow. You can see the radish sprouts from across the yard now and the plum tree has more and more flowers on it.

In addition to being a first-time homesteader and I am also a first-time homeowner. And this means making the yard look pretty on top of being functional. On the side of the house we have decided to plant a few bushes and create a border along the side of the house. The day before my surgery I finally got the grass cleared enough for the first bush and got it into the ground. I stole some dirt from the summer bed, as we aren't going to plant anything there until May anyway, and we can get another load of dirt later. I got some dirt around the little tiny rhododendron and I now I can see the vision of what the side of the house will look like when we are done. It's going to look really nice. Here's Tim helping me. He ate some grass and then puked next to the rhododendron. Sweet guy.

So, I'm not going to have anything to add the next few days. I'll let you know if I watch any good movies. Sometimes it's nice to have days when you are required to sit on the couch and do a movie marathon.