The Corn Project

About a month ago I walked into the grocery store and saw something that caught my attention..... a cart full of Indian Corn with a "free" sign on it....Hmmmm, what to do, what to do......I asked someone how much of it I could take and they said,
 "Oh, I don't know, maybe a boxful."
 I said, "Well, if you'll let me take it all, I will."
"Oh no, I don't think you can have it all!"
"Well, who does know?"
A call was made.......
"Oh, I guess you can have it all if you want it....and there is more in the back if you want that too!"
SCORE!!!

Okay, now what? Corn is corn, right?....ducks eat corn, right?.....colored corn is just as good as yellow corn, right? Do they eat it whole, do I have to crush it? The past couple of weeks, in between Christmas and cooking, I've stumbled over these boxes of corn in the kitchen while doing some research on-line. This research resulted in varying opinions. Although there's no question that they can eat it, there seems to be disagreement on whether the ducks will want to eat it, or if in fact they will fully utilize the hard kernels, or whether they will just poop them out on the ground. So, since I can't follow the ducks around looking at their poop I decided I needed to crush the corn. First, I had to shuck it.....

I've always loved Indian Corn...It's so beautiful....

It comes in so many beautiful colors.....

.....and alot of the ears have multiple colored kernels on them....how do they do that?!?

Next, I had to come up with some way to crush it. That turned out to be difficult given the equipment that I have on hand. I am NOT a kitchen gadget girl!  Well, the electric coffee grinder did not work, the manual coffee grinder did not work, the pestle and mortar did not work. Hmmmm.....So, I decided to try to soften it by soaking it in a bowl of water for a few days.

It did get a little softer, but not very fast, and I started to worry that I was growing a bowl of bacteria after awhile. Then I decided to try to sprout some...So I soaked some in a bowl of water....for 24 hours this time... and put it in a colander.....

...and rinsed it "once a day".....okay, I rinsed it several times a day....(because it was fun and I didn't want it to dry out!)  And it worked!!!

 day 1

 day 2

day 3

Softened, sprouted, and ready to go....Ha!

Now, you might ask me why I would go to this much trouble....Well, you have to understand that  in Africa a 50 pound bag of cracked corn costs about $50. Down in the land of cracked corn a 50 pound bag costs about $20. And....once the corn kernels are crushed they start to loose their nutrition.....how old is a bag of cracked corn sitting on the shelf here?  My ducks are getting free, delicious, free, wholesome, free, nutritious, free food.............

......AND IT'S PRETTY TOO!!!!!!  I win!

The Last Card

I FINALLY finished the Christmas cards today.......

Better late than never I guess. As usual they feature a Christmas tree, and the theme is "The true meaning of Christmas".  This year I used the paper quilling technique. According to Wikipedia,

Quilling or paper filigree is an art form that involves the use of strips of paper that are rolled, shaped, and glued together to create decorative designs. The paper is rolled, looped, curled, twisted and otherwise manipulated to create shapes which make up designs to decorate greetings cards, pictures, boxes, eggs, and to make models, jewellery, mobiles etc. In the 18th century, quilling became popular in Europe where gentle ladies of quality ("ladies of leisure") practiced the art. It was one of the few things ladies could do that was thought not too taxing for their minds or gentle dispositions. Quilling also spread to the Americas and there are a few examples from Colonial times. ^[3]

Sounds perfect for me doesn't it? Hmmmm. I found it a little taxing....obviously I underestimated how difficult it would be and did not allow enough time to get them all done before Christmas. Here are some photos of the whole process.

First I spent quite a bit of time at the computer figuring out how to print what I wanted, where I wanted it, on paper that was already cut that I had scored at a garage sale. Not so easy I found. Anyways..... Then I designed a label for the front of the card....

And sewed the labels together. I like the sewing technique because it's cute and it saves money on adhesive.

Then I cut 1/8 inch thin strips of paper (because they don't sell quilling paper here in Africa of course)....

Green paper for the trees and yellow paper for the stars. Then the "quilling" began.... it takes a special tool that has a tiny slit in the tip to hold the end of the paper strip in place while you spin it....

 note to self: always check for hangnails before taking closeup photos

I broke one quilling tool and despaired that I wouldn't be able to find another one...but low and behold, Ben Franklin had some!  Yeah, they said they had gotten some in a notions shipment, and noone knew what they were. They sat on the shelf forever until they finally stuck them in the sale bin.  So, not only did I get this obscure tool here in town...it was ON SALE!!!!

I rolled one, two, or three strips at a time, for different parts of the tree. Then coils with multiple strips were spayed apart and glued together....

Glue was applied to the back of the coil....that was a tittle tedious....but necessary.

 
Then the coils were glued in place on the cards...

