Hello dear friends,

Ever since hurricane Irma hit, garden enthusiasm has been lacking here at the 47th Street House. Irma hit our food forest pretty hard. Our Strawberry Fruit/Jamaican Cherry (Muntingia calabura) died, along with a couple of palm trees, and a Monkey Ear Tree (Enterolobium cyclcarpum). Most of the remaining trees have some pretty intense leans from the strong winds and were looking pretty beat up. But with March approaching, "Florida Fall" is in full swing. The oak leaves are falling, and our deciduous fruit trees are starting to pop out new growth.  The mulberry cutting we were worried had bit the dust is busting a move. Warm weather brings new energy and inspiration. Yesterday we bought some new fruit trees to bring new vitality to our forest. It is time to start a new wave of plantings with summer in mind.

<3 Tacy

Posing with our new plant babies (Black Gold Jackfruit, Orange Crush Jackfruit, Sweetheart Lychee, June Plum, Bougainvillea, Lemon Verbena):

The Angel's Trumpets are in full bloom (Brugmansia sp.):

Casual Cosmic Purple Carrot brag, it's so BIG:

 The side garden is starting to look lusciously wild:

Let's Talk About Poop

As that lovely children's book reminds us, "Everybody Poops!" But is that it? Enough said?!?!?! Well here at the 47th street house, we don't think so. That's why we have a poop diary in the downstairs bathroom.

Poop is a big topic around here, what with our new composting toilets and the composting of various other animal poops for our garden (yes, even the chickie poop gets used).  But we don't just deal with poop, we love poop. We are inspired by poop. We love to talk about it, and rightly so! 

So without further ado, here are some of my favorite entries in the poop diary (in no particular order):

"Perched atop

I heard a spectacular plop

Followed by tinkling drops"

"May your sphincter be strong,

To hold fast the throngs

Of zealous turds trying to

Soil your sarong!"

"All are sleeping still

I poop now in silence

Dawn is for doody"

"Turds slide out of me

Like an orca swallows fish

Slip'ry ecstasy"

"Reminders of yesterday

Linger in the air, like

Memories relived.

The smell of a poop is bittersweet"

Hope you enjoy! Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go make another entry.

Happy Pooping!

-cm

Spring cleaning

I was looking through my photos today to send my Grandparents some photos of our garden, and I realized that I have a lot of photos of big events that never made it to the blog.

So here they are in (mostly) chronological order :)

Caitlin with our first lettuce harvest.

Our first 3 chickens enjoying the compost buffet.

Mojitos made by the Great Amy Ortiz with fresh spearmint from our garden.

Epic four curry meal, cooked with Amy's homemade curry paste.

Curry mandala.

The makings of lavender ice-cream.

(To all you lavender ice-cream enthusiasts: we learned that it is advisable to strain the lavender buds out of the cream, they are pretty, but not very tasty)

Cement ping-pong table!

Salad table.

Historic dumpster haul.

Chrissy flexin' her muscles . . .

. . . and shoveling Florida soil and compost onto our 6-layer bean dip garden bed

(cardboard, palm fronds, pond scum, manure, compost, and Florida sandy soil.)

Our garden.

Our crazy perennial sun-gold cherry tomato plant, bok choy, lettuce, kale, etc.

Carrot harvest!

Eggy News

Big eggy news on 47th St.

Sunday morning we woke to find two eggs laid by lil' miss buffington Tawnya.

(Casey, Tawnya, and Chrissy)

And then we found a Bantam egg!!! But who laid the egg?

Wrinkles???? Reeses???

The mystery has yet to be solved, but . . .

The bantam egg tasted mighty fine fried up on toast.

Turned out Tawnya laid a twin yolk!

Which was really tasty poached on a bed of tomatoes and rice.

Looks like we won't have to be worrying about eggs soon. Spring has sprung and the chickies are a laying.

Family Photo

From left to right, top to bottom: Casey and Reeses, Evan, Devin, Adam, Chrissy, Alex and Ronnie James Dio, Tacy, Zac and Bianca Blanquita

This was taken right before Zaccy left us. Hope you're having fun at the Folk School in NC!

Coming soon: Chicken Profiles.  Stay tuned! The blog is back in business!

Updates

Hey Folks! A lot has been going on at the house in the last couple of months. Here is a sampling of what we have been up to:

Our sunflowers bloomed.

We harvested the first of many batches of collard greens.

We trimmed the sea grape,

and built a three bin composter under it.

We made farmer's cheese out of goat milk.

Honey and walnuts, yum!

How to make Farmer's Cheese (Thanks to Angie Martin!)

• Bring milk to just under a boil
• Add vinegar or lemon juice (1 gallon of milk to 1/2-1 cup of vinegar/lemon juice)
• Pour through cheesecloth and let drain to the consistency you want.
• Add whatever extra ingredients you want to modify the flavor. We added honey, salt, and walnuts :)

'NUKKAH PARTY:

Latke's were fried.

"Life is full of light."

Friends gathered.

Faces were made.

Candles were lit in a complex seed tray menorah.

Pre-Thanks Cooking

Today Alex and Caitlin spent much of the day in the kitchen preparing for The Epic 47th Street House Thanksgiving Feast Extravaganza.

On the menu:

Chrissy's making:
Mashed taters
Roasted ass chicken
Chicken Gravy
Green Bean Casserole (with bacon possibly making an appearance)

Alex's making:
"Hippy Dippy Vegan Shit", i.e. Lentil Cashew Lofe
The Freshest Cranberry Sauce (with Ginger)
Mushroom Gravy
Vegetable Stock, for the gravy and the stuffing
Stuffing

Caitlin's making:
Cranberry Orange Nut Bread (and Muffins)
Okra and Tomatoes
Key Lime Pie

So here are some sweet prep shots of the dishes and the chefs:

Alex chops celery for his Hippy Dippy Vegan Shit

This may look like a somewhat gloppy cat food at the moment, but tomorrow it will be a glorious vegan Thanksgiving masterpiece

Okra, prepped for Okra and Tomatoes, one of Caitlin's all-time favorite dishes. Fresh from Worden Farm!

Muffins of Glory.

The loaf version of above muffins.

Cranberries and ginger. Freaking awesome combo.

Casey, Devin, Zac, Tacy and Hannah are all out of town with family for Thanksgiving, and while Evan is still in town, he'll be with family up in Bradenton for the day, so we're having a motley crüe of wonderful people over for dinner.

Caitlin, who is a champion at sleeping in, woke up early this morning with such excitement about the coming cooking (and resultant, impending eating), that she was unable to stay in bed and laze. Alex joined in and then they listened to the new Kanye album and Captain Beefheart and Dirty Projectors and now tomorrow will be super easy.

Hot dog!
Thanksgiving!
no geno(cide)

Check back soon for coverage of the Big Day!