Crunchy Chicken

Since we're already under several inches of snow, with more to come this week, fall/winter gardening is pretty much not happening, even for the kind of crops I used to grow in Seattle. I've been ...

https://www.thecrunchychicken.com/2022/11/christmas-shroom-growing-challenge.html

The first time we went to the Pasco Flea Market in the Tri Cities was last July, on our way back from a biking vacation. We ended up touring through the market with our gravel bikes, so it was a ...

https://www.thecrunchychicken.com/2022/04/pasco-flea-market-and-first-of-season.html

Wow! I can't believe it's been over two years since I've posted here, but I guess it shouldn't surprise anyone too much. I've only posted a couple times on Facebook in the intervening time and I'...

https://www.thecrunchychicken.com/2022/04/where-have-i-been.html

So much extra space on my double lot! I moved us out to Roslyn last year for a variety of reasons, the biggest one was to be more self-sufficient and independent of financial constraints. Living ...

https://www.thecrunchychicken.com/2020/03/growing-all-you-can-eat-salad-bar.html

Don't just sit there like a bump on a log, Mark Twain, 1863  I mentioned in a previous post, Going Zero Waste, that, since moving to a different town, I've been frustrated by the lack o...

https://www.thecrunchychicken.com/2019/12/starting-community-composting-and.html

Hank's guitars standing watch Last year we didn't celebrate any holidays after my late husband passed away. It was just too difficult. So, for Halloween we turned off all the lights and watched a...

https://www.thecrunchychicken.com/2019/11/grieving-through-holidays.html

Now that I'm getting settled into my new neighborhood, I've taken on a few challenges to not only connect with my community but to give back what I can based on my own background, skills and inte...

https://www.thecrunchychicken.com/2019/11/community-service-and-litter-pick-up.html

Apple snack! A lot of what I try to incorporate into my life can be described as "seasonal living" and by that I mean that I try to take advantage of what's available each season not only from a ...

https://www.thecrunchychicken.com/2019/11/seasonal-living-finishing-pigs.html

In Part 1 of my posts on natural flooring, I discussed what we unearthed underneath the carpeting on the main level of my new house. Glorious Douglas Fir floors (read the linked post to find...

https://www.thecrunchychicken.com/2019/11/natural-flooring-no-chemicals-needed.html

Drilling the stumps When I moved into my new house, there was an intimidatingly large "sticker bush" on the second lot against the fence. This holly bush was not so jolly and reached at least 8 f...

https://www.thecrunchychicken.com/2019/10/killing-me-salty-taking-down-stumps.html

Butter, flour and parchment! Tomorrow is my daughter's second birthday without her father. It also happens to be her 16th birthday. Rather than have some big blowout, she's opted for a quiet meal...

https://www.thecrunchychicken.com/2019/10/birthdays-mourning-and-cake.html

Garbage. I'm going to be talking about this a lot, so bear with me. When I was living in Seattle we could seemingly recycle and compost nearly everything. Paper, plastic, glass, yard waste, food ...

https://www.thecrunchychicken.com/2019/10/going-zero-waste.html

Original carpeting When I bought my new house in Roslyn, all three bedrooms had carpeting in them. The two downstairs rooms had older carpeting and the bedroom upstairs had relatively newer (2011...

https://www.thecrunchychicken.com/2019/10/natural-flooring-no-chemicals-needed.html

Pic courtesy of 2CookinMamas I have two huge apple trees on my new property here in Roslyn, WA. One that bears sweet, eating apples and one that bears more tart, baking apples. In spite of cuttin...

https://www.thecrunchychicken.com/2019/10/its-apple-season.html

My cars are old. Decrepit even, by today's standards. I'm still driving around in my 2002 Honda CRV that has just a hair under 70,000 miles on it. But, from my standpoint, it's as good as new. Su...

https://www.thecrunchychicken.com/2019/06/keeping-old-cars-kicking.html

Centennial and Nugget hops My partner, Daniel, was looking for plants that grow quickly to cover the side of his house in the mountains and he settled on growing hops. Okay, so 2200 feet isn't ex...

https://www.thecrunchychicken.com/2019/06/growing-hops-in-high-mountain-country.html

Honeycrisp apples I've lived in my current house for about 13 years now and, over the years, I have planted numerous fruiting trees and bushes. While I love planting annual vegetables, I still ca...

https://www.thecrunchychicken.com/2019/05/urban-fruit-orchard-what-im-growing.html

Looks like an apple! My new partner, Daniel, owns a property in the Cle Elum area of Kittitas County in Washington (I mentioned the area in my previous post about checking out rural properties). ...

https://www.thecrunchychicken.com/2019/04/help-weve-got-apple-maggots.html

I was seriously considering starting a totally new blog titled "Young Widow Farmer" or some such thing rather than continuing in the vein of the Crunchy Chicken, but I didn't want my marital stat...

https://www.thecrunchychicken.com/2019/04/mastering-grief-death-and-dogwood.html

Always with phone in hand. On Wednesday, the World Health Organization released their recommendations for screen time for children under the age of 5. For the first year of life they recommend ze...

https://www.thecrunchychicken.com/2019/04/teen-trauma-horrors-of-no-wifi.html

Log Cabin - Cle Elum, WA Back when I was blogging regularly, one thing I always dreamed about was moving to a more rural area on several acres so that I could garden and raise critters to my hear...

https://www.thecrunchychicken.com/2019/04/log-cabin-in-little-woods-checking-out.html

Getting Crunchy, 2019. I can't believe I started this blog a little over 12 years ago. A lot has occurred since then. Most notably, in the last year my husband passed away from cancer. I know a l...

https://www.thecrunchychicken.com/2019/04/earth-day-blogging-update.html

Last weekend, there was an opinion piece in the NY Times regarding how additives in processed foods negatively affect your gut microbiome, in particular mentioning emulsifiers and food thickeners...

https://www.thecrunchychicken.com/2018/04/emulsifiers-are-in-everything.html

Light ash fall - just the beginning! With all the fires in Western Washington (and in other parts of the country where it's far worse), we are getting some ash fall in Seattle. Nothing like ye ol...

https://www.thecrunchychicken.com/2017/09/ash-on-my-apples-harvesting-food-after.html

Rear Window Today is the first day back to school for my two homeschoolers! My daughter is starting 8th grade this year and has been totally loving her secular, literature-based curriculum from B...

https://www.thecrunchychicken.com/2017/09/homeschooling-film-studies-class.html