Much-Welcome Rain

For a spring on PEI, it's been amazingly dry and sunny.  That is wonderful for small children, who want to play outside, but we need rain for the garden.  So waking up today to the promised wet weather was a relief, and the falling raindrops were very much welcome.  As seedlings and new grass and trees and perennials (and wildlife too!) soak in a longed-for drink of fresh, cool water, little boys get a bit rambunctious in the house.

So I took mine outside.  In his pyjamas.  To jump in puddles.  We'll get back to gardening when it dries up a little bit, but this morning was a time to play.

Springing Up in Summerside

 I'm a little ashamed to have taken an almost two-week hiatus from blogging.  Things have been a bit crazy around here: substitute teaching, baking, baby girl cutting four molars at once, sunny days when it is a must to get outside with my busy boy, and community meetings in the evenings.  Perhaps, I can guiltily admit that I started watching the first season of Game of Thrones last week, became addicted, and spent my free time in the evenings squeezing in a few episodes when I could.  I don't watch a lot of TV, but I love that show!  We are almost caught up now though so I won't be neglecting so much from now on...

I have a few backlogged posts to put up including recipes, gardening updates, etc., but to get a little something up from the hopeful homestead in the meantime, here are a few photos from this morning of the colours that are currently dancing in our yard.  It's pretty clear that we are a little behind other regions in terms of what's coming up this spring, but spring has definitely now arrived in Summerside and we are loving being outside.

Leaves unfurling on the little red oak in our backyard.

Bleeding heart in a jungle-like area of our garden that is in desperate need of attention!

Who doesn't love a morning greeting from a violet?

I didn't get it in the photo, but there was a tiny spider spending some time on this bloom.

Finally, planting 90 tulip bulbs last fall has paid off with some lovely pinks and yellows!

One of my favourite first blooms of spring--serviceberry.

If we had a "perfect", weed-free lawn, it wouldn't be nearly so cheerful without these forget-me-nots!

Gardening Update

We're into May now, and the snow is permanently gone; even if there's still a chance we'll see more flurries (like we did earlier in the week!), at least we know that it won't stick around.  As we inch our way into prime gardening weather, I thought I'd give a little update on what's happening around here in terms of seedlings, planting, tidying, etc.

I think things are going pretty well with the seed starting, considering it is my first year and some of the seeds were getting a little old.  The pumpkin seeds, which were fresh, have done amazingly well and I probably have too much success based on the space I have available!  But too many pumpkins isn't a bad thing, as I'm really looking forward to having my own fresh pumpkin purée for baking this coming year.  Muffins, breads, cakes and pies!  Yum.  Also, since we'll all be helping out with the food pantry garden at our new community garden, I'll just "donate" my extra seedlings and seeds to that space.  If everyone does that, I don't even think we'll have to find seed donations this year.

Happy pumpkin seedlings.

A quick note about the toilet paper rolls for seed starting.  In a way, they worked great.  Awesome for the tomatoes and basil, and the pumpkins did well too, but I did have a little problem with them. Since the pumpkin seedlings are vastly larger than the others, they established big root systems much more quickly.  Those strong, happy root systems, while great for the pumpkins, weren't so great for the tomatoes and basil--they came out the bottoms of the toilet paper rolls, along the tray, and up into the tomato and basil rolls.  I wondered why the basil was taking so long to get going, even though it germinated quickly and I think it was because it was essentially being parasitized by the pumpkins.  So I would suggest that a) you use newspaper pots for the larger vegetables that you start inside, or b) at least keep them in a different tray from the "little guys" to give them a better chance.  My basil seems to have made a comeback, but it's definitely slow going.

Recovering and finally moving along.  Poor little things!

Ah, my love--you and I will spend lots of tender moments together.

I have had pretty good success with the tomatoes.  The only thing that is really disappointing, is that due to lower germination rates/invasion by monster pumpkin roots, I only have four toilet paper rolls with healthy tomato seedlings in them.  This isn't so bad, I'm just happy to have any doing well and I can always buy seedlings at the garden centre until I become a better baby seedling raiser.  However, all the rolls that are doing well have two seedlings in them, and I have to pinch one back in each.  I thought about unwrapping the paper and teasing the two plants apart to keep all eight of the seedlings, but I'm afraid I'd damage them and end up with less than four.  So I'm going to grit my teeth, pinch those precious treasures back, and be happy that I have four organic San Marzano tomato plants this year.

