Weekend WrapUp

Oh my. One of the best Saturdays I've ever had was yesterday. After a lovely morning with coffee in bed, I assembled my new composter. It was super easy, and Maryam helped me. It's now started with leaves and kitchen scraps. I came home with about 15 pounds of coffee grinds today from the coffee shop! I've also found people to let me take their wood ashes and chicken poop. Hehehe… I'll be driving around the countryside pretty soon with a bucket and shovel.

Once I finished in the garden (I did dig up a liriope bush and scooch it over to make room for the bin), I went to the kitchen. Did not come out til about five hours later. I cooked for two meals, made homemade butternut squash bread (thanks Cara!), and a tray of brownies. My legs were so sore, but I couldn't stop! I must've washed 50 dishes. Well, more like the same 10 dishes five times each maybe. So, that was so rewarding, and the bread turned out great. It was my first time to try homemade yeast bread… mashaAllah it really wasn't that hard and it turned out delicious! It motivated me to try bread that has black olives in it because Abed said he'd like bread with olives. It was really so easy that I wonder why I was always so scared of making homemade bread.

My dad came over for a few hours, and we ended up sitting outside the front door watching the girls ride bikes and stuff. Shortly after he left, my brother Ziad and his wife Laila came over for the rest of the night. It was so much fun! We improvised for dinner and ended up with delicious breakfast tacos! They had eggs, potato, black beans, green chilis, shredded cheese all on corn tortillas. Yum. Coffee and brownies for dessert!

I've checked out several books on gardening and on backyard livestock. I haven't had much free time since I brought the books home, so I hope to read more tonight, but I did read Let It Rot! It is a fabulous quick intro to composting. I don't have much good land to garden on, so I'm exploring my options. An elevated bed is the best idea so far, but my biggest obstacle is finding the right place. The side of the house is the best spot, but I'm not so excited to have it there. It's out of sight (read: out of mind) and requires me to go to the hottest ugliest part of the house. The A/C units are there, too, and in the summer they just blow out hot air all day long. Oh ya… the biggest problem is probably the rabbits! There are millions of little bunnies all over the place here, and they'd knock out any glimmer of a garden as soon as I put it in the ground! So, I'll keep reading and see how or if I'll go for it.

So, about the backyard livestock… I'm thinking of raising hens. J Apparently it isn't hard at all, and they don't need too much room. I'm reading about them. I think the city of Plano still doesn't allow for it, so I'll need to do a little more research. I know you can do it in Dallas. I suspect some people in Plano do it. They prefer that the home be on some land instead of how these homes are all close together. I'll just plan for the future! Insha'Allah after we're done with this house we'll finally move and settle into a nice one level home on a couple of acres of land. Abed wants land to build bike jumps, and I want land to do some agriculture on!