Zipper replacement

Last year the dogs chewed on my down jacket because I'd left it hanging over a chair with a few treats in the pocket. Surprisingly, they only messed up the zipper and did not actually put a hole in the fabric, which they mostly just licked. Yesterday I finally sat down to replace the zipper. The most time consuming part of this was using the seam ripper to remove the old zipper. I then proceeded to sew in the first half of the new zipper, and I was happy with my handiwork:

I even put a binding over the edge of the zipper. Good job, me!

Then it was time to unzip the new zipper and pin it to the other side of the jacket and I realized...

I'd purchased the wrong type of zipper. This one did not separate.

So I used the seam ripper to remove the new zipper as well, and put in an order for a separating zipper. Lesson learned.

Rabbit broth

4 liters of rabbit broth. Guess what happened the first time I poured myself some soup.

Molting chickens

Egg production has steeply dropped off. At first I assumed it was due to the shorter days, but this morning I noticed that the coop had a handful of feathers scattered around. It seems my girls are molting for the winter.

However my least favorite chicken, the Ameraucana, is redeeming herself by continuing to lay one blue egg nearly every day.

Coop upgrades

The 100 foot extension cord is still stretched across the yard to the chicken run, which is handy for making quick little upgrades like this latch to hold the door open. (We'd previously been using a large rock to prop it open.)

At some point I should invest in a power saw, but my cheap handsaw was enough to cut through this plastic trellis I picked up at Urban Ore.

I used it to fence off the corner of the run where I dump used chicken bedding. The girls had of course been scratching in it and spreading it all around. Keeping it in a pile will help it heat up and decompose more quickly.

The Ameraucana seems to have been playing a prank and laid a half-sized egg last week, followed the next day by a quarter-sized egg. The third day's egg was back to normal. I'm told that this just happens sometimes with young hens.

Raised bed update

I made a big mistake when I put this squash plant into the southeast corner of the bed. It's casting a lot of shade on the plants behind it. D'oh.

The lemon balm was finally starting to grow nicely went something did a number on it.

Next to the raised bed, my dwarf mandarin has grown nearly two feet in the past few months. Pretty soon I'll be trimming those top branches. Maybe then it will finally have energy to grow its fruit to maturity, instead of dropping the still-green balls?

Tomato seeds

Another recent experiment: saving tomato seeds from the two best plants.

Since I had multiple tomato varieties, these seeds will be hybrids. It'll just be a fun experiment to see what comes of them.

I've been drowning in tomatoes this year, and haven't been able to keep up with pruning the plants lately.

The other day I decided that I was done with tomatoes for the season, and hacked most of the plants back. I just left a handful of branches that had almost-ripe fruit on them to finish up.


Next year I plan to buy just one or two seedlings, then see what comes of those seeds.

Dehydrating fruit

I've been experimenting with dehydrating apples and peaches in the oven.

I'm still working out the timing - not so dehydrated that they turn into crisps, but enough to prevent mold for a few months at least.

Unfortunately the resulting fruit is so yummy that none of it has lasted more than a week so far.