2016 Can Salsa Review

So... as I mentioned earlier. I made salsa and canned about 9 jars.
What I did for the 2016 Recipe is below:

8 C Tomatoes - Peeled, chopped & drained (Garden Fresh, peeled via hot water dip)

2.5 C chopped onions (small white, Garden)

1.5 C green peppers chopped (Garden, but already frozen)

0.5 C Jalapeno pepper chopped & de-seeded (Garden milder ones, but already frozen)

0.5 C anaheim pepper (Garden, but already frozen)

3 T minced garlic (from a jar)

2 t cumin

2 t pepper

1/8 C canning salt

1/3 C Sugar

1/3 C vinegar

2 C homemade tomato sauce 

1 6oz can Tomato Paste

Mixed everything together and brought to a boiler for 20 minutes (recipe says 10)
Water bath canned for 10 minutes. Made 9 pints (recipe says 6...)
Recipe from: http://www.food.com/recipe/wonderful-salsa-9272

Now. My 2015 recipe fermented (ha, ha, ha - not good). Thus I was afraid of opening any of these jars. Deathly afraid! (No, I did not fall ill from the 2015 salsa, but it did leave a big caution of sickness due to canning in my mind).


Anyway I opened a jar. And.... *Drum Roll Please* Wasn't fermented.  YES! But not perfect.

Things that were good:

1. Jar didn't ferment (Whoo-hoo!)
2. It's chunky! 
3. It doesn't burn the shit out of my mouth (which actually is below too)

Things to change for 2017:

1. Do not use mild jalapenos if going to cut recipe heat in half! Salsa was not hot at all
2. Needs significantly more flavor
3. Less sugar
4. More salt / herb / seasoning
5. Did I say more flavor????

Recipes to try next year or year after: 

http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/canned_tomato_salsa/

           Don't use anhiem peppers, stick to straight jalopenos (hotter)

           Double salt?

Why this recipe? More vinegar, more seasoning/herbs, less sugar

http://www.quietcreekfarmcsa.com/recipe/salsa-recipe-for-canning-or-freezing

           Have the 1/2 peppers be hot jalopeno, not the medium heat ones...

Why this recipe: more vinegar, sh*t-ton of cilantro, and zero sugar.

Fly away Flag!

My husband, being awesome, made me a flag holder. It's 3 metal poles spray painted black. The metal poles we used were found in our house after we bought it - which were a piece of conduit cut in half and an old brace bar from some unknown-farm equipment.

I used binder clips to help keep the flag straight for awhile. My husband got the bright idea of putting metal rings at the bottom of the flag and a small hole near the bottom of the flag on each post to bungee cord the flag down such that it moves but stays up right...

That lasted for over two days! Which is impressive considering this is in the flat farmland of Iowa, (with our windblock only 2.5ft high right now). I thought it was sooooo ingenious too. At least until I came home one day and found the flag flying free once again. 

Oh well, at least you can read it sometime... Hopefully it won't freeze too badly so that I can easily change to the christmas flag when the time comes. :) (I don't have a winter one yet.

Blink and Gone

Time has moved quickly. I'm not even sure where I left off. Maybe I'll go through my notes and back-date posts, but most likely we'll just move on.

Next year (if I don't back-date). I'll need to post my canning adventures. I adjust recipes as I make them so blogging them should help my annotations.  Until those posts are made, I'll give the cliff note version:

Jalopeno relish: http://www.pepperfool.com/recipes/canned/hot_relish.html
                 Notes: increased recipe 50%, by adding 1 quart onion.
                             Need to not add sugar next time
                             Heat of relish depends on heat of jalapenos.

Salsa: http://www.food.com/recipe/wonderful-salsa-9272
                 Notes: Jalopeno's were too hot for the 1 cup, should have half'ed.
                             Didn't have sauce, made own from tomotes.

Apple Butter: Amazing Recipe http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/apple_butter/
                 Notes: So much easier. Only de-seeded & steamed apples)
                             Used a Squeeze-o to make the apple sauce. Too easy!
                             Over spiced on the allspice and clove. Kept sugar the same
                             When reducing the sauce, I stirred it every 3 minutes for 30 seconds for 2 hours.

Frozne Apple Pie Filling: http://www.gracefullittlehoneybee.com/freezer-apple-pie-filling/
                 Notes: Peeled and course chopped apples by hand. Used whole wheat flour.

