A Chicken in Every (Crock) Pot And Ready for Sandy

Posted on October 28, 2012 by AnnieRie

While we run around filling bath tubs and clearing leaves out of the rain gutters, and positioning a trash can near the sump pump, and all those lovely other things, my crock pot is happily making dinner. I put half a chicken in it with CSA veggies and it is close to being done. I will microwave a few potatoes and we have a quick easy dinner before getting back into the waiting game. I will have a local dinner tonight. Open a VA wine and relax now that all the preparations are done.

frozen half chicken from tlv tree farm

I need to thank howchow for letting us know Harris Teeter wasn’t crazy crowded. We decided to err on the side of caution and get six more gallon jugs of water. Some fruit, since I didn’t get to the farmer’s markets, and a gallon of honey crisp apple cider from Zeigler’s. Not local, but still family made. The bath tubs will be filled tonight with water to flush toilets, and the coolers are ready to go if needed. Ten bags of ice are in the freezer now. Two will come out tomorrow into the cooler with the refrigerator foods we want to consume if the power goes out. That way we won’t be opening the refrigerator at all, or the freezer if we lose power.

All day today the birds went nuts trying to buzz feeders that aren’t there. Finches were sitting on the patio chairs (left out there since we can’t carry them far and there is no free place to put them) looking for the bird bath and the feeders. Ever watch a bird make a beeline for the feeder pole, then find nothing there but the pole. Very confused. The furniture was all moved over to the far edge of the patio near the area where the feeders and bird bath were located, and which now are all safely in the shed. I did remember to spread as much food as I could on the ground so the birds get something. They really are accustomed to coming here for food in the fall and winter.

The antennas are all down. The side of the house looks weird with no wires. This is the view from a few months back. Spring when the cherry trees were blooming. All the wires had to come down and tension taken off the ropes so they won’t snap. Here’s hoping the trees all hang in there the next two or three nights.

amateur radio antennas off the attic

On the local 2 meter repeater, we are reminded that CARA will appropriate the frequency tonight to support RACES (Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service). Amateur radio operators will be supporting the county in emergency communications traffic during the storm. We will have our hand held transmitters here at our house available with charged batteries so we can monitor communications (and communicate if we need any assistance in our area).

All in all, we are now even more resigned to a long, frustrating, series of days watching this storm cross over the east coast and impact our lives.

hocoblogs@@@

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The Waiting Game

Posted on October 27, 2012 by AnnieRie

So now, we wait. Will we get slammed with 8-10 inches of rain? Should I get all the 5 gallon buckets I can find and just recycle the sump pump water for the toilets, or do I count on the tubs doing the job? Everything with the exception of the last two bird feeders and the bird bath has been brought in or lashed down.

It is the waiting for a hurricane that drives you nuts. Days of countless emails, weather reports, emergency notices, and then there’s the people out everywhere. Trying to get gasoline. Long lines. hitting the stores. I have stockpiled 8 bags of ice in the kitchen freezer in order to cover over the meat in there. If the power stays off too long, I will transfer all the meat to the heavy coolers if necessary. Interestingly enough, people don’t buy ice in advance. I made room for the ice in the freezer and cranked the temperature down a few degrees. I know we can drive west of here and load up coolers with ice, after the rains and wind stop. What is in the freezer now will keep it for at least two days.

TP and Milk. I love it that those two items seem to be the most popular before storms. Do people really think they will run out? Weird. Neither of them are on my preparation list.

The birds know something is happening. They are noisy, and flying back and forth to the feeders. Today, the nuthatches are back. With the downy woodpeckers, they are all over the suet and peanut feeder.

The nuthatch is on the suet while the woodpecker waits patiently. The finches and other birds have been coming in looking for the thistle feeder and the small hanging one, both of which are already down. The last one to take apart will be the primary feeder, which would be blown over. I really need to anchor that permanently now that we found the site where the squirrels can’t leap across the deck or jump from trees.

I also took fall folliage pictures today, figuring that the leaves will get blown away and we will come to an abrupt end of leaf peeping. This view today reminded me of how quickly the leaves changed this year.

Here’s hoping I get to see the gorgeous red colors of our maple in the back, which hasn’t turned yet. That may be good, or not so good. With the leaves on the trees, they tend to crack under their weight with heavy winds and rain. The maple is my birding tree, and one of the prettiest in the fall.

The view of it last November. We generally get the peak of the colors the first week of November. I just hope we don’t lose any more of our mature trees in this storm. It has been a pretty rough couple of years, when it comes to wind damage. Trying to sleep at night while trees crack and fall is not fun. This past two years we have hauled away at least a dozen trees from the property line, and we lost a few conifers in the ice storms before that. Besides the cover they give us, they are home to the birds and squirrels, which is why we have so many birds visiting us. They love the conifers.

