Gardening spaces

These are our current raised beds. Planning on about doubling this over the next month or so to be ready for Summer.

Cheap, homemade potato chips

I am having a lot of fun exploring how to minimize the things in the pantry.  Last night I made yogurt with a crockpot and dry milk.  Tonight I experimented with making potato chips!  Now, there is a fine line between a potato chip and home fries which took a bit of time to discover but once sucessful....YuMMY!  Surprisingly the best chips to come out were the ones I microwaved rather then frying on the stove.  I still want to try the oven with a batch.  I'll be doing that again though.  I don't buy chips for the house at all...too much of a temptation and too little value for the price.  This would be a nice way to have a treat and keep the serving the right size.  Also I brought out some of the plain yogurt and used it as a sour cream sub. as a base for french onion dip.  It worked wonderfully!  We used both white and sweet potatos.

http://southernfood.about.com/od/deepfryerrecipes/r/blbb555.htm

http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/000879oven-fried_potato_chips.php

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Potato-Chips/Detail.aspx  ----this recipe worked the best.  

yogurt

Well, I followed the advice of the 365 days of Crockpotting site and have beautiful yogurt this morning.

Yogurt articles of interest

I've tried making yogurt twice now.  Once was sucessful and once wasn't.  I'm including some links here to try...

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2005/12/easy_homemade_y.php

https://www.dvo.com/newsletter/monthly/2003/june/0603tabletalk.html

http://burganfamily.blogspot.com/2008/10/homemade-yogurt-in-crock-pot.html

http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/10/you-can-make-yogurt-in-your-crockpot.html

Here's after weeding...

Gardening

Heres a before of the herb garden...

I'm going to try migrating to Wordpress and see how I like it for a while. It seems to be easier to use the reply features.

LadyVirag.wordpress.com

http://www.silk-road.com/artl/westchina.shtml

http://www.dainst.org/index_596_en.html
http://books.google.com/books?id=e1PNO7urjHQC&pg=PA231&lpg=PA231&dq=kurgan+five+%2B+felt&source=bl&ots=Y_AyHUfhVk&sig=mhBcBakVrdjZjxJ0KyhPMUuyViQ&hl=en&ei=UsO2ScerI-PetgeTkIWmCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=9&ct=result
http://www.s155239215.onlinehome.us/turkic/btn_Archeology/Kurgan_CultureEn.htm

more Scythian links...

http://www.turkotek.com/salon_00104/s104t1.htm
http://www.lindamasondesigns.com/interestinginformation
http://www.turkotek.com/salon_00082/s82t4.htm
http://www.lib.umich.edu/area/Near.East/Textiles/RT36C.html
http://www.rugreview.com/113rec.htm
http://www.transoxiana.org/Eran/Articles/rubinson_abs.html

Scythian research links

http://www.straw.com/tan/felt.html
http://pages.sssnet.com/7genex7/basic.html
http://www.meridianembroidery.org/Articles/gscynthians.htm---talks about the stitching/embroidery on Scythian felts
http://www.ulaantaij.com/History_Felt.html
http://www.housebarra.com/EP/ep06/16cap.html
http://libarts.wsu.edu/anthro/pdf/Altai%20Pazyryk%20Kurgans.pdf
http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,688895,00.jpg ; Scythian Mummy's legs and felt boots
http://www.mummytombs.com/news/news.2006.august.htm
http://www.geocities.com/mary_lynn_e_turner/Pazyryk-Kurgan-Woman-Research-Paper.htm

I'm having trouble figuring out how to actually reply to comments left here. I think I may migrate to something else if I can't figure it out. Any ideas?

This was an exciting weekend. I was able to participate in my first Kingdom Arts and Science event as a displaying artist. It was a great opportunity to talk about the joys of felting and to see some really awesome work.