Last week we sheared the llamas. They had not been shorn in so long it was almost a new experience for them. The "baby" had never been shorn. I gave the wool a good dip in bleach water to kill any bugs and eggs and then laid it out on fences, chicken netting and empty cages to dry. The llamas, visibly taken aback at being suddenly naked, kept coming over to look at their former coats. They seemed to be trying to figure out what on earth we crazy humans were planning to do with all that wool. 

 

Meanwhile, Mabel the Marvelous Dancing Jersey Milk Cow, has finally acquiesced to breeding and is once again with calf. I think she got wind of a little conversation I had with the butcher, but it seems to have worked. Now to feed her for the next 9 months until the calf gets here and she starts giving her rich, creamy milk again. Sigh.



The llamas have proceeded to soil their new coats by rolling in the dirt. I wonder if the neighbors will do a double take when they drive by and see them without all that fluffy hair. Now I just need to get some wool cards and parts for the spinning wheel. I've got four 30 gallon bags of llama wool to clean, sort and spin.

For updates and more adventures Around the Homestead stop by the blog:  http://mrsdshomestead.blogspot.com 

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Homesteading has become the "in" thing to do these days. I see lots of companies capitalizing on that. But their definition of homesteading isn't the same as mine.  

A $1300 chicken coop. Really? Do the chickens lay more eggs? Is it self-cleaning?

Solar systems costing upwards of $20,000. How is that ever going to pencil out as saving on electricity? Sure, you're off the grid, but you're still dependent on expensive equipment that has to be supplied and serviced by someone.  

How sustainable is your garden if you are purchasing all kinds of fancy soil amendments?

To me, homesteading is living more simply and sustainably. It means using what you have on hand. It means thinking outside the box instead of running to the store every time you need something. I am not against modern conveniences. My car gives me freedom. My washer and dryer save me time and pain. The internet enables me to work wherever I can connect, and my computer and Kindle carry tons of paperwork and books electronically for me. In fact, hey, if somebodywants to spend $1300 on a chicken coop, that's fine with me. I might even admire its "purtyness". But I don't call it homesteading.  

So how do I define "homesteading"?

In the city:  keep some chickens, if allowed. Mix the eggshells, chicken poop and fruit and veggie scraps from the kitchen into the garden soil to amend it. Grow what you can and eat it. Go hunting or fishing on the weekend. Make a camping trip of it and bring home your catch. Can, dry or freeze your extra food and eat it. Conserve water. Do dishes in a dish pan and throw the water on the garden. Buy your clothes from yard sales or thrift stores and embellish and alter them on the sewing machine. Save your recyclables and turn in what you don't re-use for cash at the local recycling center.

On the road:  Whether you live in an RV or just travel a lot, there are a number of things you can do to homestead on the road. In an RV:  drive slower to increase gas mileage. Cook from scratch. Learn to recognize a few wild foods you can gather and eat, like dandelion greens (great in salad or sauteed), mint (wonderful tea), crab apples, pinon nuts and fish. Choose dispersed camping or inexpensive campsites instead of always pulling in to hook up. 

In a car:  If you are on the road a lot for business, children's activities, or other reasons, pack a cooler and a snack bag or box. The cooler will have water, fruits and veggies and sandwich stuff or other perishables for the day/weekend. The snack bag will have dry goods (snacks, raisins, coffee, tea, etc.), dishes and utensils. For hot meals pack a small camp stove and fuel. You can set up at a rest area, park, or large parking lot to cook your meal or heat your water. Sandwiches are easily assembled on top of the cooler.

At the homestead:  Here in Northern Arizona it is very dry, so we conserve and reuse every possible drop of water. Dishwater goes on the garden, rinse water and bath water go into the washing machine or flush the toilets. Cooking water is cooled and put on the garden. We grow what we can and eat what we grow. We preserve any extra and eat it later.  The milk from the goats and cow is made into butter and cheese. The whey is used for cooking or fed back to the chickens. The shells from the chicken eggs are crushed and fed back to them for extra calcium and grit. We fish and eat what we catch. We eat the cows and goats and chickens. Bones get made into nutritious soup broth, then the bones are fed to the dogs. Meat scraps get fed to the dogs. Bread scraps go to the chickens. Fruit and veggie scraps go in the compost heap, thence to the garden. Need I say it? The animal poop goes on the garden.

Our gym is the wood pile, the hay bales, the garden, the repairs that need done. Our entertainment is the dark night sky with billions of stars, watching the critters play, taking a walk around the property or playing with the critters.

Old milk jugs become feeders, planters, grain scoops and watering cans. Old buckets are used for kindling, water, toolboxes and planters. Old clothes and linens are used for cleaning rags, then oil rags, then sometimes even compost. We make do, rarely buy new, frequently do without. Not because we have to, because we have found that living more simply is simply more living.

For more of Mrs. D's Homesteading adventures, stop by the website and blog:  www.mrsdshomestead.com Around The Homestead.

To me, the whole idea of homesteading is making the most use of what you've got.  That means using up the scraps.  We were recently gifted with some fatty cuts of mutton.  Though I'm not a big fan of sheep meat, I don't mind it once in awhile.  Before I packaged them for the freezer, I cut off as much of the fat as I could, leaving just a bit for flavor when I get ready to cook each portion.  I piled all the fat in the crock pot, there was just enough to fill it, added a bit of water and let it heat all day on high.  I let it continue to melt on low overnight, then skimmed out the chunks that didn't melt and set them aside for the dogs.  The rest of the fat I put in a kettle in the fridge to cool and wait until I had time for the next step.

A few days later, after I got caught up with some other chores, I got out the kettle of fat and remelted it.  I heated my canning jars in the oven and got out my funnel, cheesecloth and ladle.  After cooling the fat for about 20 minutes, I strained it through the cheesecloth lined funnel into the canning jars.  Since I am not planning on using this lard for cooking, I just applied some clean, used lids and let the jars seal themselves.  I now have 3 quarts of lovely white sheep fat, with no offensive odor.  My first project will be some laundry soap, but that will have to wait until after the holidays.

Laundry soap is always a good way to use up scraps of bar soap or liquid soap and shampoo you have lying around.  I've made several different kinds of homemade laundry soap over the years, but my latest batch seems to have the best cleaning power yet.

Here's the formula:

2 pounds homemade soap ends and scraps, shredded in food processor or blender

2 gallons water

1 cup borax

1 cup sodium carbonate

Put all ingredients in a large stock pot and heat until soap scraps are completely melted.  Cool before pouring into old laundry soap containers.  If cooled mixture thickens too much, add hot water until liquid again.  I keep my mixture fairly liquid and use 1 cup per load of wash, with a little extra sodium carbonate added.  I have very hard water, and my whites are whitening back up again with this soap and no bleach.  I do add about a cup of lemon juice to the whites.

That is today's use-it-up tip from Mrs. D's Homestead.  For more on homesteading, homeschooling and simple living, please drop by the website Mrs. D's Homestead, or the blog Around The Homestead.

The back yard has been home to our two llamas for several years.  They have taken over ownership of my son's playhouse.  They have gladly shared the yard with my gentle pit-bull all that time.  When the dog ran away and we could not find her, we were asked to adopt two dogs whose owner had died.  We accepted and moved them and their kennel into the back yard.

The ladies were seriously affronted.  They made noises we did not know llamas made.  They refused to go near the backyard after their daily foray onto our ten acres.  They would not even come to us for their sweet feed.  Although the llamas do not break through the perimeter fence, there are times when we need to confine them, so we can leave the gates open.  Also, the neighbor dogs like to chase and harass them, so we feel better having them in a pen. where the dogs can't get to them.

A new pen has to be simple.  I just don't have the muscle to do more complicated heavy work.  So we chose a location with a couple of trees for shade and an old shed for shelter.  I started a few t-posts and Li'l Guy finished pounding them in.  Guess I can't call him Li'l Guy for much longer.  He's cleaning stalls and splitting wood now.  But I think I can keep calling him that until he can hoist a bale of hay.  Then we stretched the fencing around the posts and tied it on with baling twine, installed a gate and -voila!- new home.  All that's left is to clean out the shed so they can use it as a shelter.  

We are at our "urban homestead", here at my parents' home in the Big City.  So here is what my youngest son found on my dad's lawn the other night.  It is a swarm of bees, seemingly nesting on the ground.  There were actually two "nests" going, but overnight they combined into one "nest".

I googled bees and found that there is indeed a species that nests on the ground.  I don't think these were that kind, however, because when I dug up the "nest", they were only on the surface.  The neighbors were being tormented by bees on the streetlight in front of their house, so they called the exterminator.  We believe that these are the bees that came out of that light post.

Of course, my son and I, being bee advocates, want to relocate them.  Dad just wants to get rid of them.  We agreed to see what would happen the next day, when it warmed up.  Dad was convinced they would leave on their own.  They didn't.  So now I guess it's my turn.  My plan is to dig up the whole nest at night when they are "asleep" and put it in a bucket with a lid, take it to a more remote location and turn them loose to find a new home for themselves.

The following day...

Although a few of them left the "nest" during the day, they seemed to stay nearby, mostly climbing on and seeming to eat the grass, too active for us to actually try to do anything with them.  Once the sun started setting, however, they went back to their "nesting" behavior and sluggishness.  It was then fairly easy to dig a circle around them, lift dirt, bees and all into a bucket, and transport them. We sprayed a light mist of water over them when they became agitated from the digging, which prevented them from swarming us.   

