I learned recently that there is a small farm about 4 miles from my apartment. In some places this might be normal, but I live smack in the middle of Silicon Valley. We’ve got suburbs and box stores galore, but other than a one acre corn field about 10 miles from here I had no idea there was any sort of farm nearby.

Full Circle Farm is an 11-acre sustainable, educational farm nestled in the heart of Silicon Valley.

It’s a really cool idea: they’ve leased land from the school district to create a fully organic working farm. They have an educational garden where the sixth graders from the local middle school learn about organic gardening and some of the produce from the farm even ends up in the school cafeteria. I believe we need a lot more of these.

The garden is maintained mostly by volunteers. And so today I volunteered. I blocked out 2 hours and headed over. I started the morning picking broccoli and deflowering it (as in picking off flowers so that the plant doesn’t decide to end its production cycle… what did you think I meant? tsk, tsk.).

I spent the rest of the morning planting a bajillion cauliflower plants. Well, maybe it was only 30. I got my hands in the dirt. I was outside in the sun. And I helped out on a project I believe in. I can’t think of a better way to spend my morning.

You’re supposed to get dirty when you’re in the garden, right?

I subscribe to a lot of blogs, and thanks to laziness and procrastination, I get really behind on reading them. There are times that I wonder why I don’t just unsubscribe to most of them if I can’t keep up. But then there are days like today when I have the time to catch up on my reading and I find so many interesting things out there. You may find this surprising, but many of these blogs have nothing to do with food. So today I thought I’d give you a short tour of some of the other things that fill my mind when I’m not dreaming of all of the delicious ways to enjoy food.

I don’t obsess and I don’t preach to others about being green, eco-, and natural, but I do try to take small steps toward a greener and healthier lifestyle. Examples from the last year include taking reusable shopping bags with me always (or as close to always as possible), switching to an all-natural lip balm (my current favorite is Weleda Everon Lip Balm), and giving up paper towels at my apartment (probably the most extreme-sounding step I’ve taken but surprisingly easy. If you’re interested in how I did it, let me know in the comments). So in an effort to find other little steps I can take as well as just stay current, I subscribe to blogs like ecosalon and Lighter Footstep. Here are a few of the highlights from my backlog of eco-reading:

Organic, Eco & Vegan Lipsticks - I don’t wear much lipstick as it stands but I like the idea of having one that I can feel good about wearing

Eco-friendly giveaways & deals - One of the issues with shopping for the “eco-friendly” products is that at most stores these products are priced higher than the mainstream items. This link at ecosalon lists out several saving tips for online eco-shopping.  My favorite example: Seventh Generation products – buy one, get 50% off the second.

Handbags born of old leather jackets - I love this. More for the inspiration than anything (I love to see people and companies reuse things creatively). Seeing as how I’m nearly “funemployed” (check out this article about others choosing funemployment from the LA Times), the bags are kind of pricey to me, but not more than most handbags these days. If I were going to splurge though, I’d take a good look at their bags first. 

Then there are those times when my creativity needs an outlet but my thighs and bum need a break from the cupcakes so I turn my energies to crafts: sewing, paper, knitting, … Michael’s and Joann’s are like drugs to me. Hello, my name is Patricia and I’m a craftoholic. So to get a quick fix without leaving home and endangering my wallet, I turn to several crafty blogs. A few of my favorites are Angry Chicken (and her apron blog Tie One On), Sew Mama Sew, and Crazy Aunt Purl (she just seems real… four cats and all). Here are a few of the projects that caught my eye today:

Cute invitations to print out - Sending paper invitations kind of go against my preference to be greener, but these are really cute. My favorite part is the petal closure. These are simple and adorable, so if I were going to send paper invitations I’d give these serious consideration.

Ruffled summer shirt - Easy, breezy,… cover girl. Oh wait, that may be trademarked. It’s definitely cute though. And I’ll bet you could adjust the pattern to make a little girl version too.

Just in case you are still with me, one last link…

Four myths about staying hydrated debunked - Apparently you don’t have to drink eight glasses of water a day. I feel liberated. And oddly refreshed.

I live in an apartment complex and from time to time, a neighbor leaves “junk” near the dumpster. For example, just the other day someone left a tray with matching stand. It looked like it was made of wicker and wood (bamboo or made to look like bamboo), and it looked pretty well used. I’m in a mode of not taking on more stuff. I have a lot of stuff. But I thought and thought about that tray and finally decided it could make a nice little bar table for parties. So I went outside to nab it, but it was gone. That’s what I get for hesitating.

