What on Earth is Aquaponics?

A  year ago, I'd have asked the same question.  In fact, when Eric first brought it up, I might have, in exactly that way.

Well, he got to setting up a system, and today we finished it.  So... aquaponics, day 1.

To answer my own question, aquaponics is the use of water and fish - with light - to grow plants.  Basically, it's a nearly self-sufficient ecosystem you can put anywhere.  Ours is in the basement.

We've got 8 goldfish in a 20 gallon tank of plain old water on the floor, with an air stone to oxygenate the water, and some goldfish food.

We've got a pump in with them, that spends half an hour sending water up a PVC pipe to a bed of rocks in a bin up on some cinderblocks, then an hour off to let the rock bed, which acts as the fish tank's filter, drain back into the tank and give the seeds/plants some time without being immersed.

And then the water drains back out through a PVC pipe in the bottom, back into the fish tank.

Above it all is a light fixture with two metal halide bulbs and two T5 bulbs in it.

Into the rock bed, we just sprinkled the seeds!  We've got spinach, mesclun, brussels sprouts, broccoli, yellow pear tomatoes, and kale so far.  We left space in the back to do some beans, peas, and cucumbers.  Apparently, because of how this system is set up, the plants don't need large root systems or a lot of space, and they should grow pretty quickly.

The waste from the fish acts as fertilizer for the plants, while the plants put oxygen and nutrients back into the water for the fish.  All that's needed after that is fish food.  The pump is already set up on a timer, and we'll get a timer for the light, and we'll see how things go.

I'll keep you posted, of course.

The prospect of year-round fresh veggies right in our own house, though... woohoo!

They're All the Rage

I recently got a request for infinity scarves, so I thought why not?  I've knitted up these cozy, fluffy scarves in various colors.  Each has a great color variation and great color range.  At $25 each, they're also a great less expensive option for a handmade scarf.  I made them 55" in circumference so they're nice and long to go around twice, but stay close to the neck to keep you warm.

When I was done with those, I decided to try something different too.  I had this soft, fuzzy white yarn and some shiny red yarn that I love, so I knitted them together into a loooooooooong infinity scarf (about 84" long... or around, depending on how you look at it), and came up with this scarf that looks, as Eric pointed out, like a boa.  It's so comfy!  And it's really pretty, too.

Fun, right?  They're all in the accessories section of Fabric of my Mind.  I don't know about you, but these scarves kind of cheer me up in the face of all the snow we've been having... and will apparently keep having.  Now... who wants to help me come shovel?

Meet Harmony the Hippo!

Harmony is 100% designed and knitted by me, so you won't find her anywhere else in the world!  This is my second animal scarf, the first was Daffy the Dinosaur, of course.  For both, I started the design with an idea in my head and some graph paper, choosing the type of pattern I'd want for the "skin," and deciding on features.

Where Daffy got pointed teeth, a spiny back, and brow ridges, Harmony's got square teeth, a tongue, and ears.

Both of these personality-filled accessories are made of 100% soft washable wool that won't felt, so it's completely OK if the children who own them get them a bit grubby on occasion.  In a beautiful grey, Harmony's a great neutral to go with any coat and keep someone warm.

I design my animal scarves with a bottom jaw so they've got potential to become a toy and companion as well as a scarf.  Bet you wouldn't have to convince a kid to bundle up the way my mom had to do with me if Harmony's around.

Both animal scarves can be found in Fabric of my Mind's "Imagination Safari."

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Fun with Fabric

I didn't make much this year for my nephew's birthday or the holidays.  I mostly bought my way through, since I had so much going on with the show and those 21 crazy apples.  I did make one notable thing, though, for my nephew's birthday.

See, my 4-year-old nephew loves to cook.  It started with his play kitchen, and then he took a cooking class.  He loves it!  For Chanukah, in addition to a science kit because he also loves science, Eric and I actually got him two children's cookbooks.  These:

He loves them!  He's already made runaway pancakes and chocolate mousse, both from Fairy Tale Feasts.

So for his birthday, we kept with the theme.  In addition to getting him this set of 100 cookie cutters from Bed, Bath & Beyond, I made him this adorable apron.

The fabric is vintage (but brand new), from a New York fabric shop that no longer exists.  It belonged to my friend's grandmother decades ago, and my friend was generous enough to give me a ton of great vintage fabric from her mother's remaining stash.  This was part of that stash, and I think it's awesome.  I already had the denim for the pocket in my own collection, and only had to procure the bias tape.

I've used more of the fabric from my friend too.  A lot of what she gave me is decor fabric, and as it turns out, we needed some.  Our house was built in 1954 and is pretty drafty, especially by the front door and the door to the attic.  So Eric suggested door draft stoppers.  Well, why not?  I had this terrific funky fabric that looks to be circa 1960s or 1970s, and polyester fiberfill, and just needed the gravel to weigh it down!  So off we went to purchase gravel (and pick up a money tree, rubber tree, and flower pot while there - we're such impulse shoppers!) and some more fiberfill, and I got to work.

While making these door draft stoppers for our own house, I decided to make extras... and list them!  If you need any yourself, since they're a great way to save on energy costs, you can find them right here in Fabric of my Mind.