I've also started planting some cold-hardy things outside.  We don't have a lot of growing space around our house, so I'm just doing a little here and there until we get the community garden tilled and established and planted.  Yesterday I put some soil into a few pots that Craig found when he cleaned out our shed (bless his heart) and planted Swiss chard in one and spinach in the other, with help from my ever-ready young helper.  I missed getting a photo of him doing it though (he particularly liked the funny shape of the chard seeds).  But I did get his sister, who came along to inspect his work after the fact.

Yes, my baby wears a bicycle helmet ALL the time.  More on that later. :)

James also made himself quite useful digging up a no-longer-wanted perennial bed.  This is the year of decluttering, getting organized and getting rid of responsibilities that I am not keeping up with, nor care to.  That means you, perennials.  When we moved in, our property was gorgeous and full of vibrant floral beauty.  Our terrible neglect of those beds has meant that we have often teetered on the precipice of a trashy property, and we've been trying to reduce the amounts of areas we have to weed and maintain.  So the giant, curved bed out front, full of all sorts of perennials as well as weigela and sand cherry bushes, is gone.  James decided to mow the soil before helping his dad sprinkle grass seed on the now bare earth and giving it a drink from the hose.

The boy was working hard, and representing. :)

So we still have lots of work cut out for us this year, but I feel pretty happy with what we've accomplished so far and where we're headed.  Hopefully we'll have a successful first vegetable garden!  And we'll spend a lot of time together as a family, being active, responsible, having fun, and loving each other in the process.

This post is shared with Garden Life Link-Up at No Ordinary Homestead.

Corn Chowder--Not Just For Your Grandmother

When I was a child, we didn't really eat corn chowder.  Probably because my mom thought we wouldn't like it (and to be honest, it wouldn't have been my favourite soup-like option).  I remember eating it at my grandparents' though, and while I dutifully ate my whole bowl, I remember my younger cousin from Ontario loving it.  I can still picture her with her little blonde head, sitting at the card table that was set up in the kitchen for the kids to eat at, happily consuming a big bowl of it while we wondered whether or not we liked it.

I love corn chowder now though, and with corn on sale last week at Sobeys, I made a batch with our leftovers.  I based the recipe on this one, but made a few changes to it to suit our tastes a little better!

Corn Chowder


2 tbsp butter
1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp (or so) summer savoury (the original recipe calls for thyme leaves from 6 sprigs)
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
6 cups vegetable stock, or chicken stock (I used both)
2 cups whole milk
2 potatoes, diced
Kernels from 6 ears of corn
6-8 slices bacon, fried till crisp and crumbled
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese (I used marble)
salt and freshly ground pepper
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley or a tbsp or so dried

Heat the butter and olive oil in a soup pot over medium heat.  Add the onion, garlic, and summer savoury and cook until the veggies are nice and soft, about 8-10 minutes.  Add the flour and stir well.  Pour in the stock and bring to a boil, stirring constantly until the mixture thickens and taking care to prevent lumps from forming.  Add potatoes and boil hard for 8 minutes or so, until the potatoes are soft and start to break down.  Add the corn kernels and milk (mine were already cooked, you could put them in earlier if you were cutting them off raw cobs), and simmer a little longer (try not to return to a boil as you don't want your milk to separate). Before serving, stir in the cheese, bacon bits, parsley, salt and pepper, and a little drizzle of olive oil.  Ladle into bowls and serve with some crusty bread.

Homemade, Crunchy, Sweet Granola

There are loads of granola recipes out there and I would like to try all of them!  For now, this granola works great and as it is a bit on the sweet side, makes a great partner to the plain yogurt that I have just learned to make.

