Home-raised meat invokes quite a strange image in many people’s minds and I wasn’t any exception until recently. Now twenty-six, I grew up in the eastern San Francisco Bay Area very close to Oakland, California. Until I was sixteen, I lived in a city environment where grocery stores, corner markets, big box stores, and malls were completely acceptable places to buy food. They still are I suppose. But once I started developing my very own backyard farm two years ago, I realized how unnatural those little styrofoam packages of meat were.

After I had an emergency procedure done to remove my gallbladder, I found that there were a lot of foods I could no longer eat. Most of them being fast-food, processed foods, and commercial meats. Obviously there was something seriously wrong with this food if my body was literally rejecting it. I read up on some of the nasty ingredients and processes that our meat is put through and came to the conclusion that I did not want myself, or my family, eating this disgusting “food” any longer. Luckily, I already had a handful of chickens and a garden going, but this was the real tipping point for this city girl to start raising meat animals.

It certainly is a scary idea --for those of us who did not grow up around farm life-- to start raising animals for the sole purpose of butchering and eating them. At first it seemed almost wrong. Why am I caring for and watching this animal grow if my only plan for it’s future is to stick it in a crock pot with some potatoes? It feels morbid at best. I would like to say that that feeling has dissipated for me, but I still combat my personal demons when raising animals for the freezer.

Hopefully my own apprehensions don’t discourage anyone from raising meat animals, because that is certainly not my intention. It is just good to keep in mind that the feeling of guilt is normal and I’m sure everyone who raises meat animals has felt it at one point or another. I am currently raising meat rabbits so that little thing I like to call the “Easter Bunny Syndrome” is a big factor. For me anyway, it is a lot harder to butcher a cutesy, fluffy bunny than a squawky chicken. Meat guilt still gets me every time, but which is worse? Butchering your own meat animals or buying mystery meat with chemical additives? That, I suppose, is the real question. I came to the realization that many people do at this point; I would rather raise my own meat and know what that animal ate and how it lived than eat another frozen turkey burger from the grocery store.

I have been raising French angora rabbits for both wool production and now meat for a little over two years now. I have been butchering my own rabbits for meat for about seven months now and I will say that my whole perspective on home-raised meat has changed. There is no way I will ever go back.

Now I appreciate every bite of meat I eat and now I prepare meals with a lot more care and thought. Nothing is wasted and in the back of my head I thank the animal on my table for it’s sacrifice so that my family can eat and prosper. Sure, it’s heartbreaking to “do the deed”, but I know that the meat on my table was raised in a healthy environment, it ate GMO-free feed, it was loved and cared for right up until the moment is was humanely killed. And the best part is that I can now feel confident in that thought. The meat I eat is no longer from mysterious origins. If I am going to be a responsible meat-eater, I am going to do it like this. 

 
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 

For the website and to visit the Homestead store stop by:  www.mrsdshomestead.com 

Last Monday evening, we were tending to the chickens when our neighbor came over and asked if we’d seen a chocolate brown calf loose on our property. Apparently, his heifer Peaches had her first calf sometime Sunday and he found Peaches after work Monday, but not the calf.  My father in law, here for a visit, said he had seen Peaches pacing along our common fence line, shaking her head and bellowing earlier in the day, while he was out taking pictures in the pasture.

We finished up our chicken chores and headed out to join the search.  We searched every corner of our property and across the fences of the adjoining properties for a couple of hours, to no avail.  We even tried to get Peaches to come through the gate to our property, and give her a chance to maybe find her baby herself, but she wouldn’t have any part of that.  We still had one more day off work for my father-in-law’s visit. We told the neighbor we’d keep our eyes open for the calf since we’d be around the next day.  Seven buzzards were circling overhead that evening.  My father-in-law said he hated to be a pessimist, but that wasn’t a good sign.

We went in for the night with heavy hearts.  My hubby asked the spirit of our beloved dog Maggie (aka Moo Moo), who is buried in the front pasture, now dubbed “Moo’s Meadow” to watch over the little calf that night.  Maggie was a friend to all little critters.  We swear she’s responsible for all the kitties that have shown up at our door!   

The next morning, my hubby was up and out early with the dogs - they don’t recognize days off for sleeping in, and luckily he always wakes up early anyway.  I was still asleep.  My cell phone started ringing and I groggily grabbed it from the night stand and saw it was my hubby.   When I answered, he said he needed help, they’d found the calf!!!   I flew out of bed and got dressed and ran outside into the pasture.  Here’s how it unfolded:

Hubby was out with the dogs and they were doing their usual frolicking around before getting down to “business”.  Hubby told Cisco (another friend to all critters – he’s also known as “Babe” because of this), “Buddy, we’ve got to find that little calf today.”

Cisco took off through the nearly three foot tall oats and rye grass (one of his favorite places to romp) and suddenly his nose went straight into the air.  He was wading through the tall grass, seemingly unable to even see where he was going because his nose was pointed towards the sky!  And then his head suddenly dropped down into the grass and his tail started wagging 100 miles per hour.  Hubby thought, “No way!”  He ran over to the spot and all-be-darned, there was the calf, about ten feet from our shed (and we had searched all around there the day before), curled up in a little ball in three foot tall grass.  At first, he wasn’t sure if the calf was still alive, but then he saw an ear twitch.  Yes!!

What a beautiful little bull calf he is!  Hubby picked him up and I opened gates for him and we put him in the neighbors’ corral.  He stayed lying down right where hubby set him - now to get mama in the corral too.  Ellie, our Husky, was being naughty and not helping matters, and every time I tried to shoo her off, Peaches would follow me – away from the corral.  After several back and forth tries, I finally had to take Ellie all the way home and put her in our backyard.  Then I got a small scoop of sweet feed and convinced Peaches to follow me into the corral.  Hubby went to get the water hose to fill up a trough in the corral and I went to get Peaches some hay.  When hubby turned the water on, the noise startled the calf and he jumped up and went to the other side of the corral.  Peaches finally started nuzzling him a little bit and before we left, he had latched on for a much-needed meal!  Success!!

We got back to the house and within a few minutes, my father-in-law came into the kitchen.  We greeted him with, “Boy have we got a story for you this morning…”

With the horrible events unfolding in Boston on Monday, we were glad to have at least one small happy ending.  What an adventurous morning…and we don’t even have cows of our own yet. 

Until next time, worms rock and bees rule.

Visit us at www.facebook.com/KCFarms or www.pasturedeficitdisorder.com 

Part 2 of our coop building adventure: 

The next weekend, it took the entire weekend to finish framing out the doorway and build the roof framing.  No matter how much I dislike my desk job, I’m really glad I don’t have to frame roofing for a living!  We also put in the linoleum flooring.  Now those who do that for a living have fancy equipment, but let me tell you, installing that flooring by hand is also not for the faint at heart!  We also installed half of the OSB roof decking.

During the week, we managed to get some work done a couple of evenings.  Monday’s attempts were hampered by 50 mph winds.  Work on the roof…no thanks.  By Wednesday night we had the rest of the OSB on the roof and OSB on two walls.  The third weekend, we got the rest of the osb on the walls and all the siding up.  The partition wall inside was framed and covered in hex cloth (chicken wire), the screen door was installed with a handle and a latch and the front door was installed.  The windows and ventilation openings were all covered in sturdy hardware cloth.  Finally, the coop our blog friend Wendy, from Unpaved Roads, dubbed the “chicken mansion” was at least completely roughed in and predator tight.  We piled in the wood shavings, set up their feeders and two new larger waterers.  I bought some galvanized shallow pans (like oil pans) and put a brick in the middle of them to help support the waterer, then covered them with hardware cloth.  (By the way, this has worked great to keep the coop dry with the ducks in there!  They are messy, messy, messy.)

 
Late in the afternoon, we were ready to move all the feathered kids in!  (The door was installed after this pic by the way.)  We transported them in their brooder boxes and of course they squawked about being picked up out of them.  Once loose in the coop, they all huddled in a far corner, squirming and vying for the spot farthest in the corner.  After seeing a picture of them like that, my father in law advised us to put some cans of food in those corners so that one of them didn’t get accidentally smothered by being trapped in the corner.  Finally they started to relax and mill about, checking out their new house.  The ducks were being a little bossy towards the chicks.  They had been in brooder boxes “next door” to each other, but hadn’t been in the same space for several weeks.  I reminded the ducks that while they were quite a bit larger now because they grow so quickly, soon they would all be close to the same size and the ducks would be FAR outnumbered.  They seem to have all settled in together.  And the ducks are less bossy now.  We can tell the ducks’ legs are getting stronger now that they have room to move around.  We can’t wait to let them out into the yard to rummage around.  We’re almost done with their enclosed yard, but we’re thinking of sectioning off a smaller area around the coop for their first forays outside.  The ducks are getting their feathers.  We took them a shallow tote with about an inch of water and filled it with chopped fresh spinach.  Boy howdy…you don’t want to get in the way of that!  They had a glorious time eating the spinach and splashing in the water for the first time.