The stars were a little more tricky....I tried lots of different techniques and they all looked like yellow blobs until I started folding the bottom of the strip like and an accordion and rolling the rest...

There was another definition inside....

And a hand written sentiment....."Christmas began in the heart of God, but its true meaning can only be realized once it enters the heart of man" ......an anonymous quote I altered from the internet.

Well.....I'm so relieved that the Christmas card project is finally finished..... Now it's time to clean up the mess....

.......and start the next one!!!!

Feeling Slightly Grinchy

Hello! I didn't die....just been busy.  I don't seem to be able to get into the Christmas Spirit this year. It's not that I'm anti-Christmas, it's just that it seems to be too much of a bother to decorate and stuff. I wouldn't even have gotten a tree except that Levi came home last night.....and I knew it would be nice for him to come home to a house that "felt" like Christmas. So I put forth some effort yesterday and ....

Mr. Adams and I went out behind the house and cut down a tree....

....and draped a string of lights around it. It's not fancy, but it will do.

Then I hung up the stockings....

Set up the nativity set....

"Thank You Jesus"

Set a few decorative items on the kitchen island.....

....and the living room table.....

....put the glass canister of antique ornaments on the trunk in the middle of the living room....

 "Beautiful"

Finally, I light a Christmas scented candle. Then Mr. Adams went to the airport to pick up Levi.

It wasn't much, but it was all worth it....he said it "felt" like Christmas when he stepped in the door!

The Garden Smells Like Farts

I have been spending as little time outside as possible these days. Right now there is about 3 inches of gloopey, wet snow covering everything and it's a little chilly....but even if it was nice outside I would still be holed up indoors doing anything but Christmas cards. Anyways, every time I do go out to take care of the ducks I've been smelling an abnormally bad smell. Over the last month the smell has been getting worse and worse. Usually I just think, "Wow, something out here smells bad, what could it possibly be?" as I hurry about my business and get back indoors as soon as possible.  Well, it finally got so bad that I became convinced something must have died out there. I investigated thoroughly yesterday, and after searching and searching I figured out what it is....

It's the Brassica crops I still have in the ground! The Broccoli....

The Brussels Sprouts....

And the Kale....

They are all still growing.

Even the cabbages I pulled up a month ago and tossed to the side are still "alive" laying on the ground....

I don't normally have this much stuff still in the ground by this time of year, so it came as sort of a surprise to me that they put out so much odor.  Weird.

Making Envelopes

For the last few days I've been making envelopes for my Christmas cards. Well, not all day of course, I'm still working on perfecting my procrastination technique, but when I run out of other things to do I've been working on envelopes. Homemade envelopes are so cool!

Each one is unique and has a personality of it's own. They're so much fun to make that I thought I would show you how to do it too.

1. Tear pages from magazines.....tearing them out works better than cutting them out. Most magazines work fine. Better Homes and Gardens pages are too thin and Martha Stewart pages are really big, but everything else is fine. The post office here told me there would be no problems with them....unless they were solid black and would not let the post mark show.

2. Decide whether you want the top half or the bottom half of the page to be the front of the envelope. Either half works fine. If you use the bottom half, then the flap on the back of the envelope will be on the bottom of the envelope rather than the top.....but WHO CARES!!! I chose the bottom half.

3. Fold over( not quite in half)....the extra is going to be the enclosure flap.

4. Fold the sides in, like so.....

note: I don't do any measuring....life is too short.....just try make the folds as square as possible

5. Crease all folds really good with some sort of straight edge, front and back.

I think my scissors handle is the absolute best tool for this job.

6. Open the page up again and trim side of the "back" of the envelope off, like so.......

7. Fold page up again.....and trim the two corners of the "front" of the envelope like so....

8. Glue the side flaps down. I like to use rubber cement because it sticks good, dries fast, stays flexible, is easy to remove if you make a mess, and is repositionable for a reasonable amount of time....it is also alot cheaper than scrapbooking adhesive runners. Elmer's glue makes a hard lump and dries too slowly. It also disfigures the paper because it gets it so wet. Gluestick glue doesn't work either because it doesn't  adhere very well to the shiny, slick magazine pages. It will certainly come loose during shipping.

9. Fold and crease the envelope enclosure flap.

And now comes the fun part......Stickers!!!! I guess I'm still a little girl at heart...the stickers are my favorite part!

10. Adhere an address label.....because it's hard to write on a magazine page and labels are so cool!

I buy these Scotch brand labels, cut them in half, and trim off the "to" and "from" section.....

Adhere a return address label....

And pick out an appropriate Christmas stamp....

11. Fill the envelope with a great Christmas card, glue the enclosure flap down, address it, and pop it in the mail!

175 envelopes........ready to go. Now I just need to finish the cards.

BTW, they're going to be late.