Since our friend was on vacation the past week, we were able to watch over their backyard chickens. M was in charge of feeding and caring for them - in exchange for fresh organic eggs! If you’ve never tried fresh organic backyard chicken eggs, you are missing out.

These hens are very friendly. But they do make lots of noise in the morning after they finish laying their eggs. I am surprised none of the neighbors have made complaints. I guess giving them free fresh eggs would change their mind.

Entrance to the hen house.

It seem most suburban cities in California allow backyard chickens, just no rooster. Roosters are super noisy and don’t just croak to greet the sunrise, but all day and whenever they feel like it.

We had a pet chicken once, her name was . By her 3rd year she was retired and couldn’t lay anymore eggs. She lived to be 7 years old and died of natural causes last summer.

Unlike our friend’s backyard chicken, she didn’t have a pretty chicken coup, but she had a sleeping perch. She would always follow us around, especially my mom. And she would come running if we called out her name. Who knew chickens had so much personality!

What Eliza enjoyed the most was roaming freely in the backyard and enjoying her life as a cage free chicken. She was a great addition to mom’s backyard garden because she would eat all the bugs like slugs and spiders. I truly miss having a pet chicken, but I don’t think I can have another one anytime soon.

According to Mother Earth News, compare to grocery store eggs, these backyard chicken eggs contain 2-3x’s more omega-3 fatty acids and 1/3 the cholesterol of factory-farmed eggs. I think that is great news for egg lovers.

Photos taken with iPhone, Campbell, California

I made a small batch of goat milk soap a few weeks ago…now they are ready for use. This one is made using all vegetable oil include rice bran, which is one of my favorite oils to use in soap making.

As for the scent, I prefer to use only essential oils (neroli and bergamont) since it has many skin healing benefits as well.

Goat milk itself makes for a great skin conditioning soap. Adding mineral rich Dead Sea mud also helps with detoxifying the skin. The mud contains minerals such as potassium, magnesium, sodium, bromine and calcium. And when applied to the skin it helps to detoxify and improve circulation.

I also included a little bit of Dead Sea salt as it’s proven to help with clear up skin problems. I guess I can say this is one healthy skin soap.

Here is a peaceful and calm lake located at the Eldorado National forest in California.  This photo was taken with my little Fuji camera. These roads (highway 88-89) are best traveled during autumn when the leaves turn red, orange and yellow. The beauty of autumn will amaze you.  Make sure to travel on Hwy 89 all the way to Emerald bay. Note: Click photo to enlarge.

From California Dept of Fish and Wildlife:

“The vegetation surrounding Red Lake is characteristic of red-fir and lodgepole-fir forest. Open slopes are dominated by sagebrush with bitterbrush and serviceberry. Forestdale Creek and the other drainages around Red Lake are lined with willows and aspen groves.

Common wildlife species include deer, coyote, jackrabbit, quail, flicker, warblers, red-tailed hawk, golden eagle, golden-mantled ground squirrel, marmot, and beaver.”

Access: The Wildlife Area can be accessed on both the north and east sides of Red Lake. The north entrance is located on State Highway 88, one mile east of Carson Pass. To enter on the east side, take Blue Lakes Road from Highway 88 to Red Vista Road.

I didn’t plan on growing any climbing spinach this year since I wasn’t too impressed with them. Well it turns out it wasn’t the plant to blame, but my lack of gardening skills.

Why do I say this? It’s because when the climbing spinach ended up growing on their own in mom’s backyard garden they all looked great! Of course it’s because she takes good care of her garden by fixing the soil, pest control and watering her plants daily.

Here is a perfect heart shaped climbing spinach vine leaf. The best climbing spinach grew out of the potted Mexican lime tree. It produced some of the biggest spinach leaves I’ve ever seen. The bigger leaves were the size of my hand, but those ended up in my salad.

And it made for a great summer salad that was crisp and cooling. All I did was sliced up the veggies and tossed it with rice bran oil, apple cider vinegar, honey and along with some tangy plums, cool iceberg lettuces, plus garden cherry tomatoes.

Here’s one that volunteer to grow along with Thai Basil. Theses guys like to climb, so best to grow them along fences or trellis. This one is just climbing up a small bamboo stick. Note, in the back row are mom’s super hot chili peppers. She has grown them in pots every year and they produce lots of peppers. Almost too hot and spicy for my taste buds!

Lina Hanson has recently launched the “Global Body Serum”. It’s 100% natural and made with some of the best oils for all skin type. Key ingredients include rice bran oil, avocado oil, Camellia seed oil, Grapefruit oil, Vanilla and Yuzu.

These combination of oils are full of skin nourishing vitamins that will keep your skin healthy and hydrated all day. And the scent is wonderful! Nothing overpowering or artificial here. I especially love the citrus scent of grapefruit and Yuzu, then mixed with sweet vanilla.

This is the sample I received and have been using for a few weeks. It soaks in nicely and my skin just loved it. Lina Hanson Global Body Serum comes in 100 ml (3.4 fl oz) dark glass pump bottle.