 
Still lots of work to do.  We need to build their roosts (which will have a poop "deck" below them), nest boxes, a little more work on the door, some shelving for the storage area, the permanent roof, paint the outside, and a permanent bird entrance door. But it's getting there.  They really needed the extra space - especially the ducks - and they seem to have grown super fast since they moved in. 

Until next time, worms rock and bees rule.

Visit us at www.facebook.com/KCFarms or www.pasturedeficitdisorder.com 

If you are at all part of the modern homesteading movement, you probably have a list of new things you would like to try: animals you want, crops you hope to plant, and skills you want to know.  While it is easy to get up on the roller coaster of doing more, in reality, choosing to homestead generally means the just the opposite.  Modern homesteading is far more about doing less than doing more. 

Recently, we were finally able to finish up the temporary chicken coop/future brooder.  Bess was getting very anxious to get our of her (huge) plastic tote in the extra bedroom, with no regard for how nicely the daybed was decorated.  Go figure.  And by the way, Gracie the cat is SO glad to have "her" room and bed back - she actually didn't hiss at the puppy for once after sleeping in there again for a couple of hours.

Anyway, I digress.  I loaded Bess up in the pet carrier to move her out to the coop. Once I set the carrier inside the coop yard and opened the gate, she wouldn't come out.  I tried to tip it a little and she wasn't having any part of it.  Dried meal worms wouldn't even entice her out.  (Should have tried oatmeal - that girl will do ANYTHING for oatmeal.) Funny girl, thought you wanted out of the tote...  So here's where we discovered that I can crawl right through the coop yard gate and sit down inside quite comfortably.  HA!  I had to take her out of the carrier and she immediately perched on my arm for a good 15 minutes before finally deciding that the grass wasn't going to eat her.  Poor chick. Then she promptly crawled up into my lap to sit for a spell.  Despite all my attempts to get her used to being held when we first got her, Miss Independence did not like being held at all.  And yet now she curled up in my lap.  Eventually, she started checking the place out and nabbed those meal worms.  I had a string of Christmas lights on for her the first night because it was so incredibly dark (she had nightlights in the house) and all new.  At some point, she finally went inside her house and settled down.

Last night, way after dark, she was still milling around the yard.  I was stressing because it was dark, and she was supposed to be in bed by now.  Doesn't she know that's what chickens are supposed to do?  Observing her for a little while, I noticed her trying to jump up at the lights.  So I went and turned them off.  Guess what?  She went right to bed.  Okay... Bess 1, Chicken Mom - 0.  Guess she knows more about being a chicken than I gave her credit for and certainly more than I do.  She definitely needs some friends. Down the road, with a radiant heater, I think our little coop is going to make a fabulous brooder.  Now to get that chicken/duck yard fencing finished so we can build a full sized coop...Bess needs lots of friends!

 
 Putting on the finishing touches.                           Bess checking out her new digs.

The lap chicken! 

Just a little postscript...Bess is trying to crow!  Of course, I think she sounded a lot like a turkey gobbling before too.  Maybe she's multilingual.  In the meantime, hubby has started call her "Bob".  Time will tell I guess.  All the rest of our animals are nuts...why not the chicken?! ;D

Post script to the post script…Bess is most definitely Bob!  He is getting a stronger voice every day and has the telltale long fountain feathers at the top of his tail…oh boy!

~ Like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/KCFarms or our brand new website:  www.pasturedeficitdisorder.com 

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.

Over the past few weeks I have come across several people talking about farming in a variety of different ways and some assumptions as to what a 'real' farmer really is.

The Superbowl commercial for Dodge trucks was terrific and highlighted some great farm scenes, but with the exception of a road side fruit and vegetable stand, these were large farms with acres of corn or livestock. There is no doubt that these are farmers.

Several weeks ago, my guest on my radio show (America's Home Grown Veggie Show) was Dr Luis Ribera, an agricultural economist from Texas A&M. When he graduated he too thought of farming in that same vein and could quote how many dollars per acres you could get from an acre of cotton, wheat etc. Then he worked on a grant that looked at small multi-crop businesses, many on less than 5 acres - could these families really make a living - estimated as $25K net - with that model of farming. Apparently no one had looked into the issue because perhaps they were not 'real farmers'. Turns out that these people do indeed produce food for the family, CSAs, farm market stands and local restaurants and they put many hours of hard labor into the work. This was far more than a hobby as Luis had assumed, and therefore should be classed as a farmer.

Another guest last week, had a different take on the issue. Peter Bane wrote the Permaculture Handbook and introduced me to a new term the Farmer-Gardener which perhaps takes in a broader group of growers and perhaps could be looked at as a sliding scale from hobby gardener with just a few tomato plants, to the full scale market gardener/farmer.

Finally I just finished reading City Farm by Novella Carpenter. Novella chronicles her life building a farm in a run down corner in the city of Oakland, CA. area. Starting with a field of weeds on an abandoned lot next door, Novella clears the lot, adds vegetables, fruit trees, bees, chickens, turkeys, ducks, rabbits and finally pigs. Her plan is to become self sufficient and to do that she feels the need to personally, and humanely, slaughter the animals as needed for food. Without doing this part it seems that she didn't feel as though the world would look at the farm as a 'real farm' or look at her as a 'real farmer'. 

So are all these people farming and farmers or are they a different category?  Homesteaders are a popular term used but I really wonder if some people are stuck with the idea that 'real farmers' are those depicted in the Superbowl commercial - and the rest of us are ..what...... not real farmers, or just playing at growing food, or...... 

Clearly it depends on who you ask. 

2012 turned out to be a big year for us, full of many little victories.  After all the horrible setbacks of 2011 we are mighty grateful!  Words can’t even express how blessed and grateful!

Last year at this time and through February, we were clearing dead trees to create our little home site.  We put planted the garden in March and installed about 300 feet of water lines.  The house was delivered in April and we moved in towards the end of that month.  

In May, we celebrated our seventh wedding anniversary and we also added to our furry pack – a pup from the shelter that we named Cisco.  Gracie the cat still doesn’t like him, even though she has always lived with dogs.  Go figure.  (Cisco weighed 10 pounds when we brought him home, and now, at 9 months, he’s up to 70+ pounds!) About a week later, a lost kitty found her way to our little farm.  We named her Two Socks; she’s the best dog we have.

In June we started fencing a backyard.  We came up with our own design, and now that “phase one” is done, we have to brag just a little – it’s a pretty darn nice looking fence!  

In June we also canned 30 pints of homegrown diced tomatoes and I started making homemade yogurt every week.  We ate tons of zucchini and yellow squash from the garden and put 15 pounds of homegrown tomatillos in the freezer for making green enchilada sauce later.  The backyard fencing project continued all summer.  

In August, our wonderful, sweet, oldest dog Maggie passed away unexpectedly.   Oh how she is missed by all of us!  But her spirit is ever-present in the pasture.  Furry sister Ellie has never quite been the same.  You’ll never convince us that animals don’t grieve! 

In September we celebrated our one year pasture anniversary!  Looking back at pictures, the pasture looked like a moon scape the year before.  But with some tender loving care and some blessed winter rains, it came roaring back to life!  We’re in desperate need of rain still, but hope to start cutting hay this next year.  I also started making all of our own bread in September – we don’t buy it from the store anymore.  

In October, an itty, bitty kitten showed up at the farm.  He couldn’t have been more than 6-8 weeks old, if that.  He started out as Kicking Bird (KB), but he’s so fast, we now call him Dash.  Then a few days later, another kitten, about 3 or 4 months old, showed up.  We named her Nala because we had just seen the Lion King on tv and she kind of looks like Nala.  So now we have barn kitties, but no barn…yet.   In the meantime, Dash has recently decided he likes being a man of leisure and has moved inside and made himself right at home.  It frightens us to think of what they went through to make it to us – especially Dash.  How dangerous it was for them to be on their own out there.  Whatever happened, we’re glad they showed up to be a part of our family.  

