just a quick post - nothing major!

it's been another beautiful day! this is the absolute best june we have had in the 4th june that we have been here - it's been amazing and we love it! (we sure do wish that jambaloney's parents had have visited this june, instead of june 2011, the suckiest june known to man - bahahahahah!)

check out these beautiful skies:



what a beautiful day...and we have already had so many!!! summer is just starting and we are having such beautiful days! we are so grateful! here's another pic:



i take 10 million pics of the sky every day and you are very welcome for the fact that i don't post all of them!

here's a little yellow-spotted salamander that jambaloney discovered hiding in one of our tarps - woops - i mean JUNK, laying around our yard.

and when he went out "just fishing" this morning - he caught us some more trout. imagine, free food and all he is doing is "just fishing" or something. in case any of you are wondering - i have received some nasty comments from really sad people who claim that prepper sites like ours only talk about their tiny gardens being so big and important and that jambaloney "just goes fishing". to those sad little people, i say, maybe you should pay more attention to the prepper blogs - like the ones i have listed in our blogroll. none of those people are bragging about growing their own food - they are trying to share successes and failures and they are trying to teach others to do so. so, if all you have is a bucket of freeze-dried auguson farms, you might want to back off, learn a little and maybe become a little more self-reliant. which is what we, and all of the people on our blogroll are trying to do. here's what jambaloney caught this morning when he was "just out fishing" - it's called food. really healthy food. and he did it when he was "just out fishing". it's free food from a very healthy river.

there it is served on a plate. "free food" is not "just fishing". you sad idiot.

here's another pic of the beautiful striations of our healthy and beautiful clouds and sky. we give thanks several times a day, sometimes together, mostly on our own and in our own way to live in such a healthy environment. i often feel so sorry for those stuck in a smog-filled city - but hey - it's all just about the choices we make, no?

but then sometimes you work the whole entire day in your "little garden". you work towards growing your own food and being self-sufficient. there are a whole pile of people listed in our sidebar who are trying their best and succeeding. there's a whole pile of people who comment here, but don't have blogs of their own and they are trying too! i salute all of you! but sometimes after a long day - it's all about the beans, the sourdough toast, the tomaties and the pear.

i salute all of you who try! some of you are incredibly successful, some of you are like us and just doing the best that you can. but for the rest of you who don't even try - well, i say whatever. go ahead and moan and groan about "so-called" prepper sites who only talk of their little gardens. why don't you get up off of your fat *sses and do what our friends are doing - which turns out to be something! they are doing something. and i salute every one of them.

yes, this is a bit of a rant. but if you want to make fun of so-called prepper sites.....you are simply asking for it.

again - i salute every single person who tries to grow an herb, a lettuce, a tomatoe, a tree, a potatoe. and i salute every site that shares valuable information - regardless of success or failure. i salute you all!

more tires and junk - bahahahhaah! - a pile of other stuff and food....oh ya baby!

we had a most-awesome-fabulous day today....well, minus the black flies, of course. i really detest those little things. but anyway - wow - what a day!



it was 20C with a nice little breeze and we got a ton of stuff done. hey everybody - high-five us! we're feeling pretty awesome right now! it might be because we knew today was going to be georgous...so i made a bodum of coffee last night and let it sit in the fridge over night in order to make vietnamese-style iced coffees to start our day....have a peek:



yummo-deeeelishous! and so strong! it really got us moving - bahahahahah!

oh hey - wait - i need to backtrack a bit. last evening, we were enjoying a gorgeous sunset:



that's when the phone rang. my sister and next door neighbour called to tell us that her husband had 2 more cooked lobster for us - can you even believe this stuff???  needless to say, jam went over to get them and before i even knew it - all that was left of those two babies is in this bag:



my goodness we have good family, friends and neighbours. i'm sorry i didn't get a pic of the actual lobsters. they were beautiful 1 and a half pounders. and we just dove right in before i even thought of taking a pic.

oh ya - i forgot to tell you all that the summer bedding is out. we washed all of the summer bedding, used apple cider vinegar in the rinse cycle, hung all of the bedding on the line and let it sit overnight to collect all of the fog, mist and dew...then let it air dry in the beautiful sun - this bedding smells like heaven!

we've been working like dogs in the garden/greenhouse for the past week. and when doing so, you need to eat good. here's a delicious BLT on home-made sourdough bread. it's big enough to feed 80! no worries - we can eat for 80 with no trouble at all!

how about some toasted ciabatta buns with homemade hamburgers? jam had his usual relish, mustard, onion and tomatoe. me? i smeared my bun with homemade guacamole, baby! you can get my guacamole recipe here.

anyway - how about some tires and junk?!?!??!? can you imagine - taking things that people throw away and making them useful?!??!? it's an awesome skill to have and THE man, jambaloney has it in spades!!! here's 3 tires, that he got for free. then, when we first arrived here, he invested in 4X8 concrete re-inforcement wire sheets. it was a superb investment as we are re-using them every year. here's 3 ugly tires, with the re-used sheets for 3 kinds of pole beans. i planted 16 beans in each tire, corresponding to where the lines on the sheets are. once the beans are big enough, we will train them up the wire. not bad eh?

