Friday, June 22, 2012

Pond Loving


Isn't it beautiful?  Something I have noticed at Blue Antler is that there are always  flowers in bloom.  A few weeks ago the climbing roses were a burst of creamy pink opening themselves to the sun.  There were so many of them reaching for the sky it took your breath away.  Last week it was the Juniper.  This week it is the Hydrangea.  And next week the pink water plants in the pond are going to have a full on display.

Well enough with the sappy flower talk, let's talk about some fish! 

Along with these beautiful flowers, Kevin and I inherited 5 koi fish in our pond.  Which breeds?  I have no idea. Some of them have long feathery tails and fins, and some do not.  Some have whiskers, and some do not.  Some are almost all white and some look like a splash of gold, white, and black.  Some maybe goldfish and not Koi, but it doesn't matter to me what they are.  All that matters is that we take care of them and I enjoy them.  And I really do!  I had no idea how much serenity having a pond with fish can provide, but I spend at least 5 minutes a day watching them swim around eating their food going after bugs.  They are starting to know me and are coming to the surface to check me out.



Did you catch that?  I can see them now.  If you read an earlier post, you would know the water was so murky we didn't even know anything was alive in there.  But look!
 

Another sign that this pond is coming back to life are the dragonflies.  There is just something magical about dragonflies.  And I don't say this lightly because I hate about 98% of bugs.  I know what you are thinking, oh Lilian, what about ladybugs?  Yeah, I hate them too.  But dragonflies are allowed room in my heart.  The way they dart here and there with their brilliant colors and curious behavior, landing and floating above the water. It is just fascinating to watch. 
 
Can you see him there on top of the red maple?



 Did you know that dragonflies are fierce carnivorous eaters, and some can eat yellow jackets?  That's awesome, cause along with having fish, the pond also attracts  mosquitos and yellow jackets.  Dragonflies will pretty much eat any bug that is smaller than them, which rates them high on my list.  Eat away dragonflies!

Ta ta for now!
~Lilian

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Hazardous Waste

Goat Update!


The girls are now a little over 7 weeks and they are getting bigger by the day.  It is getting to the point where I can not visit them while wearing flip-flops in fear of them stepping on my toes (ouch!).  I am trying to teach them not to jump up on people, but it is not going very well.  I guess dog training methods don't work so well on goats?






So this last weekend it was time for their CD/T vaccine.  Unlike dogs, you don't take them to a vet to get their vaccinations, you have to do it yourself.  So I ordered the vaccine, syringes, and needles from a goat supply website.  Once the vaccine came from UPS I promptly put it in the refrigerator.  On Saturday morning, I brought all my supplies down to the barn to set up my "lab".  When I was ready for my first patient I called in Oreo (who doesn't come when called.  Again, nothing like a dog).  These vaccines need to be administered subcutaneously (under the skin), not in the muscle.  Which just means you pull up the extra skin between their shoulder blades and administer the shots there.  This is easier said than done with a squirming baby goat.  So I called in Kevin.  I held the little goat and whispered sweet nothings into her ear while Kevin gave the vaccine.  What a team!


So now I have two dirty needles.  If any of you guys know me, I will NOT put these in the trash.  I don't put batteries, electronics, paint cans, light bulbs, etc in the trash.  In fact, pretty much nothing goes into the trash.  So I will definitely not put dirty needles in the trash.  After so many years working at HEP, I thought it would be easy to dispose of them since in California there are locations for clean needle swaps.  Not so!  


I call my local sanitation company and they will only take them on certain days/times in an approved container, which I do not have.  So I call CVS, they will not take them.  So I call Rite-Aid.  The pharmacist there told me to put them in a mayonnaise jar and bring them to the hospital for disposal.  Great!


So I hop in my car with my little jar of needles and happily go to the hospital.  I walk through the front office, who sends me the lab.  Nope, they won't take them.  At this point, I am having a serious internal debate on being a good citizen.  Is this really worth it?


On the drive home from the hospital, I stop at Walgreens, who sells the approved containers for used needles.  I grumpily fork over the 15 dollars.  As I am walking out, the pharmacist hands me this:


Really?!  Really?!  I was just there!


I almost lost it on the pharmacist, but she was tricky and got a phone call just in time to avoid my whole diatribe.

So I go home and put my two tiny needles in the world's largest landfill filler.


Fortunately, I came home to these happy healthy baby girls and they made it all worth it.


This is a video of the goats doing what they are supposed to... eating weeds!  I am sorry if this video is totally boring to you, my dear readers, but it makes my all excited and giddy.  We have a LOT of weeds and I need these goats to eat them.  They haven't really been eating them since they are still being bottle feed, but soon they are going to be taken off the bottle and they are going to have to learn to eat those weeds!







Monday, June 11, 2012

Laundry Detergent on a Dime

Actually, cheaper than a dime!  More like 6 cents a load!

If you guys have never heard of Itty Bitty Farm in the City, you should check it out.  It is one of the most interesting blogs out there.  Generally it is about a small family with a couple of pygmy goats, chickens, and a garden in San Francisco trying to make is work on about 1000 square feet. The writer, Heidi Kooy, is so open and honest and you really feel like you are part of her farm when you read it.  One day I would love to go visit, maybe she can pass along some tips about working full time, raising a family, and keep a farm up and running.  She really is Super Woman.