We had broccoli and green and purple cabbage in the winter garden.  The wild extremes in our temps killed it all off.  We weren’t prepared this year with a cold frame.  And after days of high 70s and low 80s, who could have predicted it would drop to 18 degrees in 24 hours!   And it’s done that a couple of times.  Unseasonably warm to unusually cold.   But the beauty of mild winters is that there is time to try some cabbage again (I’ll be growing heirloom varieties from seed).  I’m getting the seeds started in the house and will transplant in January.  It should be done producing by the time the spring air starts to warm and spring garden seedlings and are ready to be transplanted.  

On that note, we are already making plans for the spring garden.  We will stick with strictly heirloom varieties like we did last year.  Only this year, we will endeavor to save seeds.  Learned that lesson just this week…one of the tomatoes we liked the most was the Sioux variety.  But the seed company we bought from last year doesn’t have them this year.  I’m sure there are other great varieties, but we will hopefully still have good germination from the seeds we bought last year and will definitely save our own seeds for the future.  

We have also started phase two of our fencing plan, which will include a chicken/duck run and coops.  We were planning to have it all done in time for spring chicks/ducklings.  And we’re making good progress now that it’s not so hot outside!  But everything has been kicking into high gear after receiving a surprise Christmas present of a pair of two-week old chicks!  They are living in the laundry room in a large box for now, but will need outdoor quarters in the very near future!

 
Oh!  I almost forgot...we have some bees ordered for this spring too!  We're excited to try once again and hope to have better luck this time around.  The hives are already built, so we're ready to go. 

Happy New Year to you all!  May your year be filled will health, joy and creativity!

Until next time...worms rock and bees rule. 

My Rope Stands at the Ready!

Roping.  I never in my whole life thought I would know how to rope something, or even NEED to rope something, besides, they only do that in the rodeo, right?  But suddenly, although I am no expert, I am finding it to be one of my most useful homesteading skills! 

I sort of learned by accident.  After we finally determined that we have moved too far from our old church to travel back there every week, we started church shopping.  On a whim, we decided to try out "Cowboy Church."  In case you aren't familiar with it, Cowboy Church is a new movement wherein your church experience is tied in with ranching.  Basically, it is a come as you are service.  If you have cow poop on your boots or dirt on your shirt, no one cares.  They baptize people in their choice of horse water trough or in the river.  It really is a cool place.  Unfortunately, we came to realize that we weren't quite "cowboy" enough to fit in there, so the search for a new church continues.

Anyway, they often held events at a nearby arena, and the pastor's son is a championship roper.  He was always willing to teach anyone who showed the slightest interest.  Our son, then 5, was absolutely enthralled.  He had a lesson one night and then begged me to take him to the feed store the next day to get a "real" rope to practice with.  Since I found this to be a much more engaging pastime than playing DS, I caved and we ended up getting one kid sized rope for him and one grown-up sized rope for daddy.  He roped everything in sight for about a week before he decided he was done roping.  So, except for Eric occasionally roping me when I wasn't expecting it, the ropes just sat around most of the summer.

Then we got new goats.  But not just any new goats, a Nigerian Dwarf buck and a mixed breed weather for him to be friends with.  They are very sweet goats, but they are pretty scared of people.  They can also get out of our fence.  I have seen them find holes that the other goats wouldn't dream of trying to get out.  They can slip through rails into the barn and then into the back yard (rather than the pasture where they belong) and I've seen the shrimpy little guy even jump right over a 4' high fence with barbed wire at the top.  So, basically, not only can they get out, when they do get out, I can't catch them.

The little guys and a Lamancha were out. This is our neighbor's driveway, our pasture is to the left of the shot. 

Enter the rope.  I never thought I would need to rope anything until I had these crazy little goats!  As it turns out, though, it is a very effective method of catching the little boogers, and I'm not as bad at it as I originally thought!

Having roped them a few times now, the goats are on to me.  Now,  if they are outside the fence, all I have to do is approach them while holding the rope and they dash straight to the nearest opening.  

So really, I don't even have to rope them anymore, they know I will if I have to, and I know I can if I need to, and that's all that seems to matter!  (Besides, it's super-fun, but don't tell anyone!)

Have you ever tried to rope anything?

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.

I don't suppose it's a stretch to say that hanging up clothes on a braided white cord strung between two large trees is a form of homesteading, but I wanted to include it in my posts because it's such an easy way for people to take that "first step" into a more sustainable lifestyle.

The simple act of allowing the sun and breeze dry the clothes is certainly more time consuming than tossing a heap of wet clothes from one appliance hole into another. However, the meditative and environmental bonuses should outweigh the convenience...most of the time.

Obviously if laundry day(s) lands on an overcast or raining period, throwing the wash into the dryer is almost the only option. Or winter...don't see a lot of socks on the line in January. But I have seen laundry out with snow on the ground, so it is possible to be that hard core. And I have friends who have drying racks built into the walls of their great rooms for rainy days or winter time. So it's definitely possible. Of all the appliances our modern lifestyle afford us, I would say that the dishwasher and the dryer are the most un-essential. A small adjustment and you can get by perfectly without them.

[I don't count a microwave as an appliance that any household should have to begin with, so that doesn't make my list at all.]

Now before you think I'm stepping up to some hand-made soap box, I will be the FIRST to admit that our gravitation to hang laundry on the line came partly from necessity and...no, mostly that. When we first moved in to our house in April, the dryer plug did not fit the outlet and we had to wait about a week before the correct one could be installed. In our house, a week's worth of laundry might as well be a month! I had to get something washed and dried, so we bought some clothes line at the local Fleet Farm and looked for a place to set it up.

Despite two large side yards and a backyard to boot, there are scant few trees with which to string a line. The only option was two mature trees in the shared yard with our neighbors. Andy is a whiz with knots and came up with a hook and knot solution that tied the singular strand of cord to itself without pulling away under the stress of heavy, wet clothes. A single fat nail in each trunk keeps the line from scooting downwards as it wraps around the tree. And within minutes, we had our natural dryer all set in place.

I began the long process of "digging out" which took about two days of washing, drying and folding. After all, laundry is like the mail. There is always more the next day.

Then, just after our trip to North and South Dakota in July, our dryer gave out on us. It spun just fine, but the heating element was dead. So the clothes came out just as wet as they went in, albeit "fluffed." Given that I had purchased the dryer and washer before I met Andy from a college friend who had gotten them used before he began his own higher education, this put the manufacture date at least into the mid-1990's. 20 years is a good haul for a dryer in my opinion, and given the advent of Craigslist, we decided to line dry for the summer and save up for a dryer for the cold season.

We're still saving...and we just welcomed October. :-) Methinks it's gonna be a chilly end to the month and our basement will still be housing that old beast appliance.

We probably wash the equivalent of one full load per day, though I only get to it about every three days. Part of the reason our laundry content might be higher than the average family is because we use cloth diapers and cloth napkins...and we have kids. Who play outside.

When you hang your laundry out on the line, it takes a chunk of devoted time. About a half hour covers both ropes, but that is rarely enough to fit all our clothes. (perhaps if I did it everyday like I should, right?)

We can make it without a dryer, though as the cold mornings set in and I need longer and longer drying times to get the laundry in before dark, I'm longing for that ease of use which comes with an indoor, tumbling sun and breeze machine. When Baby #4 arrives, it will be a blessing to have one in place.

Therefore, I am not as hard core as some in this arena. I love the quiet, contemplative moments one can have while gently clasping a shirt to a cotton line. I love listening to the birds in the mornings and watching the kids play about me while I reach for another sock. Seeing the clothes swinging easily on the wind is also such a piece of Americana that even here in the city, I am taken back to the days on the farm.

However, as Andy can attest, I really want a dryer again! Just for the winter this time, I promise.

Hi Friends,

I was looking through some photos I took in 2011 and realized that we did a lot of homesteading even before we moved to Oshkosh. I documented many things we did, from canning to harvesting free apples to fishing, which I never wrote about in here.

Welcome to my series entitled "Homesteading Last Year." HLY for short, it's incredibly creative, don't you think? (sarcasm)

I'll have about ten in the series to pick up when things in the here and now aren't so very interesting or we're on another spurt of canning tomatoes and you are asking for Pete's sake, Becky, please don't blog about more tomatoes.

Fair enough! I'll begin the first blog today seeing as our household has been a bit under the weather and any sort of homesteading has been pretty nondescript.