My mom's friend Vicki gave me this recipe, which I changed a little bit from the original.  She and her husband enjoy even just snacking on this granola and they make a big batch before their yearly trip to Florida to eat along the way.  We like mixing it with yogurt and fruit, and I like that it is less fattening and a lot less expensive than what you buy at the grocery store, but very easy and quick to make and is my #1 go-to recipe when I want to bake with James.  He loves making granola!  Or "Granolan", as he used to call it, since his best friend's name is Nolan.

Homemade Granola


2 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed (not so healthy but oh, I love brown sugar!)
3 tbsp vegetable oil
1/4 cup orange juice
3 tbsp pure maple syrup
1 generous tsp vanilla
1/2 cup chopped nuts (I have been using walnuts)

Preheat the oven to 300 F.  Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and spray with vegetable oil spray.

Combine oats, flour, sugar, oil, orange juice, syrup, vanilla, and nuts in a mixing bowl.  Spread evenly on prepared baking sheet and bake for 35 minutes, tossing once to prevent burning.  After the 35 minutes are up, turn off the oven but leave the granola inside for about another half hour to make it even crunchier.  Remove from oven, break up the big chunks into littler bits, allow to cool, and then store in an airtight container.

This granola will keep up to one month, if it lasts that long!

The original recipe included 1 tsp of cinnamon and 1/2 tsp ground ginger.  I don't use the spices because although I like them, I like my granola to have a more simple flavour.  Feel free to spice things up though!  Additionally, when your granola is ready to be stored, you can mix in dried fruit (I love dried cherries!).

I love that little helping hand.

Sweet baking boy.

Mmmm... breakfast goodness.

I Made My Own Yogurt This Week

I realize that there are people out there who make their own yogurt (and cheese, and sauerkraut, etc.) without even giving it a second thought.  But to a newbie like me, successfully making yogurt is one of the most exciting things to happen to me lately!  I used instructions for making yogurt in a crockpot, because it sounded like the easiest and least involved way of doing it, and because I don't really use a crockpot all that often; it seemed to help justify it taking up space in my diminutive kitchen.  In the recipe I used, she sweetens at the beginning to end up with sweet, vanilla yogurt.  I wanted to master plain yogurt first, and since I knew I'd end up with quite a bit, I thought that it would be good to make plain and just sweeten it myself later.  That way I'd know just how much I liked, and I could use the plain yogurt for making savoury dishes.

It is so easy that you really should all do it.  All you need is a little patience, and a lot of time.  I know I never really want to buy pre-made yogurt again!  This is so simple, and with so few ingredients, that it seems like the very best way to get that fix of probiotic goodness into your belly.

In general, we've been eating Activia vanilla-flavoured yogurt, which costs $3.99 for 650 grams.  To make my yogurt a few days ago, I used a two-litre carton of milk ($3.49) and some of a 500 mL container of PC brand organic plain yogurt with active bacterial cultures (usually $3.99, but I got it on a great sale for $1.29!  Woohoo!).  I only needed a 1/2 cup of the yogurt, so the rest was eaten by me or went into a yummy recipe of raspberry yogurt muffins.  I ended up with 1.25 L of yogurt, about twice the amount of the Activia container, for $3.81, so saved quite a lot of money.

The necessities.

*Note that I used organic yogurt, but not organic milk.  This is because for the astronomical price of organic milk, you don't get any real, substantial difference in the quality of what you are purchasing.   In Canada, quality controls are so high on milk that there are no traces of antibiotics or any hormones in conventionally produced milk at all.  See this post for a great, quick summary of why non-organic milk is just as good for you.  Also, I think ADL is a super company that I want to support (and considering it is literally right around the corner from my house, you can't get much more local) and I know a number of dairy farmers on PEI who are all awesome people that I would like to support as well.

So as I take you through my yogurt making process, I'm going to give you the time details that I used this time, because it took me a long time to make this and this is something you might want to consider when you decide which day of the week you'd like to give yogurt-making a try.

7:00 am


Put your 2L carton of milk in the crock pot, cover, turn it on low, and leave for two and a half hours.  I used 2% milk to get a creamy but not full-fat version.  I thought it was a compromise between not wanting to get chubby myself, but wanting to feed the kids a hearty yogurt to help them (especially Susannah) put on weight. Apparently you can use whatever milk you like, including skim.

Did you really need this photo?  Probably not, but it adds colour to the post. :)

Another unnecessary but illustrative photo of my hot crockpot, filled with milk, and turned on to the low setting!

9:30 am


Your milk should be good and hot now.  Turn off the slow cooker, unplug it, and leave it without opening for another two and a half hours.

12:00 pm


Come back, take about a cup of milk out of the crockpot and whisk in 1/2 cup of plain, organic yogurt.  Make sure that it has active bacterial cultures in it!  That's what you need to do the work for you of converting your milk into more yogurt.  Stir that milk-yogurt combo back into the milk in the crockpot (make sure it is cool enough so you don't kill the bacteria, it should be between 100 F and 115 F or so, or so that you can comfortably keep the tip of a very clean finger in the hot milk without discomfort).  Once it is all mixed together, put the lid back on the crockpot and wrap a thick towel (I used two) around the whole thing, tucking it in as much as you can to keep the whole shebang as warm as you possibly can.  Leave it like this (no peeking!) for 8+ hours.

9:30 pm


I left mine a little longer than 8 hours, because I had a very important function to attend--our weekly ladies coffee date at Samuel's on Friday evening.  So when I got home, I unwrapped and opened my crockpot to find:

Success!

Yogurt!!

So at this point, you can package it up however you desire as is and stick it in the fridge, or strain it to make it thicker.  I decided to strain mine.

I lined two colanders (one big and one little) with coffee filters, put them over bowls, spooned the yogurt into them, and put them in the fridge for a couple of hours (not too long or it will turn into yogurt cheese, which I have read is lovely but not what you want in your smoothie or on your granola).  

Craig and I watched a (mind-numbing) movie while I waited for this to strain.  When it was done, I came upstairs and...

12:30 am

Took the colanders out of the fridge, scooped and scraped the yogurt out of the filters into clean Mason jars, poured the whey (don't throw it out!) into additional clean mason jars, and ended up with this:

Thick, creamy white yogurt on the right, whey on the left.

Whey can be used for all sorts of things, and I hope to try a bunch of them out and post about it in the future.  I'm planning on using this batch to enrich smoothies and make them probiotic, to substitute for buttermilk in baking, such as pancakes and biscuits, etc., and to substitute for water in bread, which I have heard has great results.

The yogurt, on the other hand:

I tried it on top of homemade granola, sweetened with some honey and a drop of vanilla, and topped with raspberries.  It was really good.  The yogurt itself was pretty tangy, which may be because I left it longer while out with friends.  I never eat plain yogurt, always sweetened and flavoured, so I think it might take getting used to.  But if you sweeten with honey and vanilla, you won't notice any difference except that it is fresher, thicker, and yummier.  And, you'll know exactly what went into it.  I don't think I'll go back to purchased yogurt.  This is less expensive, healthier, fresher, full of probiotic goodness, and very satisfying.

Don't forget to keep a little yogurt to make your next batch!

Ode To A Clothesline

What a breath of fresh air, literally, now that clothesline season is back in full force.  I know some people let their clothes freeze solid on the line during the winter, and I think that's great--but mine was broken until about a week and a half ago and so I'm just once again starting to take deep breaths of springtime olfactory delight when I fall asleep on line-dried sheets or dry myself with that rough, outdoorsy scratchiness of towels straight in from outside.  I love my clothesline so much that my husband is getting tired of hearing me randomly blurt out "I love being able to use our clothesline again!"  And I felt it had to be expressed here, in words and images.

Five Reasons I Love My Clothesline


1)  The way the clothes smell when you bring them inside.  I think I already covered this, but it has to be included; isn't it everyone's favourite thing about clotheslines?  That smell of fresh air, ruddy cheeks, freshly mown grass, dried leaves, hyacinth perfume, bird song, and puffy cumulus clouds.  An aroma like that just cannot be duplicated anywhere else, other than in freshly washed fabric, blown in the wind and lovingly gathered in a basket.

