From the Week

Wow, it's been a busy week! Matt started his job at precisely the moment that school kicked into high gear for me, resulting in a routine in which there are only two days per week when we are both home before dark. This week was particularly insane, with me in class on Friday night and all day yesterday, hence the lengthy radio silence.

I forgot to mention that I did make jalapeno jelly a few weeks ago. I used this recipe, and while it came out positively delightful, I would definitely reduce the sugar next time, probably by at least one cup.

I highly recommend it. It's particularly good with cheese and crackers, and on sandwiches that involve meat.

I also cut up our apple harvest, and put away several gallons of frozen apple pie filling.

Today was my one day at home for the week, and while I have a huge pile of homework lurking upstairs, I spent most of today outside. Our beautiful weather is continuing, although the nights are getting colder now.  Rain is in the forecast for next weekend; if we get it, it will be the first proper rain in three months.

We had baked colcannon for dinner one night this week. Definitely one to add to our menu plan on a more regular basis.

Matt and Elliot butchered all but two of the 8-week-old rabbits yesterday, and today I butchered my first rabbit (or any animal, ever, for that matter). WARNING: MODERATELY GORY PHOTOS OF BUTCHERING AHEAD. I know there are people who think it's insane to kill your own meat, let alone post photos of it, but in our society where the process behind meat and meat products is completely hidden from consumers, I think what we need is more visibility of the process. Strangely, it's completely acceptable to do your own butchering when it comes to hunting, but people seem to think it's weird and gross to butcher animals you raise yourself, and the smaller the animal, the more people get freaked out. It's certainly not something to be taken lightly, and we make sure to thank the rabbits and give them a last minute of cuddling and relaxation before they go, and it is distinctly difficult to watch the life go out of an animal's eyes. But if you eat meat than I think you need to be willing to see how the animal becomes meat, even if you don't actively participate. If you can't stomach the process, you probably shouldn't stomach the product. That said:

Matt did slaughtered and butchered the first one, so I could see how it was done.

I was a little nervous about getting the killing part right- it's a fairly tricky business and unfortunately it's relatively easy to break a rabbit's neck without killing it (the actual slaughtering is much easier on larger animals). So I asked Matt to kill mine for me, and after I've seen a couple more I will do it myself.

Here I had cut the head off, it was draining the blood and ready for skinning. 

Reflecting on it, the hardest part for me, apart from watching the killing, was the fact that the carcass was so warm the whole time I was processing it. I've cut up chickens and cut the skin from the meat, but the meat is always so cold that you don't necessarily get the sense that it was once alive, and of course there is no blood. It was also fascinating to see the insides and where the organs are and how they all fit together. I'm really glad I know how to do it now, and in a strange but satisfying way I look forward to being able to do the killing part too. Another skill in my self-sufficiency arsenal.

After putting the rabbits in the freezer and cleaning up, I worked on putting the veggie plots around the front yard to bed for the winter. I pulled out all the remaining tomato plants, and tilled it up and planted it in cover crops, along with some spinach and kale.

 I unhooked the drip hose and packed it up for the winter, and left the strip in the foreground (with the turning fork in it) alone- that is where we'll plant garlic later in the fall.

Now Matt is working on cleaning the house, and it's time for me to get a pot of chili and some cornbread going for dinner. Once that's done, I'll contemplate doing some schoolwork. It's just so good to be home today.

Around Here

Around here, I am heading into the final few weeks of the quarter, and summer vacation is so close I can almost taste it. I really love my program, and all of my classes, but it is really hard to focus on schoolwork when so much is happening outside! This is one of my favorite times of year in Portland, when everything is green green green, rhododendrons and iris and roses are blooming everywhere you look, and we wake up to birdsong every morning and the air just smells so flowery and fresh. We've had a two-week stretch of absolutely beautiful warm weather, and this morning it is still warm, but gray and drizzly.

I am taking a little break from the usual pile of homework--right now in addition to my regular weekly heap of readings, I am writing a plan to use community organizing to improve opportunities for physical activity for older adults in East Portland- an area of town that has very poor infrastructure and resources and has generally been neglected by the city. For our Mass Communication & Health class, my friend Laura and I are putting together a media advocacy campaign aiming to get the city to change zoning laws to restrict fast food restaurants near schools, with an accompanying anti-fast food social marketing campaign targeting school-aged kids. This is the kind of stuff I want to do in my career, so it's really exciting, even if it means many hours spent inside rather than outside.