HLY # 1: Fishin' in the Channel 

Last year we lived with a friend of a friend and he happened to have his home based securely on a man-made inlet. Everyone on the block had a boat dock and a boat. It was a nice upper-middle-class neighborhood and many of the things people owned or did were completely foreign to us simple folk. For instance, the few homes not situated on the channel housed their nice yachts in a small harbor at the end of the channel and would need to drive or walk from their home to go boating. We never did see anyone walking. But we did see several variations of golf carts or ATVs traversing the nicely paved roads on Saturday mornings. Our family preferred the solace of the backyard, small as it was, with its charming edible landscaping and terraced gardens. The dock sprouted right out of the lawn and made for a very picturesque scene, no matter what time of year it was.

Our host was an avid fisherman with his own bass boat, but during our stay we never saw him take it out. Every once in awhile we'd see him fishing for bluegill off the end of the dock, a few tip-ups at hand and a cold iced tea. Andy decided he would learn to fish.

He'd fished as a youngster with his paternal grandfather and knew the basics, but it had been a few years. He and Elly and Ethan dug for worms in the garden and grabbed a likely looking fishing rod from the garage, donned life preservers and headed to the dock. I stayed back with Liam, who was not yet walking and photographed the fun.

Yes, there's a fish in this photo! :-)

Removing the hook as gently as he can, Andy places the bluegill into the bucket.

The kids then poked at the catch with nets...

As all boy as Ethan is, he wouldn't touch the shiny fish.

Elly catches her first fish, with Daddy's help reeling it in!

Now one might not immediately think of fishing as a homesteading opportunity but little thought has to go into the idea. Talk about relatively free food! A little investment in supplies, some patience and a good fishing hole and you can potentially have hardy protein for the whole year through. The day we caught bluegills, the tiny filets lasted a single meal. However, with some prep and foresight, practice and time, one can catch a lot of fish and lots of larger varieties at that. Good ways to preserve fish besides freezing it is to smoke it or salt and brine it. Some even enjoy the flavor of pickled fishes (pointing at my own family for that one)!

In the Great Lakes Region and specifically in our area of Wisconsin, one must be cautious with fishing as the rivers and lakes are laced from years of paper factory pollution. Up until the late 1980's large local companies used the precious waterways to dump unwanted "refuse" completely unchecked. Only until the government began enforcing environmental laws written in the '70's did they clean up their own acts.

The legacy is fish that are laced with PCBs and other toxins that have harbored in the silt and sand along the bottoms of the rivers and streams. Bottom dwelling fish in specific are discouraged from being consumed wild, but since everything is connected in a delicate web, all fish from the water systems here must be carefully considered before consuming in large quantities.

How sad and unfortunate! Even as I type, the Fox River (which runs along the northern border of Foxwood Farm) is being dredged anew for PCBs. Our home here in Oshkosh is nestled within blocks of the Fox River as it pours into Lake Winnebago, Wisconsin's largest unshared lake. To our south is the river. To our east is the lake. We see people fishing during the various seasons. We don't fish. Not here. The ferries and barges with enormous dredging cranes float past daily and parts of the river are off-limits to boaters, small buoys and inflatable barriers marking just where they happen to be pulling up nasty dirt at any given moment.

So here one could feed themselves indefinitely on fish alone, yet be poisoning themself with every bite they take. The fish we caught near Winneconne came from a tiny man-dug inlet, but ultimately that water ends up in the Bay of Green Bay and out to Lake Michigan, up the St. Lawrence Seaway and to the ocean beyond. Nothing is an island when it comes to water. The best we can hope for is a spring fed lake and while they do exist crystal clear in part of the state, we don't know of any around here.

So, while we enjoyed our meals here and there at the channel, fishing for food will not be one of our mainstays for quite some time. Still, the idea has merit and if you can make it work where you live, we encourage you to commune with nature in that very unique way; taking what you need to live for the day or the winter and sitting out in the elements soaking it all in.

“Come see what I built!”

It was an invitation from my then almost-9-year-old son to visit the space he had built for himself to ‘get away from it all’.   He led me carefully through one of the many patches of undergrowth near our little cabin, thick with salmon berries just starting to bud with bright green leaves (and sticky thorns).  Then we came upon it – a tiny little hut, built with intricate layers of windfall branches and ferns, its entrance hidden by a particularly dense spray of hemlock.

“It’s where I can lie and listen to the sounds of the forest, and the songs of the birds.”

And right then I knew my decision to leave our city life behind was the right one.

Our Journey from Subdivision to Townhouse to Log Cabin in the Woods

I always thought I'd move out of the city when I children joined my life.  I just didn't realize what a huge difference it would make to my son - or myself.

I grew up in a rural community – in a subdivision, mind you, but in a district where only 20,000 people lived along a narrow strip of land stretching 70 miles along the rocky coast.  Bears visited our backyard regularly, and we spent our weekends in the mountains, exploring abandoned logging camps and old First Nations villages, hiking to extinct volcanic craters, and riding dirt bikes in the empty lots down the street.  We learned all the native edible and medicinal plants, the names of all the trees towering above, and which wild birds like which sorts of native berries.  We fished, rode motorbikes, and got dirty.  In other words, we spent most of our waking hours outside.

When my son was born in 2003 and we ended up in a townhouse on a busy road in the city, all those amazing childhood experiences came flooding back - and I realized, sadly, that his life was going to be very different.  His school days would be interrupted by sirens and construction projects, he'd have to sidestep doggy doo (and other nasties) every time he went for a walk in the forest, and he'd never really know the joys of silence.  For his own memories' sake, I wanted him to know a summer day where all you can hear is crickets, the rustling of the wind in dry, tall grass, and the distant hum of a float plane buzzing to some far flung island.  The chance of experiencing any of that living in a townhouse?  Nada.

I loved so many things about our city, nestled between sea and mountain, but getting my little guy out into 'nature' was an more of an effort than I was able to pull off most days.  During my maternity leave, we'd hop on the bus and spend our days in the forest (with him on my back in a carrier) but once I went back to work, there just never seemed to be enough time.  Moving closer to the nature was out of the question - real estate in our part of the world is crazy at best - the average home price at the time was somewhere around $800K.  Decent townhouses closer to the forest on a quiet street?  About $600K.  So it was either noisy townhouse or the alternative - moving - and  I struggled with it every single day.

It was when he got a little older and I'd find him entranced by the comings and goings of ants and wood bugs that I decided that this child was born to be in the country.  He just oozed it.  His first word wasn't 'cat' or 'juice', but 'moon'.  So I started planning for a very different life... a life somewhere quieter where he could become who he was meant to be, without distraction.

Now, we could have moved anywhere, but it was important that my guy be close to his grandparents.  In other words, our choice was pretty simple - we moved back to my hometown, only a 40 minute ferry ride, but what felt like a world, away.  It was 2008, and I had no idea how I was going to make it work, but I'd been building my skill set for years and studying everything I could get my hands on that had anything to do with rural living, homesteading and the transition from city to country living.  Was I terrified?  Um... yeah.  But terror slowly turned to 'I can do this!', and we never looked back.

So here we are, just over 4 years later, well ensconced into a new/old life in the forest.  My son attends a Waldorf School surrounded by trees and streams, and right across a quiet country road from the beach.  He gets to see his grandparents pretty much every day - something I never experienced in my own childhood - and spends his non-school time listening to the wind in the trees, collecting and studying bugs and other critters, and communing with our flock of 20 chickens (17 hens and three roosters, to be exact).  And now that we've been here awhile, the benefits of the move are becoming clearer every single day.

The Benefits

First off, please know that I'm no child development expert and I can't tell you conclusively that living in the country is any 'better' than living in the city, as they both clearly have their pros and cons, but there are a few things I've observed over the past 4 years that I think are worth noting:

1. Room to Run – This one goes without saying.  Children need to move and run and stretch their limbs in order for their physical and mental capacities to develop in a healthy way, and that's pretty difficult in a 1000 square foot apartment with a tiny rooftop deck.  They don't need a lot of space, but the simple joy of being able to move freely when the impulse strikes is a real treat to watch.  If my son wants to run across the yard on all fours, he can do that - without crashing into anything or stepping into anyone else's space (but chicken poop, maybe).
2. Quiet for the Imagination – A big reason why we decided on Waldorf Education, and moved to a rural community, was this - the preservation, and development of, my child's imagination.  Not that imagination can't develop in the city, of course - some of our most brilliant people were raised in urban environments - but there's something about quiet, being in nature, that just invites creative thinking and problem-solving, especially for children who are sensitive.  With the challenges we're facing in the world, we need creative people, unencumbered by rigid or stunted thought processes and the distraction of 24/7 noise.
3. Exposure to the Natural World – As you know, our planet is in somewhat of a crisis on the environmental front.  Species extinctions, systemic pollution, habitat loss... our children need to be connected to the natural world now more than ever.  If they don't feel like they're a part of the world around them, how can we expect them to care about it?  So your child spending quiet, extended time in nature benefits us all, and will for generations.  I simply can't see how my son would care anywhere near as much about the creatures of the world and its natural systems as he does if he didn't get to see and feel and touch them every day.
4. No Billboards or In-Your-Face Marketing - This one is HUGE for me - there simply isn't anywhere near the bombardment of visual marketing as there is in the city, where every surface is covered with images talking our children into 'needing' things they don't really need at all, and doing things they really have no business doing.  Think about the effects of mainstream media and marketing on children, and then imagine what it would be like to not have that in your child's face every day.  It's liberating, and so much better because kids are left alone to be just that - kids.
5. Time to be Together – I'm blessed to work from home, and I'm incredibly busy with my business, but I'm able to spend a lot more time with my son than I did when we lived in the city and I worked in an office, mostly by nature of the fact that we aren't spending hours in traffic every day, nor are we signed up for umpteen lessons and activities.  It's been incredibly freeing, and rewarding, to be able to spend time with him - even when I'm working and serving clients and he's just hanging out with the chickens or drawing pictures of trolls and eagles.  Child development expert Gordon Neufeld talks extensively about the importance of children being 'attached' to their caregivers and not their peers - it's much easier to do this when you can actually spend a lot of time together.

Of course, as with anything worth exploring, there are downsides, but in our experience, the great things that have come from our move out of the city far outweigh the negatives, which are, well, pretty much non-existent.  Sure sometimes it's a struggle to get everything done, the power goes out a lot, and we don't have any neighbours at all, let alone with children, so spontaneous play with other kids is sort of out of the question, but even with all that, I can't imagine living anywhere else.  I'll let Jonah wrap it up:  Why I Like Living in the Country

Are you planning a move to the country with your children?  Do you have any concerns or worries?  If so, leave us a comment on the blog or on Facebook to hear from others who've made the move and are loving it... it's a super supportive group and we love sharing what we've learned.  See you there!

I call our property Marshview since it is surrounded on three sides by wetlands.  What is not wetland was once a cow pasture.  Our piece of land was the western-most edge of the pasture so we have a hedgerow of trees bordering the property. 

We raised two kids here and they are now off to college.  Needless to say, we did not do much to the property when the kids were growing up.   My husband and I both worked full-time and we spent many evenings and weekends at various sporting or school events.   Our lives have slowed down and since I am home full-time I am contemplating what to do with this patch of land.   Do I want to increase the size of the vegetable garden so we can eat more from the garden than from the grocery store?  Do I want to grow wildflowers and herbs?  Do I want to create a natural habitat garden?  Do I want to raise chickens, goats, and/or sheep?   Do I want to create a homestead that incorporates all of these options?

All of these choices require research and a plan. (I am a planner by nature.) Our vegetable garden is relatively unprotected thus our tomato, squash, and bean crops have been pretty much decimated by deer.  My husband and I are designing a garden barrier fence.  He is a ‘form follows function’ type guy but I do not want the vegetable garden to look like a prison yard.    We thought about an electric fence but we decided on a barrier fence instead.

I tried my hand at growing wildflowers, but the local wildlife found them just as tasty as the tomatoes so I need to research deer-resistant varieties or decide on some sort of fence in which to grow them.  I have herbs growing in containers outside the kitchen door.  Do I want to create a larger herb garden or maybe design a portager?

Marshview is currently a natural habitat garden in the most basic sense.  I have not done anything with much of the property so plants are growing, some invasive, with no real design.  The ‘natural’ parts of the property look messy and unkempt.   Cleaning up these areas and adding a few design elements would go a long way to improving the look of the landscape.  If you have not already guessed, I am more of a ‘function follows form’ person.

And then there are animals.  We have three dogs, but adding more animals, whether they are chickens, goats, or sheep, would mean daily care giving and it would be difficult to go away for a long weekend or a week’s vacation.  Do I want to be that tied to this land, to Marshview?

Deciding on what to do with our 2.5 acres is not an easy decision for me and currently brings up more questions than answers. Deciding how I want to live and what I am realistically able to do—financially, physically, and time-wise—will be on my mind as I go about my garden chores.  Today I will be digging up this year’s onion and potato crop.  Deer do not like onions or potato plants so I have had one small garden success this year.  Is that enough for me to strive for more?  

Even without horrible drought conditions, water supply is (or should be) a major concern for most people. If we still had to carry every drop of water we used in a bucket, we would not be so wasteful. In our house, we have always tried to be conservative with our water use anyway.  We follow the standard tips like not leaving the water running while brushing our teeth and taking showers instead of baths, etc.  But we recently implemented two changes to help save even more water in our house.

First, we started saving the water that used to run right down the drain (and into the septic tank) from the kitchen sink, while waiting for the hot water to come out of the tap (like when washing dishes or preparing our dogs’ food). We can accumulate two gallons some days.  We use it to fill the dog and cat water bowls, water plants, etc. We started saving our orange juice jugs (which we recycle anyway) – they’re sturdy and have good lids. When you stop and think about it, that’s approximately 14 gallons a week and over 700 gallons a year.

Second, we started capturing the condensation runoff from the air conditioner - which seems like it runs ALL THE TIME lately (whew, it’s been hot). Because it's so humid here, our air conditioner works as hard to dehumidify the air as it does to cool it. In fact, we had developed a bad drainage problem in the backyard because of it. Well, once we started capturing it, we have no more drainage issues and we are getting anywhere from 5 to 8 gallons a day! We have a big container we save the water in and then use that water in the yard.  We are trying to keep the trees alive that we thankfully didn't lose from the brutal heat and drought last summer (we don't think they can make it through another summer like that). We've also used it to help dig our post holes (as dry as it is, the ground is rock hard) and for the water in our concrete when setting new fence posts. This also means we're not using drinking water for these jobs.

Someday, we’ll also install gutters all the way around the house and add rain water collection to the equation.

These are just two very small changes we’ve made, but they cost us nothing – and hardly even any extra time or effort – and very quickly add up to a lot of water savings!

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This past weekend, we canned tomatoes for the very first time. And not only that, they were tomatoes we grew ourselves, and from heirloom seeds!!

Aren't all those fresh veggies gorgeous?!!  (In the second picture, Two Socks is a kitty that recently adopted us.  She's a great garden helper!)

We were going to attempt this on Saturday, but after taking our three ring circus (aka the three canine furry kids) to the vet - the puppy for the first time (oy vey!) - we were too exhausted to start in the afternoon.

It's hard to find good help! 

So on Sunday we dove in. First I washed all the tomatoes and weighed them in batches. I’m REALLY glad I thought to do that. Since we've never done this before, I realized that would be a good way to help us track how many jars we will need in future endeavors. It’s tough to gauge that when you’re a newbie. While I had plenty of jars washed and ready to go, I didn’t want to heat more of the dome lids that we would need. Maybe they’d be fine, but I just have this thing in my head that I don’t want to repeatedly heat the lids before they actually get used in the full canning process.

We ended up with 30.5 pounds of tomatoes! And that's not counting all I’ve been eating in the last week or so. They are so gorgeous and I’d forgotten how INCREDIBLE a homegrown tomato tastes. They actually have flavor, unlike those you buy at the grocery store.

Next, we boiled a pot of water on the stove to blanch the tomatoes for about 30 seconds. The skins on these are a little thick, so sometimes it took maybe 15 seconds more. We did this in small batches.

We had a cooler of ice water ready and once the tomatoes came out of the boiling water, they went immediately into the ice bath. We discovered that if we left them in there a few minutes to really cool them down all the way through the skins really slid off very easily.

I sliced them horizontally and scooped out most of the seeds. I then cut them up into chunks.

Once they were all diced, we put about ¼ of them into our big enamel stock pot and mashed them with a potato masher while bringing them to a boil to create some good juice for the whole batch. Once they came to a boil and the juices were released, we added the rest and brought them to a boil.

Now here’s where we hit a snag. It was 103 degrees plus really high humidity outside…in other words, miserable. We thought about setting up our outdoor cooker at the end of the house covered by trees, but that would also mean carting pans, jars, etc., etc., back and forth. So we started the water bath canner on the stove inside. That just didn’t work. After about 45 minutes, the water still wasn’t boiling! We were getting frustrated. The tomatoes were ready to go and so were the jars and lids. I finally put the lid on the tomatoes and turned the heat off. I didn’t want to turn them into sauce! We gave up and quickly set up the outdoor propane cooker. I swear, in addition to the larger burner/flames, I think the 100+ temps fired that sucker right up and in 10 minutes or less the canner was at a full rolling boil (granted the water was at least very hot from its eternity on the indoor stove). We actually got two pots going and were finally in business! 