On a different occasion, I did not hesitate. And now I am the owner of a cast iron skillet in need of re-seasoning. 

I love cast iron. The way it cooks. The way it looks – rustic and rugged. And durable. If cared for properly it can last for generations. This skillet is the same size as the one I already have, but I couldn’t leave it sitting there. So I brought it home with me with the intent of showing it some love. But I’ve never actually seasoned cast iron myself before.  So… I’ve been putting it off.  

But now Dan has a cast iron skillet in his camping gear that after our last camping trip also needs to be re-seasoned. I thought I’d do them both at once. Does anyone have any tips for seasoning cast iron?

I don’t usually do anything in particular to celebrate Earth Day, but I have been making small changes to my habits over the last few years to green my life.  Things like using reusable shopping bags, reducing my consumer tendencies, and finding creative ways to reuse things.  Like this bag.  It’s made from fused plastic shopping bags.  Originally it was meant to be my lunch bag, but it has become an all-purpose almost purse for me because it holds everything from my water bottle to a book to keys to pens and small notebooks and of course, my iphone.  I keep thinking I’ll make more of these and put them on Etsy but I have been baking more than sewing lately.  (Although with this heat wave that may be changing soon).

Anyhow, I had a small pile of Amazon boxes and Dan had several more unwanted boxes. And rather than throw them out or send them to be recycled, I decided to reuse them.  I saw this project from Design Sponge a few months ago and decided to give it a shot.  My cats love the corrugated cardboard scratchers from Trader Joe’s so why not?  Honestly, I think my cats would have been happy if I had left the boxes intact.  I mean, my cats love boxes.

But I broke the boxes down and cut them into 5″ strips.

Making sure to cut through the “honey comb” in the cardboard (not with it)…

 Then I rolled it up, taped it. Rolled, taped.  Rolled taped. And on and on.  You really need to have a little OCD to work on a project like this. [ If I were to do it again, I would spread it across a few evenings rather than trying to get it all done in 1 sitting. ] 

Once it was about the size of the cat bed that Cookie loves, I called it done and put some colorful paper along the outside to spruce it up.

Granted I know that making a cat scratcher from Amazon boxes is not the biggest thing one can do for Earth Day. But I like to think every little bit helps.

What are you doing for Earth Day?

Last week I told you about my artichoke disaster that ended in a horribly burnt pot.  I am happy to report that after a little vinegar and baking soda magic, it is as good as new:

The best part?  It didn’t require elbow grease or harsh chemicals or super-scratchy scrubbers.  Nope, I just followed these instructions on e-how.  Yep, just baking soda, vinegar, and a little patience and all of that char came off easily.  In the e-how instructions it says to bring a pot of water with a bit of dishwashing liquid to a boil, but I didn’t find this to be effective at all.  But soaking it with a baking soda-water paste and then adding a vinegar-water solution and heating it and soaking that overnight was magic.  I’m not sure you need to soak it overnight because the char bits came off just from boiling it.

Anyway, now for a roundup…

* These oatmeal cookie pancakes from Joy the Baker look divine.  I seriously wanted some this morning.  I’m a little unsure about putting raisins in my pancakes but I think that’s just one of my things.  I don’t dislike raisins, I just don’t like the idea of raisins sometimes. shrug.

* I am seriously in a meat mood lately.  I don’t know if it’s because it’s almost summer and summer to me means barbecue and grilling… and ribs.  Mmm.  But these are the things that really jumped out at me this week:

- Lamb barbacoa from the Homesick Texan.  Yum.  That taco looks good enough to eat.  And then eat another.  Maybe wash it down with a little cerveza and then have another.

- So this recipe is from David Lebowitz.  And it’s from 2007.  But I just read it today so it’s new to me.  It is a recipe for carnitas.  Which is my absolute favorite… well, if you’re talking about Mexican food.  A little crunchy crust on the outside and tender pork on the inside.  Mmm.  Burrito.

- And last, but certainly not least… another older post.  This one is from 2008 and Smitten Kitchen.  Dry rub ribs.  Can I tell you how much I miss good ribs?  It’s not that I haven’t had good ribs in California, I just haven’t had good dry rub ribs.  I like the mopped style ribs just fine.  But a good dry rubbed rib… it’s pork nirvana.  I seriously need to stop drooling over these recipes and go make some ribs.