Garden Design: Quantity vs. Quality

January 11, 2013

...I’d say 20 minimum. Part of what we learn by focusing on quantity is about making mistakes and learning from them. But I think there’s more to it than that. A gifted high school English teacher of mined likened our creativity to a tank of water. Sometimes you have to drain off the not so great ideas at the top in order to get to the good stuff that lies deep in our unconscious. Letting go of stifling perfectionism also forces us to try out ideas t...

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Connect with Nature Project #2: Rediscover Your Feet

Mrs. Homegrown

June 17, 2013

Miscellaneous

11 Comments

..., natural splay. My foot size also increased by an inconvenient half size, making it newly difficult to find shoes which fit. Next came barefoot walking. As has been oft mentioned in this blog, Erik is a barefoot runner. I don’t run, but I am a barefoot walker. Barefoot walking woke me to a world of forgotten sensations: the warm softness of asphalt, the fresh coolness of a sprinkler soaked sidewalk, the delicate slide of wet leaves beneath my toe...

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Toilet Paper Roll Tower for Cats

Mr. Homegrown

February 14, 2013

Animals, Cats

6 Comments

...rning into one of those people who does nothing but post cute cat pictures to Facebook–oh wait a second, I’m already that person–here’s a tip from a friend Christine on how to keep cats busy with toilet paper rolls. Christine sent me a link to the FourWhitePaws blog on making a toilet paper tower that you put treats in. She also sent a link to a stock photo service that is, oddly, selling a photo of a slightly more aestheticized version of this id...

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Supper for a buck?

Mrs. Homegrown

February 25, 2013

Bean Fest, Food

16 Comments

...f of no-knead bread contains the following ingredients: 400 grams of flour, 300 grams of water, 1 1/2 teaspoons of sea salt and, depending on the recipe, either 1/4 teaspoon of active yeast or a bit of sourdough starter. I figured out the cost for the flour (bulk purchased from Central Milling) comes to 52 cents a loaf. If I were a little more persistent, I could go on and figure out how many more pennies the salt costs, and yeast or, alternativel...

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How to make your soup wonderful: Wild food soup stock

Mrs. Homegrown

March 26, 2013

Food, Food Preservation, Foraging, How-to

6 Comments

...It still looks good. Pascal says this is a traditional European method of making instant soup stock, but instead of using it as a stock by itself, I’ve been using it as a finishing touch at the end of cooking up a pot of something. It really helps at that tricky moment when you’re standing over your soup pot, spoon in hand, asking yourself, What does this soup need? Somehow it improves the flavor in a subtle, magical way–and in the meantime, garn...

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