We skipped a few weeks of meal planning recently and our diet has been lacking. We’re hopping back on the bandwagon this week, an especially busy one. Monday – Memorial Day – sandwiches and fruit for picnic lunch at Hoover Dam with family, leftover chicken, rice, and coleslaw for dinner Tuesday – grill sausages,...
Read more →When we returned from a short vacation last week, there were plenty of ripe strawberries to pick. Lil asked sweetly, “Can we make strawberry shortcake please Mama?” She is hard to refuse. But after four days of restaurants and treats, I wanted to make dessert a little healthier. I adapted a recipe my mother...
Read more →On Monday, Alex drove to Cincinnati for business. Lil and I followed on Tuesday to take advantage of free hotel, visit our friends and their new baby, and enjoy some time away from the homestead. We’ve reveled in the air conditioning, being too cheap to turn it on at home. We met that beautiful...
Read more →This year, we gave ownership of a 2 by 8 foot raised bed to our four and a half year old daughter Lillian. She illustrated a plan for what she wanted to grow in the early spring and we have been planting things ever since. Last weekend we made a sign for her garden. ...
Read more →If you home cure meat, this might be a familiar site: Five pounds of saucisson sec and a fifteen pound serrano-style salted air-dryed ham hanging in our basement. Both are made from the meat of Red, the hog we slaughtered in April. The saucisson sec will hang for three to four weeks and be...
Read more →On Friday I made rhubarb jam. The day before, reporter John Ross raised an eyebrow when I told him I love canning. He’s writing an Alive & Unedited piece about me that will be in the June 3 issue of Columbus Alive! It’s true. It pleases my soul to take an in-season about-to-spoil fruit...
Read more →When we had some red potatos sprouting in kitchen recently, Alex tucked them carefully in the corners of our backyard compost bin. They are now over a foot tall. It used to be pretty shady back there but American Electric Power recently hacked away some tree branches and the plants may get more sun...
Read more →Just after the second set of pea leaves appeared, birds started eating them. I blame sparrows, the possibly invasive species that seem to swarm our neighborhood in the spring. So, bird netting is on the peas. Last year we lost strawberries to the squirrels. Even with Alex’s not exactly legit squirrel hunting, they still...
Read more →In this second week of the Bike to Work challenge, Alex and I pooled our wisdom to share advice about equipment. Last week we shared our Road Rules. We absolutely believe in the power of the pedal and are happy to give personalized advice by email should you want to write us! Equipment: Get...
Read more →Seven long years ago, Alex’s father Tom Baillieul made a two sided British style pub sign for us. It featured the name of our business dream at the time, The Baying Hound, a micro-brewery. Many years and business ideas later, the sign is finally hanging. What held us up for many years was lack...
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