Playing in the Paint

It's sunflower season in the midwest and I've been playing in the paint, trying to capture some of their sunny optimism. They are a giving flower.  Even after the petals fade and the flowerheads droop, the garden is full of birds harvesting the seed until the stalks fall in the snow.   I love that.

A couple of weeks ago I finally received my copy of Jean Haines' new book, Atmospheric Flowers in Watercolor.  It is lovely and inspiring and I've been playing with florals ever since. 

This one is 8 x 10 inches, matted and framed to 11 x 14 inches.  $225.


P.S. Jean Haines' books never disappoint.  I love all of them.   Check them out here.

The New Bookshelves

Our January project is finally done and it was worth the considerable amount of time it took.   Eric built these shelves on the wall around the 'will be a bathroom someday' door.  [Right now that little room is full of salvaged doors and door frames that I picked up last year, plus the pile of tiles for the someday bathroom, plus a few rolls of tar paper for the floor, a pile of assorted wood, the drywall buckets and tools, etc.]

He used birch plywood, stained and shellacked to match the other doors and trim upstairs.  

They are beautiful!   I've started moving up some of our gazillions of books.  This will let us clear out the smaller bookshelves in other areas of the house that have been double-stuffed during the building project.    Since the girls both work at a library, they are graciously allowing me to do the first pass at organizing the books, then they'll finesse, and then I get the final OK.   We are one step short of putting Dewey decimal numbers on everything.   [I heard you laugh.   When I was a kid, I had a prodigious collection of books myself and I DID put faux library labels on every single one.]

Next project:  Installing the floor in the guest room [Feb], then the floor in the Big Room upstairs [March]. 

Soap Book Reviews

I've been making soap for years using a cold process method.  There were just a few books on the market when we started making soap but there are several new books out there now and I realized it was time to check them out.  So much fun to read through a pile of new soap books!  I liked these two the best.  Soap Crafting, and Handcrafted Soap. 

For those of you new to soap making, let me answer a couple of questions first.

'Melt and pour' is when you buy pre-made soap, usually clear glycerine soap, at your local craft store and then all you have to do is melt it, add some color and scent and pour it into fun molds.  Easy.   These books aren't about that.  They are about making cold process and hot process soap.

Hot process and cold process soap making start the same way:  with oils and lye.   You start by mixing the lye into water and cooling it to under 120 degrees.  You melt your oils together and cool them to the same temp as the lye solution.   Then you mix them together to make your soap mixture. 

Cold process is when you pour the new soap mixture into a mold and let it cure slowly on its own.   You can unmold it after a couple of days, but saponification occurs slowly over the next few weeks.

Hot process is when you pour the new soap mixture into a slow cooker or pot and heat it up to quickly finish the saponification process in an hour or so.  

Soap Crafting: Step-by-Step Techniques for Making 31 Unique Cold-Process Soaps is a new book on cold process soap making that takes you through the basics and then shows a bunch of beautiful techniques for how to mix colors and make your soaps fancier. It was written by Anne-Marie Faiola, the Soap Queen, who has a terrific blog and who owns Brambleberry, an excellent (if pricey) source for soapmaking supplies.  The book is clear, beautiful and excellent for beginning and intermediate soap makers.  There's a good list of ingredients and a troubleshooting section.  It's got a spiral binding that allows you to open the book and keep it open while you're working.  I love it!  I've put this book on my book widget [See BOOKS tab above], too, if you need to find it later.

The second book Handcrafted Soap is all about hot process soap making, something that I had never tried. This book is by Delores Boone, who has done a great job of introducing soapmaking for beginners who want to finish it quickly by heating it at the end. There's a good description of oils, the basic process and the finishing processes. A great book for people who want to use the hot process method. Only one problem. The book is now out of print and it is way too expensive. I include the link here only so you know what book I'm talking about and so you can keep your eye open for it at used book places. It's definitely worth a few bucks to put in your how-to library, but not more than that.  The process is EASY.   I tried it right away and will give you a report tomorrow.

Emergency Kit First Aid Book

I got this book for us for Christmas to add to our Bug Out Bags. It is full of fantastic information and exactly what I needed to keep in our emergency first aid kit. 

It is spiral bound and all of the pages are plastic coated so the book can be used in the wet without falling apart or spoiling.   I love that!

 Check out those tabs along the bottom. There are sections on:

• safety
• cpr
• medical [e.g. childbirth and allergies]
• injury [including stitches]
• environmental dangers [e.g. altitude sickness and hypothermia]
• poison
• disaster
• survival

The dimensions are 3"x6" including the binding.  It's an ideal collection of information to keep with emergency packs.  

