Cabin Crafted

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  • Too chilly to garden . . .

    but not to plan and start. Amazingly, UPS showed up today with the hydroponic seed started that I just purchased 2 days ago and that got me in the mood to get busy, indoors. I set it up to make sure the light, pump, and fan all worked, but I have to await the ordered seed to arrive.

    After the tomato seeds arrive and grow to transplant size, the new garden will stay beside the herb garden on the counter and will be sown with salad mix and spinach for when the weather gets too hot for it to be grown outdoors. Since it is a 12 cell garden, I may start half and wait a few weeks to start the second half so there is a continuous year round supply of fresh salad greens. After the set up and testing, I pulled the mint plant from the unit that Son2 and family gave me for Christmas and put it in a pot because it was taking over the garden and it’s roots were beginning to come up in the holes the other herbs were in. Since I use a lot of basil in cooking and this is a particularly good one, the same that I put in the garden last year, I started a second basil plant in that hole. While I was prepping, I started a small flat of salad mix and some spinach seed that will go in the garden when it has enough size on it and can be protected from cold nights.

    Last night I sat down with the garden plan from last year, planned out the planting sequence for this year on graph paper, including the new beds that need to be created. I did get 4 bags of Black Kow yesterday when we got the straw to clean the hen’s coop, but I didn’t get that bed started. I really want to frame the boxes and not just use open beds, but haven’t gone out looking for them.

    I have grown very fond of Sweet Thai basil in the hydroponic herb garden, so today I ordered some seed for it and for the popcorn I will plant when it is warm enough.

    We did return to Rural King yesterday and they replaced two more chicks and discounted any more that I wanted to purchase, so I replaced 3 of the Buff Orpingtons and the Maran that died, plus added 2 Marans. One of the Buffs didn’t survive the night, but the rest look like they are doing well so far and there seems no issue having added them to the week old chicks.

    The new ones are smaller, it is amazing how much they grow in a week. There are 15 chicks in the brooder, 4 Buff Orpingtons, 5 Midnight Marans, and a mix of 6 Easter eggers, Olive eggers, and NH Reds. Because they are still so young and because the nights are still going down into the 20’s, they are still in the basement with the heat lamp on them, though I notice that the week old ones are staying farther away from the heat source already. I will switch it out with the heat table when I find most of them sleeping away from it.

    The hen’s coop got a good cleaning yesterday, adding two wheel barrows of spoiled hay to the compost pile that is building for next year’s soil supplementation.

    My planning mindset, sent me to Staples website to order a couple of binders, dividers, and storage pockets and I have set up a reliable system to use with my spreadsheets to keep track of Cabincraftedshop.com. I thought I was organized in the past, but had a stress filled day when we were preparing our taxes because some info wasn’t handy. I don’t want that to happen again, so there is a place for everything and I can lay my hands on it easily. The second binder was for my garden plan and reference sheets, again, so I can find it when I need it. It has a section for granddaughter’s garden as well. I’m not quite sure why I need paper seed catalogs except to create wish lists, because I buy all of my seed from a company here in Virginia when possible and if not, one of two others, and all of them are easily accessible online. Now that all the seed is ordered and sorted out with Daughter, I will recycle this year’s catalogs. I wish there was a way to secure my Square Foot Garden book in the binder so it was all in one place.

    I think all 8 remaining adult hens are finally laying. I got 4 or 5 eggs every day this week and just pulled 6 from the nesting box and I think I disturbed one hen who was about to lay, so there may be a 7th when I go out to lock them in tonight. It is nice to be getting eggs directly from the hen house and not having to buy them at the Farmer’s Market.

  • Cleaning Week

    I took advantage of the beautiful evening last night and in the last hour of daylight, I removed the 3 half barrels from the walled garden, transplanted the plants that were beginning to come up in them directly into the garden. One at a time, the barrels were hoisted over the low stone wall and put in the garden cart to move across the yard to the vegetable/fruit garden. The wooden half barrels that are now 15-16 years old and were “containing” the raspberries were rotting away, the bottoms were gone and the slats rotted more than half way up. Only the metal rings were sort of holding them together. Though it really isn’t the right time of year, I know that killing raspberries is like trying to get rid of a guest who overstayed their welcome, so I dug them out of the rotting barrels, thinned them, pruned back the canes that were old and dry and shortened some that were so long they draped over the hot wire on the top of the fence. The wooden barrels were moved aside, weeds and volunteers that had come up between them were pulled and the three plastic ones set in place. I removed about half the soil from each of them, divided up the rooted canes and planted a third in each barrel, adding back enough soil to hold them in place. I’m seriously thinking about putting a tomato cage in each barrel to hold the canes more upright.