The pumpkins this year got sick, only ended up with 13 pumpkins. :( Will have to do a better job with the plants next year.

Again sorry for the belated post and not keeping up to date.

Chickens - Look Back

This year we decided to raise broilers. Cornish Cross to be exact. All the photos are at the end. (No photos of butchering)

Cornish live 8-10 weeks depending on how you care for them. They can live longer depending on the cross and genetics (and how you feed them). They are prone to weight issues and laziness bred /created for their excellent food to mass conversion.

We had a horse stall we don't use and a water trough with holes in it. The trough was convered into a brooder and the stall into a coop - lots and lots of chicken wire... We used pine shavings/chips from bombgards in the brooder and straw in the coop.

We got chicks April 9th. I picked the 15 chicks from a local store. One died the first night and a second the second night. No idea exactly cause of death. Could be got cold, was sick, or squished by another chick.  The brooder was in the coop, a heat lamp 18 inches above it

Intiall we used quart size waterers and feeders. About week 2 they were up to 2 quart water and 7lb feeder. I changed their water every morning and every night. Food originally lasted 24 hours then slowly only 12.   Their bedding changed every week. 

At week 3, nearly week four most of the chickens were big enough to leave the brooder but not all. I wanted the heat lamp for the coop since our nights were still cold... So the big chickens had to handle the smaller space until the other ones got some more feathers.

Week 4 they all had their feathers so we moved them from brooder to the full coop space. The brooder was moved to block the door so I could sneak in and out without having to chance chickens. The heat lamp now hung anywhere from 3-4.5ft above the space. I dropped it to 3 feet on cold  (40s) nights and off on warm (70F) nights

About week 5 I stopped feeding them 24/7, and only refilled the food in the mornings. I used a hanging feedter to force them to stand... the suckers would have laid down all the time if it wasn't for the feeder.

They had some personality, but most were docile fat chickens...

Week 8 (June 4th) we butchered. I grabbed the chicken by their foot, washed them a bit (Because they are dirty-dirty-dirty birds), and the gave them to DH to chop their heads off.  It was quick. We scalded them in 150-160F water, then plucked feathers - which came off easy. I took of their feet, DH gutted them while I packaged. After the first bird, DH and I would basically hand a bird back and forth as each one ended up in a different stage in an odd assembly line between us two.

Issues we had - Scalding water got dirty so we had to dump, refill, and re-heat. Dirty birds are hard to clean... And our vacuum sealer wasn't the easiest.

Our largest bird was 7.0lbs dressed, smallest 6.0lbs dressed.  The Cornish-Cross chicken meat at 8 weeks is tender and very good - it's not Game-y at all.

Photos below:

Before photos of coop:

After photo - Dupped Chicken-Knox.

Homemade Brooder: 

Chicks at 3 weeks: 

Chickens at 6 weeks: 

Life is What You Make It.

I listen to Podcasts on my way to work. An hour drive one way is considered Long here in the midwest. East Coast and West Coast many people have hour drives and some only minutes. Midwest though most average 20 minutes to work and we are always moving - rarely stop-and-go, and even rare-er a full dead stop due to traffic...

Anyway. On the episode of the Model Health Show Podcast that I was listening to today - Shawn had Eric Thomas (a host of another of my podcasts), as a guest speaker. Instantly I thought - hey this is cool! These two went on to talk about mental health/strength and environment. Both mentioned they were the first in their families to go to college, that they want to leave a legacy, to "break a cycle", and that that the environment around you can shape you so you do need to change your environment if it's dragging you down......

Model Health Show: http://theshawnstevensonmodel.com/podcasts/

Secrets to Success Podcast: http://etinspires.com/category/podcasts/

In all honestly - I'm not 100% sure I can relate. I've had a great environment from the word go. I was never in an area that was thick with drugs and alcohol... a good part of that was I grew up in a church community that was big into service and "community". My mother is a great person and my father.  BUT - I do think I can understand. For, I don't think my great environment is a product of luck, nor do I think it's something I built (that would be egoistical). I think it's one generation, one group, passing on and supporting the next.

