• DIY,  Eat

    Chicken Stock – Using the Whole Chicken

    Last July, after much debate and in preparation for the Kitchen Garden & Coop Tour, we culled four of our laying hens.  Culling is never an easy thing for us, but it is part of the agreement we made with each other before we got chickens back in 2010. After culling and cleaning the four, we bagged them up and…

  • DIY,  Grow

    Harvesting Echinacea Seeds

      2013 marked our Echinacea’s third year and it was absolutely gorgeous this summer with all of its brilliant blossoms and visiting pollinators (bees and butterflies) buzzing around them all summer long!  Though I didn’t actually measure them, I would say the stalks got up to about 4 feet tall for the most part which made for a brilliant eye…

  • DIY

    Homemade Baby Wipe Solution

    Throughout Tool Lady’s pregnancy, we talked about all of the things we wanted to do for Sprout, for health reasons, environmental reasons and for economical reasons.  We talked about making our own homemade baby wipe solution and cloth wipes, using cloth diapers and, in the future, making our own baby food (preferably from our own garden), to name just a…

  • DIY,  Grow,  Sow

    How to Plant Garlic

    Garlic is, hands down, my favorite and most used spice! Whether it’s whole and roasted, chopped and simmered (or sauteed) or in powder form, it goes in pretty much everything savory I make in the kitchen! Who: I always purchase my seed garlic from either Seed Savers Exchange or our local Farmers Market and would recommend the same for you.…

  • DIY

    Hot Sauce DIY

    Well, we have just completed our very first fermentation project!  With all of the Cayenne Peppers we grew this summer, I’ve been looking for ways to use them up and  (like I mentioned a little while back), Andrea’s Homemade, Homegrown Cayenne Pepper Hot Sauce sounded like a perfect addition to our winter stores! Following Andrea‘s directions, I filled two pint jars with…

  • DIY,  Everything Else

    Consumerist Culture & Dryer Maintenance

    I recently received the following comment on my DIY Dryer Maintenance post that read: “Wow, a dryer ? It’s always interesting to see how other “cultures” do things, I have never even owned one, a dryer that is. The clothes hang out on the line, the sun does it’s thing.    No carbon pollution from burning electricity, no money spent…