    The one barrel closest to the camera is still semi sound with a bottom in it and I may move it back to the walled garden and set it on the stone wall to replace the plastic one that has the bird feeder pole planted in it. That one is filled with soil and rocks to keep it from tipping over in the wind and the wooden one is heavier, especially if half filled with soil and rocks piled on top. The remaining two would be fun to learn to rebuild, there is another in pieces behind the house that isn’t rotted out, but fell apart.

    Today isn’t quite as warm as yesterday, but still dry and clear. The trips into the garden last night revealed that the weeds have a head start. I should spend an hour or so each dry day with the hoe and see if I can beat them back before it is too late. We need to go out to get a bale of straw for cleaning the coop so maybe I will get a couple bags of Black Kow compost and lay the cardboard for the bed where the mint grew and was fought all last summer. That would be a good bed to plant potatoes in this year.

    We still have about a week of clear drier weather with mild days and cold nights, so it would be a good time to start getting the garden cleaned up to plant the peas and onions mid March. I really need a good load of wood chips to put down over new cardboard between the beds. And now that the chickens don’t have the run of the garden, the mesh over the garlic can be removed as can the fence around the asparagus bed.

    The morning was begun with cleaning the chick’s brooder box. They have been here a week now and it was time. As they grow, that task will have to be performed a few times a week. I didn’t lose any last night, but one is standing away from the other, less active, and not as large. I suspect she will fail too, which will bring me down to 9 out of 19, not very good odds. Early on my chicken adventure, I found a gal in Floyd that raised Buff Orpingtons and two years I got healthy, strong, several week old chicks from her, but I can’t find her information anymore and I haven’t seen her advertise on Craigslist in a few years. I could go back to Rural King with my receipts and get a few more. At $3 each, the loss so far is $30 worth of chicks, though they did replace 4 so far. I am unsure about adding ones that are a week younger to the brooder. Chickens tend to pick on the smaller, weaker ones and I don’t think that behavior begins this young.

    Last night while browsing the internet, I found a 12 pod hydroponic starter garden with light for a reasonable price. Since I want strong determinate tomatoes for DD and GD’s garden, I ordered the starter and the seed. They should be here by mid week and I will get a dozen tomatoes started. She will get 3 of each variety, total of 6, I will plant the other 6 and see what else I can find when the garden center offers them in late spring to give me the rest I will plant, usually about 9 or 10 tomato plants provide enough tomatoes for our canned tomatoes and sauces for a year. Once the starts have some size, I will put them in 4″ pots in a transparent crate that can be moved in and out of the sun on the back deck and indoors at night until time to plant the in the ground and I will start some salad greens in the hydroponic garden on the kitchen counter then. Last year I planted Thai, Serrano, Jalapeno, and bell peppers. The Thai peppers were so prolific that I still have a half gallon jar of dried peppers after giving away strings to Son 1, DD, and a friend, so I won’t plant them this year. I can the Jalapenos for DH and make a Sriracha style sauce with some of them and the Serranos, so they will be in the garden and I want some bell peppers. I only got 2 or 3 small peppers last year from the plants, I think the marigolds overshadowed them before they got good sized. Now that DD and GD’s garden plan is done and given to them, I need to work on my own. I need two more 4 by 8′ beds and a 4 X 4′ bed with new cardboard and mulch between them. A good load of compost to fill the two new larger beds, the smaller one will go where last year’s compost pile was, so it just needs to be raked on a mound until the box is built around it then raked smooth in the new box. It is nice to be able to get outside a little. I know winter isn’t over, our last frost date isn’t until Mother’s Day, but it is time to get things going.

  • You can smell it in the air

    Spring is coming. Today we delivered the Garden planner and seed to DD and GD. GD was delighted at her binder with a simplified plan, companion planting guide, square foot planting sheet, and when it is safe to plant sheet. After going through DD’s old seed and combining some seed packages, we took a walk out to their 3 boxes from last year to discuss the best arrangement for the new 3 boxes they plan to add. It is a glorious, sunny, mild day, a delight to be outside.