Well, recently she posted her sister-in-law's recipe for home-made laundry detergent and I was inspired.  I had already made my own batch of bar soap, so what could be scarier than that?  You are only dealing with one of the most caustic materials on the planet... no biggie.  I laugh in the face of danger.. ha ha ha!  But laundry detergent is different, no lye involved and it is super easy.

Why would I want to make my own laundry detergent?  Well let's just say it costs Kevin and I quite a bit to keep Blue Antler running.  For example, this past Saturday the hubby and I walked into Pete's hardware store to buy one small gasoline tank...
Me:     Oh Kevin, I forgot, I need some flytraps
Kevin: I need another sprinkler head
Me:     Oh gardening gloves....
Kevin: I need a hand saw
$90 dollars later..... OUCH!
 But I digress...

So the recipe for the liquid laundry detergent can by found here: Itty Bitty Farm in the City.

The materials are not super hard to find. You need a bar of soap (I used the bar I made at home, but you can use any ol' bar of soap, borax (laundry aisle at the supermarket), water, and washing soda.  Washing soda is probably the hardest to find.  But here is a tip: Call this phone number 1-800-524-1328 and have the UPC code 33200-03020 ready. The sweet lady on the other line will ask for your zip code and then she will tell you the closest place it had last sold recently.  Score!  For me it was about a mile down from my office at Raley's.  


You will also need a 5-gallon bucket, a pot that you don't care about (I used my soap making pot), a cheese grater, and a broom handle.

So I started out by grating my bar of soap


 
Then I melted the soap in some water very slowly for about 15 minutes till it was hot and melted, but not boiling.




Added the borax and washing soda and let it get nice and thick.



Then dumped those contents into my 5-gallon bucket filled with warm water.  Let it stand overnight.


And now I have low-sud (perfect for HE washers) laundry detergent.  What I love about this, is that it does a great job washing my clothes, it doesn't have artificial colors, dyes, or fragrances (partly because there were none in my soap).   And did I mention it is cheap cheap cheap?




That's it!  This whole process was done and over with in about 15-20 minutes and it should last about 4-6 months!  I use about 1/2 cup for each load of laundry.  If it is an especially dirty load, I add more.  Now, that you all are inspired by how easy this was, go out and try it! 

Thank you Heidi and your Sister-in Law!

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

The Jewels of your House

A few years ago, when my parents were shopping for some exterior lighting fixtures, the sales women there referred to exterior lighting with this comment:
"The lighting is the jewelry to your house.  And the bigger you go, the better!"  

Did you guys know that?? I had no idea!  It was a very enlightening moment for me and I held on to that memory for about 10 years now.

Well!  If that is the case, what we have at Blue Antler is more like a candy necklace.....after you ate all the candy.  More like a soggy sticky piece of twine wrapped around your neck.
Pretty Isn't it?


So I am at Ace Hardware and I find a $20 dollar exterior light fixture:
I spent about 30 minutes talking with the sales guy at Ace hardware, going over in detail how to install this thing so I can reiterate everything to Kevin.  This was our first electrical project and I was kind of nervous.  I have seen Kevin with his hair standing on end and it was not a pretty site.  We don't want repeats of that accident. 

So white wire to white wire, black wire to black wire, grounding wire around screw...... Imagine me prancing around making sure that someone (maybe a ghost?) doesn't hit the switch.....


And now look at what we have, a Cubic Zirconia!


Monday, June 4, 2012

Weekend Warriors

Hello Everyone!

So we had a lazy weekend around Blue Antler, but we did manage to get some things done.  The hubby has officially gone from novice DIY-er to serious DIY-er, he drilled through tile!  Not a single crack baby!  I've been wanting to install a shampoo and conditioner dispenser in the shower to cut down on clutter and my first attempt of sticking it on the wall failed.  I followed directions exactly and waited 48 hours for the glue to set before sticking the dispensers on the wall... well, you all know what happened next when I heard a big crash about 20 minutes later.  So, off to the our favorite hardware store to buy some drills, anchors, and screws.  

Here is a great pic of Kevin with his whole DIY uniform on (Valli Construction shirt, jeans, and a tool belt).
Drilling through tile requires these steps:
  1. Place some masking tape on the wall in the general area where you will be drilling.  The masking tape serves two purposes.  One, you can mark on it, and two it will keep your drill from skidding across the tile.
  2. Bust out that level and make marks on the tape with a pen where you want your screws.
  3. Kevin started with the smallest drill bit and worked very very SLOWLY.  Don't start that drill too fast!  Once the holes were made he increased the size of the holes one size up until it would hold the ceramic anchors.
  4. Once the holes are made, add the ceramic anchors and lightly tap them in (place some cardboard between the anchors and the hammer).
  5.  Then place the mounting plate to the wall and with a screw driver screw in the nails.
 Ta-da!  No cracks in the tile and now I have a de-cluttered shower!


What else did we do this weekend?  Well we started painting our master bedroom which means we are sleeping in the middle of the living room for the next few days.  We also installed a light fixture (more on that later), volunteered at a local race, played with the goats (they are doing great!), played with the dogs, and did this:

We ended the weekend with a trip to the local pond store.  Turns out that the last homeowners left us with at least 100 dollars worth of fish!  We can't let those babies die!  So at Connie's Pond store, the guy there told me, "Open up the filter box, you will some sponges, clean and rinse them out every day this week and come back and see me next weekend."  Yes sir!  

The water is so disgusting and nasty you can't even see the fish, but here is a picture of the before so you can appreciate the beauty that will be the after: