(Almost) Snow Day.

I grew up in Texas. On average it snowed every seven years. That means before I went off to college I had seen snow 2 times in my life. Once, when I was about 2 it snowed and we made a snowman. I only know this from pictures. When I was in Junior High it snowed and school was even canceled. It only took a couple inches to shut everything down. In high school we had a big ice storm, but not really any snow, per se. I went to college in Santa Fe for a couple years, where snow was a regular thing. You would get a few inches and it would stick around for a week and then melt off. But it happened pretty regularly through the winter; we were in the mountains after all, so the city was prepared with salted roads and snowploughs.

Portland is just about as bad as Texas when it comes to snow. I think it snows once a year here. That seems to be my experience, but the city just isn't equipped to deal with it. A couple inches and everything shuts down. A few years ago there was upwards of a foot and a half on the ground for a week and a half. I missed most of it, as I was in Texas for Christmas.




The forecast last night was for 2-4" and the city was preparing for a shut down. I had my fingers crossed for a snow day from work. I work pretty far out, and there is no way to get there without crossing a range of hills up to 1000'. I was hoping for a day of leisurely drinking my coffee with Mike. Taking the dog for a long walk in a carpet of white and then maybe a walk up to get pizza and a beer in the afternoon. Definitely no driving, and definitely no driving the giant van.




It looked promising when I woke up, but it was not to be. Work was on. Though the giant van slid a bit in slush and ice getting out of my neighborhood, once I was on major roads it was fine. It sure is pretty out there though.




With a lifetime of limited snow I still get really excited about it. I've never lived anywhere where the snow really piled up. A couple inches is magic to me.

I snapped a few shots on my way out the door this morning. Our winter snow for the year. Next week, back to rain.

A little manual labor.

The forecast this week is calling for three days of snow. To that I say, "?!?!?!?!?". Not even in the depths of winter do we get a call for snow for three days in a row; and we are in the end of February! It's supposed to be warming up a bit and seeds are supposed to be going in the ground. Well, I think I'm going to wait a few more days until the freak snow passes before I start planting outside. I am getting anxious though; that's two weeks behind schedule! Stupid Nature. Doesn't it know we've got things to do around here?

This weekend we did get the new raised beds in order, so as soon as the weather is ready, we are ready. Saturday Mike assembled the beds and staked them into the yard. Then on Monday I went and got a truckload full of dirt and shoveled it all myself. Yee-gads, that was a lot of work. My shoulders, arms and abs are crazy sore today.

Mike had to work on Monday, but I had the day off. I rented a truck through Zipcar, which is a pretty cool thing to have around when you don't have a car. Even if I did have a car of my own; I still wouldn't have had any way to get a load of dirt so this worked out great. It took me about an hour and a half of non-stop shoveling and dumping to get the truck bed empty and the garden beds filled. We tore up the grass along the side fence to make a more proper pea bed for this year too, with a lot more space for additional varieties.

The new beds out front are lined up with the living room window so we'll have a nice view of garden veg this summer. Up on the list of things to do this Spring/Summer is to put in a fence around the front yard. I'm pretty eager to do this because then we can start planting along the fence line and grow some taller flowers, veggies (pole beans, corn, etc) and shrubbery, hopefully obscuring the view of the street and our neighbor's cars just a little.



(in the windowsill: flat with onion, leek, cabbage and broccoli sprouts and a small rose we hope comes back)

Bold and True: On House and Home.

I've been reading a bit lately and hearing a bit lately on the virtues of living in the city. That is the big conundrum: city or country? A house in the country on a bit of land with neighbors just out of sight certainly sounds idyllic. Practically speaking though, it might not be the most feasible option. I read a few articles through this permaculture site. The author even lived on acreage in Southern Oregon for several years only to realize that mental ideal was not working in real life. He moved to Portland and discovered that city life was much more sustainable for him. This is a fear I have as well. If I moved to the country I would be completely dependent on an automobile. You can't tell me gas prices are going to go down in the future making driving 20 miles to the nearest town more accessible. And the next affordable, non-gas powered, country vehicle is who knows how many decades away. As the author of those articles points out, when he was living in the country he and his wife were the only gardener/farmers. They were surrounded by wealthy retired and the poor with drug problems. There was no support for their lifestyle in the community they chose to live. Living in the city, yes, they had less land with which to support themselves, but they had a community that backed their lifestyle and gave support.

I have written before about how every other neighbor has chickens or a large back (or front) yard garden in my neighborhood. We have some friends nearby who are entering their second year of chicken keeping. They want to start a garden, but haven't yet. We are entering our second year garden, but haven't gotten chickens yet. So, we are going to trade. I'm stopping by tonight to swap some fresh garden kale and a loaf of sour cream bread for a dozen eggs. I'm excited about my first barter. I hope it's one of many.

I've been thinking about my house too. When I bought it I assumed we would live there for 5-7 years, a starter home. Then we would move on to something better, that house in the country perhaps. I have a vision for my house now. I know what I want to do to the yard and the land and the house itself to make it closer to my ideal. Now that I am looking at the time and money and effort that will go into making that vision a reality it is apparent by the time it's done it will be the 5-7 year mark. And if I've fixed it up just the way I like, why would I want to leave? I wasn't so excited about my house at first because it was ranch style. Gross. But, it was well fixed-up, at a great price, in a great location and it had the largest lot of any home we had seen. I had to overlook the mid-century aesthetic. If it had just been a nice, open, wood-floored 1930's bungalow I'd be in heaven and never want to leave.

But that really brings it about. Why would I want to leave? If I can transform my yard into what I envision; we will grow more than enough food for ourselves. Maybe we can still keep bees and get a goat or two for milk. There is certainly space. Whatever we can't produce ourselves will have to be traded for or bought, but with neighbors who keep chickens, or grow varieties we don't, or have fruit or nut trees we don't, it might seem like we have 20 acres. I would have to forgo my ideas of a couple sheep for wool and growing my own grain, but that may be a small trade for being in a community where I can walk everywhere instead of driving dozens of miles down country roads for every little thing.

On Saturday I had a great day of the yin and yang of trying to live as much off my land, but in the city. In the morning Mike and I woke early and started pruning our fruit trees. We were lopping and sawing and clipping and getting pretty dirty. Mike put together the new beds and staked them into the yard.




Then we made a quick change and went to a formal wedding. The reception was in a downtown loft. As I looked out the window at the tops of brick buildings I was happy to live in the city and know that I had worked hard that morning to better my fruit harvest later this year only to end up in a cocktail dress a couple hours later. And instead of an hour or more drive home to the country, we made it home in ten.

The next phase.

This was the first weekend of the gardening season. By my calendar I'm ready to sow peas, radishes, kale and spinach outside in the ground. But, based on the fact that it has been an unseasonably cold year and night-time temps are still hovering around freezing, I'm going to hold off for an extra week. We did, however, go to the store and buy some lumber to put in two new raised beds! We also bought a wheelbarrow. I felt the same buying a wheelbarrow as I did when I bought a ladder last year. This homeowner thing is real when I own my very own ladder. This gardening thing is real now that I own my very own wheelbarrow.

My onion and leek seeds have all sprouted in the window. A nice spot of green against a mostly gray backdrop. Tonight I'm adding a few more seeds to the window: broccoli, cabbage and green onions.

Sprout!

First onion sprout!!

Bold and True: Beer and Other Lives.

I really like beer. Nay, I love it. I am a beer snob and I'll be the first to admit it. I love the ritual of it. Sitting down across from a friend and enjoying a beverage together. It takes time. It takes conversation. There is something old about it. I love trying new beers and new breweries. This town isn't short of them. Within walking distance to my house there are three breweries. It only makes sense that I would try to brew my own beer at home. This is on the list of goals for this year; to get a homebrew set up going.

