Johnny Appleseed and more

Yep, just call me Jonnie!  I'm so psyched :).  Many weeks ago, I had the concept to try to grow fruit trees from the organic seeds of the fruits we buy.  Part of my dilemma was that the fruit can be older and not as tasty as local, nonorganic choices, but, in my spoiled manner, I want BOTH!  How spoiled can one be, hmm, to want her tasty food not poisoned? 
Of course, some folks just order starts and that sort of thing, and I'd been thinking about trying to venture down that path, but when I have seeds RIGHT HERE that I've already paid for, and I clearly haven't found the energy or funds to order the trees, what can it hurt?
So, I looked up how to sprout apple seeds online a few weeks ago, and I found last night that AT LAST I had a dozen little, sprouting seeds!  And don't you know that I now have plans for distributing all sorts of little trees to family and friends!  Then they, who don't necessarily ever buy organically, can have organic and local and FREE fruits! 
Oh the excitement!  Have you ever watched your seeds sprout like that?  And to see ALL 12 of those seeds sprouted, after many weeks, is amazingly gratifying.  I really was afraid they weren't going to.  (Basically, keep them moist in a paper towel in the fridge--but I'd try for organic and local if possible, as if they've been irradiated, the seeds might be ruined.)
Anyhow, the time is NOW, people!  :)  So many of us, at my age, kick ourselves for not taking the initiative a few years ago, when it sounded like too far away to bother with it.  At my age, it's like, "If we'd planted some fruit trees the first year we lived here, we'd have all kinds of fruit by now."  Sigh.  The best time was 'yesterday', but the next best time is now! 

Let's see, about 'yesterday'...we have some beautiful pullets out here.  They're just a few months old, and we only have two mature egg-layers left, but I hope we've learned from our mistakes.  Basically, lock your girls up tight at night, have a good fence, clip those wings (just feathers, like toenails), and reinforce that coop.  Hopefully we'll be reaping some dividends in a couple more months.  As in egg dividends.
I have other, slighter dividends in, um, fertilizer :).  I am personally amazed at how excited I can get over chicken poop.  I collect it to add to the compost bins, which, over time are seeing less and less added to them.  For one thing, the chickens eat most of the scraps and peels that we have.  So, they're kind of like little composting machines :).

One small, easy thing you can do, that's instantaneously fun (well, instantaneous for a gardener!):  When you get green onions, save the root portion, maybe 3 inches, and stick that part in water for a couple of days.  By day 2, you'll see new growth sprouting upwards!  When I buy green onions, I've begun doing this and then, in a couple of days, I plant the bottoms out front.  I found that I just go out and clip the green portions, much like herbs, and leave the root in the ground.  Nothing is better than super-fresh...  Even my veggie-eschewing children were raving about the green onions on the baked potatoes last week!  I picked them virtually seconds before we ate them--as in, we were at the dinner table for Fiona's cooking night, and it struck me that the green onions would be a nice addition to the baked potatoes, so I got up and fetched them!

Oh, I'm not a gardener yet.  Just a wanna-be, I suppose.  But, you know, I tend to get so crazy-ambitious with my thoughts that it's overwhelming (the perfectionists' curse).  Really, though, everyone should be at least a little bit gardener, I think, if they have any sort of stable home life.  It's fun.  It's tasty.  It's easy to get started :). 

Family Meals Working Out

Oh-ho!  I feel better already.  I was thinking, it's time for me to post something, but I haven't completed anything, the house is a mess, there's nothing particularly new to say...but when I clicked onto my blog, I saw the family meal post. 
So, to continue...
That worked out really well.  In fact, I was so enthused that we're doing it regularly.  We each are assigned one night a week to cook--a suggestion made by Fiona's friend's family.  Their daughters each cook one night per week. 
We still need to work out the kinks.  Alex apparently felt he met the veggie requirement by dicing a single little carrot into small pieces, for distribution amongst us all!  Okay, there were a handful of peas in the dish, too... 
Since then, we've been enjoying family dinners much more.  Unfortunately, there's some balancing I have to do.  Probably, we're overall having healthier meals, since a lot of what we did was a fend-for-yourself dinner and more frequent takeout.  However, the meals by the others are generally not quite as healthy as I'd prefer.  But THEY prefer them.
I made a Choroko sauce last night--a mung bean paste from Uganda.  I've never really like mung beans, but I was inspired to try them again since buying this very thin little book to introduce vegetarian cooking to children.  Just a few simple recipes--and I figured that perhaps they were good recipes, since they'd made it into the small cookbook. 
Oh my goodness, I couldn't stop eating it.  Totally amazing.  Even my family liked it fairly well, but none of them loved it quite as much as me.  I served the Choroko sauce with jasmine rice and steamed squash, which my family considerately left for me, since they know I like it so much :).

So, of course, their meals are generally more processed than this, but delicious, too.  Somehow, it makes a big difference to only have one set night to cook.  Of course, I'm cleaning after everyone and cooking some all week--making lunches and such.  But when you're only responsible for ONE night, it seems more worthwhile to dedicate time and energy to the meal--especially when you get to enjoy everyone else's efforts the rest of the week.
Tonight's my night, actually.  I just happened to make the Choroko sauce last night.  If you cook on another night, that's fine.  It's just that I'm responsible for tonight.  I have a huge amount of mung beans left over...suppose I should find another recipe.

Alrighty.  I have a ton to do today, and I think I'll be happier talking about a couple of other projects once I've completed them.  Hopefully SOON.  And to do that, I should get going!