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The muscle car of tomato plants

Posted on May 20, 2012

About a year or two ago, grafted tomato plants started appearing on the garden scene. As Valerie Easton explained in an Seattle Times article last year, grafted tomatoes “have proved more effective at taking up water and nutrients, they are … Continue reading →

Posted in Gardening | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Video: Flight of the Orchard Mason Bees

Posted on May 14, 2012

  The Orchard Mason Bees are doing great this year! By far, this has been the best year for the bees since we started hosting them a few years ago. The weather has cooperated well, with enough decently warm days … Continue reading →

Posted in Gardening, Wildlife | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Mushroom mysteries: What do I have here?

Posted on May 12, 2012

We are not a mushroom eating family. Derek loathes them. I can tolerate them if they are a small part of an otherwise non-mushroomy dish. When I came upon pretty sizable mushroom colonies in the rhubarb and garlic beds this … Continue reading →

Posted in Gardening | Tagged | 4 Comments

1012 things to love about solar power

Posted on May 10, 2012

Today, we surpassed 1,000 kWhs of solar production! This took 37 days of production, making our daily production a bit over 27 kWhs which isn’t too bad considering our spotty weather during April. As a simple measure, each kWh of … Continue reading →

Posted in Solar | Tagged | 1 Comment

Hen vs. lizard

Posted on May 6, 2012

One of our New Hampshire hens found an interesting snack today, a little lizard. She ran around for about 10 minutes trying to eat it herself, but the other hens kept trying to steal it from her. Eventually, she tired … Continue reading →

Posted in Homesteading, Livestock | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Mystery bird – what is this little guy?

Posted on May 4, 2012

We’ve had some pretty birds visiting our feeder this spring. Take a look at this one. My best guess for this, based on the Birds of Seattle book, is Purple Finch. But it doesn’t look quite right. Notice the overlapping … Continue reading →

Posted in Wildlife | 3 Comments

Moving day, turkey housing stage 2

Posted on April 29, 2012

When we first bring home baby poultry, we keep them in a plastic storage tub in the house. This arrangement works out well for about a week and then the poultry needs to move to a larger home. The last … Continue reading →

Posted in Livestock | Tagged , | 1 Comment

That had to hurt

Posted on April 28, 2012

While there is a normal variation in egg size depending on the type of chicken, most of our eggs fall into the medium category. Every once in awhile, though, one of the ladies lays a doozie. As you can see, … Continue reading →

Posted in Livestock | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Evening Grossbeaks

Posted on April 27, 2012

A flock of Evening Grossbeaks stopped by for a snack today and Derek took some shots. True to their reputation, the cleaned out our feeder. Pretty birds. Sandy

Posted in Wildlife | Tagged | 1 Comment

Happy Earth Day!

Posted on April 22, 2012

Happy Earth Day everyone! I hope you take a moment today to appreciate this lovely place we all call home and think about even one small thing you can do this year to help the old gal out as we … Continue reading →

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