Tag Archives: Features

Weekend Reading

Posted on October 5, 2012 by Susan | Comments Off

The Peanut Butter Cure Moves From Hospital To Snack Room from Shots, NPR’s health blog.

‘Flight’: A Few Million Little Creatures That Could from NPR, about Flight of the Butterflies, a 3-D IMAX film about the migration of the monarch to sanctuaries like the one Aguado and Brugger came upon in Mexico.

Misdeeds, Not Mistakes, Behind Most Scientific Retractions from Shots, NPR’s health blog.

Portrait of the Artist as a Postman: The strange and secret world of Kermit Oliver. From Texas Monthly.

A Wearable Camera That Photographs Your Entire Life from FastCompany.

An Extra Cheap Way To Get Salt Out Of Water Could Help Make The World Less Thirsty from Fast Company.

Who Wants to Live in a Replica of Disney’s Haunted Mansion? Now’s Your Chance from Jezebel.

Reasons Why You Cannot Be a Bridesmaid from Jezebel. “Also if money is tight and you cant afford to contribute to say the bachelorette party or wont be able to afford a dress etc then L— and Myself don’t have time to deal with that, I’m sorry.” Someone please tell me that this is fake, that there aren’t really people like this in the world. Pretty please?

What did you read this week that made you think?

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Tagged Features, Weekend Reading

The Weekend in Pictures

Posted on October 1, 2012 by Susan | Comments Off

This weekend was crazy busy, even by my standards! First we had two lovely house guests (Hi Julie and Paulette!) who arrived on Thursday.They were the best kinds of guests- fun, helpful and interesting.

On Friday morning, the farrier came to trim Daisy’s and Coconut’s hooves, so I started the morning by encouraging, coaxing and eventually dragging the donkeys into one stall of the barn. Then it was time to round up the sheep and goats, because my friend Emily was coming in the afternoon to shear a few of the sheep and to help me work the entire flock.

Friday was my first time rounding up sheep since I got sick, and let me tell you, those sheep kicked my ass. I flat-out refused to give up, though, and with some help from Amy and Emily, every animal on the farm was wormed and had their hooves trimmed on Friday. I didn’t feel too bad on Saturday but yesterday was pure hell. I was just sore all over and felt 1000-years-old. I also felt proud of myself for not giving up, and happy that my flock is healthy.

On Sunday, Amy and her family came back over to help me take down the garden fences. It was a tough decision to give up the giant kitchen gardens, but I am taking steps to simplify my life, and the garden was the first casualty. I thought it would be sad when it came time to actually do the work, but I honestly felt like the weight of the world was lifting off me. Next year, I will join a local veggie CSA, shop at the farmers market and support my local farmers during vegetable season.

While we worked, Amy’s daughter Neve gleaned what was left to be had in the garden. I love that kid! She was at it for at least an hour, quietly working from plant to plant.

Her take-home included lots of mouse melons, peppers and tomatoes.

Once the fences we gone, we let the ewe and doe flock out to graze in the lawn and garden area. They were happy and contented, which made me feel the same.

In the background of all this madness, I was furiously dyeing yarn in preparation for our big party on October 13. It had been so long since I had time to dye yarn that I had forgotten how enjoyable it is.

All in all, it was a productive, exhausting, laughter-filled weekend. As always, I was reminded of how lucky I am to have great friends.

How was your weekend?

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Tagged Features, In Pictures

Weekend Reading

Posted on September 28, 2012 by Susan | Comments Off

Makers unite – the revolution will be home-made from BBC News.Hmm…catchy headline.

Is A 15-Year Old Texan Girl Driving This Ultra Rare Lamborghini To High School? from Jalopnik.

Neil Young Comes Clean from The New York Times. Great article.

The New New Girl: Mindy Kaling Promotes Herself Out of The Office and Into The Mindy Project from New York Magazine. I heart Mindy Kaling.Have you seen her new show? It’s really good, very well written.

