It's been a while since I updated on our ongoing kitchen remodel, but things have been steadily moving along. As with most of our projects, the work has been slow-going, since we have to do everything on the weekend. Happily, the kitchen has been usable for most of the time.

After all the drywall went up, Dakota started to install the cabinet cases. After he designed the cases, he them cut by one of his subcontractors, who has a CNC machine. The wood is pre-finished birch, FSC certified and formaldehyde free. FSC certification guarantees that the wood you're using is from a sustainably-managed forest, and not clearcut from a rainforest. It's a must for a green remodel. (You can read more about forest certification here.) The wood looks very pretty, although Dakota has had a few issues with minor warping.

Here he is installing a large storage cabinet that will go over the refrigerator.



Happily, I was able to help Dakota out a little by priming the walls a couple of weeks ago. Since we're using eco-friendly Milk Paint on the walls and cabinets, we figured we should get some eco-friendly primer as well. The product we chose is Dunn-Edwards Eco-Shield. It's low-VOC, and you can really tell. It didn't smell at all. Plus, the primer went on easily and seemed to coat the walls well.



As the cabinet boxes go in, I'm getting more and more excited about the design of the final kitchen. Dakota has really planned things out beautifully, with lots of cool little details that will make our kitchen unlike any other. I feel very lucky to have such a talented carpenter and designer doing my kitchen remodel. I clearly married the right guy.

Some thought Tina might never start laying. Some believed she would hold out until Spring. Some even claimed she was refusing to lay just to prove a point. I think we all can agree that she was taking her sweet time. But, last Sunday, Tina finally silenced her critics and laid her very first egg. Here it is.



It's light brown, and nice and big--around the same size as Peggy's eggs. We are so proud.

And speaking of eggs, on Saturday morning we had a delicious omelet featuring spinach from my garden and eggs from Peggy the hen.



Mmmmm Mmmmm tasty!



Now that both girls are laying, we will have plenty of eggs for omelets and other eggy delights. And when the kitchen is a bit further along, we can start having people over for breakfast again.

In closing, here's a picture of Tina the newly-minted egg layer, enjoying some fresh picked grass. Isn't she a pretty one? (If only someone had told her she had something in her beak.)

In addition to vegetable gardening, this winter I've been focusing on furthering my ultimate goal of landscaping our hillside back yard. Although, I don't really mean "landscaping" in the sense of neat rows of hedges and clearly defined flower beds. Instead, I am trying cover the hillside with drought-tolerant--but still fragrant and flowering--bushes. And, of course plenty of cacti.

In fact, we have decided to designate the lower right corner of the yard our "Southwest" section. This idea comes both from our love of cacti and the fact that horrible soil and intense sun exposure make it next to impossible to grow anything else there.

One thing I love about cactus is that you can grow a whole new gorgeous plant just by sticking a tiny cutting into some soil.

This area by the fence has an arm from a large cactus that sits in one of the patio planters alongside some cuttings from a climbing cactus given to us by a neighbor who was moving away. I'm hoping they will fill in the hole between the jade plants, which line most of the fence on that side.


This one is from a single small cactus pad that I, um, acquired while walking the dog one day. I put it in a pot, it grew some additional pads, and now it's gone into the Southwest section so it can grow big and strong. This one seems to spread horizontally, and makes nice pink flowers when it blooms. It will be very pretty once it grows bigger.


And this pad is from a cactus from my sister's front yard in San Antonio. She says it grows like crazy, and that even pads that have fallen to the ground on their own sprout and grow new plants. My parents have grown some good-sized cacti in their yard using cuttings from the same plant. I like the idea that all three of us will have the same cactus growing in our yards.


There are also several other varieties of cacti and some hardier succulents in the Southwest section, both purchased and picked up for free. I even got a really nice big cactus pad out of a neighbor's green bin (yard waste can) a couple of weekends ago. I'm not above digging cactus cuttings out of the trash, and I only got about tiny, painful 40 spines in my hand doing it.


All these photos should be considered "before" shots. In six months or so I'll take some more pictures to see how much progress I've made. Hopefully, in a year or two there will be a really cool cactus garden down there. I just have to be patient.

So, this week we lost our hen Lisa. I'm not sure if I mentioned it here, but Lisa had been feeling ill for the last few months. She showed signs of the same disease that Jackie died of, which we believe was Marek's, and slowly got very thin over the last four months.

Peggy and Tina were vaccinated for Marek's when they were chicks, because it's highly contagious. Unfortunately, it was too late to do the same for Lisa. My guess is that she and Jackie were exposed at the feed store, but I can't say that for certain.

We were sad to say goodbye to good old Lisa, our remaining original chicken, but I think it's probably for the best. She had grown very thin and frail in the last month, although overall she handled the illness much better than Jackie. Some chickens can even survive Marek's, but I guess that wasn't Lisa's fate.

Here she is enjoying a nice free range in the back yard last summer.



We'll miss her and her big crazy clucks.

Now that I've started harvesting a few veggies, I thought it might be a good time to do a winter garden update. The unusually wet December really helped a lot of my seeds get started this year, so I've got some successful crops growing. But, as usual, I've had some garden problems, too. Although, this time, my crop failures are not really my fault. It's those damn raccoons and squirrels! They're out to get me and my veggies.

One of my garden plots sustains frequent digging attacks--at least one a week--from raccoons (or possibly skunks). They come in the night and till up the soil so dramatically that all the poor seedlings don't have a chance. I have almost no turnips or beats growing, since, due to my attempts to rotate what I'm planting in each bed, I put all my root vegetables in the raccoons' favorite digging spot.

On the bright side, the critters seem to be pretty much focusing on that one plot, so I've managed to get some crops going in the other two. These include purple cabbage, which has been leafing out pretty nicely. I have never grown cabbage before, so I am not sure when the head of cabbage will start forming. Soonish, I hope.



Other crops doing well in the ground include spinach, mustard greens, broccoli, carrots and peas. As usual, my peas are reluctant to climb their poles, no matter how many I provide them. But, they're flowering nicely and starting to make pods, so I can't complain. Peas are so fun to grow because they're both easy and fast.



My container greens have been growing nicely, especially the chard and kale. I have two big wooden containers on the patio that are thriving.



Plus, I've got lots of small pots with mustard greens, spinach and arugula on the deck. I have had several sandwiches with arugula in the last couple of weeks, and I'm planning to make a very tasty, homegrown & home-laid spinach omelet in a week or so.



Tonight, we're having a meal from a great cookbook I received for Christmas from my aunt, uncle and cousins: Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker. I've made three meals from it so far, and they've all been tasty. The lentil stew I'm currently cooking has "ribbons of kale" in it, which I picked from the garden this afternoon.



Tonight's dinner should be a healthy, delicious and cheap meal. Hopefully, it's the first of many from my winter garden. That is, if I can keep the raccoons away.