I think it's the people an family before me and the people around me deciding they didn't want X but went for Y because Y produces long term positive results while X is only short term. It was my grandfather choosing to work every day to support is family, and my parents choosing to try to stay together despite some stressful times, or choosing to "do the right thing" just because "it is the right thing" even when it was difficult/inconvenient... And I think it's me choosing to pick up and see the good. Because of this, I've been taught that today shapes tomorrow. It's exactly like gardening. If you don't time it right or start planting at the right time, there can easily be winter before harvest or the heat cause the plant to not produce if you are too early...

Last week, I while planting my garden. I was hot. I got sunburnt, and honestly it wasn't that great of a time... Gardening payback isn't in terms of cash or nutrition for me.  I can pay for food - I don't care about "organic" that much, I don't need to grow my own food... But I want the habit of growing food, the independence, the discipline, and more so the ability to influence others to do the same... I want this because I believe in it for myself as well as for the future of others.

What if, we only pick activities, people, storefronts, based upon not only the here and now, but the future good for ourselves and others? What if, we look for gifted horses instead of waiting for one to come to us?  Again, however - My environment has been GREAT. Yes I've worked Shitty jobs. Yes, I've had hard times. Yes I'll have even harder times, but there's aways someone worse out there, and there's always someone better. I'm saying Great because while I was not the cream-of-the-crop, I have learned from my environment and I have continued to not have regrets as I choose my paths.  But... It can get worse. Shit does happen... Its our jobs to work hard to not stay there.

Not-bragging but showing my point. This is my photo below... and the timeline to how I got there.


Last week. I ended up in the co-pilot seat of a private jet.

Two years ago I ended up joining a first-of-its-kind, first-of-its-size industrial biofuels plant back in my home state,

4 years ago I worked on a first-of-its-size solar thermal plant in the desert on the east coast because I volunteered to move there for a year though it was a "lesser paying" project...

5-6 years ago, I joined a construction company that moved people frequently desperate for any job and was open to anything and anywhere as long as it had future opportunities (originally I was trying for just my home state)...

But 8.5 years ago, I  nearly Failed out of college.... I had to get Help.  So I walked into the College head office, looking for assistance on how to Not-Fail-Out because I became clinically depressed was showing my dyslexia. At that moment, I could have decided college wasn't for me... I could have been prideful. I could have not looked for help or decided (without trying) that there was no help.

But, I had made friends 10 years ago who knocked on my door everyday to continue the study groups I started 9 years ago. So they helped me in the future.

And honestly - I watched and supported family and friends as they learned to survive then thrive despite diagnosis of bipolar disorder, depressions, and anxieties... 13-15 years ago.... And a few who choose not to fight, and saw where they ended up too... Though this was a hard time for me, it helped me in the future and has time and time again given me strength because I know others fight a harder battle...

Thus maybe the environment makes us. I know it compounds upon us... but I truly believe we, as a generation, as a "family", as a community, as previous, past, and future generations decide how that accumulation is going to go.
Did you know, that every plane talks to the air towers and airports? That they tell their course, height, and speed? Then the controllers help them on the best path to not collide with the other planes?  Did you know the lower altitude you are, the more traffic there is? The higher you fly, the faster you go simply because it's easier?  But... you can only fly a plane manually at low altitudes, so if something goes wrong, all other planes will move as you drop down until you are able to manually fly?

I didn't know any of that. I'm sure there's more to it for aircrafts - but for people. Go big, or start low and pick yourself up manually... Use others to set a course. I believe this 100%. Some days I'll vent. Other days I'll be upset or stressed because my work or life isn't hitting my minimum standard, or isn't what I thought it would be - but I'm going to accept and work on changing my path or changing others because I fully believe I have places to go.

I plant for a future harvest I don't see yet. Maybe I won't see it. Maybe some generation, some other family, some other person will get the fruits of this labor. I dunno. But I'm ok with that too.

Oy Vey - It's been awhile

Wow. Sorry. It's been awhile I guess. My blogging weekly is not going very well at all!

So.

Projects: 
Laundry/Office Room is no further along, but we've decided to work on that after the garden, wildflowers, basement, and a few other activities (It's indoors, it will survive in its current state).

Bird Houses are all hung. Those were fun. I highly recommend making bird houses for the yard. So far I haven't seen a bird in them, but I had a bird feeder up for a long time before even one bird ate from it!