Oh My God Please Stop Taking Your Wedding Pictures in the Middle of the Street from Jezebel. Yes. Please do stop.

12 Proposed U.S. States That Didn’t Make the Cut from Mental Floss.

Poverty Informs J.K. Rowling’s New Novel For Adults from NPR Books.

Comfort Food Is Real: Scientists Discover ‘Good Mood Foods’ from GOOD. I KNEW IT!

The Solar Charging Kit for Africa You Want for Your Own Home from GOOD.

Oldest Message in a Bottle Found from Discovery News.

Sea Otters: An Unlikely (But Adorable) Soldier In The Fight Against Climate Change from Co.EXIST.

The Miracle Of The Levitating Slinky from NPR.

Chicago Tylenol Murders: An Oral History from Chicago Magazine. Can you believe it’s been 30 years since this happened?

The Great New England Vampire Panic from Smithsonian Magazine. “Two hundred years after the Salem witch trials, farmers became convinced that their relatives were returning from the grave to feed on the living.”

Did you read anything that made you think this week?

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Tagged Features, Weekend Reading

This Morning in Pictures

Posted on September 27, 2012 by Susan | Comments Off

Young donkeys in love, under the watchful eye of a bovine chaperone.

Little Stella is turning into quite a bruiser.

Sweet Luna. She is getting so thin from nursing Stella! Lucky for her, it’s nearly time to ween the calf.

Marco and Orzo, the two puppies we are not keeping. Both are going to great farms as soon as their fencing is completed.

I’m not entirely sure why Charley is sporting a mohair toupee…

Sam

Bertie, giving me a skeptical look. She is the most suspicious animal I’ve ever known! If I offered her a handful of grain, she would take it and then immediately start looking around for the proper authorities to report me to.

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Tagged Features, In Pictures

This Morning in Pictures

Posted on September 27, 2012 by Susan | Comments Off

Young donkeys in love, under the watchful eye of a bovine chaperone.

Little Stella is turning into quite a bruiser.

Sweet Luna. She is getting so thin from nursing Stella! Lucky for her, it’s nearly time to ween the calf.

Marco and Orzo, the two puppies we are not keeping. Both are going to great farms as soon as their fencing is completed.

I’m not entirely sure why Charley is sporting a mohair toupee…

Sam

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Tagged Features, In Pictures

New Feature: Yarned by You! – Chadwick Gallery

Posted on September 26, 2012 by Lauria | Comments Off

Hi everyone!

Lauria here. You might know me as one of the moderators on the JMF Ravelry Group. You might know me as the test knitting coordinator for Juniper Moon Farm’s Spring/Summer and Fall/Winter 2012 yarn lines. You might know me as the cover girl for the Sabine Booklet:

You might not know me from Adam!

But you’re about to, because I cajoled Susan into letting me do a series of blog posts because I’m constantly looking at and favorite-ing projects on Ravelry made with Juniper Moon Farm Yarn. There are so many gorgeous projects, they just have to be shared! So every Wednesday I’m going to post some of my favorite projects found on Ravelry. (All names listed are Ravelry names and the photos will take you to their Ravelry page.)

As the weather is starting to get cool in New England, I thought it would be the perfect time to take a look at Chadwick. In case you missed it, Chadwick is 60% Merino / 40% Baby Alpaca and 202 yards come in a center pull ball. It’s deliciously soft, airy, and unbelievably warm – perfect for fall knitting and crocheting to wear well into winter.

First up, these Sluggy Bonnets (designed for Chadwick by Tanis Gray and available for free right here!) were knit by jdunsmore

They’re done in the same colors as the original (Swimming Pool, Clear Skies, Clean Sheets), but using one of the contrasting colors as the master color in each hat. You can knit three hats out of three balls by doing this!

Another Sluggy Bonnet, this time done by yarncakes:

I adore these colors (Hannah, Mississippi Mud, Clean Sheets) together, don’t you?

