Ultimate Upcycle - Mirror, Mirror on the wall!

Three years ago - a year after the building of the greenhouse - we had to add about a one foot eave on the barn slant sides of the greenhouse,  We weren't able to get the windows (upcycled of course) to seal, so every time it rained we had water running down the walls!  Not good for my plants, or for the wall wood!


That worked great as a solution to the water problem, but once the green house was full of plants, it started to get a little dark in there.  Everything shaded everything else!  You can see in the above left photo how that eave might make some shade.  So we went into solution mode for that problem.  One of the solutions is mirrors on the ceiling and walls!  Making new openings for windows or changing the blue board out of the ceiling isn't an option right now so we have to use other options.

 The above photo shows a long narrow mirror on the wall of the greenhouse behind some tomato plants.  It helps to reflect the light from the morning, opposite side of the greenhouse back into the room.  None of the mirrors cost me more than $10.00.  Mostly I got them free from people moving and didn't want to deal with them!  Garage sales and thrift stores are also great sources - you can use broken ones even - just use lath to staple the pieces to the wall or ceiling!

This photo shows two of the mirrors on the ceiling of the greenhouse.  This is a shot taken before the plants grew up and obscured the light.  Probably early spring sometime.  So far there are three mirrors on the ceiling and two on the walls.  This has helped greatly but not quite solved my low light problem, especially in winter when it is in short supply. It's also great because some of the mirrors are pretty too!  Because I eventually want to be a year round operation I have to have a way to use natural light so I am only using my off grid solutions when it is truly dark out!  I'm not quite there yet.  Stay tuned to learn how to use tinfoil and space blankets to help the light explode into your dark space!

Chicken Bits!

Here at Wicked Raven we grow a lot of things - one thing we don't grow yet is our own chickens.  We used to have a co-op style coop with a neighbor, but it got to be too much for us as we all work full time (some of us more than one job), most of our kids grew up and moved on, our kids got hurt and had to have physical therapy 30 miles away,  and a critter got in and killed a lot of the chickens!  We will try it again one day when other life things aren't cropping up and we get to spend more time on our farms.

One of the things I love is home made chicken broth.  It is easy to make and is really an upcycle/recycle process the way I do it.  It has less sodium and no goofy fillers or chicken feet parts!  It tastes good and is a crock pot recipe!

When we are making a chicken dish, we clean the chicken and take off the extra fat, skin, and any of the gizzard, neck and tails and we put them in freezer until the time comes to make some broth - or when we have too many "chicken bits" bags in the freezer and they have to go!  We also save the bones from the chicken or if you have a carcass from a roasted chicken - it can all go in the crock or the bits bag.  You can also use turkey.

Start with your bags of chicken bits and your biggest crock pot.  Put the bits in the crock and add 5 quarts of water.  Add 5 stalks of celery diced, 1 whole onion diced, a couple of cloves of smashed garlic,  and about a tablespoon of sea salt.  I don't use much salt in the original broth as I may be adding it to recipes that have salty items - such as sausage or onion soup mix.  It's easier to add more later than have it too salty from the get go.

 Let the whole thing simmer about 8 hours - I usually let it go overnight in the crock pot.  Let it cool and strain the solids out.  Don't discard any chicken meat that may be in there - I always get at least one jar of chicken meat while making broth - don't waste it!

The above photo shows my broth cooking in a large stock pot.  This was a time when I had a lot of chicken bits in the freezer and time to process it all in one batch.

Once the broth is strained, reheat it and pour into the size jars you need, lids and seals on them and process in a pressure canner - quarts for twenty five minutes at 10 pounds of pressure or pints for twenty minutes at 10 pounds of pressure.  If your canning book says something different though - please do follow yours - I have seen differing directions!

Use as you would any chicken broth.  Healthy alternative to the store bought stuff and you know whats in it from beginning to end.  You can process the chicken meat right in the same canner as your broth jars.  Make sure you put the date on the label so you are rotating your broth stock regularly.

Don't be afraid to use other ingredients as well - we have also made beef stock with the fat and "bits" from steaks and such. It was wonderful!  Veggie broth is great as well - Celery tops and carrots work great for this.  Customize your broth to your tastes and have fun with it!