So lesson learned, you just can’t beat the little portable propane two burner outdoor cooker when it comes to canning. Someday, we plan to have a nice deck that is covered. Ideally, it would be great to have a covered carport with an outdoor kitchen set up – counters, water, etc. But honestly I’ll take any space that’s covered to keep that brutal sun off our heads.

We ended up with 15 pints of diced tomatoes (in their own juice) and two pints of just juice.

One of our favorite parts of canning is hearing the lids “ping” after they come out of the canner and cool down. We always joke that “another jar got its wings”.

In addition, we put 11 pounds of home-grown tomatillos into the freezer in bags of one pound each. Making verde sauce or canning those was just too much to tackle in one day and I had read you can just freeze them whole. I think what I’ll do is thaw them out as
needed and make fresh batches of verde sauce when we need it. I can even make a batch on a weekend and use it for a meal during the week.

With the next batch of tomatoes, I’m planning to make rosemary basil “sun dried” tomatoes in our dehydrator. Tomatoes are quartered (or cut into sixths or eighths, depending on the size of the tomato), then marinated in olive oil, smashed garlic, fresh basil and rosemary and salt and then dehydrated. Don’t those sound DIVINE?! Stay tuned…I’ll let you know how those turn out.

Until next time, worms rock.

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It helps to be fairly organized when you live in the country…especially if you still have a job in the city and commute every day.  Our drive is actually almost the same distance as we have been driving from the suburb where we were renting.  The drive takes just a little longer because we’re no longer traveling 75 mph on the wide open toll roads. 

I will admit, we had let ourselves lapse into a little bit of laziness at our previous house.  We were tired after work, and would sit down to just chill for a “little bit”.  In actuality, that translates into watching tv and playing on the computer/iPad for most of the evening.  But when you don’t own the home that you’re living in, you don’t spend the time, money and energy in putzing around working on little projects inside and out.  And most of our crafts and wood working materials were still packed away. 

Now that we’re living on our homestead fulltime, there are chores to do when we get home.  But the word chore is a misnomer  because we positively love being outside tending to the garden and working on little projects all around the homestead.  We also really enjoyed observing our bees (but that enterprise took a sad, sad turn – more about that in a future blog).

In getting used to our new routines, we are trying to stay organized and get as much done the night before to make our mornings a little less hectic.  Last night, I got everything ready for my lunch except for my sandwich.  I like to make my sandwich fresh in the morning – it’s just not as good to me after it’s been in the refrigerator all night and then in my lunch cooler half the day.  This morning, I grabbed my containers out of the fridge, made my sandwich and was ready to go!

When you live out in the country, it’s a major ordeal to get one or two items for a meal.  While we can make a pit stop at a store on the way home, it’s not preferred since it seems that everyone else is there too!  Something I have done for a long time (and have fallen in and out of the habit over the last few years), is to make a menu for the week.  I can then make a grocery list based on that menu and in one shopping trip will have everything needed to make a week’s worth of meals.  It also helps eliminate the “what should we have for dinner” conversation every single day.  When we have a plan, we just look at the menu and say, “Okay, tonight we’re having ___” and get busy cooking.

I also might add that the meals on our menu need to be relatively quick to prepare.  After working all day, getting home and trying to get something done, the last thing we want to do is spend hours in the kitchen cooking dinner.  But we also want to eat as many whole foods and stay away from as much processed food as possible.  Now that we have the storage space and extra refrigerator and freezer capacity, we are buying in bulk as much as possible.  For one, we believe in being prepared and ready for anything.  Also, by planning ahead, we can reduce the number trips we have to take in to “town” – time that takes us away from our homestead and into crowds of people and traffic…now THAT is a chore!  

Last night I got everything ready for Mexican steak and beans in the crock pot.  I mixed together a can of diced tomatoes, a can of diced green chiles, several spices, and half of a diced onion.  I put this mixture in a quart jar and into the refrigerator. 

Then I measured out brown rice and put it in a plastic container and the appropriate amount of water in a cleaned out (and repurposed) orange juice container. The crock pot and rice cooker were set out (oh the JOY of having lots of counter space now!!) and ready for this morning. 

  
This morning, after making my lunch very quickly (thanks to last night’s efforts), I put the meat in the crock pot, dumped in my tomato mixture, put the lid on and turned it on.  Then I poured the pre-measured rice and water into the rice cooker and set the delay timer.  Voilá, with less than two minutes of work this morning (and really only a few minutes more of prep work the night before) dinner will be ready when we get home!  All I have to do is add a can of pinto beans to the crock pot (they just need to get warm) and serve.  We really enjoy this meal.  It’s quick and easy and really good.  I need to get more adept with my crock pot – there’s nothing like having dinner done when you get home from work!   Not to mention that we’re free to work in the garden and around the house for longer because dinner is already cooked.

Not every day will go this smoothly.  But we are really going to work hard to spend a few extra minutes in the evening getting ready for the next day and keep our mornings less hectic in the mad dash to get out the door.  It doesn’t take a lot of time or effort - it’s all about creating a new habit.   

Until next time, worms rock and bees rule.

Well it seems like forever since I’ve posted a blog here!  It certainly was not intentional.  We’ve just been so overwhelmed getting everything ready for the house to get to the homestead and then getting us to the homestead!  Why does any construction project have to be so wrought with frustrations and disappointments?  I guess that would have been a huge upside to building for ourselves – we could think through all the little things and do them right.  Like where light switches are located and air system vents and not just building to meet minimum code, but better than that.  But, if we were building ourselves, we would still have had to get some kind of temporary housing so that we could be on the property, and it probably would have taken us five or more years to complete it.  Not to mention every free moment would have been consumed with building a house.  This way, we are there, we have a brand new house, plenty of space for all our stuff and yet we are purposefully living below our means.  Instead, we can focus on all the other things we want to add to our little homestead:  fencing, a carport, a woodwork shop, a chicken coop and run, a duck coop and run, a rescue bunny retirement home, cows, more bees, fruit trees, expanded garden, a greenhouse, a barn and corral…whew!  The list goes on (doesn’t it always!).

Speaking of bees, ours arrived!  They were delayed, but only by a week.  And of course they showed up the weekend we were moving!  But we were (mostly) ready for them.  I’ll admit I was a little anxious.  I’ve never been stung (got that out of the way yesterday).  And staying still while you’re being buzzed by hundreds or thousands of bees flying around, well, that just goes against your every instinct.  We worked through step by step, spraying them with our sugar syrup, opening the packages, removing the can of sugar syrup they traveled with, figuring out where the queen was and how she was attached (it wasn’t exactly the same as all the literature we’d read), shaking them out of the box, uncapping the queen cage, hanging her in the hive, replacing the bars and putting  the lid back on the hive.  We were wishing we had a brush to gently move them out of the way to replace the top bars, but then, a stroke of genius…we pulled some of the two foot tall grass stems that are going to seed and used them as a brush.  Talk about organic – and it worked like a charm! My hubby was wearing a short sleeve shirt and no gloves (we both had hats with veils) and he didn’t get stung even once.  I had a long sleeve shirt on and some white gardening gloves and only got stung once – of all places on the inside of my leg.  I guess one landed on my leg and as my legs came together, she thought she was getting squished.  The stinger didn’t even make it into my leg though because it was through my pants.  This morning you can hardly see the spot anymore.  And while it wasn’t something I’d sign up to do every day, now that it happened, I’ve gotten that first sting out of the way and it’s not that big of a deal.

I can’t explain the feeling we had once we were done.  We have SO MUCH to learn yet.  But it was just AMAZING!!  I see why people that get into bees really get into it.  From some strange reason, it felt very empowering.  If you just learn a little about bees and their world and how they function, they are positively incredible little creatures.  We are using top bar hives that my hubby built and we have them set up under a huge pecan tree that’s over 100 years old.  They’ll have plenty of morning sun, but have some cover from the intense late afternoon sun during the summer.  Our tank (pond) is going dry (it wasn’t dug out correctly) so we put water out for them.  We’ll set up a more permanent waterer of some sort in the near future.  We hope they like their wonderful hand-built hives and our place as much as we do!  

Until next time, worms rock and bees rule.

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 .  

Things are hopping at our little homestead (a.k.a. our little piece of heaven on earth)!  And what a productive weekend! 

