Sunday, August 28, 2011

Last Day Of Summer


So up here in the Northeast we didn't get hit too bad from Hurricane Irene but we did get a bad day of cold rain,  high winds and dark black skies. So how did this Green Mommy spend today? 
Bug and I got up early and ran to the kitchen in warm winter jammies and I made him breakfast while he helped me mix up a batch of scallop squash muffins from our organic purees we froze last week. 

So then we had coffee and milk and dipped our muffins in the toasty kitchen. 

With our lunch we had some of the yummy dilly beans we pickled last week.

I cleaned up and ran the dishwasher and then we thawed some rhubarb and blackberries, blueberries and raspberries and with some tapioca and sugar made pie filling. 

Bug helped me make the pie crusts and then we made a pie. More warm baking :) 

After Rob left for work Bug and I snuggled up, made dinner and then had a slice of pie to share. 

After Bug went to bed I started working on the sweater I am knitting for him some more. 

All in all even though it was cold, rainy and dark, this last day of summer vacation was perfect. 

To Dye or Not To Dye? That is the Question.

So We all have had it happen, that favorite blouse or top with berry stains all down the front, or a fav shirt that just looks worn and dirty and faded. So You can throw it out, or give it away, or perhaps breath new life into it and dye it a new color. I do this about 2xs a year with any of my clothes that I would otherwise stop wearing or worse throw away.
Today I was dyeing Bug's brown feety jammies that I made him last year, to be used for his black cat costume for Halloween. I figured.. Hey I have to do this anyway why not use the dye to fix up a few items. So I grabbed a dress, two shirts and a sweater that I had until recently worn almost everyday and loved dearly. They all had massive stains. So I threw them in the dye too. I don't have before pics but I know I do have pics of each of them on me at some point. Here are the after pics. They all look a tie dyed in the pics but that is because they are still drying and the wet spots look darker than the light ones.



Monday, August 22, 2011

Harvest Bounty: Prepping for Winter

A few days ago my garden actually started producing a bunch. The herbs have boomed, the strawberries are producing like crazy (though quite late), the squash and zucchini are huge, the peppers are plentiful, but as I planted in late June the harvest will be late this year. In the meantime though I got a message from a fellow Green Mommy who's all organic heirloom garden is beyond plentiful, offering me a huge amount of harvest produce. I jumped at the chance to puree, freeze, pickle, and can produce for winter.
So Sunday she dropped off a box of squash, bag of cucumbers and peppers, and a bag of green beans and purple string beans.
 So first off I set up a jar of dilly beans and a jar of garlic dill pickles. The dill was fresh organic dill from my garden and the garlic was organic and locally grown.

Then I prepped and froze a container of green beans for future dinners.

Then I prepped the three different varieties of squash. I steamed the zucchini squash and baked the scallop squash and white bush squash. 

Then scooped the squash out of all the shells, pureed it in the food processor and then  froze the purees of all three types of squashes.

I ended up with enough puree for a few months of fall and winter baking. I am hoping to add to it with more squash, pumpkins, and zucchini.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Little Girls Should Stay Little Girls

I don't often rant on matters that are not about BFing or Greener living but this news report was too much. It shocked me so much I had to say something. I don't even have a daughter but this broke my heart! Not to mention this is a sick slope that will effect not only an entire generation of women to be but also men to be too. As women if we could put aside these ideas of outer beauty, sexualization, and competition with one another and stop pushing these false values on young girls, we could change the world. Little girls should be allowed to get muddy, to play mommy, to hug a teddy bear. They shouldn't be worried about how sexy they are or bras and panties. This is beyond outrageous! Sometimes I think raising a boy is easier but then again you have to raise them to not take advantage of girls who are overly sexualized, or not be taken advantage of by them. I feel like we never had these problems growing up... I never even kissed a boy until 18 and I had sleepovers well into my 20's. We played barbies and just had fun baking cookies with our moms. The truth is it has effected an entire generation. We are sitting on the precipice of a world where most CEO's are women and high ranking buissinesses are run or at least managed by women. Teachers, scientists, doctors, lawyers, etc are women... and we could change the world... but instead we are bombarded from birth with the idea that women are either supposed to be perfect sex symbols or else men will think they are ugly or worse they then turn that into their entire reason to be. It is scary so scary.

Reuse Reduce Recycle

So Bug wears a lot of used clothes, either from friends with older boys, or from thrift stores or garage sales. So right there we are already reusing old clothing and reducing the amount of new clothes being produced.

So where does the recycle part come in? Well the other day a friend of mine and local Green Mommy Extraordinaire Liz H gave us some of her sons old clothes for Bug. One of the pairs of jeans had rips in both knees. 

So I found a pair of Hubby's old shorts that just happened to be a green/grey color and that were beyond destroyed. 

So I cut out two dino shapes big enough to patch up the holes. One is a sauropod and the other a pteranodon. 

And wham! Just like that an upcycled pair of cool dino jeans!!!








Sunday, August 14, 2011

So I am learning slowly as gardening is not my strong point, at least not vegatable gardeing, I do better with herbs, teas and flowers. Since this is my first year organic gardening I have been trying different things like rosemary oil for fungicide and stuff like that.Today I decided to combat low production by fertilizing all my plants with a mixture of water and compost. So I dug a few scoops out of the bottom of my compost bin (I have it set up so finished compost falls out of the bottom shoot) Then i mixed it with water until it made a compost slurry. I watered all the plants. Hopefully within a few days I will start to see more buds on my veggies. I have to say I love organic gardening.