    Yesterday morning, as I was adding water to my hydroponic herb garden and trimming some of the herbs, I took a picture of it for Son2 and his family that gave it to me for Christmas. I am thoroughly enjoying the fresh herbs in cooking and salads and drying dill and mint as I can’t keep up with them.

    As I worked with it, it occurred to me that a large version of it would be the perfect seed starter for the tomatoes and peppers for the garden and could be used to grow lettuce and spinach in winter and when it is too hot outdoors in the summer. DH suggested I put it on my wish list and he could get it for me for next Christmas.

    As I was preparing to lock up the hens last night, one of the Welsummers is almost always the last to go in the coop. She stood there looking up the ramp and as usual, I was amused by the pantaloons that breed wears.

    After thinking that I had turned the corner on chick loss as they all seemed healthy and active yesterday, I found the second Maran this morning, so there will be no chocolate brown eggs. In talking with DH about it, I told him, I could have ordered directly from the hatchery if I wanted a dozen of the same breed, but since everything I have ordered in the past few months has been delayed by the USPS for anywhere from a few days to a few weeks beyond the original tracking delivery date, I feared that chicks would meet the same fate and not survive the trip. That is why I purchased from Rural King, but 9 out of 19 dying is not good. I don’t know whether to go back with my receipts and see if they will replace at least a few of the 5 they haven’t already replaced or accept that I have what I have and just keep some or all of the older hens too. I am hoping that the nights will soon stop dropping into the 20’s and start seeing more feathers on the chicks so they can be moved to the garage. I really don’t like having them in the house, even in the basement.

    I need to get a new bale of straw and do a coop cleaning. In about 6 weeks, I will have to thoroughly clean and sanitize it before I can move the chicks to it. Either they or the older hens will have to use an old style feeder bucket until the two flocks can be on the same feed and in the same coop. I really like the 5 gallon feeder I made with the pvc elbows, but I think the chicks wouldn’t be able to reach the feed in it and they need to stay on starter/grower until they are at least 16 weeks old.

  • A New Month and New Challenges

    March roared in like a lion with strong wind, heavy rain, dark and gloomy. The rain eventually stopped and yesterday instead of feeling like late spring was more seasonal temperatures. The wind calmed only to pick back up last night, rattling screens and disturbing sleep. In the strength of yesterday’s storm, the HVAC technician came to do our semiannual servicing. We always need a new filter, living on a dirt driveway off a dirt road and having two big dogs in the house. The system is now 15 years old and the capacitor was degrading. He said it might be okay for another year, but it might go out at any time and leave us in need of a service call, so we had it replaced. I wanted to joke and ask him how we would get back to 1955 if the flux capacitor failed, but feared he wouldn’t get the joke.

    I finished February with 9 squares from my January and February breed blanket project yarn. All 9 were knit in the last half of the month when I decided I didn’t like the way they looked in mitered squares and all the January and start of February knitting were ripped apart.

    Since the March challenge requires silk in the blend and can’t be used in the blanket, the one I have chosen is nice colors, so my breeds for the blanket are undyed. I am spinning white Dorset Horn and dark brown Coopworth, enough to do 6 more squares I hope by the end of the month.

    This is the BFL/Silk braid I am doing for March. I think it will look lovely woven when it is done.
    My spinning start for the two challenges for March.

    The other challenge has been the chicks. I think they were in transit too long in too changing weather. My initial purchase of 12 had a 1/3 loss in 24 hours. They were replaced and 3 more added for a total of 19 chicks and only 11 of them are still alive. I lost most of the Buff Orpingtons that I wanted to build my flock around this year, and I have lost a Maran, an NH Red, and an Easter egger or Olive egger, I can’t tell them apart at this point. I am almost afraid to say this, but none died last night and all look good this morning. I hope they continue to thrive. Maybe I will keep a couple of the mature hens to round out the flock to a dozen or 14. The coop can handle that many, though the older hens will be 3 years old in December and their production has already begun falling lower than their first two years, they will still provide a few eggs. I still enjoy raising them.

    In a couple of weeks, I need to get the onions and the peas planted, but the garden is so wet right now. The rest of this week looks drier with some sun and moderate days, but nights in the 20’s. Next week looks more promising, so maybe I can get it done before the next round of rain begins. I wonder if the spring rains are going to provide another March challenge as the garden is started, paths re mulched, and new beds created. I need to finish granddaughter’s garden plan and get the binder for it so she can get her onions and peas planted too.