The only thing I don't like about it is the spiral binding, which I assumed would be along the side [no biggie that it's on the top], and which is made out of plastic.  [Seriously, guys??]   I'll find a sturdier case to keep it in so it doesn't get destroyed in the pack.

Here's the link to the Amazon page:

 

Euell Gibbons

Yeah, I know it dates me.    Euell used to be a big name way back in the 19.....uh....ahem.

Way back when.

Here's his bio from Wiki.

He wrote a series of back to nature type books called, Stalking the ......  [fill in the blank], plus a couple of others: 

Stalking the Wild Asparagus (1962)
Stalking the Blue-Eyed Scallop (1964)
Stalking the Healthful Herbs (1966)
Stalking the Good Life (1966)
Beachcomber's Handbook (1967)
A Wild Way To Eat (1967) for the Hurricane Island Outward Bound School
Stalking the Faraway Places (1973)

Here's where you can get  his books

I learn a lot every time I pick up one of these books.   They are marvelous collections of lore and how-to.    Look for them - open one up and read through a section.    They're fun!

If you're looking for a gift for someone who's into self sufficiency, I highly recommend these books.  

The Sibley Guide to Birds

A new field guide!    I love field guides and I think it's important to have several different kinds.   Thanks so much to my MIL for passing this one along to us. 

This book is published by the National Audubon Society, and written by David Sibley. 

It is organized by bird type - waterbirds first, then shorebirds, then birds of field and forest.    Each entry has a color drawing of the bird both male and female [juvenile if necessary], as well as in flight, often with a flight silhouette.   Significant features are indicated with arrows and a short description to help you identify gender and distiguish between species. 

Even better is a description of the voice [very helpful!] and map of the distribution of the species over North America.

This is an excellent guide and one that I am very happy to add to our collection of field guides.

Root Cellaring

Since we do have a veg garden that's expanding, and since I'm doing my best to extend the season as long as I possibly can and since I'm hoping to have more potatoes, squash, etc. to keep over the winter, I got this book on root cellaring.

Mike and Nancy Bubel have written a field guide to all types of root cellars and cold storage and the things to keep in them.   The book starts out with a long section on the types of fruit and vegetables to grow that can store over long periods of time in a root cellar or cold storage.

The next section is a discussion of the different kinds of root cellars, how they differ by temperature and what keeps best in them.

The final section is all about how to set up cold storage of your own.  There are excellent descriptions of the types of root cellars built and used traditionally.   I enjoyed the excellent suggestions for using spaces in your own home for cold storage with minimal building and investment.    If you want to build a root cellar of your own, there are excellent guidelines for how to keep it healthy and how to control the temperature in different areas to keep different types of food through the winter.   

This book is a definite keeper!

The Berry Bible

This lovely book by Janie Hibler is a fabulous compendium of information about all aspects of berry growing, harvesting, preserving and cooking.

It starts with an A-Z encyclopedia of berries of all kinds:  arbutus, sumac, thimbleberries and a lot of other exotic berries in addition to the standard blueberries, strawberries, etc.    Each listing contains information on the common names, scientific classification, habitat, history, commercial uses, harvest, storage and notes for the cook.   This section alone is worth the price of the book.

But there's more!  The next 170 pages are full of all kinds of berry recipes.

This is a wonderful book!  We find ourselves using this valuable resource more and more.  

Rustic Fruit Desserts

I've been wanting this book by Cory Schreiber and Julie Richardson for ages.  I found it on Amazon but hadn't had a chance to look through it in person, so I kept putting off the final purchase.  I finally took the leap and got it for us for Christmas.

Boy, am I glad I got it.

We love fruit desserts - for breakfast.  We have a freezer full of fruit.    We love finding new ways to bake it up.

There are over 60 recipes in the book, divided into the seasons, so that each section focusses on the fruit that you're likely to find during that part of the year.

Page 3 is a list of the types of fruit dishes and definitions for each of them so that you know the difference between a pandowdy and a slump, a buckle and a betty.

Here are the names of a few of the recipes from each season.

Spring:

• Rhubarb and Bing Cherry Brown Betty
• Boozy Dried Cherry, Chocolate and Hazelnut Bread Pudding
• Lemon Buttermilk Rhubarb Bundt Cake

Summer:

• Raspberry Red Currant Cobbler
• Lemon Blueberry Buckle
• Vanilla Spiked Plum Galette

Fall:

• Maple Apple Dumpling
• Fig and Mixed-Color Raspberry Crumble
• Upside-down Pear Chocolate Cake

Winter

• Cranberry Upside-down Almond Cake
• Pear Sauce
• Apple Pandowdy

Then there's a little section at the back of things you can make to keep in your pantry/fridge/freezer that make assembly of the recipes a bit faster.  Here are a few:

• Chantilly Cream
• Vanilla Crumb
• Galette Dough

I'm so glad I got this book.   I highly recommend it!