2) Saving money and electricity.  Once the clothesline is operational again, I don't ever want to use the dryer.  Even with an energy efficient one, it still uses a lot of electricity, which means I subsequently contribute more carbon emissions into our saturated atmosphere and I end up with a higher municipal electric bill (and those puppies are bad enough as it is!).  It isn't any less convenient to do laundry this way, it just might take a little more planning, but as I may have mentioned before, I love to plan.  Just check the weather forecast for the next few days and the night before a nice day, pop a load into the washer before bed.  When you get up, you can put it on the line, then take it off by lunchtime to stick another load on for the afternoon.  Who really needs to do more laundry than that a day, if you remember to do some every nice day that you have?

Note the fleece baby clothes and the absence of emerged leaves in the background--oh! To have a truly warm spring arrive...

3)  Keeping your clothes more organized.  Now, I realize that this may sound at first like I have some sort of a problem, but I swear it works really well.  When I am hanging the wet clothes on the line, I like to pre-sort them into certain categories.  For example, large and small items, pants, shirts, onesies, socks, underwear, etc.  Then I keep each item with its own kind.  When you then come back to pull them in, they are already in a very efficient, handy order.  When you fold them (which is also easier, since the legs of your skinny jeans are not tangled around the sleeves of your favourite henley, and your diaper cover velcro is not firmly attached to a knit acrylic sweater), you can stack them according to where they need to go without losing time sorting them.  Oh Craig, you're looking for your socks?  They're all here.  Need to run a few things down to the kids' room?  Here they are, all in a pre-established pile.  I love it.  (Some people I know, based on other aspects of my life, such as my old work desk that was covered in used tea bags, papers, photos of family, spare socks, and bits of random leaves and other plants that I collected in my wanderings, may have trouble believing me to be this obsessive.  But I swear, I can be quite organized in other areas!)

Here they are: Susannah's onesies (and sleepers in the background) are sorted before they're even dry!

4) The quiet, contemplative time it give a busy schedule.  Now I do not claim to particularly enjoy doing laundry.  Quite the opposite, in fact, I'd much rather wash dishes.  But clotheslines make laundry fun again.  Why?  Yes, it may take longer, but those 10-15 minutes that you spend pinning the clothes on the line and then taking them off to bring inside are 10-15 minutes of peace, fresh air, and opportunity to quietly think without interruption that you really wouldn't have otherwise.  I like putting the clothes on the line when Susannah is napping (9:30-10:30 am, and 2-3 pm) and James is either playing quietly in the yard or asleep.  I listen to the sounds of the neighbourhood: to birds singing and leaves rustling in the breeze and neighbours walking their dogs and taking out the garbage and puttering about in their yards.  I breathe the fresh air and think about what I need to get done that day, or how much I love my family, or about the book that I can't wait to get back to, or about my prayer life, or just about how much I like doing laundry again.  It's a mindless but focused activity that just feels good and gives me a quick breather.  Ahhhhhh.

I think the photo says it all. :)

Not sure I can really express how much I love this picture and the little bum that fits in these covers.

5)  A glimpse into a person's life.  Now I'm not particularly nosy, it's more that I have a keen interest in other people and a vivid imagination, and as a biologist, maybe a stronger than normal appreciation for detailed observations.  But when I see a neighbour's clothes out on the line, I absolutely love that it is an opportunity to peek into his or her life and form a picture in my mind of what that life is like.  Clothes tell a story about the person who wears (or line dries!) them, and some very personal information can be hung out for all to see as it flaps in the breeze.  One glimpse of a clothesline is like the briefest character sketch about the people surrounding you every day, and gives you a chance to get to know each of them a little more deeply than you previously did.  It reminds me of what one of my aunts, who has a heart for things poetic, said a few years ago after the fall time change: "I've made friends with November."  She was referring to the fact that after the clocks go back, you can easily see inside the homes of others when it's dark outside and their lights are on.  You can see them gathered around a kitchen table together as a family, or cleaning the living room, or reading near a cozy fire.  It isn't that you want to know their business, so much, as that you can appreciate the simple beauty of knowing that these people (who you may or may not speak to on a regular basis) are just like you, living just as you do, a few doors down from you.  It makes the world seem smaller, more friendly, more connected in these days of such a busy pace of life.  And I love a good story.

Lamby (and his twin brother) is a very important member of our family.