Since the weekends are the only chance I get to spend some time in the garden, I put in a couple hours yesterday, weeding and planting and watering- but really, by now the big rush of spring planting is over and it's mostly just maintenance until we start putting in the fall crops. I am so proud of our garden, it's where I've been putting all my time that isn't focused on school (or Matt, he's a priority :), and while I am missing things like cooking and sewing and knitting SO much, it's nice to see how much my efforts in the garden have paid off. I have done most of the planting, and Matt has been working hard doing most of the maintenance while I'm away at school, and has been taking care of the community garden and the animals too.

(Click on Photos to Enlarge)

This bed contains onions, green onions, a tomato, carrots, spinach, lettuce, and Alderman (Tall Telephone) peas. I love the yarn trellis Matt built- I think it looks like a suspension bridge. I gave this bed a thorough, and much-needed, weeding yesterday- now the wee carrots won't have to duke it out with a million little invaders.

From now on, I am only ever planting out brassicas with floating row covers over them- that month spent under cover means that we're going to be eating our own broccoli by the first of June! (The broccolis out front that weren't covered are small and stunted, and have tiny heads on them but are essentially bolting). 

The garlic is super tall and thriving. We should be seeing scapes sometime soon. The only real issue with this bed is convincing the peas planted along the back that they should use the fence as a trellis, not the garlic!

We have tomatoes! This is the first tomato I planted out, probably earlier than I should have- it's a Green Zebra, I believe, and is putting on fruit and flowering away!

Kale. Glorious, glorious kale. 

We've trained our marionberry all over the fence, and it's going apesh*t. It was a two foot tall cane when we planted it less than a year ago.

We've planted nasturtiums around the trunks of the fruit trees, they are excellent companions to apples and pears- aphids love nasturtiums, so ideally they'll go there instead of to the trees.

Little parsnips working their way up in one of the beds at the side of the house. They were getting really shaded by our overly enthusiastic rhubarb, so yesterday I cut the plants down to half their size, and they're still big!

Like the rest of the garden, the peppers are thriving. This bed also contains basil, cilantro, and a new planting of lettuce (you'll notice I have marigolds dispersed throughout the garden- they are the workhorse of all companion plants, to quote Carla Emery, and do a fantastic job of keeping the soil healthy and attracting the slugs away from the veggies).

By the front steps, two lemon cucumbers in a pot, and a hot pepper. 

I think we're going to have a bumper crop of berries this year. Last year we had tons, but we were just moving in and this whole section of the garden was massively overgrown. With all the pruning and fertilizing we've done, plus our very sunny spring, I think we might just get the mother lode this time around.

I wish I could take a photo that captures the entire front yard garden, but it's too big! This is just one side- potatoes, tomato, pepper, and along the roses at the back is a row of beets. 

The dogwood tree in our front yard is in full bloom right now- I love this peachy color! One of the really fun things about this time of year is that we had no idea what our trees would look like when they bloomed- we moved in in late June, so this is the first time we got to see the lilacs, apples, Asian pear, rhododendrons, and dogwood bloom! We also got surprise tulips and lilies.

 Look closely- Matt and Maggie are in the doorway.

 This is what our rhodies look like- beautiful, no? We had no idea what color they might be.

Another addition to our backyard- Matt built this fireplace out of bricks salvaged from a demolition site nearby! Looking forward to trying it out.

We've been eating a lot of rabbit! Someday I will write a post that is only about our rabbit experiences, but for now I will tell you that the entire second generation has been successfully butchered, both does have been bred again, and homegrown rabbit has proved itself damn tasty! (Tastewise, it is very similar to chicken, but there is a different quality to the meat- richer, maybe?). So far we have tried it braised with sage and rosemary, and also dredged in flour and fried. Both are delicious, but the frying is labor intensive (and not as healthy). Either way, though, it is incredibly satisfying to eat meat we raised from the very beginning.

This week is an anniversary- one year since Matt and I returned home from our Big New Zealand Adventure. It's hard to believe it's been a full year since then- and what a year! Full of tenuous or nonexistent employment, good friends, the stresses and joys of graduate school, our first forays into the world of urban homesteading, lots of eggs, the bunnies, and many ups and downs. We've been poor, but productive, and pretty darn happy overall. And it has been a year spent in this house that is more home to either of us than anywhere we have lived since leaving our childhood homes. We truly love our home here, and everything we have done with it. It is comfortable, just the right size, affordable, and we are lucky enough to have good neighbors, a really excellent landlord who lets us be in charge of everything on the property, and a roommate who we are extremely compatible with, and who came with a cat that keeps us constantly entertained. Back on the road in New Zealand, camping in a different place each night and enjoying the itinerant life, this is what we dreamed of in the back of our minds, and now we have it.