  • It is so fickle

    The weather this time of year is so unpredictable. Mid week it was spring like, just a light sweater needed, then it snowed on Friday, but it is gone already. It rained off and on overnight Friday, most of Saturday, and is still raining, hard at times. It was supposed to reach 58 yesterday and drop only to 52 last night. It didn’t get there, but I think the current temperature is supposed to hold overnight and reach near 70 today. But we have rain in the forecast for days and they still haven’t opened our culvert at the top of the driveway, since my report in December, my call in January, and another report this month. I may have to try to dig it out with the tractor bucket which never produces good results, even if I get the opening in the right place, the pipe itself will be at least partially blocked and I lack the strength to hand dig it out.

    The 5th chick, the one I didn’t think was healthy, did not survive, however the remaining 14 are hale and hearty, active, eating, drinking, and trying to see if they can jump over the sides of the brooder. I suspect that I will have to put a lid on the box sooner than I expected. Two of the little replacements look like little penguins, dark on top, white on the bottom.

    Two are uniformly charcoal gray. The adults are going to be so different from the current flock. Speaking of them, egg production is finally up a bit with the lengthening days. Yesterday, I got 5 eggs, two olive, three brown, so more of the hens are laying again. That is the most I have gotten since before the molt last fall.

    I finished another square for the blanket and have it wet blocked, and another nearly done. One more and I will have used all the yarn spun for it in January and February and will have 9 blocks knit, blocked, and labelled. Tomorrow starts a new month and new breeds to spin. Since the March challenge requires a silk content, it can’t be part of the blanket and is beautiful blues and purples, so I think I will spin white breeds for the blanket challenge. There won’t be a third challenge this month, it was just too complicated to keep up with and I felt like I was not fully participating to skip over all the conversation in the thread and they were a very chatty bunch. If I can’t engage fully, I will just stand away. The Jenkins group I have come to “know” and enjoy the chatter a couple times a day. There will be more time to spin, knowing that soon the garden is going to demand more of my time and spinning will become an evening or passenger in the car activity only with less time indoors to commit to it. Enough will get done to create a square or two for the blanket, but not enough to get the entire blanket done by the end of the year.

  • Rough Night, New Day

    We got home with the dozen new chicks yesterday after lunch, put them in the brooder, and I could tell we would lose a couple. By late afternoon, the reaction to my vaccine was kicking in, but I was still functional and got dinner made, eaten, and cleaned up and a final walk to the basement to check on the chicks. Two had died. Not totally unexpected with any new batch of little birds, but still disheartening.

    Last night was not a comfortable night. The vaccine had produced the expected sore shoulder, but also a royal headache and body aches. I slept fitfully, getting up every few hours to dose on the alternating Tylenol and Ibuprofen, and the last dose allowing me to sleep in until about 8 a.m. By the time I was up, it was mostly just a headache, one that with meds I could deal with. And the trip to the basement showed that two more chicks had died overnight. That brought my dozen down to 8 and half of my Buff Orpingtons were victims.

    The weather app, indicated that we were going to get snow, again, beginning around 2 p.m., eventually overnight, turning to rain. We were low on some grocery store supplies and decided to go back to Rural King to see about replacing the chicks. It turned out to be the same guy was in that area and he stated he was replacing the 4 free, however, there were no more Buff Orpingtons. I asked him what the typical attrition rate was and he said that usually it was very low, but he had lost about 1/3 of the ones that came in yesterday. They had hatched and shipped on Monday and didn’t arrive until Thursday morning. I agreed to taking other breeds for the 4 and add a couple more in case I lost anymore, I would still have a dozen. The coop is going to produce an Easter basket of egg colors. The Buffs and New Hampshire Reds lay light brown eggs and the Americaunas lay blue eggs. I came home with another Americauna as that was one that died, 2 Olive eggers, 2 Easter eggers, and 2 Marans, so dark chocolate eggs, Olive green eggs, and the possibility of pink, green, or blue from the Easter eggers. When I put them in the brooder, I could see that one of them was wobbly and tonight it looks like she won’t last the night, but there will be 14 young hens come mid summer producing a variety of egg colors.

    About the time they were settled in, my energy faded and a long nap followed while it did indeed snow.

    The driveway has stayed clear, so I expect the roadways have also and when I went out just before dinner to check for eggs, food and water for the locked up hens, there was sleet mixed in with the snow.