I've Been Knitting, Too

As I said in my cupcake post, I was cast as the Evil Queen's assistant in Snew White and was therefore on a poison apple kick.  I tend to like to give a little gift as a "break a leg" token with every show, so for this one, poison apples it was!

I did 21 of these little suckers, which measure about 2.5" across the body of the apple, and by then my hands were so sore and tired, I didn't even do one for myself!  Yet.  I'll have one at some point.  They're too cute not to have one for myself.

To give my hands a break after this, I went back and finished a cool green hat I'd started previously.  This one's now listed in Fabric of my Mind here.

Even More Baking: Cupcakes!

At Halloween, I saw an idea for mummy cupcakes, so I decided to try a new (to me) dark chocolate cupcake recipe.

I found one at the Brown Eyed Baker blog here.  For these, I used only her cupcake recipe and the Bouchon Bakery recipe for basic buttercream, my favorite buttercream of all time.  Unfortunately, I realized after making the cupcakes and butterream that although I did have Wilton eyeballs on hand (who doesn't?), I didn't have the right sort of tip to create the strips of bandage.  I tried winging it with a round tip and squishing down, but it wasn't quite as precise as I'd have liked.  I've since bought a flat tip for next year, because the cupcakes were definitely good.  And they were cute, they'll just be cuter when done right.

Meanwhile, back in September I was cast in the early December production of Snew White, obviously a takeoff on Snow White, at the Studioplayhouse in Montclair.  I played Evelyn Crabtree, assistant to the Evil Queen.  I figured, what with working with the Evil Queen and all, that it'd be fitting for me to go with a poison apple theme.  So I decided almost immediately that I'd do apple cake pops.  I have Bakerella's book and had done pops just once before, for a Mardi Gras party years ago.  To stay with the theme, I set out to find a good apple cake recipe to use for these pops.

This apple cupcake with brown sugar buttercream (I've determined that I really prefer buttercream that uses zero confectioner's sugar) recipe I found looked just about right, but I needed to test them for both taste and texture.  I made them first as cupcakes for a book club meeting, and they were a complete hit.  Somewhat more like dense muffins than cupcakes, they were really tasty and actually about as healthy as cupcakes are going to get, what with the 4 cups of apples in them!

Test successful.

All that remained was to make them into cake pops for my cast party on December 15.  Yeah, right.  I hit my first stumbling block in searching for the jumbo green diamond sprinkles that Bakerella suggests for a "leaf" on each apple.  Would you believe Wilton discontinued those?  Why on earth, with someone as popular as Bakerella pushing their use in her books and on her blog, why on earth, I ask you, would Wilton discontinue them?!  And I couldn't find anything truly comparable.  Finally, I found Wilton's sugar gems and spent quite a bit of time sorting through them to find the most leaf-like ones.

I was even good about it.  I made the cupcakes that Friday evening and the buttercream Saturday morning.  Saturday after our afternoon performances, I went home, crumbled the cupcakes, mashed in the buttercream, and formed 40-something little cake apples on parchment paper.  Into the fridge they went for the requisite time period, while I got my sticks, "leaves," and pretzel "stems" ready and dug out my candy melts.

Candy melts.  Ha.  A misnomer if I ever heard one.  I had (note:  had) a good number of red candy melts.  Tried to melt them.  Failed.  Decided my apples would be pale green.  Tried my green & white candy melts.  Better luck, but not by much.  I ended up with a candy melt paste that I had to spackle on to each "apple," which therefore no longer actually looked like apples, after I spent all that time shaping them into cute little apple shapes.  Ugh.  Sticks, candy melt spackle, pretzel stick stems, and after an even 40 I gave up.  I was exhausted, disheartened, and annoyed.  Why can Bakerella get her melts to hit a nice liquid and mine were a mess?  It's not like I've never melted chocolate before.  I make chocolate candies, for pete's sake.  I even tried adding a little vegetable oil based on a tip I found online, and it did very little.  Plus, I think that's kind of gross.

If any of you have any ideas, let me know, because I'm about ready to never make a cake pop again as long as I live.  If I ever do succumb and make another pop, I'm only using good chocolate to coat them, and the heck with cutesy shapes and colors.  I just can't do it.  Notice I'm not providing a photo of my pops.  There aren't any.  No way, no how.

Meanwhile, my fellow cast members & the show's crew loved them.  Of course.  Thought they were adorable and delicious.  Delicious, I agree.  Adorable?  Go figure.  One fellow actor actually said that I have a great "go to" when I get invited anywhere.  Hahahahahahaha!  Obviously, they looked easy and low-labor.

But I promised cupcakes in this post, so enough about my semi-failed/semi-successful cake pops, and on to more cupcakes!

My office holiday party.

I made that Bouchon Bakery tart.  But it just so happens that there is one single, solitary woman in the office who's allergic to hazelnuts.  Of course.  The one nut in the tart is her one allergy.  Sigh.  So I had to make something else as well.  I went back to the Brown Eyed Baker's dark chocolate cupcakes, but this time I topped them with Bouchon Bakery's peanut butter buttercream, the recipe for the filling in Sebastien Rouxel's Better Nutters.  Wow.  Rich and... well, rich... and wow.  Again, a hit.

I may complain and I may wear myself out, but I really do love baking.  I promise.