Another great thing about Lina Hanson is that the company uses ingredients that are harvested by women’s cooperatives and farmers worldwide. It’s one way the company is helping promote women’s economic growth and give them a sense of empowerment.

I just ran out of my last bottle of seabuckthorn facial cream made by Sibu Beauty. Not that there was anything wrong with Sibu’s cream, it’s just that I wanted to give a different brand a try. So I picked up a bottle of seabuckthorn facial cream made by Seabuck Wonders. To my surprise, Seabuck Wonders has been around for almost 20 years and I’ve barely heard of them.

This cream goes on smoothly and my skin just soaks it up. It’s lightly scented with orange essential oil and not overpowering at all. I normally use this facial cream at night because it doesn’t have much SPF protection, maybe SPF protection of 4-5. But if I were to use it in the daytime, I would normally apply mineral power with natural SPF.

Here’s a list of some of the benefits of the cream (as mentioned by SeabuckWonders):

Enhances skin tone and texture
Made with certified organic Sea Buckthorn
Vegan; Non-GMO
Paraben-free; Cruelty-free
Naturally scented with essential orange oil
For all skin types

Besides all the beauty benefits, the company also believes in sustainable farming. As noted by Seabuck Wonders;

“The berries are harvested once they have reached maturity and allowed to re-fruit the following year. Only the minimum number of branches and leaves necessary are removed, leaving the majority of the plant intact, to continue to grow for the next season’s harvest. These practices allow for healthy trees and a sustainable source of income for the farmers.” That’s what I call good farming and business practice.

At the moment Seabuck Wonders is having a sale on their berry oil, facial cream, and body lotion set at their website. Enter coupon code SUN50 fro 50% good until July 7, 2013.

Btw, I love seabuckthorn that much and even have my own plant, which is now 4 years old. It’s gotten a bit bigger now, but no seeds yet.

I can’t remember the last time I ate a star fruit (aka carambola). So when I saw these at the Asian market I had to give them a try.

The outside skin appears waxy and is very smooth. There is a crispness to the fruit and to my surprise they tasted very familiar. Like a mix of really juicy Asian pears and a hint of apple flavor.

As for nutritional value, star fruit is high in vitamin A and C. For those suffering from kidney stones or on dialysis, this fruit can be dangerous or fatal due to the high level of oxalic acid.

Because these fruits are so rare, they are quite pricey. Expect to spend at least a few bucks for just 1 or 2 fruits. If I had to chose between a star fruit or dragonfruit, I would definitely go with the dragonfruit.

Besides the rather common fruit taste, the fruit itself looks very unique. I remember seeing a star fruit tree in Hawaii once. Other states in the U.S. that can grow star fruit would include Florida and Texas (due to their warmer climate). These fruits are imported from Taiwan.

This spring a family of Mockingbird made a nest right in the apricot tree. I’ve never seen a bird’s nest so close to our house before. Within a month the baby birds were big enough to fly off on their own.

Except they couldn’t fly on their own just yet. The two baby birds ended up on the lawn and was attempting to fly off. Since we have cats around, I didn’t put the babies back in the nest because they would have fell from it again. So I ended up putting them in a narrow box and hung it from a bigger tree.

The parent were able to locate their chicks with the chirping and was able to fly to the box and deliver food. Once the babies were big enough, which was within a few days, they all took off flying. Too bad I didn’t get the chance to photograph the baby birds, but they were very cute! Baby mockingbirds look like sparrows but have the long tails.

Northern mockingbird. Photo from Wikipedia by Ryan Hagerty. As nice as they look, they are one of the noisiest birds around.

This photo was taken a few weeks ago. Once the weather heats up, the fruits also begin to ripen. And June is the best time for apricot picking. Not just by me, but by the birds too.

June is almost here and I found my Peanut Cactus in bloom. This photo is from the first year of growing the cactus. It must have gotten it’s name from the peanut like stems.

As it grew out, the stems starting to stretch out. So for the longest time I thought it was named “Rat Tail Cactus”. But from looking at the bloom, it’s very much a hybrid type of peanut cactus. The blooms usually last a few days and start to wither off. For the next few weeks they will be flowering in succession.

In some ways the flower reminds me of the mini Orchid cactus (epiphyllum).

Most of the year it’s just a container full of scary spiky cactus. But when it starts to bloom, the color of the flower is spectacular.

Another interesting thing about this cactus is how easy it is to grow and propagate. I barely touched one of the stems and they fall off and start growing new stems. And of course it doesn’t need much watering.

Medinilla magnifica is possibly one of the most unique flower to come from the tropics. It is commonly known as Rose Grape for their pretty pink fruits that look like tiny grapes. It has thick glossy evergreen leaves and showy pink flowers.

Photo from Medinilla Magnifica

These plants are natives of tropical southern Asia, western Africa and the Pacific islands. So this means they prefer hot and humid climates.

It looks like this flower is starting to gain popularity as the most elegant and exotic house plant around. It has amazing flowers that bloom several times a year. Similar to orchids, the flowering period can last from 3 to 6 months.

I actually saw this Medinilla at the SF Conservatory of Flowers. Although there weren’t any showy pink leaves, there were plenty of pink grape like fruits.