It's Easy Being Green

It’s that time of year when the skunks start coming out of the woodwork and interacting with the friendly wildlife we call pets living in our yards.  T had a near heart attack the other night when she heard our dog going crazy outback and opened the door to the most pungent skunk spray smell ever.  We’re pretty used to the odor coming from Flagstaff, AZ.  We practically had a skunk wander by our bedroom window just about every night regardless of what house we were living in there.

T remarked that the odor was so bad her eyes were watering and she was almost certain the dog had been sprayed because of the way she was acting.  Co-workers told me to pickup lots of cans of tomato juice on the way home, with extra to make a Bloody Mary to enjoy during the bathing process.  While I’ve heard good things about the tomato juice, I’ve heard it takes several washes and wondered if there was anything better and not chemically based for getting rid of the smell.

That’s when I sent a good friend of mine back in Flagstaff a message to see what he’s used.  He had the unfortunate experience of having both his dogs sprayed and then they ran into the house, fumigating his two story abode with the smell of woodpussy.  He got back to me with his favorite and effective green skunk deodorizer recipe and here it is:

Green Skunk Wash Deodorizer Recipe

-  1 bottle of hydrogen peroxide

-  1/4 cup of baking soda

-  A few drops of liquid dish soap

Mix all ingredients together and get to washing!

As it turns out, I got home and the dog did not get sprayed, thankfully.  It seemed as if the creature simply wandered through the yard and was quite smelly but never deposited it’s fragrance on my four-legged beast outback.  Do you have a good home remedy or green recipe for getting rid of a skunky smell?  Leave a comment with your recipe or email me and we’ll post it in a future article!

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As the nights get cooler and the days get shorter, apples that ripen in the Fall are finally ready to come off the tree.  We have several U-Pick apple orchards in the area and enjoy going to fill up a bag or two as we wander down the rows of apple trees.  Inevitably we come home with more than we can simply eat so naturally, we look for ways to preserve a piece of Fall.

Last year I dug out the apple slicer and corer.  It took about an hour or two to make my way through the entire harvest and get them ready for preserving.  We left several of the jars of apples plain and packed them in sugar water.  I used another batch of apples to make jars of apples packed in cinnamon red hot syrup.

Both have proven to be a winner and have their own special uses.  The regular apples I use for baked goods, pancakes or waffles and main dish recipes like Pork Chops with Apples.  The cinnamon red hot apples are good for desert toppings and breakfast treats like waffles.

Yearning to celebrate the changing of the seasons this weekend, I cooked up Baked Pork Chops with Apples and a side of Baked Sweet Dumpling Squash.  Both were delicious and I will put them in our seasonal recipe collection.  I’ll share those recipes later this week.  In the meantime, if you’re looking to can some apples, here are the two recipes I use.

Apples In Syrup

courtesy: Ball Complete Book of Preserving

Ingredients:

-  10 to 12 lbs. apples, stemmed, peeled, cored and quartered (to prevent browning submerge apple slices in 1/4 cup lemon juice and 4 cups water)

-  1 batch of hot syrup (I used a light syrup recipe because I wanted to preserve as much of the nautral apple flavor & sweetness as possible.  Make by combining 2 & 1/4 cups of granulated sugar in a large pot with 5 & 1/4 cups water.  Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring until sugar is dissolved.  Reduce heat to low and keep warm until needed, making sure you don’t boil the mixture down)

Directions:

1)  Prepare canner, jars and lids.

2)  In a large stainless steel saucepan, combine apples and syrup.  Bring to a boil over medium-high heat.  Reduce heat to medium-low and boil gently for 5 minutes, until heated through.

3)  Using a slotted spoon, pack hot apples into hot jars to within a generous 1/2 inch of top of jar.  Ladle hot syrup into jar to cover apples, leaving 1/2 inch headspace.  Remove air bubbled and adjust headspace, if necessary, by adding hot syrup.  Wipe rim.  Center lid on jar.  Screw band down until resistance is met, then increase to fingertip-tight.