Wild Color

This is the revised and updated version of the classic book on natural dyeing by Jenny Dean.   [Check out her blog - link in the sidebar]

Some friends and I did a lengthy study group on natural dyeing over the past 3 years.   This book was an invaluable resource.   Jenny Dean has dyed with everything.  Her recipes are friendly and her instructions clear.

The first section of the book is a history of the use of natural dyes.    Then she has a section on Techniques.   This section is very useful.  Read it thoroughly and keep it handly.

The vast remaining section of the book is organized by dye plant.  She includes instructions for working with 66 different plant dyestuffs.  (No cochineal, no mushrooms/lichens)

Each dyestuff has a description of the material, its cultivation and harvest and a description of the procedure used to extract the dye and put it on your fiber.   There are color swatches along the edge of each page that will give you an idea of the types of colors you can get from that plant using different mordants and dips.

 I enjoyed using this book very much - so much so that when the new edition came out, I made sure to get one.   This is an indispensable resource for anyone interested in natural dyeing.

Here's a link to get one:

The Practical Beekeeper

Dudes.

Bees.  Honey.   It's time.

I love bees.   When I'm working in the veg garden in the morning, I see loads of them.   Actually I hear them first.   There are so many and they are so loud that you can hear them from the other side of the yard.

I see more bees in my veg garden than I ever did in my perennial beds.   I wonder why?   Every morning during gardening season, I go out first thing, while it's cool-ish and tend things.  I see buzzy things everywhere. 

We don't actually see a lot of honey bees.  They're rather rare compared to the bumble bees, which are the busiest pollinators in the gardens [veg and flower].  We have our share of yellow jackets and hornets and carpenter bees [which show up in the squash bed occasionally]. 

I talk to them and I'm sure they know me.  I walk through the beds and brush by dozens and dozens of bumble bees and they ignore me.  They have never bothered me in the veg garden.  And I'm thinking that maybe it's time to add a hive to the place.

We have acres of wild berry canes.   I have a good sized veg garden.  There's plenty of pollen and nectar if we can just find the honey bees.

I saw one on the studio on New Year's Day.   I take that as a good omen.  A sign from the universe.

I've been studying beekeeping on Michael Bush's blog [link on my sidebar].   He has a unique philosophy.  Work smarter, give the bees what they want, leave them alone.   He doesn't believe in spraying, etc.   It's an organic approach to beekeeping.    Let the bees do what they do best.   Don't try to manipulate the production.   Don't give them contaminated foundation, etc.     He believes that we can heal the world's bee population by letting them do what they're programmed to do and not interfering.   He calls it Lazy Beekeeping.  This is a philosophy I can get behind.     So many other books and local programs are about interventions of all kinds at every level.   Michael Bush rejects that approach completely and offers a friendlier, easier and ultimately better for the bees method of beekeeping. 

The book I got is a compilation of everything on his website.   This version is a collection of vols. I, II and III all in one hardcover book.   The first section is on beginning beekeeping, the second section is intermediate and the third is advanced beekeeping.   Each section has FAQ pages and good discussions of what not to do.  The entire collection is a complete, advanced course in every aspect of beekeeping.

I am going to treat this book like a textbook.

Christmas Books

All year long I debate about what books I can't live without and then just before Christmas I go nuts on Amazon and order a bunch of stuff to put under the tree for me.    If I'm lucky, people give me surprise books, too.   I love books. 

This is the stack I ended up with this year.    They're wonderful and you'll be hearing more about each one of them soon.

[One of these days, I'll figure out how to make my camera not make books look all curvy.  I hate that. 
 1/8/12 update:  Got a better pic.  Thanks, Mom, for telling me how to work around the wide angle lens thing.]

What great books have you gotten lately?

Happy Birthday!

It's K1's birthday!

Lily is a writer.   She writes a series of books for middle graders called the Lizzie Evans Mystery series.   The first installment, Lizzie Evans and the Black Cat Diamond, is finished and will be published this summer.  We're sooo excited!  We'll let you know when we have the exact date.  We'll be having a launch party!

In the meantime, today is the launch of  her official website, so if you're interested in middle-grade mysteries, please go check it out!

