Everyone has a ‘process’, but it starts with an idea.

1. Ideas for my books are always one to three words:
A Ballet.
A Train Ride.
Day at the Beach.

2. Once I’ve settled on a subject, I decide if my main character a boy or girl and figure out what season it is. That sets my mood for the whole piece.

3. Then, I sketch a tentative outline of ’scenes’.

Boy standing at station in the summer.
Sees train pull in.
Ticket to conductor.
Sits next to window.
Listens to the sounds of train starting.
And so on…

4. I note all important images that pop into mind. “Shiny buttons” on the conductors uniform. “Blurry cows” as scenery rolls by. This is my strength. This is what defines my style and makes it unique.

5. Then I put together some really terrible lines and send it all to my crit partner. She tells me where I’ve left out scenes. I usually leave out a LOT. “Where’s the packing, Deanna?” “Where’s the sand castles?”

6. Then I go back and write good lines and send them to her.

7. I repeat number six until we both think it’s finished.

8. I send it to my agent, who tells me if HE thinks it’s finished. (Usually yes.)

9. Then it goes to an editor, who has me rewrite some or all of it. HA!

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I mentioned a while back that I was determined to get the most out of my marigolds–a huge mound of them occupying space I coveted for cold weather goodies like cabbage and broccoli.

I wasn’t kidding and have been giving that plant a workout. Here’s the current list of marigold uses:

1.  Marigold Insect Spray for leaf-cutters–I heard from my best friend in Pennsylvania that she has used a commercial version as a fly spray for horses, too.

2. Marigold Pound Cake–I stirred the petals and a few chopped leaves into cake batter. More of a novelty than a flavoring, but sort of fun.

3.  Salad–I add several sprigs of the leaves and the flower petals from a couple of blooms to liven up mixed green salads. Delicious.

4. Marigold Tea–Ivory covered this one way back when. I’m drying some of the flowers to save for the dark days of winter. Sunshine in a cup!

5. Deep-Fried Marigolds–Oh yeah I DID! I made a loose batter of flour, water, salt and pepper, dipped and fried those puppies up! Yum!

6. Baked in a Pie–I’m tossing petals into savory pies (spinach, zucchini). A dainty dish to set before anybody.

7.  Chicken Snack–I read that feeding a moderate amount of flowers and leaves of marigold to your hens makes their egg yolks an even brighter, deeper orange. And they love it.

How do you marigold?

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Ever since I saw these from Martha, I’ve wanted to try needle felting.  But, I thought it was complicated.  Turns out, it’s one of the most forgiving crafts, I’ve ever tried.

Last year, my in-laws got me a pile of craft stuff for Xmas.  One of which was the cute little needle felting kit you see above.

Turns out, you just tear off some roving and lay it on your material as seen in the first picture.  Then you place the material and roving over a block of spongy stuff and stab the dickens out of it.  That’s IT.

Here’s the front after a bit of  felting:

Here’s the back:

If you put on too much, you just cut it off with scissors.  If you put on too little, stab more on top of it.  And if you don’t like it, you can pull it all out!

The one trick, is to do the outside of the lines first.  Other than that, it’s one of the simplest crafts I’ve ever tried with really fun results!

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If you haven’t planted them….DO IT!!!!  Invest in your joyous Spring.  Plant bulbs now, when everything else is crapping out on us.

Public Service Announcement brought to you by Ivory and a lil bit o’ Macaroni Grill Chianti.

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Chickens should be corralled in some way, but I have one Houdini chicken that cannot be contained unless locked in the coop.  And I’m not going to do that to her.  So, I have chicken-damage.

Hens do three very damaging things to my garden.  Scratch, dust bathe, and peck. They scratch the dirt looking for bugs.  They wiggle down into the loamy soil and flig it EVERYWHERE.  The poor little seedlings never have a chance.  And in the summer, they peck the veggies.  I’ll deal with that third one later.  Today, let’s tackle one and two.

To avoid the two most annoying problems in my garden, scratching and dust bathing, I installed this just after seeding the fall garden:

It’s just a width of chicken wire strung over some strategically placed nails.  The other two beds of mine have been destroyed, but these two remain untouched by chicken kind.

This works great for above ground ‘greens’ crops, but for below ground crops, you will want to seed around the edges so you can peel up your wire and get them out.  In the middle, you’ll never get to them without ripping up all your other plants that have grown through the wire.  But, for lettuces and other above ground crops, this set up is just fine anywhere.

Mine doesn’t even reach across the whole bed, but they hate it.  I think I’ll do the same thing in the summer, but cut holes for transplants, like tomatoes.  Or come spring, I’ll have a few of these:

Pic from Fairfield Green Food Guide

Ivory

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Calling them “weeds” seems dismissive. After all, they have their own identities and uses. I just have no idea what they are.

This seems like a waste so I’m on a mission to give a name to these flora in my yard. I have a feeling I’m going to be surprised at the diversity on my one acre.

Let’s identify them one at a time and see if they have any notable uses and benefits because it makes me feel ignorant to see these plants every day, to yank them out of my garden year after year, and not know what they are.

Anyone know what this is?

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I know this is random, but the truth is, I have all these posts from another blog that I shut down exclusively about writing…and I HATE waste, so Saturdays for the next thirteen or so weeks will be devoted to writing.  If it’s weird, just ignore me, K?

Most writers really put a lot of WORRY into manuscript format, so let’s just take care of that first.

• Use regular paper in a regular 12pt font , like Times.
• Put your title about halfway down the first page, centered.
• Put your name below that.
• About 3/4 of the way down, start your text, double spaced, regular margins.
• On the top left or right of each following page, put your name, the manuscript name, and the page number.  Something like this:   Caswell/FIRST BALLET/2
• If you’re doing poetry and want to show stanza changes, put in an extra space.

