I think I'm the bird lady

Because I teach a lot of backyard fowl classes around here (and wrote a little pocket guide about raising chickens) I get a lot of emails from people asking for help with their birds. I think the birds in the neighborhood have gotten word of that over the years as well as they seem to show up here when they need a little help too. Here are some photos of a few of the birds I've helped/raised. (Please excuse the bad hair days, birds seem to show up when you look least presentable)

Our favorite wild bird of all time, Jasper. We raised him/her from about day 2. Here Jasper's trying to find any remaining seeds that might be stuck on my fingers...

This is Jasper with some newly hatched (unwild) Khaki Campbell ducklings

This was from bring your wild bird to work day. Long time readers may recognize this photo. As Jasper grew up we let him/her fly around and return when he felt like it. I thought he had left for good one morning and was quite sad, until I went to work in my backyard studio and Jasper had flown in through an open door and was there waiting for me.

A little woodpecker

The woodpecker thought my messy hair might be a good place to look for bugs!


My hands are very small, and this hummingbird makes them look like man hands

It's that time of year again, so I'm keeping an eye out for little birds. So far it's just been a few sparrows I've had to help (begrudgingly, as they are a bit of a pest around here). Mockingbirds, my favorite, should be hatching right about now!

Pickles! (and a brief Jasper update)

I made pickles!

I made 8 pints of garlic dill pickles. Here is the recipe I followed:

About 6 lbs of cucumbers cut up
4 cups white vinegar
4 cups water
4 tbs pickling salt (plain salt without iodine or preservative/anti-caking agents)
8 tsp dried dill
8 big cloves of garlic, roughly chopped.


1. Combine vinegar, water and salt in a pot, bring to a boil.
2. Put equal parts of dill and garlic in each jar. Pack in sliced cucumbers.
3. Pour boiling vinegar solution over cucumbers in each jar, leaving 1/2" room of headspace. (You will probably have a little liquid left over)
4. Process in a boiling water canner for 10-12 minutes.

I opened a jar that night for my husband and I to try and they tasted like Aunt Bee's Kerosene Cucumbers, I was pretty disappointed, but put them back into the fridge. The next night I gave them another try and they were much better. I guess they need to rest for 48 hours or so before they taste like pickles and not vinegar bombs.


From these dill pickles I decided to make fire and ice pickles. Apparently to make those, most people just buy store pickles and go from there, but since I had 8 pints, I wanted to use my own. I found some recipes online, most of which used a bunch of tabasco, but not much actual hot pepper, and I thought it tasted a little too sweet-- like pepper jelly with pickles. After experimenting and adjusting here is the recipe I ended up with:

1 pint dill pickles
1 cup sugar
1 tsp dried red peppers
a splash of tabasco

Drain the dill pickles, and put them in a bowl. Add the 1 cup sugar (I use a tiny bit less than a cup) peppers and tabasco, and stir it up. Let this mixture sit on the counter for 2 hours and the sugar clumps will have magically turned to liquid. Put your pickles (and the liquid) back into their original jar and refrigerate.

Note: If you leave the pickles on the counter for much longer than the 2 hours, they will shrivel up, they will still taste good, they just look like old wrinkly pickle prunes.

Just before bed a few nights ago
Also Jasper the dove is still doing well. We had a trip to my parents house planned for a long time, and since Jasper needs to be fed every 2-3 hours, he got to go on a vacation with us (along with the 2 hour each way car ride). He peeped a lot at first, but then went to sleep in his cage in the back of the car. Here's a little picture of him. I have learned some things that make feeding him much easier, I will post all about adventures with rearing Jasper on a later date.
Jasper this morning just before eating

A tiny dinner.

Okay, well not even enough for a mouse's dinner. This is my first potato ever (the thing that looks like red yarn is the arrow pointing to it):
The smallest potato

I hadn't even planned on planting any potatoes this year, but there were some growing vines in my cabinet so I stuck them in pots. I was planting when everyone else was harvesting, but since I wasn't going to eat them anyway, I thought I'd give it a shot. They are dying in our 110-115 degree heat, I think after checking them for miniature potatoes, I'll just turn the vines over in the pots and they can be compost for next years potatoes.

I tried some mesquite flour that I made from a neighbor's mesquite pods, which were a different type, they tasted about 100% better than that last batch. Lesson learned. I found a recipe for mesquite cornbread on the internet, and I found a cute cast iron cornbread pan/mold at goodwill for $4, I'll be making that tomorrow along with some solar oven beans.

And finally, there is a new addition to the tiny farm. It's a baby white-winged dove. My husband found it after clearing some bushy lantana in the front yard just sitting on the ground, since he inadvertently destroyed its nest (if there was one there?), I'm taking care of it. It has started to feather in, hopefully it will do okay, though it doesn't seem to think I am its best friend yet. His/her name is Jasper. I will post pictures soon.