Crystal Madrilejos

Oh, hey there! Meet our new garden addition. As I mentioned in my last post, chipmunks have been using our garden as their own personal nut repository. So I got this guy in hopes that he would scare the bejeezus out of those little guys so I don’t have to resort to drastic measures. Just look at those crazy eyes, and his head moves too!

But the big question is, does it actually work? I think it’s still too early to tell. We haven’t had an ideal set up yet. The first day we got him, the chipmunks still went to town on our beds, but I don’t think we placed the decoy in a good spot. He was sitting on our porch and sort of lower down than I think is normal for owls?  So, I’m going to put him up on a pole to, you know, simulate real owl life. The past few days, I’ve been putting him in more prominent spots around the garden and it seems to help the beds that are in direct line of the owl’s sight. Hopefully, having him up in the air will help.

Scare tactics aside, Quil seems to like him and moves him around the garden for the fun of it. So we’ve got that going for us.

xo,
c.

I’ve been doing a little bit of research into low-light houseplants.

After buying a handful of succulents over the past year, I’m realizing that we just don’t have enough light to really get them to thrive. I have a few that are doing okay, but they are stretching and getting leggy due to the lack of light, even in our south-facing window (due to two beautiful, but huge, maple trees.)

Here’s a photo of part of my current succulent collection that I moved out onto the porch for more sun. See how long and leggy that middle one is? And you can see the Echeveria at the top, how the center is stretching. Poor guys.

I came across this great post on Martha Stewart (of course) on how to measure what type of light you have and what plants are appropriate for your light levels. I don’t think I’m going to do the entire light test with the camera that they suggest, but it did give me some ideas for plants to look out for. Here are two of my favorites:

Crested Leopard Plant (Farfugium Japonicum ‘Crispatum’)

Prayer plant (Maranta leuconeura)

I don’t know what I’m going to do with all these succulents come fall – right now they are on the porch which gets a bit more sun, but come winter they will have to come back indoors. I looked into using plant grow lights, but those have a tendency to be an eyesore. We still have a grow light hanging in our kitchen from our seed starts and it just screams “illegal activity” to me. But it may be my only choice if I want to keep them.

Anyone have any low-light houseplant they like and recommend?

What’s new on the homestead? Harvested some ramps from a friends property (pictured above – ramps as far as the eye can see), garden is underway, pond stocking is in progress, potatoes are sprouted, the reclaimed wood for the compost bin is nail free, a couple more raised beds have been built, and deer fence is almost up. Now, we just need the weather to cooperate! It’s been up and down the past couple weeks and I guess that’s why we have “last frost dates” – but man, am I itching to just get going with the warm weather already!

Today we started putting up the new deer fencing that was my gift to myself last year when I got a bonus at work. Who buys deer fence with their bonus? I do. It’s that important to me. With our past experience, it’s just not worth it to garden in our area if you don’t have either a dog or a deer fence. We don’t want a dog, so we went with the fence. I’m really, really hoping this does the trick because I love having a garden but the stress of the deer almost makes it not worth it.

I wish I had more pictures for you from the past few weeks, but I’m too lazy to upload them right now.

So here is a picture of one of our raised beds before we installed it last fall. You can see the basic construction in this photo. The outside rails are attached to four posts that will go into the ground so the bottom board sits flush on the ground.

After installing them, we put a layer of black weed blocking fabric, followed by a few layers of cardboard, a layer of leaves, a layer of alpaca manure, then another layer of leaves. This then sat for the past six months to kill the weeds and grass and also create the nutrient rich base for a layer of composted soil that went on top last week. If you can do this in the fall, it will save you a lot of work come spring (and summer, since it will save you lots of time weeding.)

Okay, so I know some of you are wondering why we used pine when it’s going to be outside and will eventually rot. Ideally, cedar would be the wood of choice since it’s naturally rot resistant. But Cedar is many dollars. We figured if we can get a few years out of these beds before they rot, it will have been worth the price we paid for the wood. I think down the line, we’re open to trying different things. We just don’t have the money for cedar ones at this point. One bed can run upwards of $200 – which is double what we paid to make ALL our beds.

We also didn’t seal the wood. And the reason being, we don’t want any toxic materials touching the soil that will be growing the food we’ll be eating. This is also the reason we didn’t use pressure treated wood, which again is rot resistant but also treated with chemicals. Here is Quil helping Andrew with the beds last fall. And by helping I mean, running around like a maniac. I just got him during a moment of stillness in this shot.

I will post more current photos of our progress soon, I promise!

xo,
c.

Ever since Ellis arrived, it’s been non-stop craziness. Not in a bad way. Just really, really busy. Andrew and I always wonder what we did with all our free time before we had kids. We were productive, for sure. But, I can’t even fathom that much free time anymore. My perception of free time has forever been altered. If I can offer any advice to any person who doesn’t have kids yet (and plans on having them in the future), it would be: Don’t waste time. We did a lot before we had kids. We traveled, we played music, we built things, we renovated a house. Many of these things we still do now, but with much less frequency and a lot less spontaneity, and I STILL feel like we didn’t take advantage of our kid-free days!

I posted this photo of a dish Andrew made on Instagram (come follow me!) a little while back and had some requests for the recipe. Granted, I wasn’t the one who prepared it, just the one who ate it, so I’m sort of just playing messenger here. Hopefully, one day he’ll get around to posting on here again.

Anyway! Andrew is the cook/chef/baker in our household. I know my way around a kitchen, and I do enjoy cooking. But since he is the main care-giver/stay-at-home-parent, it usually falls on him to prepare meals.

On to the recipe! You can find the original recipe on the site Cooking Quinoa and it’s pretty simple. It calls for:

• 1 ½ cups frozen edamame, cooked according to package directions
• 2 cups red cabbage, shredded
• 2 cups cooked quinoa
• 1 red pepper, seeded and diced small
• 3/4 cup diced pineapple
• ¼ cup raisins
• 2 teaspoons almonds, chopped
• 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 2 tablespoons olive oil OR 2 tablespoons water + ¾ teaspoon chia seeds
• 1 teaspoon coconut palm sugar
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 3 cloves garlic, minced

A couple things to note: Andrew used about half that amount of red cabbage, olive oil rather than the chia seed, and regular organic sugar instead of the coconut palm sugar.

Enjoy!
c.

These wooden acorns were made from mini-wooden eggs found at the local craft store that I stained and painted to look like the acorns the Mei collects in the film. It’s hard to see in this photo, but they have a clear coat of gloss spray on them as well. 

And a few more shots of the mini-cakes my sister made. You can see some Soot Sprites peeking out here and there. For these, we bought black pompoms and stick-on googly eyes. They were so simple, my 4-year-old niece was able to make them. We had her churning out Soot Sprites at maximum speed! The little pink, orange and aqua flowers are from the dollar aisle in Target. They came as long ribbons, but I just snipped a few strands apart and sprinkled them around. They actually reminded me of the candy the Soot Sprites eat in Spirited Away.

We’re taking a leap and have decided to try creating a sustainable food source for our family by raising our own fish. This spring we will be populating Andrew’s parents pond with a combination of Large Mouth Bass, Blue Gill, Red Ear Sunfish, & White Amur. White Amur or Grass Carp is not for eating, but for keeping the plant growth under control – sometimes people use chemicals to keep their plant growth in check, but we definitely don’t want any chemicals in our pond since this is one of the reasons we want to raise our own food – to avoid chemicals!

I’m exhausted right now, so I’m going to try to keep this brief. Nike Training Camp kicked my butt tonight and my legs are like jello (as is my brain, so bear with me!)

I’m a working Mama. I’m also nursing a 5-month old baby, so that means I have to pump while at work. When I went back to work in November after my maternity leave, my co-workers gave me a potted Amaryllis bulb as a “Welcome Back” gift. Turns out, this is the PERFECT gift for a pumping Mama!

Pumping isn’t the most glamorous or the most fun thing to do with one’s time. It’s a lot of just sitting there (thank goodness for smart phones and this bra.) And you look and feel like a milking machine with tubes and bottles and plastic breast shields. It’s quite a sight.

However, I’m fortunate to at least have a pumping room at my office with a lot of natural light. When they gave me this potted Amaryllis bulb I decided, rather than put it at my desk, I’d put it in my pumping room. These past two months I’ve been back at work I’ve been able to watch my plant grow and it’s been absolutely fascinating, calming, and peaceful. Since Amaryllis are very fast growing it gives me something to look forward to every time I have to pump. This week, it bloomed (as you can see in the photo above.) Here is a rough time-lapse from the past two months:

This could be a great gift for a non-working Mama as well. It’s easy to care for and has a big impact when it blooms.

Any working Mama’s out there who pump during their workday? How do you pass your time while pumping?

xo,
c.