Thanks to the help of our fabulous neighbors, who loaned us their truck so that we could pick up a rented trencher, we trenched  approximately 500 feet of water line on Saturday.  We’re very grateful to have good soils – not too much sand, not too much clay, and no rocks whatsoever.  We also started putting pipe together on Saturday. 

Then on Sunday, after a trip to the store for more supplies, our fabulous neighbors came to our rescue again.  They came over and spent several hours helping us lay the rest of the pipe and covering the trenches back up.  There was heavy rain in the forecast for last night into this morning (boy was it!). They knew it was in our best interest to have that project done so that the rains didn’t fill our trenches back in before we got the pipes in, causing us to dig them out all over again.  On top of that they loaned us their tractor and shredder so we could get the grass that was two feet tall down to a manageable level in order to mark out the homesite for the house infrastructure crew that will coming out later in the week. (I do have to say, it hurt my feelings a little to cut down that beautiful grass – but the area directly under where the house is going will be wiped out anyway.) 

Here are a few pictures of the water line progress.

We took plenty of pictures and went through much discussion for these water lines.  We put a lot of thought in to their locations and want it all documented so that in the future, we’ll know exactly where everything is.  We put in shut off valves in strategic places so that if we ever do have problems, we can more easily isolate where they are occurring and make the necessary repairs (as opposed to digging up the entire water system!).  We also laid out the lines to allow for easier future expansion as we add structures and critters.

We did take an extra day off and also managed to install two spigots (one right in the garden!) and fence 450 square feet of garden space.  We have stuff that needs to be transplanted and others to direct sow.  But we had to get fencing up to keep the critters out, lest we just serve up and gourmet salad bar for them. :)   We are only using a portion of what we tilled for now.  It's WAY more garden space than we've ever had and we had a budget on fence material that we had to stick with.

Only about two weeks left before the house should be ready.  We are so excited about how close we are getting to living on our homestead full time!  And added to that whirlwind of activity, our bees will be arriving April 14th.  Stay tuned, it’s gonna get crazy around here.

Until next time, worms rock and bees rule.

Dear Grit Family,

Our lives have been an interesting mix of super busy, yet busy with things that might not interest you. However, I felt that an update was needed nonetheless. I am going to put together a few posts from the last month or so to help fill in the gaps on our family's journey. We are always moving, as I'm sure you are too, so there's always something to write about.

~˚~~~~~~~~˚~

(Late February) 

Since we last spoke, I have dug deeper into creating things and developed an new found love of sewing! As I was hand sewing another felt toy, it occurred to me to look up patterns online of other toys I could make and well, let's just say Pandora knew I was coming. After about an hour of collecting free patterns of felt toys I could make, I realized that I could sew more, and faster, if I used a sewing machine and other materials. I began an Amazon search for books on making toys and that led me to look into popular books on learning the art of sewing from the ground up.

When I was younger, I learned to sew pillows with my mom. She was always mending my father's work jeans and my play clothes, as well as make the occasional window curtain or throw pillow for the house. I didn't really have an interest beyond pillow making and eventually, quit sewing along side her. It became obvious to me that I needed to revisit sewing with Mom and picked up the phone to ask her if she'd like to teach me how to sew...again.

She was delighted to work with me and we began informal lessons at her house, using her machine. With my birthday a week or so away, I asked to get a couple sewing books I'd found online and sure enough, they arrived at my door just after I turned 31. So there it was. A rabbit trail that led me to a destination I never even considered a mere two weeks ago. I now had a deep desire to become a sewist.

It had evolved past the toy making stage into a real desire to make things, useable things, for the family. I have been working through my new book, Stitch by Stitch, which takes you through step by step lessons and each project is not only practical, but builds upon the previous skills. It's incredibly thought out and the author's conversational tone makes me absolutely love it. Plus, it comes with a CD of patterns you can print.

Needless to say, I am excited. I'll take pictures of my projects as I complete them so you can follow my progress. Right now I am completing my fourth and fifth "mini-project" which teaches necessary skills before launching into a full blown sewing assignment.

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As well, our family has been learning to Breathe. It's a reference to an early 2000's Switchfoot song, but in our instance, it applies to learning the art of patience before the Lord. We greatly desire another parcel of land to make a farming go of it (though not so large scale as at Foxwood), but financially, it would be very miraculous to make that happen. So we are continuing to work hard at building up Gourmet Grassfed, building up our family and reading as much as we can about homeschooling, sustainable home building and living off the land. Meanwhile, we are actively looking for a place to truly call home. A place in the country, some pasture, a home with a few bedrooms. Nothing fancy. Just some place we can garden, maybe keep a few chickens and return to some self sustainability. We eagerly anticipate a home for us. In the meantime, we're learning to just breathe.

~˚~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~˚~

(Mid-March) 

Something about nearly dying seems to change a person and those around them. A couple weeks ago, Andy's father, Steve (whom I've written about many times on this blog) collapsed at work with a heart attack and had it not been for his quick thinking boss, the proximity to a hospital and a host of other little miraculous things, I'd be posting about a funeral instead. In my family's little world, we got the call while participating in a home school group at a local church. We rearranged plans and whipped the kids into the car and headed to Madison to see the patriarch Sell. At the time, no one was sure what happened when he blacked out, but after several tests and an invasive procedure, they determined he indeed had a heart attack and that he would need a quadruple bypass surgery within days. Thankfully we had a bunch of prayer warriors behind us and the knowledge of modern medicine in our corner. Today, a mere two weeks since the surgery, he is home and resting and even beginning physical therapy a few times per week.

This comes after our niece Maddy was diagnosed with Ewing's Sarcoma, a rare bone cancer in it's fourth stage. At one point during Steve's stay in Madison, Maddy was mere blocks away at the University hospital receiving her next dose of chemotherapy. Steve and Maddie both had laptops in their respective rooms and Skyped each other, laughing if nothing else, at the oddness of the situation.

On top of everything, most people weren't aware that Andy had just had light surgery to remove a "pre-cancerous" growth on his upper back. After Maddie was diagnosed in December, we decided to have a few odd moles and bumps on Andy's back looked at. Most of the biopsies returned negative, but they removed about five moles anyway. One, however, had warning signs of cancer and they wanted to get it out while the gettin' was good. In light of everything else going on, it seemed like the only thing to do.

And so, Andy is in the clear. But seeing his ten year old niece suffer every other week with chemo and his 60 year old father reduced to merely walking about the house every two hours motivated him to make some daily life changes. One can only change themselves after all and while we eat relatively healthily, our lifestyle is pretty sedentary. For the last three weeks, Andy has been working out nearly every morning in our family room to some Maximized Living DVDs. The concept is built on short bursts of serious workout. The whole thing never lasts more than 12 minutes each day, but it's pretty amazing how much body fat is burned and how much strength is built. I encourage him to "get down there and do it" when he needs it, but most mornings he flips that DVD on with no words from me. Elly and Ethan sometimes "workout" with him and that's when I realized that his motivation is being passed on to the next generation.

This is where change happens. In the home, by example and with intentionality.

Hopefully for you, it doesn't take a near tragedy to snap you into shape. Steve is already eating more greens as they have him on the Mediterranean diet. I'm not sure what that means exactly, but when we visited a week ago, we saw more organic items and green leafy veggies in the fridge than we ever had before. I remember making a salad for my in-laws when we first began farming. Everything in that salad had been grown in our own garden. At the time, I had no idea that Steve just didn't eat salads. He politely took a small amount on his plate and found himself amazed that he scooped up seconds. I guess home grown can make a difference. I'm hoping to help him set up a container garden for his deck this summer. That way, the deer and rodents won't get at them and he can easily walk out and pick a tomato or pepper as needed. We are excited for the coming months of recovery on everyone's part.

Maddie still fights on with an amazing hopefulness about her. We have been strapped for disposable income the last couple months and visiting her has been hard to coordinate. We can Skype with her from time to time at least and are thankful for that modern convenience.
 

~˚~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~˚~

In more recent news, Andy and I have been looking for a home of our own. In fact, we've had a couple of months of trying to figure out just what the heck we want and after looking at a few farmettes in the area and whether or not to rent some place or buy some place, we hit upon it. We are going to save up and build some place. Not just any place, but a completely sustainable home that uses the best technology to heat, light and cool nearly completely off the grid. Where, you might ask?

