Ooops.

I think we forgot to wish you a happy March!

I know, I'm shamelessly giving you pictures of flowers and a toddler instead of the post I promised on cakes and ingredients substitution when baking. But you see, only 20 mns into the nap there was a diaper leak and a very cranky toddler. So we spent the entire day outside. Surely she should take a big nap tomorrow. You know, to catch up?
Right. Tomorrow then.

Storms, Woodchips and Blossoms.

Our bad weather continued: hail, high winds and sheets of water. Very exciting. And even more exciting a forecast of snow for last Friday night. Sadly, by then, the storms had passed and we had a hard freeze but no snow. I had very disappointed children on my hands. Snow in sacramento... what is the world coming to?

                                                                                                                  The View From My Office.

The hard freeze though... we have those regularly and it is a big threat to farmers in the valley. Almond trees are very sensitive to frost and so are plum trees. Unfortunately, our plum tree was in full bloom when the cold weather hit. Hopefully we will still get a few plums. Usually we harvest more than 40 lbs of plums so it would be a great loss.

                                                                                                                           Plum Blossoms.

 

                                                                                         Plum Blossoms

Luckily most of the apricot blossoms were still shut tight. Last year was not good for apricots, maybe this year I can make apricot jam again.

                                                                                                                                Apricot Blossoms.

It was most definitely not hammock weather.

                                                                                                              The Hammock Over The Swamp.

And the yard was a swamp so nothing got done in the garden.
Well, almost nothing... Mark put wheelbarrows full of wood chips on the new-future-vegetable garden and the chickens went to work: in 2 days they had spread all the wood chips around.

I love team work.

Clean, Clean, Clean.

Do you like cleaning? I don't but that's an improvement over hating it which I did before I made my own cleaning products. Commercial cleaning products made me feel ill and I was not too impressed with their effectiveness and their cost. Especially since i didn't want to use anything harsh or bad for the earth if I could avoid it.
I tried many different formulas over 2 years and these are the one I have chosen and used for over a year now. I'm thrilled with them: they don't smell bad, have no fumes that make me fell sick, cost very little to make and best of all they work extremely well.

Laundry Powder:
Grate one bar of soap (any soap will work, it truly doesn't matter in my experience)
Add one cup of Washing Soda ( if you can't find it, ask your store to order it for you)
And one cup of Borax (in the laundry aisle).
Mix well.

I use 1 1/2 tbsp for a big load, if it is a very dirty load I use 2 tbsp. It works better than any laundry detergent I've tried before and honestly I think I've tried most of them.

Glass Cleaner:
Fill a spray bottle with Club Soda. Mmmm, that's about it. Spray, wipe. It works so much better than the stuff from the store, you have to see it to believe it.

All-purpose Cleaner: 
In a 16oz spray bottle put 2 tbsp white distilled vinegar with 1 tsp borax fill most of the bottle with very hot water. Shake until the borax is dissolved. Add 1/4 cup liquid soap and 15 drops of essential oil ( I use Lavender which is a bactericide but tea tree oil is also good by preventing mold and mildew). Shake a bit. Spray and wipe.
This recipe comes from this book:
I love the recipes. Everything I've tried worked out beautifully and it is full of tips.


And you, do you have favorite recipes you use for cleaning?










I know the picture has nothing to do with the post but the flowers remind me of fresh and clean laundry.

                                                                                     Chinese Cabbage Flowers After The Rain.

Tires, Birds and Batteries.

On Sunday was The Great Backyard Birdcount so we decided to go to The Cosumnes River Preserve like we did last year. It is an area of marshlands and you are garanteed to see thousands of birds of hundreds of different species. We saw a Golden Eagle once but at this time of the year the area is famous for the gathering of the beautiful and graceful Sandhill Cranes.
And so we left. Later that was intended but we left. As we were driving I was getting quite excited. We had had a lot of stormy weather in the past week and the skies were spectacular especially since we were getting close to sunset. We were 5 miles away when we got a flat tire. Fun, I tell you. Thankfully, my husband knows how to change a tire in 15 mns flat and it gave me time to take this:

                                                                                                                 Flat Tire.

So, after that little interlude, we continued on and arrived to the river just in time for all of this.

And it was at that point that my camera's batteries died. Yes they died. Just as the skies were turning orange and red, just as dozens after dozens of the beautiful big cranes passed over us to land gracefully in the water perfectly silhouetted in the orange skies.
And I won't even talk of the bunnies by the pier that the sunset illuminated just so that their ears were glowing softly.
Nope, I won't mention it. 
 

Whipped Cream, Love and Chicken Manure.

Just a quick note on this very busy day to wish you all a Happy Valentine's Day. I'm very lucky to have so much love surrounding me and I hope you do too. Everybody should.
On that note, I'm going back to shoveling chicken manure with Mark before it starts raining again. Yes, it's very romantic don't you think?
But this evening we get time to ourselves which is very very rare... so we'll try to make the most of it.

I'll leave you with some whipped and love from the birthday boy and girl.

                                                                                                          February 2011.

And a One, and a Two!

                                                                                                     

 
                                                                                                                     2 years old!         

Inspired  by  Down to Earth.

The Thief And The Sunflowers.

 

Little Thief!

This was last year.

This is this year:

 

Little Thief The 2nd.

Now they are kind of cute and most definitely entertaining for the dogs, the toddler and the rest of us.
However.
They would win hands down any and all food competitions.
They really are rats with a furry tail.
Which I wouldn't care if,
They were not also comparable with the amount of food they eat.
I don't care if they eat the bird seeds.
But.
Could they please leave my Apricots and Sunflowers alone this Summer, thankyouverymuch.

The Bowl with the Rotting Fruit in It.

I don't know how things work in your family but in mine there are weeks where everybody wants to eat fruit all the time. All week long you can hear things like "who took the last pear, it was mine" or "how come there are no more tangerines??". The one-in-charge-of-keeping-the-fruit-bowl-stocked-up scratches his head and logically thinks that next time he goes to the farmers market, well, he'll stock up on fruit since everybody is eating so much of it. And it'll all get eaten quickly. Since everybody wants it so badly. Well, logically.
And on the next Saturday morning as he is about to cross the threshold he'll inquire again what everybody wants from the market and the house will echo with remarkable unison "FRUIT".
So he goes and still thinking logically buys fruit. A lot of it. Persimons, pears, apples and pomegranates. And tangerines, oranges and lemons.
And then, 2 days go by. Some fruit is being eaten and a lot is left. And it is Monday and the postman comes by bearing two enormous packages marked France. The packages that had been eagerly awaited before Christmas but didn't make it because planes were not crossing the ocean at that time. Snow they said.

And the packages were full to the brim with chocolate and a multitude of other French goodies that were promptly munched on by everybody.

And the fruit you ask?
Ah, the fruit. It stayed piled up high in its bowl. Days passed. Turning into a week. And the fruit became squishy at first. And I thought that really I should do something about this.
And then the fruit discolored until inevitably it started to rot.

So I made Fruit Compote: 

I cut all the parts that  I could from the pears and apples. Cut the persimons in half and scooped the pulp out. And I cut the pomegranates in quarters and took as much of the juice and seeds as I could. It simmered on low with vanilla and orange flower water  until it was nice and soft. I added a large handful of slivered almonds and turned off the heat.
Be warned that if you add pomegranates the seeds will be very noticeable in the compote. It does not bother my toddler or myself but it does bother the rest of the family. That's too bad. More for us I guess.
If you don't want the seeds, it is still worth it to put in the juice.

You can serve as is or add whipped cream or make a crumble with it.

I froze the pomegranates shells... I want to try to dye yarn and linen and see how that goes.