Sheeri made this great Fair Isle V-Neck Sweater (also designed by Tanis Gray specifically for Chadwick) in Clear Skies and Dawn:

I love the added torso length on this sweater, and when I get around to making mine, I’ll be sure to do the same.

This Spiderweb Capelet, knit by subpolka in Hannah, really makes her red hair POP:

Such a pretty openwork pattern and I adore the pom poms! From subpolka: “I ADORE this yarn! Animal fibers typically make my skin crawl, but the Chadwick is sooooooo soft and snuggly.” I would be so sad if animal fibers made my skin crawl! I’m glad that subpolka has at least this yarn to turn to.

This Rocky Coast Cardigan, looks like the perfect thing for mere to be able to layer as the weather changes.

I love the textured stitches and open front. Knit in Mercury, it definitely evokes a rocky coastal sea!

I’m a sucker for a pun, and knitting Mystic Pullover in colorway Swimming Pool and calling the project Swimming Poolover? smelanie88 is clearly my kind of girl!

Check out her project page to see the great side-seam pockets!

Last up this is gorgeous colorwork scarf called Min Ulla knit in Indian Paintbrush and Clean Sheets by MargaretNuovo:

It reminds me of what Susan affectionately calls The $300 Scarf if you were to knit it in two colors instead of all the colors that Chadwick is available in.

Didn’t these women do amazing jobs? There are so many great Chadwick projects on Ravelry, it was really difficult to narrow it down! In fact, you haven’t seen the last of Chadwick, yet!

What are your favorite Chadwick yarnings? Share your projects (or projects you admire!) in the comments below!

You can find Chadwick and the rest of the Juniper Moon Farm Yarns in a LYS near you by clicking here then clicking “find a store,” inputting your zip code and selecting Juniper Moon Farm as the yarn brand.

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Tagged Chadwick, Features, Knitting, Yarned by You

When the going gets tough, the tough make soup!

Posted on September 19, 2012 by Susan | Comments Off

I spent all of Tuesday writing and editing, writing and editing, writing and editing, and making five kinds of soup.

Yes, I am well aware that that sentence makes me sound as if I’ve lost my marbles. I’m okay with it because I’m starting to suspect that irrationality is part of the job description for starting a new magazine.

I’m was just working away, wishing like hell that I had a freezer full of soup so that I could just pop a portion into the microwave and produce something to quiet my growling stomach. Wouldn’t that be lovely? And it would be even nicer if there were several soups to chose from, right? And, of course, the soup would have to be made from scratch, ’cause love is the most nutritious ingredient of them all.

Then I remembered all those vegetables that we harvested on Sunday, just sitting in my kitchen, waiting to find their purpose.

And suddenly, this idea became an idea that must. be. acted. upon. I was positively compelled to drive to the market for missing ingredients and make my dream of a frozen soup wardrobe a reality. I can’t explain it. (Actually, I can. Lack of Sleep + Hunger= 3 Hours of Chopping, Stirring and Vacuum Sealing. It’s science, y’all.)

If you happened to be working at my house tomorrow and you find yourself hankering for a delicious cup of homemade soup, you can have your choice of Chicken, Vegetable, Tomato & Roasted Red Pepper, Roasted Garlic and Curried Carrot & Parsnip.

The Curried Carrot & Parsnip is particularly amazing. It’s also vegan, which makes a nice change for those of us trying to eat less meat. I made the recipe up as I went along and you can totally take liberties with the proportions, depending on how you like your soup, thick or thin, spicy or un.

Curried Carrot and Parsnip Soup

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 large onion, diced medium

1 pound carrots, peeled and chopped into medium dice

1 pound parsnips, peeled and chopped into medium dice

1 glove garlic, minced

1 1/2 -2 teaspoons curry powder

4 cups vegetable stock

salt and pepper to taste

red pepper flakes for garnish

Heat the oil in a large saucepan. Add the vegetables and sauté for five minutes. Add curry powder and stir well. Sauté an addition minute or two to allow the spices to bloom.