Health: 
Still at the same weight. I have a fitbit now. Trying to hit 8k steps a day. That's easier said than done. I'm also doing daily workouts from http://darebee.com/ . Which I HIGHLY recommend! They have WOD (see below) - I try to do them every day. Today's I probably looked a bit funny doing it, but such is exercise!

And more important news! Garden and Chickens!:
Chickens are doing well. They are fat (big) suckers now. They like to run and jump in play (I hope) when I come in. They have lots of space and are rooming out of the brooder now freely. I am still keeping food out 24/7 but next week I'll start taking it away at night so they don't over eat themselves. Obese chickens would be bad...

For the garden, I'm going to plant this weekend. Hopefully I'll disk and plant wildflowers too, but I HAVE to plant my veggies this weekend. What sucks is that it's COLD. Oh my gosh, it's been 70-80F for last two weeks, 60s with rain on weekend, and this morning it was 36! YIKES

But... I need to suck it up. Because if I want to eat from a garden, I have to plant a garden... The photo below is kinda how I feel. Even though there's parts of gardening that I don't like... I can't say I'm pro-sustainable, pro-home-grown, or pro-Ag. If I don't actually grow a garden...

Honestly I think everyone should grow something at least once. If for nothing else, but to say you can and did. We eat don't we? Why not grow?

You know lately. I sometimes feel like we are distancing ourselves too much from what should be basics (myself included) ...

Even worse, I'm not sure we are teaching or passing on the "basics" or more so life-skills anymore. I remember having to take Home Ec 101 Class.  And maybe that high school home-Ec 101 class should become "Independence Skills" that covers cooking, sewing, car maintenance, laundry, money budgeting, navigating community utilities, food growing, house maintenance, and etc. That way for whatever reason, if we aren't taught it at home, we get exposure to it somewhere and remember how things get done other than using a professional service provider or running to a store...

I don't know. Maybe we are still sharing such skills, but I'm always surprised when someone says they can't sew at all or don't know how to budget, or can't change a tired, or can't get a plant to grow, or cook an egg... I might not be great at any of them, but I'm sure I (and most of us) can, or at least could figure it out. Hopefully the "I can't" doesn't become "seriously, I don't know how at all".

Bird Houses

Whoa.
BIRD HOUSES! 

1st -. I'm not that handy thus SO and inviting family to help. 

2nd - . I LOVE Research. Thus prior to bird houses I looked up sooo much info on how to make a good or easy birdhouse!

I think prior to making bird house, you need to decide what bird you are making the house for. Different birds types need different size of houses, entryways, and to be hung at different heights above the ground...

This is the table I used to figure out dimensions:
http://www.wild-bird-watching.com/Building_Bird_Houses.html#sthash.EzjdCUO3.dpbs

I went for a 4x4 bottom size and a 6x6 bottom size for small birds and then a second style for larger ones. We have both here and with nearly 4 acres, I have enough space for multiple houses.

Now 4" boards are actually 3.5" and 6" boards are actually 5.5, so my 6-6 was really 7 by 5.5 and my 4x4 was 4x5.5... So, we'll see if the birds mind.

Now for House designs
Pointed Roof is what I did for the 6x6 style house, only because of the size. - https://teacherweb.com/IL/WoodlandMiddleSchool/MrSpataAPA/Birdhouse--Plan-2010.pdf

Slanted Roof  is what I used for the 4x4 house- http://www.birdwatching-bliss.com/bird-house-plans.html

Wood was cheap from the local menards and scrap around the the house... Nails we already had and we already have a table saw (because my husband loves projects).

Instead of this being just a me thing... I made it a family thing. It was fun event. I still remember making bird houses with my father when I was kid and now I get another memory of making them with him and my mother as an adult.

We went for making all the parts at once then gluing (gorrilla glue) and nailing (nail gun) after that,  once we had the first prototype down.

I highly recommend not making 9 bird houses at once without help of family or friends... Seriously it would have taken me days otherwise.

Also, please note that you don't glue and nail all the sides. On one side you'll use normal nails and make a swing door. The photo to the left shows me making a swing out of the back for the pointed-roof-style, and the photo above shows that I'm going to swing out the side of the slanted-roof-style. Which side you use to for swing / clean-outs, is up to you and how you want to design your bird house. :)

Also we drilled out the holes using drill press which we have. If you don't have a drill press, might need to look into how other people do it because I'm honestly not sure how to pull that off otherwise.