4)  Place jars in canner, ensuring they are completely covered with water.  Bring to a boil and process both pint and quart jars for 20 minutes.  Remove canner lid.  Wait 5 minutes, then remove jars, cool and store.

Apples in Cinnamon Red Hot Syrup

courtesy:  Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving

Ingredients to make 8 pint jars:

1 & 1/2 cups granulated sugar

1/2 cup cinnamon red hot candies

2 cinnamon sticks

2 tsp. whole cloves

1 tsp. ground ginger

2 cups water

1 & 1/2 cups vinegar

2/3 cup light-corn syrup

2 tbsp. red food coloring (optional)

24 medium apples, peeled, cored, sliced and treated according to directions above

Directions:

1)  Prepare canner, jars and lids.

2)  In a large stainless steel saucepan, combine sugar, cinnamon candies, cinnamon sticks, cloves, giner, water, vinegar, corn syrup and red food coloring, if using.  Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring frequently.  Add apples and stir gently over medium-high heat until apples are heated through, about 6 minutes.  Discard cinnamon sticks.  Turn heat off, but leave saucepan on heating element while filling jars.

3)  Using a slotted spoon, pack hot apples into hot jars to within a generous 1/2 inch of top of jar.  Ladle hot syrup into jar to cover apples, leaving 1/2 inch headspace.  Remove air bubbles and adjust headspace, if necessary, by adding hot syrup.  Wipe rim.  Center lid on jar.  Screw band down until resistance is met, then increase to fingertip-tight.

4)  Place jars in canner, ensuring they are completely covered with water.  Bring to a boil and process for 15 minutes.  Remove canner lid.  Wait 10 minutes, then remove jars, cool and store.

Now let the fruits of your labor cool for a couple of days and coming up later in the week, I’ll share the delicious recipe I used for Baked Pork Chops and Apples and Sweet Dumpling Squash.

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The so-called “Dog Days of Summer” are paying off in the veggie garden this week. My wife and I have spent quite a bit of time outside pulling weeds, smashing squash beetles, plucking Tomato Hornworms and giving our little 10×4 foot plot of wholesome paradise some good ‘ol TLC. Mother nature has been a big help too, squeezing some much needed rain out of a passing cloud or two at least once a week. That’s apparently a rarity out here in southwestern Indiana during August but who’s complaining? We’ll gladly take the free water!

Our collander is brimming with Friday's tomato harvest, sporting a fresh batch of roma tomatoes, cherry tomatoes and slicing tomatoes.

On Friday I had to make a mad dash through my tomato patch to harvest what was ripe before the plants sucked up all the rain water. I’ve been having a big problem with tomatoes expanding way too quickly with all the rain and then splitting just as they ripen. Since I’ve been picking preemptively, they’ve been faring much better though. Our roma tomatoes are producing a bumper crop of pear-shaped goodness that will be perfect with pasta. The cherry tomatoes haven’t let up either, gifting us with a fresh flush of fruit every couple of days.

On Saturday our baby was fast asleep for an afternoon nap so we decided to hit the garden again and do some cleanup. Squash beetles totally annihilated both of our zucchini plants. They bore into the stems of the plants and kill their ability to suck up water. They eventually get the wilt disease and die. I would normally be sad about it but those two plants each produced about ten pounds or more a piece of fresh summer squash.

A weekend bounty of fresh vegetables for the picking. Clockwise from top left: Handfuls of cherry and roma tomatoes, lemon cucumber, bell peppers and an Orange Oxheart heirloom tomato.

While we were out there dealing with the squash beetles we harvested another basket full of produce. Saturday’s take included more roma tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, lemon cucumbers, bell peppers and an Orange Oxheart heirloom tomato. All have really taken off and produced wonderfully in southwestern Indiana. We can’t wait to enjoy the fresh tastes of each of them.

