Jamming to the beat

Surinam cherry/strawberry jam! Fruit picked at a friend's house in Ookala, prepared with strawberries and love, and on their way to friends and family in their Christmas baskets! Best eaten with vanilla ice cream!

Aquaponics update - 11/27/10, part duex

In case you're wondering about the floating rafts (deep water culture), this is what it looked like this morning. I've got lettuce (2 kinds), watercress, spearmint (2 kinds), ong choi, marigold, basil, kale, Swiss chard, and fennel. The nitrate levels are slowly creeping up and thankfully, nitrite levels are lowering so I am hopeful that this batch of starts will do well. The one before this failed miserably ... no nutrients means sudden death for little seedlings! Lesson learned.

Aquaponics update - 11/27/10

11/27/10 - 6 days later ... The sprouts have come up! (I added the eggplant to the cinder bin about 5 days ago, on 11/22/10). Check out how big the cayenne chili and kale got!

cinder - 11/27/10 hydroton - 11/27/10

I transplanted some starts six days before, on 11/21/10. The plants are from KTA (curly parsley, purple kale, fennel); vegetables I started myself (Swiss chard, mizuna); and a couple basil starts that the guy at Ohana Greenhouse gave me. I planted the chili and larger purple kale a few days earlier. I also sowed some mesclun, mizuna, and Swiss chard seeds in the hopes they'll start and sustain themselves on their own. But really, it's jus' cuz I'm really lazy. Check out the pics above to see what the bins look like 6 days later!

cinder - 11/21/10 hydroton - 11/21/10

My first beanie!

Yipee :D! I finished knitting my first beanie! The wool roving was in the bag of supplies that came with my spinning wheel so I spun the wool and plied two lengths into yarn and knitted this little beanie. Well, it's not so little. It's huge actually and thankfully, I have a big head. So, I guess I'll have to keep this one and start working on my next, being careful to measure next time.

Spinning and knitting is so addicting! And everyone, be nice to me or you'll be gifted beanies and scarves for every occasion for the rest of your life! LOL

Green School in Bali

A new day

Chickies are fed and watered, pup let out, koi and tilapia fed, ... and now coffee for Joan. It's a good morning. :)

Yarn ball!

It's Zen. All Zen. It's easy to get lost in spinning.

Here's my first yarn ball that is destined to be my first knitted beanie. :) Wow, it's incredibly satisfying to know that I can transform tufts of wool into something that will keep someone warm this winter! It's about as sustainable as it gets.

A bobbin's worth

My new spinning wheel arrived this week! I bought it on Ebay from a wonderful woman in NM who included a bag of wool, instruction book, and a pair of carders. I L-O-V-E my "new" Ashford Traditional wheel! My engineer brain thinks it's a fascinating piece of machinery and my artist brain considers it a work of art!

Can you tell I've been practicing? I tried using the white wool first, then the beige. What a difference practice makes! After spinning another bobbin's worth, I'll ply them together and then I'll be ready to knit! Oh, I am getting an angora rabbit next month ... but that's another story.

Golden tilapia

I just added 16 more fingerlings to the mix. 34 in all. The 2 largest ones are Lunch and Dinner (sick, I know) and one without an eye is Jack, the one-eyed tilapia. And I put 5 pretty koi in the sump. They all seem to like their new digs.

Oh my ... folks, please remind me to stop naming animals I will be eating!