In just a few weeks, I will have time to do more than write one big post every weekend- I can't wait to be able to settle back into domestic tasks, read something that isn't a textbook, and build some new householding habits like soapmaking. Until then, my friends, thanks for reading my big long summaries of the week!

Pausing...

...After one very stressful week and before another. So I'm afraid this will be another quick and random update. My life this past week has been +/- 6 hours of sleep per night and a lot of this:

But I did manage to play hooky for a few hours this weekend, to do some work outside and take a trip to the community garden. This is what our plot looked like when we got it a month ago:

And this morning, complete with peas, carrot seedlings, lettuce sprouts, and a variety of flowers:

And before-and-afters from the north side:

Today we planted some potatoes, radicchio, oakleaf lettuce, and cilantro, and mulched the paths around our plot. Next week we'll plant all the rest of the space in corn and beans and squash, and then it will really get going!

Since gardening is the thing that's keeping me sane right now, that's about all that's on my mind besides school, so here's a glimpse of what we've got growing around the property:

 Our bright green lush lawn (and apple blossoms!). You can catch a glimpse of the sorry state our lawn was in just a couple months ago, when we decided to move the chickens off of it:

The lilacs are blooming, and the backyard smells heavenly. Sleeping with the window open, we can smell them first thing in the morning. 

 The vision I have for our summer yard is coming to life: lots and lots of flowers and vegetables, including a border of nasturtiums in several places. 

 Potatoes around our front yard.

I planted a tomato on top of a potato. Whoops!

More tomatoes hardening off to go into the ground next week. 

In other news, Matt and Elliot butchered four rabbits this afternoon. It all went well, and they calculated the cost of raising our own meat to be $3 per pound. Not bad! It was sad to say goodbye to the bunnies, but we're really excited to be finally reaping the rewards of raising them. It's a fast cycle- they were just tiny babies a couple months ago. I didn't watch the killing, but I did observe some of the skinning and processing. When the boys have their process down to a science, then I will be a part of it too. Luckily, rabbits are some of the easiest animals to kill and skin. This all deserves its own post, but sadly I don't have time for that at the moment, and I wanted to make sure I mentioned it! The meat is resting in the fridge now, and tomorrow night we'll have braised rabbit for dinner. Here's to another step towards self sufficiency!

With that, I'm off into midterms.

Little Hoppers

Look what we've got: 

!!!!!!!

Sorry for the terrible photo quality, but the little guy (or gal) wouldn't hold still. I think it looks kind of like Lilo from Lilo & Stitch, but in fact it is a baby bunny! One of at least eight baby bunnies, actually (we counted 8 but didn't want to disturb them to much. It's possible there are one or two more tucked into the nest). It's taken us 5 months since getting the rabbits to have a successful litter, but this time it worked out! 

 They spend their first few weeks buried in a nest lined with mama's fur- cozy!

I didn't talk about the first litter that came along, because unfortunately it was a grim business. For reasons we are still unsure of, mama rabbit didn't take to her brood that time, and ate one baby and abandoned all the others, and we didn't discover it until it was too late. It wasn't a fun discovery either, let me tell you. But now that the wee fuzzies are here safe and sound, the cuteness factor in our household has skyrocketed, and we're feeling relieved that the doe is actually capable of parenthood.

Look how tiny!

The kits are one week old today, and now have a thin layer of fur, but their eyes are still closed. Some of them are gray and some are looking white, and some are a bit blotchy, which all makes sense given that their mom is gray and the dad is white.

Our second doe, Princess, came of age about a month ago and is also knocked up and due next week (a rabbit's gestation period is only three weeks-you can predict it to the day-, and they have large litters, hence all the sayings about multiplying like rabbits).

 Definitely chubby. How do they fit up to TEN babies in there?

This will be her first litter, so we'll see how it goes. If they all survive, we'll be up to our ears in rabbit in a couple of months! Because yes, these offspring are for eating. It's kind of a hard concept to grasp, when there is so much cuteness leading up to it, but it's another step on the way to self sufficiency, and it's one of the only kinds of meat we can raise while living in the city. It's an interesting conundrum, to want to raise your own meat, and to theoretically want to do all parts of it but actually dread to doing the killing. Still, we want to be practical, and there's no point shying away from the hard stuff. It will just take some serious getting used to. Until then, we're going to enjoy the cute overload but try not to get attached. 

Journey says hello.