Coming Soon! My Pet Wellness Center

I've noticed a growing trend in many countries towards "organic" and "natural" pet products ie. foods, treats, and even accessories like hemp collars and leashes. In the States, where some people choose pets over children, you will see upscale boutiques and pet wellness centers popping up everywhere. I, in fact, had one of those shops. I owned a Pet Wellness Center where I groomed animals and sold holistic dog treats, foods, and even all natural shampoos, conditioners, and cleaning products. I miss those days and I want to have my Pet Wellness Center here, in Ireland.

What I need are Irish based companies that make those fantastic products. I promoted "made in the USA" when I lived there and now I want to do that here. I know of a couple treat companies that sell amazing products. I just need to find shampoos, conditioners, cleaning products, collars, leashes, and any other "natural" pet product the Irish can muster up to go along with them.

If anyone knows of anyone who makes these amazing products and needs a person to sell them, call me, email, send a skywriter, do whatever it takes to let me know about these people. I have a big mouth and I'm not afraid to use it when it comes to promoting excellent quality products "Made in Ireland".

I spoke to one Irish company who has a fantastic product line. They still have to work their day jobs full time to pay their bills because they "don't have the American way of selling things". Which I can only assume means being a big mouth like me and getting out there to give out free samples and talking people up. I LOVE giving freebies away. It's a total icebreaker. So give them to ME and I will sell the hell out of you. Then, once my shop is up and running and your products are flying off my shelves, we both end up happy. See, win win.

To contact me call 086 732 1841 or email at jessi8074@yahoo.com. I look forward to chatting with you.

Lactose Intolerant? Try Homemade Oat Milk

For those of you out there that can't tolerate cow or goat milk because of a lactose intolerance, you often end up seeking out alternatives and come across things like overpriced oat or rice milk. Well here's a cheap and easy way to get a better quality, better tasting, version of what's in stores, without all those pesky preservatives.

It really is the easiest thing to make. All of the ingredients are most likely already in your kitchen.

All you need is:

1 cup Porridge Oats (not instant oats)
1 tbsp Demerara Sugar, Honey or Agave Nectar (sweeten to taste)
1 tsp Olive or Sunflower Oil
6 cups warm water



Once you've got all the ingredients just add them in any order and blend for about 10 seconds. The mixture should turn white (like in the picture). If it's still clear your water isn't warm enough. Then strain into a pitcher and you're done. Use in hot and cold cereals or drink it straight.

For a stronger flavor and thicker oat milk let it set for about 30 minutes. You can also make your own rice or almond milk too. Just follow the same instructions as above only add 2 cups cooked brown rice or 500g ground almonds instead. Let the almonds set longer than the rice or oats to get the full flavor.

Oh No!!

This is what I woke up to this morning, snow. I marveled at the sight for about 2 seconds until I remembered I just transplanted everything yesterday. I jumped out of bed and rushed outside to drag all of my pots in.



I just told someone the other day that we rarely get snow too. Should have kept my mouth shut. Luckily it was only a dusting. Then an hour later this happened.



I was tempted to bring the pots back outside but decided to wait a while. With such unpredictable weather I didn't want to risk it. I was right to wait too because a few hours later we got even more snow.

And to top it all off, my cat decided to dance in the pots and crush my beet root seedlings, break a few broccoli stems, and even snap a borlotto bean plant in half. Oh and he even managed to dump an entire tray of seedlings killing most of them. He's still alive but I came very close to giving him the boot out into the cold. Bad kitty!!

It's Time

The beer box seed tray held up long enough for me to transplant my seedlings and boy were they huge. Now to chuck the box into the compost bin. The bottom is already well rotted. And my beans are so big I've already had to stake them in the pots.



Top right to left: beets then broccoli
Middle: Corn
Front 3: Climbing beans

The beets and broccoli will be staying in their pots. Oh and I have to mention I got those large pots today at the discount store for 4 euro each!! Such a deal. The corn will be transplanted into the garden when the weather warms up. I put some in there already, as an experiment, so we'll see what happens. And the pots are where the beans are going to stay. I'm just going to put them up against the fence and string them up.



As you can see from this pic my back garden is going to be mostly containers. I wish I could dig up those slabs and redo the whole area but the landlord would frown upon that. Oh well, containers are just as good.

So that should do it for a while. Not going to be able to transplant or sow any more seeds for a while. I've run out of pots and room in the house so we'll give it a break and concentrate on what I've got.

What I did...

...to get my seedlings to look this amazing.



Here are a couple cheap ways to get the heat going in your seed trays.



Under the beer box is a hot water bottle and you can see the milk jug. I crushed it so it would be flat and cover a large space. Strangely enough the milk jug stays warm longer than the hot water bottle. And I know the jug works because as soon as I put a covered seed tray on it condensation instantly appeared.

Another thing I did, and I'm thinking it helped, was to sprinkle kelp powder on the plants as soon as they popped up. Seaweed is an excellent fertilizer. You can buy a small packet of it from the health food store for 1.99. And a little goes a long way.

Next step is to find a way to get my beans out of there without disturbing anything else. The box is just about ready to decompose, which is just what I was hoping for, but I still need it to hold out for a few more days. Just until I can get more pots and the weather to warm a bit.

"Case O' Beer Seed Tray" Update!

Tah Da!! Look what I did??? Not bad for a novice eh?

It's been exactly 7 days since I started my beer box seeds tray. For the first few days absolutely nothing happened. I couldn't understand what was going wrong. Then I read a website about starting seedlings and the penny finally dropped. It has to be warmer inside the house than outside for the seedlings to think its spring. Duh! To save money we've been keeping the heat just above cryogenic and well, my little seeds just weren't having it. So how did I get around this little dilemma? Warmed those babies up they way I was warming myself. A hot water bottle.

I must have refilled it 5 times a day for 4 days and placed it under the box. I noticed the broccoli and beets popped up to about an inch over night and nothing was happening with the beans and corn. So I moved the bottle over and kept the plastic wrap over those to keep the moisture and heat in. Worked a charm. Am I clever or what?

You're supposed to use a "warming pad" under them but I just can't swing the cost right now so I improvised. The pro of using a water bottle is the cost, the con is always having to refill it. I left it alone at night and the seedlings didn't seem to mind. They need to get used to cold nights anyway. Now that they're all up I've removed the heat to see how they do. If they stay stagnant for too long I'll put the heat back.

Here are some close ups of their progress.



Gorgeous borlotto beans...



...see the corn and beets too?



Isn't broccoli pretty?



It's still too soon for the box to be that impressive so I'll wait a little while longer (just before repotting) and take a pic again.

Cajun Chicken Salad

Even though I'm the most creative (ahem) chef in my household, I still need inspiration from time to time. I had such great luck with Kylemore Acre's "Awesome" beef stew mix that I thought I'd give this cajun chicken rub a try.



These, and a couple breasts of chicken, are all you need to make it. Just mix the packet and oil in a bowl and saute on medium heat. It's not a spicy mix so you can add chili flakes or Tabasco sauce to the mix.

For a dressing I only had balsamic vinaigrette but a ranch or blue cheese would have been better. The vinaigrette made it low calorie and better for people watching their fat intake.

Salad Ingredients

Romaine Lettuce
1/4 Avacado
3 Cherry Tomatoes
4 Broccoli pieces
4 Mushroom
1 Carrot

Add or replace any ingredients you like. Make sure they are all fresh and washed thoroughly if they aren't organic.