    The February spinning challenges are winding down, so much of what was spun has been plyed, January and February’s yarns reknit into 6 blanket squares with another on the needles and yarn for two more spun and plied. And some spinning of other fibers begun.

    The nap rejuvenated me enough to put dinner on and work on granddaughter’s garden plan some. I hope to get the plan and some seed to her in time to do the early spring planting in a couple of weeks. As I couldn’t remember what I had done with the copies of what I gave her last year, daughter, who was apparently more organized was able to come up with it and send me a scan back. Granddaughter is going to be given a notebook with the reference pages and the plans from last year and this year so she can keep her garden history. DD and GD are planning to double their garden in size this year and add a few vegetables they didn’t grow last year. I am making a duplicate copy of her plan as the reference pages, I also use and I will have the information I shared with her.

    I think this is going to be an early night, I still have no energy and a bit of a headache. Tomorrow I should be fine, except for the sore shoulder.

  • It’s Done

    First thing this morning, the second vaccine dose was administered. Now I wait to see if I will react and how, but any reaction is better than COVID.

    Since the vaccine site is two towns over, we did a side loop over to Rural King afterward to get chicks. Half a dozen Buff Orpington baby pullets, 3 New Hampshire Reds, and 3 Americaunas. One of the little Americaunas isn’t looking great, but that is why I buy a dozen chicks. I will keep the two Oliver eggers to add back into the flock when these little ones are big enough to fend for themselves. I will have light brown, dark brown, blue, green, and 1 pink egg layers.

    The one that didn’t look good was cold, so I removed one heat table that they were ignoring and added the heat lamp and put the little one under it to warm up. It is no longer cold, but doesn’t have the energy of the others. We will see how she does.

    I finished another square of the blanket last night, washed it and blocked it. I finished plying more of the Targhee for another square while I stood in the ski lift like line for my turn at the vaccine center this morning. On our way home, we picked up some quick soups in case I’m not up to meal prep tomorrow.

    Socially distanced spinning on the go.

  • New beginnings

    The giant rolling storage crate was pulled from the root cellar and filled with pine shavings, two heat tables, a feeder, and water in preparation for the chicks. But the nasty weather last week slowed things down and chicks didn’t arrive at Tractor Supply (either of them within 30 minutes of home) on Monday. On Tuesday, one got 3 breeds, not ones I want. A call to Rural King on Monday put me on hold for more than 5 minutes, answered again by the front end desk and again transferred and another hold until I hung up. We drove over there and they had bunnies, no chicks. But Rural King was supposed to get several hundred chicks in this morning, and they are supposed to be getting what I want. If the CDC is correct, I should be close to 90% protected with my first vaccine given two weeks ago, so I will mask up and go get babies. (Turns out the info I was given was incorrect and they don’t come in until tomorrow, so I guess it will happen tomorrow instead.) When I start a new flock, I always begin with a dozen, though I know that they won’t all survive the native predators and neighborhood domestics (though that hasn’t happened in a few years). The chicks will start in the basement for a couple of weeks. As the winter fades and the chicks begin to feather out, they will be moved to the garage until they are old enough to move outdoors. The 8 old hens will move in a few weeks from the coop to “The Chicken Palace” a huge A frame structure and they will be allowed more free range time as the replacements move to the coop to learn where they live and while they gain enough size to run around outdoors.

    The chicken palace with some of our deer visitors and the ever present stinkbug photo bombing. This is an older shot, we don’t have green grass right now.
    I’m ready for them if anyone every gets any in stock.

    And tomorrow morning, bright and early, I get my second vaccine. I’m prepared for the sore arm, the possible flu like symptoms for a day or so in hopes that it will make me feel safer when I do have to or want to go out in the world for more than a woods walk, drive thru sandwich, or curbside pickup of supplies.

    My breed blanket project continues. There are 6 eight inch blocks completed and enough of some of the already spun yarns to knit a couple more before the next breed comes up next month. Today, a sampler box of fiber arrived, it has 12 breeds, some of which are natural undyed duplicates of some I have dyed and one I have already knit, but they will be used as well to add more squares to make the blanket large enough to be a real wool blanket.

    I am finishing up the last of the official February fiber and a sample I got with my March fiber that because it is blended with silk can’t be part of the blanket. Now to decide which one will go in the blanket next.