My failures were definitely sweet corn, yellow squash, pickling cucumbers and pumpkins. I’ve been struggling with powdery mildew spreading from one cucumber vine to the next and then it spread onto my pumpkins. Both are still putting on fresh leaves and trying to set fruit but the mildew just marches on. My sweet corn growth was very stunted and produced some very tiny ears of corn, small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. I didn’t follow proper planting recommendations by planting at least four rows so that was probably the cause there. Yellow squash were attacked by squash beetles early on and never really had a chance.

We still have another three months to go before the first average fall frost so I think our harvest days are far from over. I’m also going to try my hands at growing some fall vegetables this year and am getting ready to tackle that project this week.

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If you’re not an avid 60 Minutes watcher or missed Sunday night’s episode, you missed a great interview and profile of Alice Waters, the so-called mother of the slow food movement.  Shamefully, I have a couple of books with forwards by Alice Waters but didn’t know who she was until last night.

Alice is a staunch advocate of local farmer’s markets and stands strong in support of sustainable agriculture.  Her L.A. based restaurants, including the world reknowned Chez Panisse, utilize price fixed menus that change daily as farm fresh produce becomes available and goes out of season.  She’s also spearheaded the planting of a vegetable garden outside San Francisco’s city hall, a new classroom program that gets kids outside into a garden teaching them how to grow their own fresh and sustainable food and how to cook it and recently a call to plant a victory garden outside the White House.  You too can sign the petition to the Obamas by clicking that link.

If you didn’t get to see the story, I recommend you click this link and watch it now:

Alice Waters’ Crusade for Better Food

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Frustration is beginning to set in over our ongoing home search.  As my regular readers may know, my wife is pregnant with our first child.  We’re expecting a bright, bouncing bundle of joy at the end of June and we just can’t wait.  In the meantime, we’re looking for a new place to live.

The home we rented when we moved here to Indiana six months ago is falling apart around us and the landlords just don’t seem to care.  The basement is leaky and moldy, the cast iron pipes have numerous issues and it’s just too small for us.  You should be amazed at the brevity of that explanation because the list does go on and on.

We tried to get conventional financing for a home and we need to clean a couple things up on the credit report before we can get the money.  It’s estimated it will be a couple of months before we can buy something on our own so in the meantime, we’re looking for another rental we can call home for awhile.  We thought we found the perfect place both for living and enjoying a homestead life just a few minutes away from our current house.

From the front, the Red Country House doesn't look like much but take a look at the back and it's a different story.

The Red Country House as my wife and I began calling it, is an early 1900’s home complete with unfinished basement and partially finished attic that would make a great sewing/craft room and children’s play area.  Despite the period looks, the owners of the home have done a really nice job fixing everything up and at least keeping it liveable.  But the house wasn’t what really caught my imagination.  It was the land surrounding it.

Big windows fill the back of the house with natural light and a closed in sun porch provides ample space for plants to overwinter.

Sitting on 5 acres, the Red Country house was surrounded by space and trees, lots of them.  You pulled down a gravel driveway about 50 yards and circled around the back of the country house.  A small two bay garage sat behind the house in addition to an old barn.  The barn was spruced up with a fresh coat of paint and a new roof, complete with a rooster weathervane on the peak.  Further back, a large prefab metal building sat in the middle of the property but the oasis behind it was amazing.

The green gambrel style barn has lots of possibilities and adds to the property's charm.

Plopped in the middle of 5 acres behind this prefab building was an amazing organic garden.  Now it’s winter, so nothing was growing but you could see the layout complete with a rotating composter and deer deterrent fencing.  In the middle of the garden, young fruit trees beginning to bud out for the spring.  Adjacent to that space was a large stand of trees complete with antique farming equipment scattered admidst their trunks.  There was an old cultivator that a farmer could ride on behind his horse and other devices that showcase a time gone by.

The organic garden space complete with fruit trees in the middle and a rotating composter awaiting fresh kitchen scraps.

At the back end  of the 5 acres was a large patch of open grass, awaiting the construction of a new home or whatever vision someone could come up with.  I stood back there thinking about a home orchard and berry patch, a gazebo and maybe even a duck pond.  But then I had to pinch myself.