In this video (http://www.youtube.com/embed/rgMk7xSt5Ko) you can see their strange behaviour.  Most of them stayed just like this the whole time, which I guess would indicated effects of poisoning.  A few did venture out and fly around a bit. 

Though I suspect they did not survive the poisoning that drove them into our yard in the first place, I feel we did everything we could to give them a chance at survival, and I hope at least a few did manage to build a new home.

For super soothing soaps and lotions made with all natural honey, beeswax, shea butter and goats milk, visit Mrs. D at www.mrsdshomestead.com. 

For more homesteading, homeschooling and simple living adventures, visit Mrs. D Around the Homestead.

My parents have a grapefruit tree and a lemon tree.  I get lots of lemons and grapefruit.  Over the years I have investigated innumerable ways of using and preserving this bounty.  I can lemon juice for year-round use.  I eat and give away as much grapefruit as possible, then can the rest.  This leaves me with a mountain of grapefruit peels.  It seems a waste to throw them out, and they don't compost well.  So one year I started experimenting with using them to make a cleaner.  It didn't take long to hit on a simple formula that is also very simple to prepare. 

I get out my biggest stockpot, fill it with grapefruit peels, and cover them with water.  I bring the whole shootin' match to a vigorous boil, then turn it down and let it simmer for a day, topping up the water level as needed.  After several hours, or all day, I turn off the heat and let the mixture cool off overnight.  The next morning, I get up and start straining the mixture into gallon size glass jugs.  Do not use plastic, as this concentrate, though not really rough on the skin, will eat through plastic jugs within a few days and leave you with a leaky mess.  It is also a good idea to vacuum seal or water bath can (in quart-size jars) any concentrate you will not be using right away, as it will ferment and grow yeast.  This fermentation does not make the cleaner lose any effectiveness, it just replaces the pleasant, citrusy scent with an unpleasant odor. 

Be sure to label the concentrate so no one drinks it.  I don't know how harmful it would be, but I certainly don't recommend it. 

A note on straining.  I put a funnel on top of the glass jug I am straining into and line it with a piece of old t-shirt, sheet or dishtowel to filter out the solids.  The liquid is too thick for coffee filters, it takes forever, and does not need to be strained as much as that.  I then ladle the liquid into the filter, scraping solids off as they build up.  When I get down to where it's mostly peels and other solids, I squeeze them real good, filter the remaining liquid, and put the now softened peels into the compost bin, where they compost much more readily.

How to use your fantastical new cleaner.  For general cleaning, I dilute 1 part cleaner to 4 parts water in a plastic spray bottle.  At this dilution it has not eaten through any of my bottles yet.  This works well for light cleaning of counters, glass, mirrors, sinks, toilets, floors and all such general light jobs.  For laundry, I use 1/2 to 1 cup undiluted, pour in with the soap instead of bleach, and enjoy softer, whiter, more pleasant smelling clothes.  For tough, greasy jobs, like my stovetop, I pour the undiluted concentrate right on the greasy spots, let soak at least 20 minutes, then use a hard plastic scraper to loosen most of the cooked on grease.  This does sometimes leave a few small areas to scrub with steel wool or a copper scrubber, but takes most of the work out of it.

I have used this same formula with orange peels, lemon peels and combinations of different citrus peels, in smaller and larger batches.  The basic idea is just cover with water, cook several hours, strain and enjoy using your own homemade, all natural citrus cleaner.

For more homesteading, homeschooling and simple living ideas stop by www.mrsdshomestead.blogspot.com or www.mrsdshomestead.com .  

 
 As a homeschooling mom, I'm always concerned about whether my son is enjoying learning, and really "learning how to learn".  So it's gratifying when he pursues learning in his free time.

Of the many books on our living room shelves, two are specifically science experiments for children, "101 Great Science Experiments", by Neil Ardley, and "101 Nature Experiments", by David Burnie. The other day, my son was browsing through them and decided to try making the homemade flashlight. For perhaps a variety of reasons, he could not get it working. Possibilities include not having the exact bulb holder the directions called for, weak batteries, bad wires. Whatever it was, after a number of failed atttempts, he put the whole thing away. The impressive thing here is that he went after it on his own, and though his several attempts failed, I assured him it is not always so. It could even have been faulty directions. At any rate, after his initial disappointment wore off, I caught him gathering supplies for a new experiment, this time from his science book. I expect he'll have better results with this one - it's non-electric.

Come by anytime to check up on our homesteading and homeschooling adventures at  Around the Homestead.