Author Archives: admin

Portland Composts

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Why is Portland light years ahead of New York City when it comes to just about every green initiative? With the population density that we have here it would make so much sense to have recycling cans on the street corners for all those darn water bottles, and to collect compost along with garbage. Not only don’t we have that, but now we don’t even have leaf pick up for all the fall leaves. But I digress…

This video was part of a Huffington Post article about Bijou restaurant in Portland and how they started composting all of their kitchen waste. Turns out Portland has a program called Portland Composts that connects businesses who want to compost, with haulers who specifically deal with compostables.

I live right by a huge restaurant row here in Brooklyn. With the restaurants came rodents, then hawks dining on the rodents and now raccoons dining on everything in sight, including attempts at eating my chickens. I’ve seen the amount of food that gets tossed by the restaurants and fantasize about opening a composting facility and stopping off at each restaurant to pick up the compost w/ a horse and cart. I doubt that fantasy will ever amount to anything, but it is nice to imagine.

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How to Build a chicken coop

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Here’s a nice video showing a man and his son building a coop out of a lot of re-purposed materials. I can’t tell from the video, but my only suggestion would be to make sure the whole thing is sealed. It looks as though the back wall has an opening under the roof, which could allow raccoons in.

Neil is in our yard right now trying to figure out how to secure our coop to keep marauding raccoon claws out.

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Trade Off

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My chickens are in the final stages of their molt. At least all signs point to that. Chickens begin the molt on their heads and kind of work their way down to their tail and wing feathers. Edie looks gorgeous and fluffy instead of mangey like she did after her bout with mites. I’m not walking into their coop to find loads of feathers these days. I think they should be well insulated for winter with all their new feathers.

However, when I check their nest box all I find are little fluffy feathers. No eggs. It’s been about 2 months with NO EGGS. I have to buy eggs from the store, which doesn’t suit me at all anymore. So instead of staring at an empty egg holder, I have decided to fill it with the gorgeous grape tomatoes that are still coming out of my garden. They are getting smaller and smaller as the days get shorter and cooler, but they are still coming. Winter is a mourning time for me when I don’t have tomatoes that taste like tomatoes, so I’m enjoying each and every one of these little treasures.

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Adding Compost

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The other day I did some work in my garden to prepare for the winter. I cut back and pruned a few bushes and cut down many of my tomato plants. I didn’t cut down my grape tomato plants because they are still producing. Fall is in full swing here in Brooklyn, so I took out my trusty Toro leaf vac/shredder and sucked up a bunch of leaves. The act of shredding the leaves makes them take up much less space than traditionally raked leaves. One bag of shredded leaves could be as much as 5-8 bags of un-shredded leaves.

I dug shovelfuls of beautiful compost that’s been cooking all summer and spread them out on my flower and vegetable beds. The soil looks so dark and rich, which is in contrast to the dry, lifeless, glass-filled soil that mostly exists in my yard. I still have straw and hay from fall scavenging, so I decided to add all of the shredded leaves to my compost bin. This is the one time of year when I have an abundance of “browns” in my compost bin. They will break down quickly though with the help of the amazing chicken poo. I swear that stuff is like steroids for the compost bin. I showed a friend my compost bin and she just kept saying, “Yeah, but where’s all the stuff?” She couldn’t believe she wasn’t looking at a bin filled with egg shells and broccoli stems.

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I am not a compost maniac. I think that everything will break down on its own without a lot of fuss that many people suggest (shredding everything before adding to the bin, frequent watering, no cooked food, etc.) and my bumper crop of compost was evidence of my success. You can read my previous post about having an easy and successful compost bin.

My plants will be happy to have the added nutrients from the compost. I know my chickens were happy digging through the compost for bugs and worms!

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Happy Halloween

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I hope everybody has a wonderful and creepy Halloween!

I had snack duty today for Lindsay’s class. I couldn’t help myself….those are glow-in-the-dark pirate rings.

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The cupcake recipe is from Magnolia Cupcakes. You can get the recipe at that link. It’s my go-to cupcake recipe these days. It calls for 2 sticks of butter for 24 cupcakes, but I think that can be reduced a bit. I’m going to try 1 3/4 sticks next time and then go down 1/4 stick each subsequent time I make them.

I got a 2-layer cupcake pod that carries 24 cupcakes. It looks a bit ridiculous, but it’s going to be indispensable for the next 10 years of birthday and school parties.

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When the Problems Come Home to Roost

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Check out this article by Kim Severson that was in the NY Times. It’s about people who have joined the local food movement and have gotten chickens. There are a bunch of people who have gotten in over their heads and have dumped their chickens off at animal shelters.