Good luck all the east coasters in harm’s way. Stay safe.

hocoblogs@@@

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Finishing the Eat Local Challenge

Posted on October 27, 2012 by AnnieRie

Monday is the last reporting day for our Summer Challenge, to eat at least one meal a week using locally sourced ingredients. Who knows how crazy it will be around here by Monday, but at least I know there will be a number of local meals consumed by us. Many of them involving local eggs.

farm fresh eggs

I made eggs for breakfast today and used up the last of the Canela wheat bread for toast. I will be hardboiling a dozen eggs and putting them aside to make egg salad in case we lose power. We set up a small cooler for lunch foods, placing all the condiments and salad makings in it, the way we ate breakfast and lunch after the derecho in June.

I always have my tuna, cannellini bean and onion salad ingredients on hand, but they aren’t local. Well, the onions are, but not the rest.

Tuscan tuna and bean salad

Hmmm, Tuscan tuna and bean salad, served with local breads and a few of my dill pickles from the jars. Mostly local. I have a loaf of potato onion bread in the freezer from Stone House. I can warm it in the oven tonight to defrost it and save a few hunks to have with a simple salad. Egg salad, or tuna salad. I have celery from the CSA. The only non local items as usual will be condiments like mayo or olive oil.

I am cleaning out the most perishable (and the more pricey) items in the meat/fish freezer, so I will be baking a large whack of wild Alaskan salmon tonight. Since I have been so diligent here in getting ready for this storm, the odds keep getting higher that it will pass us by.

It is only when I have no ice, no water, no batteries and ignore the frantic admonishments on the TV, that we end up with no power. Still, we are crossing our fingers. At least the temperatures aren’t bad. No real high temps, and no subfreezing temps in the future that would make us miserable without A/C or heat.

The SSFC Eat Local Challenge is ending, but the ten of us are talking about how we will address winter eating, using locally sourced items. Sometime in the future, our google reader will have the details, and we will continue finding ways to eat local foods year round.

hocofood@@@

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Hurricane Prep, The Smaller Items

Posted on October 26, 2012 by AnnieRie

Everyone always tells you what to do with the large ticket items. Water, ice, batteries, medications.

What about those little things? Like having a real phone in the house. All those fancy phones aren’t hardwired and require the power to be working for them to operate. My antique phone 😉

We also use UPS’s throughout the house to be able to charge cell phones and run small lamps with CFL bulbs. And, to run the cable modem and wireless router. At least for a short while.

How about the weather radio? And, of course a smart phone to check on things even without power. Like how long BGE will take to get power restored.

We have flashlights of all shapes and sizes in every room we use regularly, like the family room, kitchen, bath and bedroom.

We hope this storm will blow out to sea, but who knows. I suppose the more we prepare, the greater the possibility it will all be for nothing. It seems that only when we are caught unaware, like with the June derecho, that we have problems.

Thankfully, we are at one of the higher elevations in the county so we will be spared from flooding. And, with a new roof and a solidly built brick house, we can weather the winds. I spent all day today bringing in items that may blow around, with the exception of the bird feeders. They will come down at the last moment. Those squirrel deterrents will blow everywhere.

Here’s hoping this hurricane will miss us.

hocoblogs@@@

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The View from 20,000 …

Posted on October 26, 2012 by AnnieRie

… views, that is, not feet. 20,000 views. Yesterday morning the geek in me saw my dashboard on wordpress read 19,999 total views. I was going to write a post next Friday when my blog is one year old, but who knows, with Sandy heading in our direction, and the talking heads on TV telling us power outages possible past November 5th, I may or may not have power next Friday.

20,000 views in less than a year. I don’t know if that is good or bad, but it does tell me that there are definitely people reading what I write. I am also happy to say I still have new things I want to write, and have been pretty good at posting almost every day.

I was a mathematician (my degree major) for many of my early career years, and numbers fascinate me. Statistics of course can always be interpreted the way we want. Still, it is nice to see my numbers increase as my blog “ages”.

Thanks mostly to hocoblogs and to howchow, in the beginning, who linked up my blog when it was just one month old. HOCOBLOGS is where I went to find local readers.

And, there was the Dark Days Challenge, where I found fellow locavores.

local ingredients for dinner

Setting up a local resources page was a good move, too. I found many people came there to search for grains, products, and farms in the area.

local foods

I have to admit though, being interested enough to check out my most read posts, that I did not expect which ones continued to gather views. If you are new to blogging in Howard County, and want people to find you on google or other search engines, I can tell you two phrases that guarantee traffic around here.

brighton dam azalea gardens

and

tractor supply baby chicks

The most read posts on my blog. I still get hits every week on the tractor supply post. And, I had hundreds of searches registered for azalea blossoms being at peak, or still blooming. Weeks went by and they still were being viewed. I know that I will be monitoring those blossoms again next spring. They are only five miles down the road and we go there often.

