Mangos

One day years ago I was in a creperia in Coyocoacan and they served me a crepe with mango jelly. It was delicious. I was surprised when it occurred to me that I had never seen or heard of mango jelly before. It just seemed like a given that it would be available. I mean mango jelly, just think about it. Then I started seeking mango jelly out. Telling anyone who would listen. All the while craving it. After looking in several dozen grocery stores and a few specialty stores I finally found some. It was good but halfway across the state and not cheap. Then the epiphany. I can make it.

Mango Jam

1 lbs ripe mango
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup water

Put water and sugar in a sauce pan and boil until it thickens. Mash mango and puree into the thickened boiling sugar water. Boil for five or so more minutes. Pour into a jar.

I didn't let enough water boil off on mine but next time I'll know.

Coop

The chicken coop is finally done. I still need to figure out a nesting box but I've a couple of months to work that out. They have a double pane window and insulation and it might be more sturdy than my house. Over engineered is the term that comes to mind. Moving it from the garage to the chicken run and up on the concrete blocks was an exercise in pyrmid technology. Levers and rollers and rope and such. The cement blocks are ugly and I've got a half baked idea on how to make em look better. One thing that was of concern was how to connect the chicken wire so that no animals could get in for a snack. The hardware cloth happened to be wrapped in wire and I was able to use the wire to sew the chicken wire together. It seemed pretty slick at the time, maybe I was out in the sun to long.

This site is a calculator for overhangs. Put in your latitude plus the hieght and width of the over hang and it will tell you what percent of the sun the overhang will block broken down by month.

http://susdesign.com/overhang_annual/index.php


With the chickens taken care of some attention can be paid to the house again. My dad was over earlier in the week and we spent half a day in the crawl space fixing wiring and getting plumbing ready for the half bath. About 4 more hours of crawl space fun and we should be done down there for good.

Spring also brings chores for the garden. Planted a bunch of tomato and peas and the seedlings are doing good. Everything else is going to get to grow in situ this year. Next year they will have a sun room and I'll be able to set out more than two trays.