Don’t obsess!  Any editor that will toss your ms out because you used 1.25 margins instead of 1.0, or put your name in all caps instead of just the first letter is NOBODY you want to work with.  EVER.

Ivory

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Is that not one of the grossest things you’ve ever seen?  GOSH, molting is nasty looking.  And, all of them are molting at once, which means every morning it looks like a chicken exploded in my back yard.  The first time I thought one got eaten!

Anyway, at over a 18 months of chicken ownership, I have some things to share that I didn’t know going in:

1.  Baby chicks can eat the same food as grown up chicks and will try.  HOWEVER, like human babies, they don’t have enough sense not to eat food pieces that are too large for them.  The best thing about chick starter is the SIZE.  You can grind up regular chicken food and feed it to your chicks, BUT do not leave any big pieces in there.  THEY WILL CHOKE.  (Notice I haven’t mentioned my guinea’s lately?)

2.  Chickens go through a massive molt at 18 months old.  After a month or two, they start laying again and the eggs are BIGGER.  They may not lay every day anymore, but they lay larger.

3.  Chickens can and will eat almost anything.  If you have chickens, there’s really no need for a bokashi composter.  They eat it all.  I don’t feed them CHICKEN, cause that’s gross to me, but they get everything else.  I wanted vegetarian chickens, but that’s not possible if they have access to pasture.  They eat every bug, worm, and dead thing they find.  So, ya get over it.  (*Note:  do not feed chickens homemade playdoh.  They WILL die.  Ask TL’s sister-in-law.)

4. You do not need processing devices to eat chicken.  You only need an old lady.  I was at the neighborhood association meeting on Saturday and they said something about boiling water and I tuned out, but I know that they can turn your chickens into dinner.  I could probably never kill chickens unless my children were in danger of starving (I’m a big baby), but if the old farm gals in the cove will do it for me, I might try my hand at broilers.  (*Note: never let your children name anything that you’ll be eating, unless it’s Dinner.)

5.  Collecting poo for compost is hard if your chicks are pastured.  Don’t even try.  You’d need a tablespoon and someone else’s back.  It’s ridiculous.  Not that I’m into the poo collection, per se, but having pastured chicks, I can tell you it would be like dropping tablespoons of thick pancake batter all over the yard and picking it back up when it dries.  If cooped, however, you just need a shovel.

Ivory

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photo by ezioman

I stumbled upon the COOLEST website this weekend.  Low Impact Living has an impact calculator that is the best I’ve ever seen.  After your score is calculated, it gives you ‘project suggestions’ to lower your impact even more.  An average household LILI number is 100.  “Low” impact ratings start around 70.  So, what you’re trying to do is get an average of THIRTY points off your score.

I played around with this site for a long while ranking different behaviors by score, cost, etc.  I’m doing a whole series of these posts, but here’s the low down.  Unless you are going to stop driving COMPLETELY (20 points off) or buy enough solar panels to support you 100% (14 points off), these are the top five behaviors to knock a bunch of points off your score, fast.

1.   ~12-15 points off your score–Maximize your recycling. If you recycle sometimes, it’s 5 points off.  If you recycle most of the time, it’s 10 points.  And if you recycle everything thing you could possibly recycle, it could be upwards of 15 points off.   (WOW, look at how much booze Mr. Ivory drinks! Well, the wine bottle is mine.)

2.  ~12.6 points off–Install dual flush toilets or convert your toilets to dual flushers. A dual flusher can save 68 percent more water than a conventional low flow toilet [source: Green Building].  Isn’t that a shocker?

3.  ~12.5 points off–Buying carbon offsets for the rest of your remaining footprint.  I’ve never done this, but after spending all the time one these lists, I’m considering dedicating a portion of our charity fund to NWF’s version of it.

4.  ~8 points–Participate in your utilities green power program for 100% of your usage. Doesn’t mean that you will personally have green power shipped to your house, but that it makes your percentage of power from that company is generated from green sources.  This is expensive, but if you have a few hundred dollars laying around begging to be spent, it makes a big difference in your impact.

TVA Green Power Switch

5.  ~6 points off –Install Low Flow Shower Heads.

Just to give you perspective, the next three items (gray water systems, solar water heater, raingardens) are all THREE points or less.  Just think where buying that hybrid and fancy-pants washing machine shake out!

So, in summary, if you’re an average American household, just recycle effectively and change your potties and shower heads and you’re LOW IMPACT.  Ain’t that NUTS?

Ivory

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This image requires some explanation. It’s what’s left of the garlic braids now that we’ve eaten all the garlic.

I can’t resist making paper out of these stems. They are so clean and dried and . . . papery. And it doesn’t smell like garlic anymore. True garlic devotees may see this as a con, but, generally speaking, garlic-scented stationery is out of favor.

For more photos of papermaking step by step, see the posts Hand Papermaking with Daylily and The Daylily Paper is Made.

Here I soaked the cut-up pieces in water for a day.

More than any other plant material I have used to make paper (daylily, yucca, and especially okra), garlic felt softer after a simple water soak.

I drained and cooked the soaked garlic stems in enough water to cover and 1 T. Arm & Hammer Washing Soda per quart of water. Again, the garlic became softer faster than usual. After only about 45 minutes, it was softened enough to stop the cooking, rinse in several changes of water, and begin the beating.

I beat the pulp for several minutes until a pinch of pulp put in a jar with water and shaken up was able to remain suspended in the water.

I formed and couched the sheets, pressed and dried them, and finished off with a little smoothing with a warm iron.

The leaves from one braid (13 heads of garlic) was enough to make 2 1/2 sheets of paper, 8 1/2″ x 11″.

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