Besides those, the series on amateur radio in Howard County got a huge number of views thanks to being placed on a feed for amateurs around the country and the world to see. W3AO gets lots of hits still, when clubs and operators look to see the Field Day records for one of the biggest radio operations in the country. Right here in Howard County.

Here’s hoping this hurricane fizzles out, far from land, or just glances us. Now, off to fill up a spare propane tank and get a few more gallons of spring water. I know if we are totally prepared for “Frankenstorm” as they are calling it, then it will definitely become a non event. It is only when we don’t get ready, that we get slammed.

Stay safe and dry, all our friends near and far.

hocoblogs@@@

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The End of the Summer … CSA

Posted on October 25, 2012 by AnnieRie

Week 25. The last week of the summer CSA from Sandy Spring. It ended with some really good stuff, although I am not sure what I will do with the rutabaga.

what Lancaster Farm Fresh gave us the last week

The list:

Bunch Celery (we got two bunches)
1 Pint Mixed Cherry Tomatoes (I swapped Chinese cabbage for a second pint)
1 Bunch French Breakfast Radishes
1 Bunch Baby Scarlet Turnips (OK, if these are babies, I want to see the big ones)
1 Bunch Green Mizuna
1 Head Broccoli
2 Leeks
2 Rutabaga
1 White Kohlrabi (humongous)

OK, this kohrabi is huge. It was interesting as the swap box was full of kohlrabi and mizuna. I must be weird. I love both.

kohlrabi and heirloom cherry tomatoes

As for the tomatoes, what can I say? My husband was eating them out of the box, until I made him take them over and wash them. Since they are organic, I don’t worry about pesticides, but they do need cleaning. There is nothing like a treat of tomatoes in October. These were probably green house grown. They still have oodles of flavor. They showed up in dinner tonight, along with a few of those lovely breakfast radishes.

As for the turnips, as I said above, if these are babies, wow. I found a recipe for winter root veggies with polenta. I will be breaking out the roasted corn meal this weekend. Stand by for pictures and recipes.

As the wrap up, I also am preparing a summary of what we got this summer. Here’s to many more happy years in CSA, and to the eight weeks of fall CSA still to come. Off to In Her Chucks to link up my CSA post.

The Peaceful Mom

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1 2 3 Eyes on Me

Posted on October 24, 2012 by AnnieRie

Now, that phrase comes easily to me. The way to redirect 9 first graders from 9 different places to look, at me. Today I found how easily I have slipped into “teacherspeak”. Yeah, thirty five years ago I was a teacher. Now, I am a volunteer leading field trips.

Today, 110 first graders came to visit us at the Howard County Conservancy. I think I can say it is successful when you hear things like we did, when a first grader runs excitedly up to his teacher and exclaims, “This is so cool!”. Maybe it was petting our corn snake. Or jumping in the puddles from the well water hand washing station. Or, just everything he got to do today.

First graders are studying rocks, fossils and extinct animals in their earth science curriculum. Today, they got to identify animals, touch fossils and use magnifying glasses to study rocks.

bank barn foundation

They also got to see foundations, walls, roadways, sidewalks and all the other ways rocks are part of our lives. Oh, and they found woolly bear caterpillars, fed the goats, and some of them got to see a baby eastern worm snake (no pics, I didn’t have the camera with me).

Holly, our pygmy goat

In other words, they had a blast outdoors on a perfect fall day.

By the way, we could use a few more volunteers. Today, two called in sick. We had to expand the number of students we each had assigned to us on the hikes. Spring training takes place in March. We are a bit short on numbers, since the Howard County schools are increasing their enrollment. 80-90 students we can handle easily. When you hit 110 or 120 like some of our schools, we need 8-9 volunteers each field trip.

If you want a really rewarding way to add interest to your life, if you work at home and are flexible, or are retired like many of us, this is a no brainer. A great way to spend crisp fall and warm spring days making a difference.

hocoblogs@@@

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The Dark Eyed Junco is Back

Posted on October 23, 2012 by AnnieRie

I know the seasons are changing when the juncoes return to my yard. We saw the first one this morning. Not the one in the picture below, because it disappeared too fast to capture. They become less jittery when it really gets cold and even my coming outdoors doesn’t bother them while they feed. Here is one very inquisitive bird from last winter.

dark eyed junco

They feed on the ground, and wander around under the bushes and the feeders. The chickadees and finches push the less desirable food out of the feeder to get to their favorites, and the juncoes get the leftovers that drop. Their return reminded me to look and see if the Centennial walks are up on the Howard Bird Club site.

