Solas na Cruinne

“People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing.”
~ Dale Carnegie, American writer and lecturer

This is our first year of gardening and we are finally getting in our first plants for the season. :-)

Thanks to Serge’s great research we are planting our organic garden by the moon (check it out here and here.) And, thanks to both of our physical labor, the first beds were tilled and filled and planted today.

Serge had a blast coating his potato starts in natural sulfur and placing them in the 2×2′ potato boxes. Box #1 in named Grawp and has big Kennebec potatoes in it. Box #2 is named Hagrid and has Yukon Golds in it. We’ll see how they turn out.

I am also very interested in companion planting so we are mixing carrots, onion and lettuce in the 8×4′ bed which is named Joy. Yes, we know it’s weird to name our beds instead of numbering them but, so what!

Not all of the beds are built yet but the root veggies which needed to go in during the 3rd quarter of the moon, are in their beds sleeping tight tonight.

We will plant some more onions and carrots out of their proper moon phase to see the difference in how they turn out.

Garlic will have to go in late for this one first year of gardening because our local farmers co-op was out of them already. We also had to drive halfway-across the state to another farmers supply to find potato starts. I guess we needed to buy them by the end of April according to the helpful lady at the second farm supply. (Lesson learned.)

Tomorrow we have a little helper in the form of our roommate, so hopefully more strides will be made in building, tilling and filling beds as well as towards tearing down that huge pile of loam/peat/compost mix in the back yard! Yippee!

“Life is a combination of magic and pasta.”
~ Federico Fellini, Italian Film Director

We are greatly enjoying all of the skills we’ve been practicing and (sometimes) mastering.

Today we tried yet another new act of creation using our (worth every penny!) Green Star Juicer. We’ve already made fantabulous fresh juices and amazingly simple seed crackers…now on to pasta!

First the recipe:

3 cups whole wheat or all-purpose flour
1 cup buckwheat flour
2 tbs olive oil
5 medium eggs
1 tbs sea salt
water as needed
optional: carrot juice for color or fresh garlic and basil for added taste

Instructions:

1. Simply mix all ingredients in a bowl, knead by hand and add extra flour or water as needed to get a smooth, damp dough that it doesn’t stick to anything…with pasta, it is always best to err on the side of drier rather than wetter dough.

2. Wrap in cling film or Ziploc bag for 30 minutes to 1 hour.

3. Process through a juicer, pasta maker or roller.

4. Boil and enjoy!

We had a blast mixing it all up nice and sticky and also squeezing it through our, pre-oiled, juicer with pasta screen attachment.

The eating went well, but remember that fresh pasta cooks FAST. Two to three minutes maximum, honest!

Delicious, if we do say so ourselves. ;-)

Of course, I could have figured out myself how to change a bicycle tire :o) But there is something reassuring in learning it from an expert, especially a local one. Parker Ramspott has owned and operated a bicycle store in Amherst, Massachusetts for over 20 years, which just an hour drive from where we live right now.

The video below explains how to install a new bicycle tire, plainly and simply. Be sure to check out the rest of the series: Repairing a Bicycle Tire.