The Scented Room

  The Scented Room, by Barbara Milo Ohrbach is a great book and one I highly recommend.

It's a book about drying flowers, making both dry and moist potpourri, sachets, pomanders, lavender bottles, gardening, style, etc.    Though it was published in 1986, it doesn't come off as dated.   The content and photos are classic in style - and timeless in presentation.

I love this book.     Every time I open it, I find something else I want to try.    The projects are varied and interesting.   The directions complete and easy to follow.     All you have to do is find the ingredients and get started.

It's out of print now, but there are still copies available online and they're not expensive.  Go to the link above to find a copy from Amazon.

Seed to Seed

photo: amazon.com.

I've been looking over this book trying to decide if I need to buy one for my own library or just borrow the local library's copy when I need it.


I decided I need one for myself.


I find the book practical and friendly.   It'll be on my bookshelf before harvest time next year. 

The book is divided into plant families.  There are clear instructions for when and how to collect and store seed.   There is a great description of how to pollinate squash plants yourself to prevent cross pollination with other types of squash.

Lemon Pickles

 So, I've been playing with lemon pickles.   There were several recipes for different types of lemon pickles in the Joy of Pickling book that I just read [Link below]

I've never had pickled lemons, so I had to try some.  I mentioned it to a friend and she told me how her mother used to pickle lemons.  Even more motivation!

I didn't know which ones to try, so I tried three different kinds:   Moroccan and Indian [from the book] and Venezuelan [from my friend].

Here they are [L-R]:   Venezuelan, Moroccan, Indian.

The Venezuelan ones were very salty and spiced with pepper, coriander, allspice and bay.

The Moroccan ones are milder and pickled in lemon juice, salt and a bit of olive oil.

The Indian ones were spiced with fennel, cumin and black pepper as well as salt.   After a week, you pour off the juices and mix them with sugar and hot peppers, then boil it all [with the lemons] for a while and let it sit for another few weeks.    Sweet hot and delicious!

The recipes for the Moroccan and Indian pickles are in The Joy of Pickling.   Here's the recipe for the Venezuelan ones.   Enjoy!

Venezuelan Pickled Lemon Slices

• 2 lemons
• salt
  
• 1 1/2 tsp allspice
• 1 1/2 tsp cracked black pepper
• 1 1/2 tsp coriander
• bay leaves

Makes 1 pint.  Slice the lemons.  Mix the spices [without the salt] together.   Layer in the jar as follows:

• salt
• spice
• lemon
• salt 
• spice
• bay leaf
• lemon
  

Continue until all the lemon slices are used up.    When the slices are about half way up the jar, slide bay leaves into the jar on the outside of the slices.   [It's pretty and adds more bay].    Let sit on the counter or in a window  for a couple of weeks.   They'll start to ooze and the jar will fill up with juice in a few days.  That's normal.

These were super salty when we made them.  I used a generous layer of salt between the lemons.  Next time, I'd use just a very generous sprinkle of salt in each layer - about the same amount of salt as you use spices in each layer. 

UPDATE:  A better way to deal with the saltiness is to just rinse them off before you use them.   Doesn't matter how much salt you pack them in then.    Also, that salt is tasty as a flavoring for meats and soups.    Use it all.


If you try these, let me know how you like them.  Here's the link to the book.  

Book: The Joy of Pickling

photo:  Amazon.com. 

I like pickles.

I like making pickles.  I like eating them.   I like looking at them.

This year I was braver and tried a bunch of new pickles.  Then I found this book and tried even more.

These are not your grandma's pickles.

But....wait a minute.....some of them ARE your grandma's pickles.    This is a great collection of new and traditional pickles from all over the world.

I've made three kinds of lemon pickles, ginger pickles, sauerkraut, etc, etc, etc.    It's a pickle jackpot.

The book is divided into two main parts:  pickling with fermentation and pickling with vinegar.

Fermentation pickling happens when you let natural bacteria make your pickles for you.   The old pickle barrels were fermentation vats.   Sauerkraut is made by natural fermentation.  It's fun and easy and delicious and very very good for you.    Try it.

Vinegar pickling is what happens when you pour a vinegar solution over the veggies and let them sit in it.   The vinegar solution usually has salt and other spices in it to make things interesting.   This type of pickling is also very easy and delicious.

Lest you think that this is 250 recipes for dill and sweet cucumber pickles, let me assure you that there are recipes to pickle all kinds of fruit [yes, fruit!] and veggies in all kinds of ways, with all kinds of flavors.  

If you're at all interested in making pickles, get your hands on this book and read it.   Even if you don't go near the stove or touch a veggie, you'll still learn a lot about a type of food that has been around for milennia.  