  • Challenges

    I have mentioned before that I participate in a couple of spinning challenges during the year. For the past year, my focus has been with a social media group that spins on the Jenkins Turkish spindles that I love to use. The spindles let me spin finer yarn and slow my production down to about 4 ounces, 1 skein a month. In January two different challenges were initiated with the group, one of them a year long challenge. The monthly challenges, most months allow double dipping with the year long one. The year long challenge is a Breed Blanket Project to pick a single pure breed of sheep wool and spin enough on a Jenkins spindle, to knit a square that at the end of the year will be sewn together to produce a blanket at least big enough for a baby blanket. I decided that I would tackle two breeds a month and try to make a blanket large enough for an extra cover on the bed. Most of the wool that I have gathered are natural colors, whites, fawn, gray, and darker browns. A few are pure breeds that are dyed braids. I started the blanket using one pattern, but didn’t care for the way it looked.

    Mostly, I didn’t care that each block was attached as I knit which meant that I had to be more careful of planning ahead, and realized that I had started with darker ones which might end up with the blanket very unbalanced with the colors. Then, one of my favorite pattern designers offered a sale on their patterns and I fell in love with one of them. This meant taking apart everything that I had already done and rewinding the wool into individual balls. The new pattern is a center out square which has required that I learn a new skill, doing a pinhole cast on. I finished square 4 of reknitting it and I still have to pull up a slow motion lesson on how to do it. Maybe I will eventually get the point where the video is no longer necessary to get started, but I really like the blocks that the pattern produces and each block only takes a couple of hours to knit. I hope by the end of the month to be back where I started, but the new blocks are 8 inches square instead of 10 so I will have to knit more blocks to get the size I want.

    Next month’s monthly challenge won’t allow me to double dip as the fiber has to be silk or blended with silk, so I may not be able to get as many done for the blanket, but the requirement is only for one. If I have to finish it after the end of the year to make it as large as I want, that will be okay too.

    There will be a lot more sewing the squares together in the end, but I can lay them out in a pleasing way to make it work.

    Now on to knitting the three remaining. I got two done yesterday. Next up is the one from yarn in the lower right corner of the first post. It is interesting to see how it looks different in the new squares. The lower left of the two pictures is the same yarn.

  • Soup

    In the winter, I could live entirely on soup. When I got up this morning it was 14f. The sun did finally come out yesterday and began the ice melt. Though the trees are still glistening and glowing, they aren’t totally coated and sagging, but this weekend is cold, bone numbing cold.

    Son 1 sent me a photo a while back, to show off them using the rice bowls we gave them for Christmas, but it was what was in them that caught my eye. He had made an Asian inspired broth and filled it with fancy noodles, vegetables, and a boiled egg. We exchanged messages for me to get the gist of what he had produced. Many nights a week, I prepare Texas born DH the Texas staple foods of red meat and starch, but I don’t care for that, so I started experimenting with Son 1’s soup. Now I make potato soup, lentil soup, and vegetable soup that I can eat on Texas nights, but the broth soup full of healthy goodies really held an appeal and I started playing with it a few times a week. A good chicken or vegetable broth with sauteed onion, garlic, ginger, and a little crushed Szechuan pepper simmered for 10 or 15 minutes to meld the flavors, then the fun begins. I have a bag of super green mix (baby chard, baby spinach, baby kale, and mizuna), various noodles, quinoa, and left over cooked brown rice. A tub of red Miso, a quart jar of Daikon radish kimchee, and the hydroponic garden of fresh herbs all ready for my use. If I use quinoa, I put it in while the broth is simmering so it cooks. Noodles cook in under 5 minutes, and left over brown rice just needs to be warmed. Only one of those is added per batch, but a large handful of the super greens and another of fresh herb clippings are added just long enough to wilt them. A bit of the hot broth is pulled off and mixed with the Miso and added back at the last moment. Sometimes the boiled egg is added to the bowl if I have some made (I generally steam half a dozen or so at a time to add to the pup’s breakfast, so there are often some available for me too). To this can be added some Turmeric, with the ginger and garlic, fighting inflammation. Some kimchee at the last minute so it holds its fermented benefits with the fermented benefits of the Miso and two cups of quick delicious healthy soup is made in only about 15-20 minutes. Sliced mushrooms can be added during the saute phase too.

    And who says soup is only for lunch or dinner. This morning to warm my chilly body, a couple of cups were made, full of antioxidants, anti-inflammatories, and a good warming broth were enjoyed for breakfast.