family trees

Family trees are a great way to get people telling stories that you might otherwise never hear. Take the three trees in my grandmother's front yard. Blue spruce, planted lovingly by three pairs of little hands over fifty years ago.

Online search sites like ancestry.com and footnote.com bring thousands of obscure written records right into your living room. Not only does it offer helpful suggestions for documents that you might actually be looking for, it also provides a way to contact relatives whose names you may never otherwise know. Just recently, a cousin who met me when I was a toddler found my profile through my online family tree. With just an email, he put me into touch with a whole branch of my family in another state who I didn't know existed. These sites are expensive, but so very well worth it, in my opinion. Usually we wait until Christmas, when most of the relatives gather from around the nation to come back to the old homestead. That way, I can pay for just one month's access to the online records at a time when all of the kinfolks are around to ask questions, and we can all share in the data we gather together.

sun tea

8 black tea bags in a gallon-sized pickle jar
1/2 cup of sugar (more or less to taste)

Leave alone in a sunny spot for 3-5 hours. Tastes slightly different than boiled-water tea, and with sugar added will only keep for a few days. So drink up.

chicken ark

After much deliberation, we decided on the "chicken ark" design for a coop. It has a raised nesting area with a ramp that reaches down into the center of the pen. About six feet long is big enough for our six chickens. We had originally planned to make the entire side of the henhouse open, with one long hinge, but decided that would be too heavy. Instead, we cut a door out on each side, in opposite corners, that should allow us to access the entire interior for cleaning.

And hopefully, in a couple of weeks, eggs.

The bottom is open to allow them to scratch at the ground. We were initially worried that this would allow predators to dig underneath, but it seems that the need to dig delays them long enough to attract the attention of our dogs, who are dedicated predators of wild chicken-eaters.

porch guard

oh, hello

egg carton jiffy starters

I'm not terribly thrilled with the results of my egg carton planter. It did give me instant, free extra sprouting space. But this morning, as I transferred the little spudlings into a bigger planter, I discovered that their roots had grown firmly attached to the soggy bottom of the egg carton. I'm not completely convinced I didn't damage them trying to get them out.

Have I mentioned that it's still snowing here? My house is slowly filling with little window boxes perched beneath every available sunny spot. This is the first year I've tried to grow any kind of green plants in this ridiculous climate. I'm debating whether to build some kind of plastic hoop house. I don't think our weather will ever be safe for things like tomatoes to be grown outside.

I'm terrible at telling plants apart, especially when small, and we don't have any craft or popsicle sticks. But we do have wooden clothespins, so I sacrificed a couple today to serve as labels.

wild green things