Book: The Forgotton Skills of Self-Sufficiency

photo: amazon.com

Caleb Warnock has a new book out:   The Forgotten Skills of Self Sufficiency Used by the Mormon Pioneers.  I've read this book cover to cover and am happy to recommend it.

This book is an excellent resource for folks working toward maximizing their gardening year and for folks working toward a self sustaining lifestyle. It's full of great tips and tricks - tried and true by people whose lives depended on it. Topics include seed saving, pollination, cellars, cold storage, greenhouses, grapes and fruit trees, perennial vegetables, long keeping vegetables, chickens, etc.

There is no way one book can completely cover all of the topics addressed, so the author has listed other resources that will help answer the questions that you might have. I had a great time exploring types of geothermal greenhouses after reading about the author's.

If you're already very knowledgeable about many of these topics, then you might find the treatment too cursory, but if you're just starting out, then I highly recommend this book. I consider myself a skilled summer gardener, but I really learned a lot about winter storage, greenhouses, and extending the gardening year.


Here's a link to the book:

Next on my garden reading list is a lot more reading on seed saving. 

Winner - Charmed Knits

Thanks to everyone who stopped by the giveaway with weekend.   We hope you loved the new HP movie as much as we did!

According to random.org, the winner is #1, Kristy! 

"We heart Harry Potter too. To gear up for the upcoming movie, the kids have been practicing their magic spells and we even played quittage with our cousins over the 4th of July weekend. Ærowyn keeps asking if Harry Potter and all the magic stuff is real. It hurts to say no because Brandon and I want it to be real too (except for all the bad magic of course). We love everything about the wizarding world. In fact, when we moved I made sure all the books got their own box and I labeled it really big so I would be sure to find them quickly. They have their own private space on my dresser :-) "

Kristy, email me [robin at morenna dot com] with your address and I'll get the book right out to you!

Bird Guides

I have four bird guides on my shelf these days.  They are, in order of preference:  Kaufman's Birds of North America; National Geographic's Field Guide to the Birds of North America; The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds, Eastern Region;  and Peterson's Field Guide to Western Birds.   The only reason I don't like the last one is that we live in the east, not the west. They have an  Eastern version, too, but I've never looked at it.

Here are links to all of them.

I like the Kaufman bird guide best.  It's easy to use.   Birds are grouped by type and by appearance within the type.  One of the things I love best about the book is the one page quick reference guide just inside the back cover - once you get good enough to know/guess that a bird is a [sparrow, thrasher, woodpecker, etc.], you can look that up in the back very quickly to get the page number for those types of birds. Then go to that section for pages full of birds that look like that.   Each page has several different birds on it so you can compare them to see which one is in your tree.  On the right hand pages, each bird is illustrated with a drawing of the bird in its most generalized form, which eliminates the problems of natural lighting and shadows from photos.   There are notes on which markings are distinctive - the eyebrow, the pink feet, white spot on tail, etc.  One the left hand pages, each bird is named with common name first, then the Latin.  In addition, there is a map showing distribution and color coded by winter/summer/year-round presence and a description for each bird including special characteristics such as '..if alarmed, it walks away  into the thickets or flies away swiftly and low.' [White-Tipped Dove], a description of distinctive physical characteristics or behavior, and a description of the call and voice.   The call/voice descriptions are better than nothing and have actually been quite helpful on occasion, but let's face it, describing Ella Fitzgerald's voice isn't going to help you recognize it in a crowded bar.  Ahem.   Which brings me to bird song guides.

I have a couple of bird song guides:  Bird Songs: 250 North American Birds in Song and Bird Song Ear Training Guide: Who Cooks for Poor Sam Peabody?.

The first is one of those big books with the pretty pictures and the computerized player on the side.  You punch in the bird number and it plays you the song.   We got it dirt cheap at a garage sale.   It's fun, simple and helpful - a great song guide if you can get one cheap.   I like that it includes both the picture and the song.   K2 likes snuggling up outside in nice weather and playing through it.  It helps her to see the picture with the song.

My very favorite bird song guide is the Ear Training Guide cd, which we picked up at the Muscatatuck National Wildlife Refuge  gift shop. 

It has 190 bird songs of the eastern region of the US. It plays the bird song, then gives you a human song to help you remember it, then plays the bird song again.   Awesome!   This is how I know which birds say, 'Pizza!' 'Quick, three beers' 'Who cooks for you-all?' 'Cheese-burger', etc.   They're fun and make remembering the songs much easier.   I turn it on in my studio and just let it play while I'm working.