I used to homebrew, back in one of my other lives. I had a boyfriend through the first half of my twenties who was a big homebrewer. In fact, he's the one who got me into gardening and baking and doing things for myself in the first place. Our relationship spanned four years and four states. Just before the end we were working on making our own stable recipes for beer.

It ended badly. I moved to Los Angeles not long after in a fit of independence. I came to about a year later and realized I was living in the middle of Hollywood and I really hated it. I came back to Portland, and in the four years since I've been back I haven't run into the ex once. That's a small miracle here. It's a small city and you are bound to run into just about everyone. This is a bit of a relief because I really don't know how that would go.

Last year, though, I got a nice little punch in the gut. I went out to a beer garden type pub after work one day and was perusing the menu of just over 80 beers on tap when I saw it. The ex made it legit. He had a beer or two on tap. Since then I have seen it on tap other places around town. It always makes me a little mad, especially when the coasters the waitstaff hand out are his brewery's coasters. I have a coaster collection going from pubs I have been to around the world. I'm torn if I should take one of his. It obviously has significance, but....really?

When I lived in L.A. I was talking with a friend and I said that all I wanted was a cabin in the woods. It seemed so far off and so unattainable at the time, sitting there on Hollywood Blvd. in the center of it all. I felt like without that other person who had been driving that dream for so many years I was lost and adrift at sea. My friend told me matter of fact - then do it yourself. It was a bit of an epiphany. I had never really considered doing it myself. That dream still feels far off most of the time, but looking back to that day in Southern California it seems like I can reach out now and touch it.

I think seeing that beer around town has lit a little fire under me to prove that I can still make beer on my own too. This next project makes sense given my self-reliant tendencies and love of beer. It is an obvious next step. When I make my first batch of beer though, it won't just be another project under my belt, but a little bit of a catharsis. I'm proving to myself I can do it on my own.

Stock.

We are mostly vegetarian in our house. Every once in a while we will buy meat, but very rarely. I am of the general belief that if I'm going to eat it, I should be able to kill it. But that's another story all together. When we do buy meat I try to make the most useful choice and buy a whole chicken. You get more for less money when you buy a whole chicken as compared to just boneless chicken breasts. I bought a chicken a couple weeks ago and we made it last.

The first meal I did a French Chicken in a Pot. It's a chicken recipe I have made a few times over the years. It's super moist and delicious. With the leftovers from that we made a Moroccan Tagine. I made it once last fall and it became an instant classic in our house. It's easily converted to vegetarian as well. Then, with the leftover chicken from that, which was mostly just carcass, neck and bones I made a stock.

I took the last few stalks of some celery that were beginning to wilt and would have been wasted, the last few garden onions from storage that were too small to really be good for much and the last few carrots from the garden that never grew big enough to make any meals anyway. Goodbye, carrots....

I put it all in a pot with the chicken remnants and let it brown over medium heat.

Then I filled my stockpot with water and brought it to a boil. I added some fresh thyme, a bay leaf and some coarsely ground black pepper.

Then it simmered for about four hours.

When it was done I strained it into a big bowl and pushed the juices out of the ingredients. When it cools I'll put it into a few quart sized bags and freeze it for individual soups in the future.

I don't believe in eating meat in the way it is widely available today, but in the event that I do purchase any meat product I am happy that I can at least use it to it's fullest potential and not waste a drop.

Cottonwood Salve.

Over on Throwback at Trapper Creek a few weeks ago I read about making a salve from cottonwood buds. I had never heard of this and thought it sounded like a great item to have in the medicine cabinet. A cottonwood salve is good for aid in healing cuts, burns, bruises and as a topical anti-inflammatory. Mike has been having some issues with inflammation in his wrist and I was especially excited about this aspect.

We went out to a park at the confluence of the Columbia River and the Willamette River, a park rife with cottonwood trees. We wandered around a bit and collected the buds of the tree that had fallen on the ground.

We soaked the buds a bit to get the dirt and sand off of them.

Then we put them in oil to soak. They will keep like this for a year. We can (and may) at some point add the infused oil to beeswax, which will make it keep longer and would also make application a little less messy, I assume.