The day of making Bird Houses was a good day and all my houses turned out awesome (a few errors here and there, but that's part of the awesomeness, I swear!).  Honestly, I'm not going to give you step-by-step instructions because figuring it out is part of the fun.

Below is a handful of the houses we finished!

Friend & Family Activities.

So... I don't have a lot of activities near me.

We have a bowling alley, which is a good time, especially with your favorite team planing on the Tvs over head and a fan of the opponent one lane down.

We have a movie theater that shows ONE movie a week. (Small town vs city). There is a movie theater 40 minutes away that shows multiple films but 40 minute drive for a movie? That's a lot of sitting time right there.

We have a couple restaurants.

We have a county fair grounds which in the summer has motorcross and harness racing. They also sometimes have craft shows, the county fair, vendor shows, and other activities...

We have churches that put on events.

Garage sales - I love city wide garage sales, a nice day walking & shopping. You never know what you'll find at garage & yard sales!

And... a few places to walk.

But - No malls, no zoos, no mega-anything, and no hopping bars.   So when family or friends visit - sometimes there's a low beer-fest, sometimes there's a city wide garage sale (we plan for those things)...

But mostly there's house items.

Last time, as you saw, we tore down dry wall and ripped out carpet with Margaritas! (This is Nicole showing just how awesome that was!)

This time - Bird houses (post coming) & Fence  de-construction...

It's fun and our style of entertainment.


We also have board games, fires, smores, grilling, and other such things... but when you have to drive 2 to 5 hours to visit someone, usually you stay for more than just a couple hours! So I highly recommend this style of entertainment - besides who doesn't want house help? And who doesn't like a group activity that you can then do in your own home with an IOU on labor!? :-)

Weekend Weigh In - 185lbs, feeling big.

First. Notice that this weight and my last weigh in weight (where I felt happy) are the SAME.

I either shrunk all my pants, am bloating, or need to get rid of some fat and convert it back into muscle. (lb for lb, fat takes up more space)

I have started doing a small workout in the morning - 10 minutes pilates.

I want to do it 5 days a week, but two weeks ago I did it twice and last week 3 times... The waking up at 4:45am is the hardest part of doing the workout. I actually feel better after doing it and happier so I know I just need to keep it up. 

This program while short and low intensity, is the best for me at the moment. The wind here deters me from a couch-to-5k and with my work hours I'm not excited for any longer programs. (At work I do an average of 15-20 flights of stairs and 8,000-10,000 steps.)  Also I'm not sure about high intensity until I get new work-boots or inserts because I come home with my calves and arches just killing! (Really need to buy new work boots!)

Anyway. Weight is 185. I need to do measurements soon since that is the true tell of size/volume. I am meal planning today looking for healthy options that we can do here at the house. We keep most of our meat in the freezer so we have to plan ahead so it will be thawed by the time we need it.

This week I'll hit working out every day and by saturday's weigh in, I'll feel great even if I don't drop a single pound... :)   At least that's my plan!

Second year seeds - some good some not.

Behind on blogging again. I think about doing it but with work and home and my new goal of not spending hours on the computer, it's easy to not post anything. I should blog at lunch at work. I'll see if this site is blocked. else I could write it in an email and then copy it over to the blog via phone...

Anyway, It's spring. Kinda. We have snow and even a power outage. Actually that happened right after my last post.  I kept saying "This winter emergency survival test has been brought to you by the Energy Company - PS You failed. Please be more prepared for next year."

I don't do as well with cold once it's been warm. My body wanted the 70F temperature back on the 30s with ice, snow, and wind!  Luckily our power wasn't out for very long because the ice made it hard for us to set up the generator, and we didn't even have batteries for one of our lanterns! We did have a lot of candles though - because I buy them every time they are on sale. I told my husband this is validation of my sale-buys!

I did get my tulips, garlic, and asparagus covered with straw right before it went cold and icy. I don't know if it helped, but they looked good when I uncovered them once it turned warm again. My rhubarb is doing well too but I didn't do anything for that. I gave it some compost a few weeks back... Good thing it's hardy!

Indoors seeds are not quite as predictable this year as they were last.. Some seeds I kept over from last year are doing great. Others are just not popping up.