It is fall birding season and yes, the Howard County Bird Club is again offering their weekly walks in November in Centennial Park. It is where we first learned to identify new birds, by sight and sound. It is also where we are learning more about waterfowl, as a change from the birds that visit our yard feeders.

These easy walks good for beginning birders start at 8 am. in the west area parking lot, entered off Centennial Lane. They are the 4th, 11th, 18th and 25th of November. Club members bring scopes to let you get really good looks at the birds. It is 2-3 hours at a leisurely pace, and a great way to spend a November Sunday morning.

Some pictures from two years ago. The trip reports, available on the web site, show you what we found that November day in 2010.

great blue heron over Centennial Lake

3 male and one female mallard on a pond off the main trail

Oh, and when we go off the main trail, we often flush out other inhabitants of the park, like this young buck.

The buck, mallard and heron pictures were from the 14th, a day we did not see the cedar waxwings that were there on the 7th.

cedar waxwings

This is fall migration season. It is interesting to see what birds will stop at the lake on their semiannual flights. The bird club does these walks every spring and fall. Put them on your calendar and join us.

hocoblogs@@@

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Howard County Farmers Markets

Posted on October 22, 2012 by AnnieRie

Good News! Three of the five markets will be extending their season until the week before Thanksgiving. That’s right. East Columbia Library on Thursday, Glenwood on Saturday and Oakland Mills on Sunday.

The hospital market ends this Friday, and Miller Library next Wednesday. Make sure you stop by and buy from Love Dove at their last two markets.

When we were at TLV two weeks ago, they told us the weekend markets were extended. Add to it the Thursday one, and I don’t have to go to Catonsville to get meat from the local farmers. I can get it from TLV. Plus eggs from Breezy Willow. And, cheese from Bowling Green. And fruit from Lewis Orchards. With my CSA and these markets, we can continue to eat fresh food grown or raised locally.

Obviously, this news makes this locavore very happy. Make sure you head out and visit the markets to get really fresh lovely veggies for your holiday meals.

Oh, and by the way, make sure you order your Maple Lawn farm turkey soon. We order ours to be picked up at Boarmans. They start taking orders on November 1st.

hocofood@@@

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The First Fall Clean Up Day

Posted on October 22, 2012 by AnnieRie

At least the first major clean up. We have been puttering around doing little odd jobs, but today it begins in earnest. I have been researching the long term effects of using pine needles to mulch areas of the plant beds in the back of the house. Today I wanted to gather pine needles to create a winter bed over the rhododendrons and the azaleas. This analysis that I found a while back is what prompted me to look into pine needle mulching in certain areas. We certainly have enough pine needles.

carpet of pine needles

The leaves are just starting to come down. Add to that, the grass under the shrubs and around the raspberry bushes needs its final cutting of the year. We use a clear bag method to collect green material, brown material, and pine needles. Then, using the county rake and take program to be matched to a neighbor we divide the bags to use in our compost piles. Getting that right mix of browns and greens. This is our second year doing rake and take. We get enough from our trees to keep many compost piles going. If you want a way to see your leaves put to good use, consider contacting rake and take.

As for the rest of my clean up I went into my neglected garden to start pulling out the tomato cages, and to bag the tomato plants to take deep into the woods to leave them. They do not get into the compost bins, as they can spread disease from year to year. For example, from late blight. I hadn’t been out there for two weeks, and surprise, there were dozens of green tomatoes all over the garden.

I think I will put these away in a paper bag and let them get close to ripening, then make one last batch of green tomato pasta with pesto.

Tonight dinner will be fairly simple. Although we had to resort to plan B. I had intended to pop a chicken in the crockpot to cook while we were working outside. They don’t make them like they used to. The crockpot gave up the ghost. Would not let me program the temperature and turn on.

As soon as you let up on the button, the lights went out. And, you could not advance it to the longer low cooking times. Thankfully, I never gave up my original crockpot from my first apartment thirty some years ago. You know, one of these antiques.

So, I loaded it up with half a chicken in tomato garlic sauce, over collard greens and onions. Let it go, and soon dinner will be ready. This chicken is falling off the bone, and I started it at 10 am, directly from the freezer. The best way to cook chicken.

Now I need to find a good programmable replacement crockpot as ours gets lots of work making soups, stews and chili. This old one is too small to do brisket, or turkey, which we like to make also. I also like the programmable options not found on my original. I am glad I kept it around though, to save the day today. Off to dinner and to watch Monday night football.

hocofood@@@

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