Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Javelina Smorgasbord


Javelina Smorgasbord
Originally uploaded by Beaver w/ a Toothbrush

There was some wildlife excitement tonight. When husband was going out to do the watering he came across a few javelina in the yard. I came out to see them because I don't very often. As he was going to water, I heard strange noises coming from the other side of the yard. Since it was dark I got spooked and hid inside.

I shined a flashlight out the bedroom window in the direction of the noises and saw 4 or 5 javelina walking by. Then I heard scraping and crunching noises. I armed myself with a walking stick and a flashlight and went outside to check it out.

Husband was back by then and said he had seen 5 more javelina in the chicken yard. We started to hear a big commotion of snorts and grunts just to the left of the yard so we went to see if we could see anything.

In a matter of minutes there were 18 javelina concentrated around some kind of crunchy food, all fighting and snorting and chomping. We were shining our lights but they were weak and we couldn't make out what they were eating. I wondered aloud whether or not javelina were herbivores. We both thought they were fighting over an animal.

We risked slowly inching closer with our sticks and flashlights handy and after a few minutes enough of them cleared for us to see what they were eating.

What we saw lying on the ground between them was the partially gnawed seed block we leave out for the quail and other birds. One of them must have knocked it off the table. I ran back inside to get the camera and Husband shone both lights on them while I tried to take pictures.

We had a scary moment when we had inched up slightly closer to the feast with the lights off and then Husband flicked both lights on at once. The 18 javelina scattered like the grunting spokes of a wagon wheel.

It was too dark to get video but the noises were crazy so I recorded them.

After doing a little reading (on Wikipedia), the clicking noise in the video is probably the javelina gnashing their tusks to warn predators to stay away.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Brewing

Bubbling Over

We finally got around to brewing a new batch of beer. We haven't brewed in maybe a year or more. We usually by a kit from the brew store in Tucson that includes grains, malt, hops, and yeast but this time we had a Munton's kit that came in a can. We bought some extra organic grains for flavoring, fuggle hops, more dry malt (the kit came with malt syrup), and better quality yeast.

We brewed it up like normal, sealed it up in the bucket with airlock, and put it in the closet to ferment. When we came home from dinner Friday night the lid looked like it was about to pop off. The airlock was clogged with hops and sticky stuff so hardly any of the gases were being allowed to escape. We got toothpicks and tried cleaning out the airlock lid holes but it wasn't doing much good so Husband drilled holes in another airlock lid and we put that on. I watched it for a long time, the soft foamy pillar grew in spurts.

Mustaches for Sale


I started an Etsy store and listed a couple of mustaches on it: dandelioness.etsy.com. I will probably add some other crafted items and some more mustaches soon. I'm thinking of making a mustache mobile but I'm not sure if that would just be scary.

Oh yeah - and I have a zombie t-shirt for sale too on Zazzle.

Monday, June 8, 2009

Time to Catch Some Bees!


Time to Catch Some Bees!
Originally uploaded by Beaver w/ a Toothbrush


This weekend we had fun assembling and painting our new bee stuff. The finished product is sitting in a nice shady place waiting for some new residents.

We picked the boxes up on Saturday and started putting them together. Each board was first glued and then held together with a ton of nails. When these are full of honey they may weigh around 30 pounds so I guess that's why they need so many nails. We traced the pieces first so we can make them ourselves in the future.

Bee Box Materials

I noticed that I'm slightly better with a hammer after one beer. Since my hammer skills quickly degraded back to my usual nail bending upon starting the second beer I didn't risk any more.

Bee Box Painting

Painting the boxes was fun because the oops paint ended up being really nice stuff: one-coat coverage, lifetime guarantee, low VOC. If I ever see any more Kilz oops paint I'm going to pick it up for sure (as long as it's not some crazy color). We barely used any of it so it'll be showing up in other projects.

Assembly Complete

After all the boxes and frames were assembled, Husband dabbed some lemongrass oil around the entrance and interior of the boxes. It's supposed to attract bees like crazy. I hope it will work. I wasn't too excited about bees when I had just read some stuff or heard about them but now that we've built the boxes I can't wait to get some.

Waiting for Bees

Now we're just waiting for the bees to show up. We'll buy some if we don't attract any before too long but there are so many bees around we're hoping we won't have to buy any. =)

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

First Harvest!


Mexican zucchini
Originally uploaded by Beaver w/ a Toothbrush

We picked our first two calabacitas from the garden! We didn't realize they were growing so fast so we picked them a little late. I think it should be half this size or less. I had to scoop out the seeds when I cooked it because they were getting a little large and stringy but it still tasted good. =)

I don't know if I'm imagining it but I feel super energized and healthy when I eat things fresh out of the garden. These hadn't been picked an hour when they were on the table as a sauteed side dish to some quesadillas and beans.

In other garden news, the pumpkins sprouts are planted. After a day of being babied with little newspaper shade tents they seem to be holding up to the full sun with only minor wilting. Only a couple didn't survive the first day. That leaves like 27 pumpkin plants: Big Max, Jack-o-Latern, and Casper!


We still have to plant the other sprouts but they weren't busting out of their little pots quite as quickly so we'll probably do that this weekend.


Aww, aren't they cute?