On the top picture, the last large cell row is supposed to be tomatillos. as you can see I only have one. And on the bottom picture the last row on the right is supposed to be green bell peppers, and again there's one tiny one there...

All the other bell and hot peppers popped - Just not those.  Both these seeds were left over from what I bought in 2014. Maybe that's too long of storage time for how I store...

But the bright note is the all artichokes. That's the top picture left side, second from the bottom (above the lack of tomatillos). These (from burpee) are supposed to produce in the first year - last year the heirloom ones did not appreciate my zone and produced nothing! Honestly,  I am not sure I want to thin them out, I think I'm going to try to transfer them all carefully to bigger pots next month and keep as many as possible. 

The root systems that are going into the water cloth mat under these cells are massive. When I go to transfer some of these plants I'll have to be extra careful. But I'm excited. Should be going into the ground the 3rd of 4th week of april (so soon!). :)

Behind on Blogging - Making Habits is hard.

Yep. So I'm behind on blogging - first week in and already ready to drop it all together.
Which is like so many other items I've tried to pick up, Like...
       -  Running
       -  Weight lifting alone
       -  Daily cleaning
       -  Not eating bread
       -  Reading every day
       -  Drinking Honey-Tea every day
      and sooo many others

But I'm back, trying seeing how this will go.

This last week has be busy. We started upstairs demo to turn an unused room that shares too many walls with the Master into a Laundry room, and to add to the Master's space by taking some of this room's space to make a His and Her's closets

This is the SO laughing at me because I'm afraid of the very nail-y beam, and afraid of using my weight and falling off the ladder.

He one-handedly took this down once I failed... You must admit - there's a lot of scary long nails there!


A good friend came to visit and helped. Prior to taking out most of the drywall we drew pictures on it and took out the carpet. Margerttas and remodeling - a good girls weekend, I'd say. (We did play board and card games later.)

Next update... My Seeds germinated!   And I completely did not turn on my grow lights early enough!

To the right is my tomatoes all popped up. They germinated probably 5 days - except I didn't know this and popped my little plastic green house cover 8 days after planted.

Look at all the poor plants reaching towards the window because I didn't turn on the grow lights soon enough.  But know I know they are up, so lights on!

You are supposed to have a grow light 2-3inches about your new plants, this way they don't stretch themselves out trying to get to the light. Last year, like this one, I let my tomatoes get a bit stretched... Still don't have it perfect yet.

I personally turn off the grow lights when I go to bed 9pm and turn them on when I get up 5am. Some grow with lights on 24 hours, but I want the plants to have a night.  I have no research yet one way or another.

Good info at: http://www.reneesgarden.com/articles/start_seeds.html


Sooo... other items. Work stress, more work stress... and even more work stressed.

But, with all bad things, come good. I got my IPSY bag. Ipsy, is a company that supplies you makeup/beauty samplies (and full size items) based on your complexion, style, and reviews.  It helps me try things I would never, ever, ever, EVER try! Sometimes they are awesome, sometimes not so much. (I'm not very adventurous when it comes to beauty items...)

This month's questionable item. Pink, BRIGHT pink lipstick

Good or Bad?  Yeah, I don't know either. Probably not quite for me, but maybe for another life?

Anyway. Trying to keep up with this Blogging thing. One week at a time.

Weekend Weigh in - 185lbs, Happy

Friday, Saturday, or Sunday - I always step on the scale.

My blood glucose levels are good, cholesterol good, blood pressure good, flexibility good, exercise recovery good... My work has always put together free testing for these numbers.

But still, I'm over weight and have too much fat (literally, not negatively). I've always been over weight... Some years I do well in exercising and watching health and other years, not so much. This year has been on the not soo much side...

My biggest problem is I eat to fulfill my emotions. Sad - eat. Stress - eat. Happy - enjoy food. Want to celebrate - eat. Want to cry - eat. Want to strangle someone? - eat.

http://www.helpguide.org/articles/diet-weight-loss/emotional-eating.htm

The second issue is I'm under motivated to exercise alone... I did ROTC (with a friend in college), Crossfit (with a friend at work), and HipHop dancing class, (because I love dancing and wanted to learn)... but get me alone, an non routine schedule, or something I'm uncomfortable with and all exercise stops.

https://experiencelife.com/article/your-fitness-personality/

There's a lot of information out there on losing weight, being healthy, exercising. But as one podcast put it earlier this week - How much do you really want to change? How important is this to you really?  That doughnut, the tv-show, and so forth are instantly gratifying to you, so if you truly don't want to change, you won't. It's too easy to say Not Now.