The back end of the 5 acres looking toward the front and the Red Country House. The organic garden space is right in front of the large metal prefab building in the middle of the property.

The property is a rental afterall and the owners seem quite content with continuing to own it.  One of these days I’ll find our perfect homestead where we can truly begin to live the self-sufficient and quiet lifestyle we desperately desire.  It was the perfect blend of rural charm with city conveniences just a few blocks away.

So what’s your dream homestead like?  Have you found it yet?  If you have found your perfect dream homestead let me know.  I’d love to feature some of my readers places they call home sweet homestead.

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As I talked about yesterday, I’m not sure most people heed warnings and prpeare themselves to be without essential services like power and water for extended periods of time.  The devastating ice storm here in Indiana and Kentucky has pushed the idea to the forefront of my mind because I’ve seen firsthand how people have reacted.  It’s always reactionary it seems.  Most people just don’t prepare themselves.

So what should you do in the event of a blackout?  The Red Cross offers up some simple tips that you should remember or jot down in a special disaster book somewhere in your home that you can refer to.

1. They recommend only using flashlights for lighting and not candles because of the fire danger.  Obviously if you take careful precautions, candles can be a good source of light in an emergency so be smart about it.

2.  Turn off electrical equipment you were using when the power went out.

3.  Avoid opening the refrigerator or freezer.  This will help ensure the cold air stays in.  When it comes to packing the items in your freezer, the more densely it’s packed the more cold it will have to keep itself frozen for awhile.

4.  If you have a generator don’t run it inside your home.  Three people died in Louisville last week from carbon monoxide poisoning because they kept the genrator running inside.  Also, unless you have a full-sized backup generator hooked up by an electrician, make sure you don’t wire your generator into your home wiring.  It can send a charge down the line away from your house and actually jolt an electrical worker when they touch the lines.

What about steps you can take before the blackout hits?

5.  Always make sure to have flashlights and fresh batteries for those flashlights on hand.

6.  Buy a battery powered or even better hand crank powered radio to listen for important information.

7.  Keep at least a gallon of drinking water on hand per person.  Even more will help your family last longer if the outage is prolonged and water cannot be pumped in your area.

8.  Have a small supply of food

Have you ever gone through an extended blackout for a day or more?  Share your experience with us and tell us challenges you faced without power and how you got through them.

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I’m glad to say we’re safe and sound following the major ice storm that just ripped through the Midwest this past week.  It’s been a stressful time and that’s why I haven’t popped much up onto the blog in a few days.

We were some of the lucky few that have had power all the way through this event.  The night of the storm, our power went out for a few minutes while transformers and power lines blew all around us.  We laid awake in bed thinking that was the last we’d see of the power for a few days but luckily it came back on a short time later.  People living just around the corner though are a different story and down in Madisonville, KY it looks like a warzone.

This event has proven once again that people need to take steps to prepare themselves for the worst.  It seems like as much as this message is pounded into people’s brains, a majority of them choose to ignore it or believe an event like this will never happen to them.  The lines of people trying to cue up after the storm and get gas for generators, cars and heaters is just proof that people choose to deal with the event after it happens and panic in the process.

I got to thinking that we’re not as prepared as we should be.  We have  large cache of food staples stored in the basement and probably have enough to last us a month or maybe more if we rationed it well.  I have several large 5 or 6 gallon jugs for water but don’t have them filled up at the moment.  While I don’t let my pet’s food supply completely dwindle down before buying more, I probably couldn’t provide for them for an extended period of time if we were stuck somewhere.

I got to thinking about generators too because we don’t have a generator.  But then I remembered about our motorhome.  It has a propane stove, oven and fridge and it has a gas powered generator.  That made me feel better since we basically have a rolling disaster kit should another problem strike.

I know I want to take even more steps to make sure I can provide for myself and my family should luxuries like electricity disappear for a few days or even weeks.  What steps have you taken for yourself and your family?  Please share with us by posting a comment below.

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