Add vegetable stock and simmer until the vegetables are tender. Remove from heat. Using an immersion blender (or working in batches with a traditional blender) puree the soup until it is smooth. Taste and adjust the seasonings.

You can finish this soup with a touch of cream at the end (which would make it decidedly un-vegan) but remember to heat the soup gently after the addition of cream. You only want to heat it through. (If you are starting a magazine- and therefore making this soup for the freezer at two a.m.- do not add the cream until you are ready to re-heat and serve.)

EDITED TO ADD: I just realized that making soup when I am stressed is what I do. Remember the great “Your donkey isn’t pregnant” French onion soup of January, 2012?

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Tagged Features, food

Harvest Sunday

Posted on September 17, 2012 by Susan | Comments Off

Yesterday the entire Karaz family came over to the farm to check on me (the treatment for my HLA-B27-associated Uveitis has temporarily rendered me about 80% blind) and to spend some time at the farm. While they were here, Amy and the girls, and my other friend Amy, did a little garden harvesting.

This picture of Oona in her Burberry pants is just for the members of the Oona fan club. You know who you are!

It was one of those lovely afternoons when the weather is so glorious that you can’t imagine why you don’t just live outside. The kids were in a hilarious mood, competing with each other to pick the most tomatoes, the ripest pepper, the biggest parsnip.

Neve took the prize for largest parsnip. The prize? A giant parsnip!

Meanwhile, Paul mowed my lawn and, because he is the nicest man in the world, went home and brought back an enormous backhoe to get all the compost out of the front pasture and make it all level and ready for grass seeds.

I can’t begin to tell you how lucky I got when I moved into the town Amy and Paul lived in.They are just kind and decent people and when I say I don’t know what I would do with out them, I mean that quite literally. I will never be able to repay their kindness to me.

I did, however, send them home with a bushel of peppers and 20 pounds of parsnips as a small token.

P.S. My vision should be restored in a couple days- it’s already worlds better!

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Tagged Features, gardening

Weekend Reading

Posted on September 14, 2012 by Susan | Comments Off

Ryan Harris, Alaska Fisherman, Survives Day At Sea Adrift In Plastic Bin from The Huffington Post.

Reviving New York Harbor With Oysters: Why Hasn’t This Happened Yet? from The Atlantic Cities.

How Climate Change Could Make Summer Crime Waves Worse from The Atlantic Cities.

Reclaiming the Title of Fastest in the Land from The New York Times. Oh Texas! How I love you and how you embarrass me!

Woman Might Have Luckily Bought a Renoir at a Flea Market for Fifty Bucks from Jezebel. As someone who shops in flea markets all the time, I’d like to know when this going to happen to me.

How to avoid strangers on the bus from Unlikely Words. Last month while I was flying to the West Coast, a man on my plane looked the insistently chatty woman next to him dead in the eye and said, “I’m not friendly.” Then he returned to his newspaper. You’ve got to respect his honesty.

“I have not shot her yet” from Letters of Note. This letter Dorothy Parker wrote to Seward Collins from her hospital bed may be the best thing I’ve ever read. Ever.

The Cottingley Fairies: Five Photos That Fooled the World from History in an Hour. I’ve always loved this story.

Was Van Gogh Color Blind? from Big Think.

How My Mother Disappeared from The New York Times.

I have been so busy this week that I didn’t get much reading done. What did I miss?

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Tagged Features, Weekend Reading

Probably something you would like…

Posted on September 11, 2012 by Susan | Comments Off

These macaroon-shaped Limoge boxes are the sweetest! And only around $13.

Dr. Oz’s Three Step Do-It-Yourself Facelift.

Birdcage Chandelier. Oh my! $125.

Did you know you can adopt a bat at Carlsbad Caverns? It’s only $6.75 (per bat) and all the money goes to help protect the Carlsbad Caverns bat population. (Each bats eat up to 8000 mosquitos per night, y’all. Props to them.)