Homemade Shampoo.

Another week, another random DIY household item project. This time I ran out of shampoo. So, instead of going out and buying some filled with chemicals and who knows what carcinogens, I made my own. All I needed was one of the basic few household items I now buy in bulk for cleaning and other purposes: castille soap, baking soda, borax, washing soda and vinegar.

All I needed for shampoo was a few tablespoons of castille soap. The kind we have is tea tree scented.

There are a variety of herbs you can add to shampoos for scent and also for help with oiliness, dryness, volume, etc. Today I just added rosemary, since we have a rosemary bush. Come summer, though, I'll be adding lavender from our lavender bushes and hopefully grow some sage and add that as well. I put the rosemary leaves in a tea strainer.

I boiled some water and let the rosemary steep for 10-15 minutes.

Then I added the rosemary water to the castille soap (I just reused my old shampoo bottle).

Voila - Homemade tea tree-rosemary shampoo! Total cost of replacement shampoo: $.28 - Frugal Win!

Pickle Medicine.

I was sick this week. Cut down with a cold. One of my tried and true sick foods has always been pickles. There is something about the vinegar and salt that soothe my stomach, I suppose. This is the first illness, however, where I was able to dig into my own private-reserve, homegrown, homemade batch of dill pickles. I have to say, they did the trick.

Portlandia.

I usually forget how much of a little progressive bubble I live in. There is a new sketch comedy show out about Portland. I've watched the first couple episodes and enjoyed it well enough. It's hard to tell how it will be received by people who don't live here. A lot of it might seem a little over the top, but it actually hits the nail on the head pretty well. There is the sketch about the adult Hide and Seek League. A slight exaggeration, but the vast majority of people I know are in adult kickball or dodgeball leagues. It's the thing to do. I've never done it mostly because I remember hating kickball and dodgeball, but this time around they are sponsored by the local breweries. There is the sketch about the lengths one couple goes to to order humanely raised chickens. Again, a bit of an exaggeration, but it is very, very, very common to overhear conversations about it in grocery stores and notes on restaurant menus about the farms the chickens came from. There is the militant bike messenger who demands bicycle rights wherever he goes, whether it be on a train, in a store, or through his house. It made me laugh.

Last night on my way home from work I approached N. Williams Street, which I have recently heard dubbed a "bicycle highway", not so much from the infrastructure, but from the traffic. As I came up to the street a herd of cyclists passed by and I was a little taken aback. Maybe two cars filled the road, but there were about a dozen cyclists pedaling past and a few stragglers behind them. Then I looked to my right and saw a vacant lot that has been taken over by urban farmers with long rows of veggies with a cloche frame for the cold. I signed up yesterday for the Seed Club packing event. I get 15 packets of non-GMO, heirloom seeds from local seed savers for about half price for helping sort them. Plus they hold it at the local brew-pub. Oh, and I forgot to mention the newest pub to grace my neighborhood will be non-profit. You heard me, a non-profit bar. I discovered this through an email this morning. Yes, it's bicycle delivered valentines. There are bicycle delivery services for just about anything; pizza, movers, packages, soup. Yes, a company dedicated to delivering soup by bike.

I looked at the delivery zone for the valentines one and saw that I live too far out for delivery. It made me a little annoyed because I ride up that far - so can they! And, hey, I have a bike boulevard a block away; it's not like it's out in the boonies! But then I realized that's why this city is so great. I do live far out. That's why when I moved into my house I suddenly stopped going out so much. We are so far out of the way. Out of the way here is four miles from the dead center of downtown. In any other urban metropolis (save Manhattan maybe) that would be so close in. Here, because distance is measured by bike and foot and not so much by car it's a long haul.

And from all this I realize it's so easy to get into gardening and keeping chickens and alternative forms of transport here. The culture is immersed in it. I'm not the odd duck in these parts. No one bats an eye when I say I want to keep chickens or expand my garden or put my energy into farming dreams. It just seems normal.