Keeping chickens has been wonderful for me, but it doesn’t come without its challenges. Most recently I’ve had a raccoon in my yard, which actually got its claws on my chicken Edie. She has a nasty gash on the back of her neck, but I guess it could have been much worse!

I wrote a post about why NOT to keep chickens. If you are considering keeping chickens, please take a look at it and see if you still think you want to do it. If you are going ahead with getting chickens, please get in touch with your local animal shelter or pet finder to see if they have abandoned chickens. The photo above is Shirley, who I found on Pet Finder. She’s not even full grown and is available for adoption from the San Francisco Animal Care and Control.

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A Raccoon in Our Yard!

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raccoon

Last night we were having dinner with friends in our garden. It was about 7pm and our chickens had gone inside their coop for the night. All of a sudden there was a commotion and the hens clamored out of their coop and into the run. I have a larger run attached to their secure run that isn’t 100% predator proof. I lock the door between that run and the secure run every night. I hadn’t done it yet and I have to admit that I have forgotten entirely some nights. I had heard that there have been raccoon sightings in our Brooklyn, NY neighborhood, but never saw one myself. Until now.

I walked over to the chickens to see what was going on and standing about 5 feet away from me behind the wire run was a raccoon. It saw me and promptly flipped me the bird. It wasn’t scared of me in the slightest. The chickens ran into the larger run and were totally freaked out. Since I wasn’t scary enough to make the raccoon leave, we pulled out our garden hose and sprayed the raccoon with jets of water. It didn’t like that and climbed over the fence. About 30 seconds passed and it climbed back into the yard. We sprayed it again and it eventually went away. But it climbed on top of the secure run and tried to reach through the wire of the larger run. I’ve heard of raccoons grabbing and killing chickens by reaching into a run. Gah!

Neil threw rocks in it’s direction. He doesn’t think he hit it, but it again casually went away. Actually it scaled the 2-story building that adjoins our yard by climbing up the ivy. It kept peeking over the roof at us. Not only were the chickens freaked out, but our daughter was really upset as well. I was upset because I know that this critter is going to come back. It wasn’t afraid of us *at all*. We also live right along a very popular restaurant row, so there’s really no end to the tasty trash cans filled with food nearby.

I’ve spent the morning reading various chicken sites and doing google searches on raccoon control. I’ve come up with the following possible solutions:

1. Get a hav-a-hart trap and bait it with cat food. There are several unsavory outcomes to this solution involving relocating, drowning and shooting. Relocating wild animals is not a very successful endeavor. You are dropping your problems on someone else and the animal doesn’t know the natural resources, so can just starve to death.

2. Pee around the perimeter of your yard. I’m guessing that the raccoon, who wasn’t at all scared of me, will not be scared of our pee. And besides, I’m already the crazy chicken lady, I don’t need to add another layer to that!

3. Put down coyote urine. Yes, you can buy predator urine to discourage animals. My in-laws ordered synthesized fox urine online for a groundhog that was digging in their foundation. There’s a website called predatorpee.com. Love the internet! I’m not sure any of these raccoons have seen or smelled a coyote for the past several generations, so I’m not sure if the smell of coyote urine would register fear with them.

4. Hot sauce bombs. The mad-scientist/cook in me loves this one. You take jumbo marshmallows, poke a hole in one end and fill them with the hottest hot sauce you can find. (Wear gloves) Then scatter them around the yard. The raccoons eat them and then won’t come back. This option appeals to me for a few reasons. I like DIY aspect. I like that I’m not actually physically harming/killing the animal. And I kind of love the immature 15 year-old revenge fantasy part of it.

In any event, I’ve set an alarm to remind me that dusk is approaching and I need to lock up my hens. Raccoons generally only like to eat the chicken’s crop (filled with yummy grains), so it’s a gruesome death. Plus you get the added bonus of finding a decapitated chicken left behind.

Wish me luck! Maybe I’ll make Rice Krispy treats with the leftover marshmallows.

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Doing Your Part w/out Getting Overwhelmed

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shattered-rock

I was just talking with a friend about trying to do the best you can (recycling, donating to charity, buying from farmer’s markets, etc.) and we both expressed how easy it is to be discouraged that we can’t/don’t do more. I look at our planet and can get overwhelmed by how we’ve managed to mess it up so badly. It doesn’t seem possible that we can do enough things to fix it up. One can try to be a perfect citizen of the Earth, but it’s nigh impossible, which is what leads to discouragement and giving up.