My goal - is to continue to be happy, and learn to be healthy. Today I weigh 185 lbs. I've over-eaten for lunch and have yet to exercise. 

After this post. I'm going to do 25 sit-ups, 25 squats, 20 (knee) push-ups, and 30 Jumping-Jacks. 

And then I'm going to make a pie for Pi-Day.

I don't know if I'm going to lose weight while blogging. But I might as well post my weigh-ins and moods.

Pepper & Tomato Planting - The first of many

This year I'm going for 6 types of peppers, 2 types of tomatoes, 1 artichoke type, and 1 tomatillo type...

If you look at my last blog post and count the rows up, you'll notice that I don't have enough rows for all these plants.  SO! The true first step of starting seed germination... COUNT... Whoops. Skipped that. Fixed now.

Back to Germination. Tomatoes, Artichoke, and Tomatillos are easy for germination - Plant in the loose, seed beneficial soil, keep warm (65-80F), and moist.

Now, seed soil should allow drainage so not to cause rot... Do Not Use Planting Soil... If you want, you can make your own, use the expanding seed soil pods, or whatever else (I've read some people using paper) - just do some research prior to experimenting.  Most seed starting mixes use peat moss or coir (back to drainage) and then cooked compost (150F to kill pathogens) and then maybe some vermiculite or perlite (drainage again).  Get the picture?

Honestly, it's funny that soil needs all that drainage so  so the seeds and baby plants don't rot, and yet the next important step is moisture/watering... (The third most important temp... but I'm sure your house isn't lower than 60F... and if you are growing in an outside greenhouse = heater)

ANYWAY.

Place seeds in seed starting soil per normal direction for Tomatoes, Artichokes, Tomatillos, Etc.

Peppers, I pre-soak. Always have, always will... It helps germination for me - Supposedly it softens the shell, starts the germination process... or something...

Either way. My method.  Set up cups for how many types of seeds you have. Place Hot (85-100F) water into cups.

Add Seeds and then soak for 8 hours. Check temp and if water cools below 75F, drain (till 1/4-1/8 left with seeds in) and re-fill with hot water (85-100F) as needed.

Then plant in cells or flats and keep moist! (Depends on your system on how you water.)

Doesn't this just say YAY Spring!???

BIRDS! Finally!!!!!

OH MY GOODNESS!

So, I have tried 2 birdfeeders, 4 types of feed, and 3 locations to get birds to eat from the feeder. Now I had wildflowers, sunflowers, clover, and live in the country so I was told that in the Spring, Summer, and Fall the birds probably won't be interested in my feeder... But for over 2 months into winter, still NOTHING.

I buy good(ish) feed. Ok, maybe not the super expensive stuff, but it's certainly legit feed! I do not have the feeder near the window. I know birds hang out in the trees... So... WHY ARE THERE NO BIRDS!?

Do they realize I'm trying to create a habitat for them in my side yard with my wildflowers? That I'm planning on making bird houses for next year??? The LEAST they could do is eat from my feeder!!!

So. With this semi-obsession / "I don't know what I'm doing wrong" thinking. I look at bird feeders and feed every time I visit a store. However, I have this thing about spending when I'm unsure. I hate spending. Birds eat from the ground, in a tree, on my fence, in their not-clean-nests... so why should I spend money on expensive feeders?? (I admit, they look cute, but I have a feeder.)

Anyway. Husband has been putting up with me looking at feeders for months and finally stated. Just Buy One! We aren't leaving till you do.

I being frugal, found a nice metal red one that seemed to be a good value - plus it was 11% off too... I also picked one that lets me do two types of feed at once (big and small), since I still don't know what birds I'll get since I've never gotten any to come to my feeders!

5 weeks later.

BIRDS!

Is it because it's metal? (My last feeder was metal!). Red... I usually hung black feeders. Slightly bigger than my old one? It's in the same spot... I dunno but finally, there are birds!

I must admit, 1 weeks after I hung this feeder I had one sapsucker eating from it. I call him Fluffy, because now he's HUGE since he's been the only bird for so long. Hopefully I won't cause bird obesity...