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Garden Gear: Building a Grow Frame

By jflatnote
The finished grow frame

The finished grow frame

Last week I wrote about planting seeds in peat strips for our 2008 garden.  The night that we bought the seeds, trays, and planting strips, I spent a bunch of time on-line looking a seed catalogs and reading seed-starting tips (this is just our second year starting our own seeds in the early spring).  While searching for the best, most important, killer tip, I found a really cool lighted grow frame, meant to hold seed and plant trays, on the site of one of the seed companies.  However, not having $400 to spend on something meant to reduce my food costs, and reading several negative reviews about the particular item, I determined that I would try to save money by building my own frame. (more)

Starting Seeds for 2008

By jflatnote
Newly-planted seed trays for the 2008 garden

Newly-planted seed trays for the 2008 garden

Today we planted seeds to start indoors for our 2008 garden.  We have a beautiful, large sun room in the back that we are hoping to use as a sun room, and with a little help might be the perfect place to start plants to be transplanted after the last frost.

It is probably a little early to start seeds, but the snow is gone, and we came to planting by an odd route this year.  We moved here in the fall and did not really have any time to start thinking about a garden before snow was on the ground (otherwise I would have marked off garden plots, added amendments, and maybe even sown winter rye or something). (more)

Odd Ducks…err…Geese

By jflatnote
Geese acting strangely on the East-Wenatchee Golf Course

Geese acting strangely

On Saturday (which I didn’t know at the time was Groundhog Day or I might not have been so surprised), I was driving my wife around on a series of Craig’s List meet-ups to by second-hand things that we probably don’t need, when I saw one of the strangest things as we drove past the golf course in East Wenatchee (I’m sure the course has a name, but we haven’t been here long enough to learn things like that).  The snow on the course was pretty deep, but underneath the trees there was just the slightest dusting.  At the very edge of the circle of snow, a group of geese was walking in single file around and around the very edge of the snow-free area.  It almost looked like they were doing a dance or performing a ceremony.

I drove by and it took me a few moments to realize what I had seen.  I turned the car around, pulled it to the side of the road, pulled out my camera, and got out of the car (would have been smarter if I had just rolled down the window and taken a picture, but the windows were frozen shut).  As soon as I got out of the car, the whole group of geese started to drift away, breaking their perfect formation around the circle of bare ground.  You can still see the general formation in the picture I was able to get.  I just need to be quicker with the camera next time.  What a strange thing.

Frozen Flush

By jflatnote
The water in our office toilet froze completely.

The water in our office toilet froze completely.

I was late coming into work this morning because the city snow plow left a nice wall of icy snow at the end of our driveway, even with all-wheel drive I didn’t think I had very good chances at getting the car out onto the street. All the plow did was compact the street into solid ice anyway. By the time I was done I was wet and cold and grumpy. I got to the office and somehow it was colder inside than it was outside. I pressed the power button on my computer and then went to the thermostat to see what was up. 30 degrees! In the office! (more)

Lentil Pottage: A Biblical Base for Multiple Meals

By jflatnote
CCL Image from (http://flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=295638605&size=l), Uploaded on November 12, 2006 by su-lin

CCL Image from Flickr, Uploaded on November 12, 2006 by su-lin

Lentils, part of the class of food known as pulses, are an amazing food.  They are in the same group as peas and beans, but dried lentils do not have to be rehydrated by long soaking before use.  Lentils are considered by experts, along with mangos, to be among the earliest domesticated plants.  Jacob grew lentils (Gen 25:29), and was making a nice lentil stew when Esau came in so hungry that he was willing to trade his birthright for a bowl of those flat brown legumes (Gen 25:34) (of course, a birthright isn’t exactly the kind of thing you can just trade for a bowl of beans.  I have wondered if it wasn’t that Esau regarded the birthright so little he was willing to make the trade that lost him his place, rather than the actual trade itself). (more)

Drowning in a Sea of Apricots, With More to Come

By jflatnote
Creative Commons Image from (http://flickr.com/photos/farlane/205660690/) Uploaded on August 3, 2006 by farlane

Creative Commons Image from (http://flickr.com/photos/farlane/205660690/) Uploaded on August 3, 2006 by farlane

I grew up singing, and have taught my children to sing, a song “Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree.” In fact, it is one of my son’s favorite songs to sing each night when we gather around the piano as a family. It wasn’t until this summer, however, that I saw a real, living, fruit-bearing apricot tree. A few times, in near exhaustion, I have wished that the things were limited to the subject of a silly song.

It started when my wife was invited by a friend to pick any apricots that she wanted from the tree in their yard. They had already, they claimed, canned, frozen, and eaten, as many of the yellow fruit as they were going to. At the time, I couldn’t understand why someone, with free food literally falling off a tree in their front yard, wouldn’t do everything they could to preserve every last bite.