Sheet mulching

I visited my parents for Mother's Day weekend. They have a corner of their yard that has been taken over by weeds. They grow long like vines, and re-root wherever they touch down into dirt. I volunteered to sheet mulch the area for them. They had never heard of this technique but were thrilled that I was going to take care of the problem for them.

Pre-mulching. They had a thin layer of wood chips down but the weeds were all over it. I left the wood chips there instead of raking them out and reusing them because I was afraid that some of the weeds would get transferred and re-root.

Cardboard placed and soaked with water to keep it down. I used up all of the pieces of large cardboard, chicken feed bags, and bulk flour bags I'd been saving up for my future homestead.

New wood chips put over top. 5 bags measuring 2 cubic feet each just barely managed to cover the area.

Cross your fingers that the weeds don't escape out the sides. At least they'll be easier to stay on top of from here on out.

Spinning progress

This week we learned to spin 3 ply yarn. Half the class found it easier to do 3 plies, while the others (including me) preferred 2 ply.

I've gotten good at spinning thin yarn using the cheap wool roving. Usually it looks like sport weight yarn but sometimes it's approaching lace weight!

At the end of class we were given 6 bags with small amounts of various kinds of roving, labeled cashmere tussah, angora/lambswool, alpaca (!), afghan, another tussah silk, and merino.

The long, soft tussahs were hard to spin with! They got easily tangled in my support hand, and the yarn kept breaking when I would try to spin it thin and the fibers slipped apart.

The merino, which is probably what we've been spinning on, was easiest to work with. It held together well and was easy to make into lace weight yarn. The angora/lambswool was similar.

The afghan was my favorite. It had a very short staple length - about 1.5". But it also held together well.

The alpaca (huacaya) felt rougher than I expected in my hand. It got a bit tangled as I was working it, but otherwise was fine.

New wheel, plying 2 singles

Some of us switched wheels last week. I had been happy with the Ashford Traveller, but I wanted to gain experience with different wheels. This week I used the more compact, folding Ashford Joy. At first I had a lot of trouble getting the tension right for both the wheel and the bobbin, and spent a frustrating hour trying to get the roving to attach to the leader yarn and promptly losing it. Finally, once the settings were right, things settled down.

Meanwhile, in class last week, we learned how to ply two singles together.

This was a combination of the white roving we received at the start of class and the blue, purple, pink, and turquoise roving I purchased. As I was spinning the colored one, I had carefully separated out the colors so that the yarn would switch in a predictable pattern. The result was a fun color-changing yarn. I definitely want to make something out of my homemade 2-ply yarn!

Sausage making class

I attended a sausage-making class from the Institute of Urban Homesteading. It was run by Seth Peterson, who is easy-going and charismatic. It was a hands-on class - we picked fresh herbs from his luscious garden, chopped and mixed them with spices, mixed that into ground beef, worked the meat with our hands until it was very "tacky," fried it, and then ate it. Those were delicious sausage patties/hamburgers without casing. Then we put together a hand-cranked grinder and used it to fill pork casings and fried up the resulting sausage. That was fun but I see myself skipping that step and just making hamburger in the future. Mmmmm.

Now THAT is a stove.

A small yet abundant area of the garden.

Apple tree guild!

So delicious.

Spinach and strawberry harvest

Mmm, spinach.

And a particularly large handful of strawberries ripe on one day.

I only have enough plants to get a small portion each day, but they are such a treat when they've warmed up in the afternoon sunshine.

Mystery plant, geranium

Last year I experimented with taking cuttings during my dog walks and planting them at home. Only two survived:

This bizarre-looking mystery plant...

And this gorgeous geranium that has exploded in both growth and flowers. I used to think geraniums were "meh" because they were everywhere, but now they've grown on me. I can see the bright purple color from my bed when I wake up, even without my glasses, and it helps me get ready for the day.

Roast chickens

Anna Hess' book The Weekend Homesteader: A Twelve Month Guide to Self-Sufficiency includes a recipe for roasting a whole chicken. I was excited to try it out. It requires you to stay by the stove and frequently pull the chicken out to baste it, but it's extremely easy and I appreciate not needing to cut up the chicken and cook the pieces separately.

I purchased a whole organic chicken, small yellow potatoes, and gave it a go.

It came out absolutely delicious! I ended up with too much butter and oil accumulating at the bottom of the pan due to using a spoon instead of a real baster, but otherwise it made 6-7 servings and was absolutely worth the cooking time.

This weekend I'm visiting my parents to celebrate Mother's Day, and surprised them by bringing and roasting another chicken. I used my mom's baster and this time the potatoes came out crispy. A little too crispy, actually, as my dad was late for dinner and I left the pan in the warm oven so the chicken wouldn't get cold, and the potatoes kept cooking. We joked that I had made chips. I included garlic and fresh rosemary from my yard. Everyone was happy with the meal.