That’s the negative way of seeing the situation. However, on a positive note, we’ve seen many examples of how one small effort can lead to a bigger outcome. The ripple effect. Rather than try to be perfect in every way, I’m suggesting we choose the causes we feel the most strongly about and think about what we can do in those areas. Human rights, animal rights, food justice, saving the environment (this one should probably be broken down into smaller pieces like protecting animal habitats, and clean air and water), global warming, etc.

Working in one category overlaps into other areas as well. You can decide that you want to eat less meat or no meat because meat production is very polluting. That’s also pretty darn nice for the animals, so you get two good deeds for the price of one.

I’m going to post some things I currently do and some things I’m going to do to keep me on track and hopefully inspire you. If anyone can think of suggestions and/or a nice name for a weekly post title please feel free to share.

ps. The photo is of a shattered rock that I came across up in Woodstock, NY. It was just sitting on the ground without anything else pushing against it. I thought it was interesting that something as strong as a rock could just shatter like that. It’s my attempt at a metaphor. Don’t stress out. Even the strongest of us is still fragile.

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Much needed rain

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oatmeal-cookieWe’re getting rain after about a month of dry weather. I’m happy about it because I planted some seeds (lettuce, spinach, kale and *gasp* grass seed) and I don’t really like to water the garden. It’s getting cold here, so I have to cut down the basil and make batches of pesto to freeze. I can’t remember what temperature kills basil, but it’s somewhere above freezing. We’re down to the 40s at night, so it’s cutting it close.

I bought some organic garlic and am going to plant some this fall. I’ve never planted garlic before, so don’t know whether to believe or ignore the hype about buying seed garlic. I’m choosing to ignore the hype and just got plain old regular organic garlic. I think I need to wait a little longer to plant it, so it’s in the fridge right now. I’ll probably put it in after I chop down and prune my plants. Goodbye tomatoes. How I loved you!

I also saved some tomato seeds from my plants. I didn’t really research the proper way to do that. I just put a bunch of seeds on a paper towel to absorb the pulp. Now they are a part of the paper towel, so I’m not sure if I should pry them off, or just cut up the paper towel and plant it along with the seeds in the spring.

With the cooler weather has come more baking and knitting. I just made nutty oatmeal cookies from Mark Bittman’s book Food Matters. I didn’t use the vegan options and used butter and eggs. The book is interesting (think Omnivore’s Dilemma lite) and offers weekly menus and recipes. I seem incapable of menu planning, so I’ve decided to try some of his menus. The book emphasizes healthy, mostly plant-based dishes, so I wasn’t sure if the cookies would be good or taste like particle board. I was pleasantly surprised. They had chopped up dried apples in them instead of the usual raisins that my family doesn’t like.

As for the knitting, I am making a raglan sweater for Neil from wool I spun ages ago. I’m crossing my fingers that I have enough wool to finish it. This weekend we are joining our friends for a weekend in Woodstock, NY and a visit to the NY Sheep and Wool festival on Saturday.

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Cooking with Lemon Verbena

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This spring I went to a garden center to buy some herbs. I was intending to buy lemon balm, but somehow came home with lemon verbena by accident. If you are like me and never grew lemon verbena before, you won’t know how intoxicating it’s lemon scent is. I think it’s what they base the lemon-scent of most furniture polishes on. Kind of like when I tasted my first concord grape and realized, “Hey, this is the grape flavor they put in all the candy that never tasted like any grape I had ever eaten before”. Lemon verbena is used in a lot of perfumes because it smells so wonderful and happy and exotic. So, while I liked crushing it in my fingers to awaken the scent, I still didn’t know what to do with it. It also turns out to be an annual, so I had to figure out something sooner rather than later.

My first inspiration came when my friend Victoria came over. She’s a cookbook author, food-stylist and all-around food lover. She told me that I could put some leaves in sugar to infuse the lemon scent. Sounded wonderful. I also looked online and found a couple of other great ideas. One was for a lemon verbena and mint tea. You pick a bunch of leaves from both plants, put them in your teapot, pour in hot water and steep a few minutes. Don’t put in mint stems as it can make the tea bitter. The tea was delicious, light and clean tasting. Hmm…maybe that’s my association with the furniture polish again…

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The other idea was to infuse vodka with the lemon verbena. Wash a few sprigs of lemon verbena well, drop in a clean jar and fill with vodka. Wait a day or two and then remove the sprigs. The vodka takes on a nice, light green color and smells wonderful. My husband makes me delicious cosmopolitans using St. Germaine (elderberry liqueur), but now we’re going to try it with the lemon vodka. We might try lemon drops as well. Intoxicating lemon aroma indeed!

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