here's some more ugly tires and junk. how about 6 tires of bush beans, of 5 different varieties and they will be trained using discarded sections of old lobster cages, that jam got out of the garbage and wound them in circles so that each tire contains a minimum of 15 bean seeds. pretty impressive eh?

how about turning our hugelkulture bed into a permanent strawberry bed? we have, on our land, cranberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, wild strawberries and now we have a permanent strawberry bed!

just wait until jam builds us another greenhouse - a year-round greenhouse with heat, using all of the extra windows - oh i mean junk! - that he has been collecting for years. then we will try to grow exotic fruit like lemons and limes...oh and don't forget mangoes. and avocados. wouldn't that be awesome?

here's some tadpoles in the pond - aren't they soooo cute?!??!?!?!?

we have no idea what they are...and really don't care.

PioneerPreppy coined the song "tadpole, tadpole - all named frog"....and i sing that song everytime i visit my little tadpoles and tell them how much i love them! no really - go check his post - it is the funniest thing i have seen in a long while! PioneerPreppy really should record the song on YouTube at least. perhaps Usher would see the video and turn our beloved PP into the new Justin Bieber!!! i'd buy the album....wouldn't you all????

oh lookee here...more tires and junk! that would be 12 tires of peas, made out of an old, rusted swing set that jam found in the garbage and the fencing is made out of discarded display racks from Home Depot. and people have the gall to call this junky???? ya, whatever!

here's all the overwintered peppers moved to racks in the front of the greenhouse. jam got these racks out of the garbage and they are just perfect for our huge pepper plants that now look like little bushes and/or trees. they are full of blossoms - can you believe it? and some of them are already producing peppers?!??!?!? oh joy!

and here is a pile of cucumbers, zucchinis, squashes and melons that i transplanted from their little styrafoam cups into little pots that jam got out of the garbage a few years ago - we re-use those garbage pots every year - they work like a charm!

here is a little...well, getting kind of big, volunteer sunflower that planted himself in a pot. he did it, or a squirrel did it. i now need to transplant him in the front yard.

the tomatoes are going hog-wild-crazy and need to be planted IN THEIR TIRES.....like soon! oh me oh my! i love these kinds of problems!

this last pic is for my friend Mike from the blog Living Prepared. his blog is full of great information - you should really check it out. anyway, he asked that we document our potatoe procedure. Mike, as you can see, we planted our seed potatoes in the first layer of dirt, mulch, seaweed and compost and covered each tire with some dead grassy material. you can see the potatoes poking up now.

once the plants reach 4-6 inches tall, we will drop another tire on them and put dirt and compost up to almost their necks. once the potatoes grow another 4-5 inches after that, we will drop another tire on and fill up with dirt and plant material.

we planted 160 potatoe seeds and are conservatively expecting....based on our years of knowledge gleaned from growing potatoes in tires.....probably 200lbs of potatoes and about 20lbs of potatoe seeds. i will keep documenting our potatoe experience throughout the season as Mike has asked that we do so.

for anyone who has never grown potatoes in tires - if you have any questions - just yell in the comments section and we will do our best to answer any and all questions. we have been tire gardening for several years and have learned much from our successes and failures.

well kids - this post has probably put most of you to sleep by now, then there are some others who just scan the pics, then there are the others who will see how long the post is and just go to another blog....no worries. this is OUR blog. and we blog about what we are doing and what interests us. we are happy if anyone finds it interesting....but we lose absolutely no sleep if you don't.

tomorrow is supposed to be another gorgeous day. oh man - what kind of trouble are we going to get in tomorrow? you'll have to check back and see.

off to catch up on my other favourite blogs. my favourite blogs are listed in our blogroll. you should check them out. there's a lot of really interesting people there doing really interesting things. have a great week!

first week of june update - and lots of food!

it's been a busy week! but june is always busy for anyone who tends to their gardens and animals! we have had a few nice days, and although we woke up to a really foggy morning, it cleared itself up toute de suite and we enjoyed another beautiful day!



pay close attention to the tires under the tree on the right hand side of the pic. my friend Pioneer Preppy thinks that they are ugly, among others who will remain un-named. those tires are beautiful to me - do you want to know why? once the potatoes reach 4-6 inches in height, we put another tire on top of them and fill them up to their necks with dirt. we have harvested at least 600lbs in potatoes over the past several years - potatoes that we didn't pay for!!! we grew them ourselves!!!

oh and please be sure to notice all of the junk in our yard. free stuff that has been re-purposed and re-used. we don't live in an old folks home with trimmed lawns and pools - bahahahahah! we love our land, our tires and our junk. we most especially love that we are healthy enough to live this kind of a lifestyle - it's sheer bliss being here!