Friday, August 12, 2011

It's that time of year again.....

Queen Anne's Lace, Asters, Sumac, Cattails, Black Eyed Susans and Paintbrushes are in full bloom... the air has turned from a low of 80 to a low of 60 giving it that cool breeze that feels soo good. The herbs are producing in large quantities and peppers and tomatoes turn ripe on the vine. It is almost fall. Harvest Season is here again. I know I say this often but can you tell how much I love fall? I have been baking up a storm again making use of zucchini and squash. Slicing and pickling our banana peppers for salad rings. Everyday I walk out of my front door I see harvest all around me.







The best surprise though so far this year was the sudden appearance of a pumpkin patch in our yard almost as if by magic, though it had a lot more to do with random things being dumped in an old stump. It all started last November when I tossed the rotten remnants of our jack o lanterns in to the old stump in our front yard. I suppose there must have still been some seeds in them. Then this spring when our neighbors moved they threw some of their compost in the stump and lastly before we got our compost set up my hubby tossed some grass clippings in the stump. So over the course of the spring and summer we didn't take notice of what was going on in the stump. Then about a week ago I saw was look more like the beginnings of a burdock plant to me than a pumpkin or squash. I figured I would leave it and maybe dig up the roots next year for medicinal teas. That simple (and a bit lazy) decision saved what is now an entire pumpkin patch. From what I can tell it is 3 plants each vining and branching all over our yard. It is massive and it got that way in about a week. I think the bit of rain we got has helped, though now this means I will need to water it daily, and weed it. I still can't get over how much it grew in one week.


Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Hubby's First Soup

So yesterday my husband chose to rather than open a can of soup  make his first soup from scratch (almost). I can honestly say it was delicious! He whipped up a Chunky Corn Chowder. It was chicken broth, corn, onions, potatoes, cheese, milk, flour and peppers. It turned out soooooo good. So without further ado here are some pics of Hubby's yummy soup.



Disposables Rant

There are times when disposable things can be useful. Who among us can say they don't use paper plates at a BBQ or a birthday party. Or  the occasional disposable coffee cup when you forget your reusable mug at home, but this world is getting unbelievable with the amount of disposable products meant to be used and thrown out. It is becoming a losing battle to fight against these companies who market so well that people actually believe that they need these products and whats more that their lives are better for it. A few that have gotten under my skin lately are disposable diapers and disposable coffee cups for home.
Firstly I hate disposable diapers. That is 90% of why I originally started this blog. After this past weekend though I am more assured in this than ever. Due to disposables my son now is covered in scabby rashes all over his butt and genitals. I almost want to take pictures to email to every disposable manufacturer. It is sick and I want to cry as he screams at each diaper change. We thought nothing of him using them while he was at his Gramma's and while we were at renfaire. After the three days of disposables though (and a bit of loose poo) he now has a massive rash. We have tried everything and luckily being back in cloth is helping but good lord.. he is just so sad and it is breaking my heart. I have written before about the waste, the expense and the environmental damage disposables cause but I really must say now here I am writing about  something so much closer to my heart, my baby. Disposables are just so bad for babies. They cause rashes, they hold dangerous chemicals close against your babies skin and they are made to hold more liquid than a diaper should so that lazy parents leave their children in diapers that should have been changed much more often. Many children have allergic reactions to disposable diapers and this causes even more rashes. I have helped many people switch from disposables to cloth but I so rarely have had Bug in disposables I don't really have much of an experience with the other side of it but after having used cloth for 22 months I have to say that I can not imagine that the convenience makes up for all the pain, leaks, troubles, and environmental damage.
Home use disposable coffee cups are equally absurd and from what I can see simply have no purpose. I understand not everyone brings a reusable mug with them to the local coffee shop or to McDonalds to get that morning coffee but to not use reusable coffee mugs in your own home? How lazy can we as a society get? Do you hate doing dishes sooo badly that you can not rinse out a coffee mug and fill it with coffee? Have we really as a society reached the point where you need to buy a set of disposable coffee mugs to use each morning? I think anyone buying these things need to rethink their daily choices.
So there is my disposable rant for the day. Sorry but I am one upset Mamma.

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Recent Projects and News

Well the Green Mommy has been up to a few new projects. For one I finally finished the Dora and Boots pair I had been working on. These ones are sold already but I can make more.

I am working on some Jellyfish right now. I am going to be doing a bunch of colors. I f you would like one go to facebook.com/thegreenmommy.
The Green Mommy also has a twitter now. You can follow me at @thegreenmommy.

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

It's August! 1st Harvest Bounty of the Season

August, September, and October are my absolute favorite three months!!!!! The air takes on this aroma of leaves, crisp cool nights and pumpkin. Everything bursts into harvest. Wildflowers burst on the scene, black eyed susans, sunflowers, sumac, cattails, queen Anne's lace.. just so many things. My garden is in full swing, banana peppers  and green peppers, tomatoes, and herbs abound. My best friend gave me 5 large yellow squash yesterday which I quickly turned into delicious squash puree (seeds and all..mmmm) and then turned that into bread. I also pickled the couple of banana peppers we had ripe. MMMM.
Squash complete with Bug teeth marks
 Pureeing the squash
 Bread batter
 Finished product
 Brown sugar instead of white, squash seeds instead nuts, puree instead of oil or butter. MMMMMMM




Total Pageviews

Followers