Tereza Okava

now this is nothing compared to a SWEATER (which I have never managed to complete) but I am feeling pretty chuffed about this project.
I have an ancient (almost 100 years old) handheld scythe that belonged to my grandmother-in-law and still keeps a deadly edge, I use it to cut grass/weeds for my rabbits every so often, but it's a danger to carry around so I decided to crochet a cover using heavy cotton string. it's nothing fancy, took me fifteen minutes to whip up (after months of procrastinating....)

Now the question is, I'm joining a crochet group, do I share this or will it scare the crapola out of the young crocheting-for-instagram crowd that I need to make a scabbard for my deadly weapon? hm.....

chayote is mirliton (or pipinola, choko, or chuchu, as we call it here...). definitely VERY low maintenance!!

Mine also would sell their souls for banana peels. They only get bananas if i have to give them some sort of med (ear mites are a problem here when it's wet in the winter and I often have to treat it, putting it in banana is the only way i have success), but they get peels whenever I have them.
For some reason my rabbits won't eat the hay that's sold here (supposedly Tifton?) and will only eat alfalfa, but that gets pricey real fast and I know it's not great for them. So for most of the year they eat my garden/kitchen/yard waste, cut some tall grass when pickings are slim or I have paid work that stops me from working in the garden, and they only get pellets as a supplement when it's really cold.

Abigail M Johnson wrote:The things that were easiest to grow for the rabbits and which they liked the most were banana leaves and sweet potato vines. In fall these were their favorite foods.

Sweet potato is such a great one, they love them and they're so easy. I have a few planted around the yard, ostensibly for us to eat the leaves, but there's always some bug damage and they usually end up with the rabbits.
I also grow chayote (which I train to grow along the rabbit run area in the garden), along with mulberry, burdock and cowpeas, specifically for the rabbits to eat. They take up minimal space and each tolerate weather differently, so throughout the year I've always got stuff for them even if my weed/garden waste situation isn't great.

welcome Abigail!
I would keep them together, personally, at the beginning while they're tiny, just in case (? weird things, the babies somehow move around and get uncovered, some animal gets in her cage, it's especially cold, etc), but I'm curious to hear what others have to say.

I have heard local organic/permie figures talk about ant control using the mold that grows on oranges.
It so happens that I have some leafcutter ants in my garden that are eating only my beloved winged beans (not cool, ants: last year wasn't warm enough for the winged beans and I really want them this year).
I also have a husband who eats 3+ oranges every day, so I buy large quantities and there's usually a moldy one or two.

The general line is to take a moldy orange or two and blend it in a blender with a liter of water.
Leave that ferment for a few days, then mix it with rice grits (used to make porridge here) and let it dry in the sun, this can then be stored and used over time.

I missed the part about the fermentation, and had no rice grits so used cornmeal instead (which I do have and the ants tend to enjoy). I mixed it up with about half a kg of cornmeal, it is currently a paste type situation and is out on the back porch drying out to crumble up and store.

Once it's dry, the idea is to put it near the plants and the ants carry it back to their home, where it outcompetes the fungus that grows on their cut leaves and forms their main food source. The suggestion is to usually put it in a bamboo tube so it stays dry, i don't have any bamboo so we'll just sprinkle it around the base of the plants during dry spells.

I will report back as the process continues.
Anyone else try this?

I also freeze cubes of lemon juice when i have too many lemons, and cubes of ginger juice when my husband makes his candied ginger (there are lots of peels left over, I run them through the juicer and freeze the juice for later use, usually in Japanese cooking). I also have some turmeric-lemon-pepper cubes for tea, some small-cupcake sized cubes of curry paste (size right for one batch of curry) and tomato paste, and large one-cup cubes of caramelized onions, mashed banana, and usually anko (red bean paste), although I recently used my stock of this latter to make holiday treats.
I think i also have cubes of canned chipotle chilis in adobo, they are something i can only find when i travel abroad and I stretch them out over years, a little in salsa here and there.

I honestly have so much in my freezer that most of the time it's a losing proposition trying to fit anything else in there.

if your yard is fenced, i'd wonder if you could borrow a dog (or a friend with a dog) for a few days. even if the fence is not conducive or the dog not trustworthy to just scare and not kill the chickens, you could just "happen to be walking" the dog at typical chicken time, which might change their mind about your yard being fair game.

thanks for sharing!!
fruit crate is a very interesting idea and one that is accessible at this time of year (I was just at the wholesale market last week and saw a bunch of them). bonus i would get to involve Mr Okava, who has a box full of tools itching to play.... we have a similar situation out on the porch, maybe this can become a group effort/competition?

Nathanael Szobody wrote:Onion kraut

that sounds superb!! never too many ferments in this house....

i found myself in a Situation last week where I bought myself 15 pounds of onions that were practically free but not the best quality, so I have a challenge ahead of me now (and some interesting smells coming from the pantry).
Over the weekend, I caramelized a crockpot full, which then became onion/tomato jam (which was lovely, another batch will get made this weekend). Some more were caramelized and went into the freezer for future culinary me.

But I still have a crapton left!
I'm going to pickle some (Jay's delightful quick pickle recipe here, I think https://permies.com/t/184278/pickling-recipe#1457496 ), and today I'm going to make onion bhajis and onion curry for my dinner.
Usually the rule in my kitchen is "throw an egg on it" but this week everything is "throw an extra onion in it"...

(there is a great onion soup recipe, maybe from Alice Waters, that is basically "roast a truckload of onions for a full day and blend them and voilá". It does make the best onion soup I've ever had, but it caused the most amazing gastric distress afterward, to the extent that I've never dared to make that recipe --or any other onion soup-- again! so onion soup is out, LOL)