anyway - look away if you are hungry - we've been eating some good food this past week! some loaded nachos:

chicken, broccoli, lemon and garlic stirfry on home-grown lettuce and jasmine rice:

how about kiwi and mango on fresh home-grown lettuce:

jambaloney's fave - steak and veggie shish-kebabs:

some little personal pizzettes:

and this morn, i just had to have hollandaise sauce on my poached eggs and toast, and some on the steamed broccoli.  you can get my tried and true hollandaise sauce recipe here.

lots of beauty showing up around the Manor:

i don't know what those tiny blue flowers are called, but i love them. i call them tiny-tines!

and volunteer chives already going to flower - woohoo! there's some seed collecting in my future!

i don't know what these pretty pink flowers are called either. therefore, they are also called tiny-tines.

as are the white ones. more tiny-tines.

wild strawberry! we love walking around and picking them when they fruit. they are tiny - but they are everywhere on our land!

woohoo! radishes baby!

 here's one pot of the strawberries that we are growing this year - we have 4 pots.

they should be producing soon too!

i transplanted my brassicas from the greenhouse to outdoors and they are doing well!

i also planted corresponding seeds to finish up each row. therefore, not all 20 bok chois will come up at the same time!

here's some pretty ferns just starting to uncurl!

and supper tonight is one of our favourite, old-time standbys - pasta with fresh chopped tomatoes, a ton of garlic and olive oil, a ton of parmesan, chives and parsely - yummeh!

and this is the end of the day:



i am off to catch up on blog-reading now. hope you all have had a good week!

title would be too long... buncho stuff ??

jambaloney here!

okay - been a while since i posted - yes i do rely on kymber to hold down the fort ;-)

so lots of mishmash in this post.... but lotsa junque too!

like this old trailer our friend d gave us. i took the rotten plywood off in march (these pics) - it needs work!

especially where the braces at back part of the springs are located - they are rotting...

see?

the front parts are fine - now i am NOT going to go nuts fixing this but the tires hold air so i want it for the atv - project  asap..  i thought about replacing the braces ..

but i have these pieces of HARD wood from trimming the kitchen chairs years ago

so why not just prevent a collapse? measure...

 cut...

and insert!!!

this pic should show you  better - the other side is okay, but all that rotten iron is now buffeted against collapse - replacing the brace would have taken hours and grinding and new nuts and and and... screw it - this will work - took 15 mins!

 whoops - need a bed - how about junque plywood??

and  a couple of extra boards - well that was march, then it snowed and that project was put on hold ;_))))

the other day -  what is THIS for...... ?

 to fix the old garden cart i painted to save - the inner tubes were shot - yes a new cart is not that expensive, but sometimes the principal is the thing..

especially because for some odd reason, somebody threw  out a fake ammo box that replaces the sides!!!

seriously!!!

and all i have to do is lift it off and there is a flatbed - woot!

interlude...my friend p gave me these flange gloves...

so i could go into the brush on the driveway...

and gather up last year's weed leftovers (including some comfry)

i read this on the interwebs - poor man's mulcher - put it in a garbage can/bucket ..

and stuff in your weedwacker and then grind 'e down

and voila - mulch!! not the best instructions, but the procedure should be straightforward... i got a new corded b and d weedwacker @ 1/2 price the other day - it was worth it!!!

so next morning - i am going fishing!!! k is still asleep - for some odd reason she is impervious to cats screaming "feed me!!! feed me!!" at the bottom of the bed in the AM!!! it is definitely late may  - this is the sun @ 6: 45 AM!!!

however - "where the sun don't shine" there is frost  - may 29... ya gotta be aware...

river is bright!!!

and you cans see mist off the shade spots...

sad/frustrating story - i bought this old DAM microlite reel off ebay and restored it to near-mint. i had read about people using older reels due to certain limitation in the construction of newer reels.. this reel has a brass worm drive and lotsa great sounding stuff - BUT... the line roller is sticky..

my trusty standby is a shimano sahar 100 i bought 15 years ago ... after  few casts - no contest - the shimano was 10 times better!!!  i remember using mitchell 300s when i was a kid - they were good then- the DAMs were better- but now??

so - spend 50 bux on a modern reel ...


on the other hand, graphite rods on the other will last forever if you keep them dry - most of mine are 15-20 years old - my berkley lightning rod i bought in 1988 - it is as good as the day i bought it!

 anyway - nice day!

no wind..

1st trout....

outta 4!

later yesterday - i finished the trailer... with all scrap wood..

here it is all finished.

so.... what do you do with a finished trailer?? what else, put a girl/your wife in it!!!!

20 mins after the above  pic was taken, we got called to a brush fire, our fire boots got christened...

k's heels took a real beating - she slammed the boots on w/o socks.. they are in really bad shape and she will not be able to wear anything but flipflops for weeks! we took pics but her heels look so bad that i decided not include the pics.

so sorry about the last but hey - we prevented a forest fire with our community - they rock!!

okay - here are some flowers!!

cheers!!!!