Let me tell you. There is a patch of land that contributed to Foxwood Farm back in the day, but we never really counted it as part of the acreage because 8 miles and the Fox River sat in between the two parcels of land. My parents bought this piece of land a few years before they purchased Foxwood (though it wasn't called that then) in 1978. They lived in the home on the property and Dad cash cropped the roughly 30 acres. When they had opportunity to buy the home farm, he kept the land and sold off the house, plus one acre. For the last 30+ years, it has been cropped for corn, soybeans, wheat and alfalfa (hay). The parcel is on a hill that overlooks the small town of Omro and even the Fox River. It's wonderfully situated with a south facing slope with a rim of woods on the southeastern side. We proposed to my parents that we'd like to eventually purchase an acre and build a home up there. Then, as we were able, we would buy the rest of the farm land. They were immediately receptive and expressed desire to see it go into family hands.
 

A view of the 25 acres from the east, looking west.
Dovetailing into this conversation is the fact that for the last 5-6 years, Andy has been passively "building" our dream home in his head. It began as a log cabin, then a yurt, then a hybrid of a few other designs, but after seeing the gorgeous slope northwest of Omro, he was able to put all his learning and knowledge together to plan out a bermed home that will serve as our place of refuge for the foreseeable future. Once the home is built, we'll add a couple small outbuildings to house our animals and continue to build our homestead each year as finances allow.
 

On the hill looking towards the road, north.
Until then, however, we have been given permission to rent a single acre to start a garden and an orchard. We figure it will take an orchard a few years to get established and it would be nice to have it close to functioning when we move in. So, where do we live until then?

We are pretty sure we've found a nice interim place to live in Oshkosh, but since that is not a done deal yet, I will not mention it just yet. Our friends here at Grit Magazine have been watching us collect books that deal with sustainable home building, water systems for those not hooked up to a sewer, solar heating books, alternative energy sources for the home and a myriad of other great home design books. They had to know something was up!

So as the 70˚ winds blow across our brown, March landscape, all we can think about is planting and digging in the earth and beginning anew. The thought of having our own stuff back from storage (as pared down as it is) is also very exciting to us. To have chickens again is probably the most thrilling for me. But I digress...there is a lot of planning and dreaming that must happen before any of this comes to pass.

Andy has been named President of Gourmet Grassfed which is really cool until you remember that he is one of two people actually running the company. :-) But this allows him to focus like a laser beam on efficiency and production while Ben takes CEO role and dreams big for the company, and the community. This delineation of roles will be good for them, and has already proven interesting as they learn how to live within their boundaries. I can't wait to see what they come up with next.

~˚~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~˚~

  

  

 

 

 I have not sewed anything else since these and while I long to get back on the machine nearly daily, I have since returned my mother's sewing machine to her house, realizing that until I can have a permanent spot for sewing, it's just not going to happen. In order to sew these napkins I had to have Drew watch the kids in the basement nearly a whole afternoon and that's just not practical. I think we'll be able to set something up in our new place so that I can continue on my learning journey. That's all for now!

We've all heard the old adage that good fences make good neighbors. Well, we can attest to that after last week. To make a long story short, we discovered the neighbor's cows on our property last week. When we let them know about it, we did not get the response we would have thought. Not only was the wife miffed that we were there to tell them about the trespassing, or want to be bothered to move them back (she actually asked if they could just stay so she didn't have to call her husband), they had known about the huge breach in the fence line for at least a week. I guess it's good to know what kind of folks you're dealing with for future reference. They are nothing like every other person we have met out there! And seems like no matter who you talk to, everyone has a "bad neighbor" story - and some of them are really bad. So if this is the worst of it, we'll be okay. Especially since we have met so many other people that are what you think of when you think of "country neighbors" - kind, generous, considerate.

At least we ended the evening by capturing this positively gorgeous sunset reflecting off the tank (pond)! And this is looking towards our super wonderful neighbors that I've mentioned previously.  :)

So this past weekend, we changed directions and instead of trenching our water lines, we repaired the fence between our properties. May not win any prizes for pretty fence, but it's functional and will keep the neighbor's cows out, especially since he doesn't seem too concerned with keeping his (registered) cows in. It was a beautiful weekend, and we also managed to chop down hundreds (seemed like much more!) of thistle weeds just as they were starting to flower so that they will not have the chance to seed again (!), burn down the last two stumps in the home site area, and till our new garden space. All our seedlings are started back at the house.

Spring is here in central Texas! The trees are all leafing out. Even the ones close to the home site that we were so worried we may have lost in last year's severe drought. Hip hip hooray! We have grass over a foot tall in several places. The rye grass we planted last fall is going to seed and wild flowers are starting to pop up. Life in the country is just awesome!

Next weekend is definitely water line weekend. We have four weeks before the house arrives. Yikes! There's so much going on, the time is going to fly by. We are so excited about the life we are living - living with intention.

Until next time, worms rock and bees rule.

We are finally worm (Eisenia fetida, aka red wigglers)parents again. I know there are few out there that can appreciate that. But that's okay - we're excited.  Even if worms don't do anything for you personally, you should have a healthy respect for them since they do have something to do with almost everything you eat, but don't usually get any credit, kind of like our bee friends. They are truly amazing though.  Vermicomposting is awesome!

We had our first worm “herd” in Colorado.  And we were quite successful with them – they multiplied exponentially.  But we sold them to some like-minded folks when we migrated back to Texas.  It's so interesting to learn about them again and how different it is to manage them in a different climate.  They certainly are not hard to take care of, but it is different in Texas vs. Colorado even though t they are inside, and therefore, climate controlled (YES!  Our worms live in their high rise “condo” in a corner of our dining room.  And I dare say, you would never know it if we didn’t point it out or you didn’t know to specifically look for them.)  Even indoors, the heat and humidity are much different here than in Colorado and it just requires different adjustments to keep their environment optimal.   My wonderful hubby has built each of our worm condos, and while I might be biased, they really are quite nice. He continues to record changes he'll make to future worm bins so that we have optimal housing units. 

You could even say red wiggler worms are the perfect pets. They don't hog the bed; they do shred newspaper, but only the stuff we give them (unlike one of our furry daughters who loves to destroy magazines in our absence); they don't have to go for walks; they're SUPER quiet (although our snow dogs are pretty darn quiet too); they don't shed; they don't have to be brushed; they eat our garbage, and not $45/bag food; they don’t try to hog your pillow at night (unlike our cat). Recently there was a great article in “Texas Gardener” magazine about vermicomposting. The guy referred to himself as a "worm rancher" because it had a great "Texas" ring to it. We really like that! After all, we've always referred to our worms, not to mention the rest of our furry clan, as "The Herd."

It’s hard to take a picture of the worms themselves to show you. They're not really the publicity divas you might think. And they don’t show up very well against the background of rich, black compost (Black Gold!) they leave behind as they recycle our kitchen scraps for us. It’s wonderful to use in the garden.

If you’re into composting even a little bit, I’d encourage you to think about trying it with worms. There’s lots of information out there to help you get started. They’re easy to start on a small scale – even in urban environments.

Here are a few things we’ve learned. Do not feed your worms any animal products (meat, cheese, dairy, etc.). Don’t feed them citrus, onions or garlic. Cut produce into manageable chunks - don’t just dump a whole vegetable in there, it’s hard for them to manage that. They are much more efficient with smaller pieces. They like high density. If you throw in an egg shell or avocado skin, you will probably find a TON of worms stacked up in there together. We give them our coffee grounds. Worms need some grit to help break down food in their gizzards - soil or sand work. I’ve read of using corn meal before. For us, the coffee grounds seem to work great and the old boy we got our first herd from claimed that coffee grounds were “like Viagra for worms.” No kidding. I did not make that up. As mentioned in a previous post, we’ve started getting a fresh produce delivery from a CSA organization. They pack our produce on a layer of shredded newspaper (in a plastic tote) each week. We eat the veggies, the worms get the scraps, AND we have a ready source of shredded newspaper for their bedding.

I could go on and on, but that’s it for now. Until next time, worms rock and bees rule!

There’s a lot that goes in to planning a homestead from scratch.  While we’ve seen a lot of books on homesteading skills, especially  old-fashioned ones, I haven’t found many resources on really pulling this whole thing together.  What I have found is some wonderful blogs about this lifestyle choice in general (and have even made some new pen pal type friends through these blogs) and some blogs that are more specific, such as about chickens or bees.

This past weekend, we tried to find a general plumbing resource book to have on hand as we lay out our homestead, but no such book seems to exist.  They were several choices for new and repairing existing plumbing once you get inside the house.  But we’re not there yet.  I’m taking lots of photos as we go.  Maybe we’ll have to write our own darn book.  I have to say, I’ve always dreamed of writing a book, but I never would have thought it would be about plumbing a homestead.  :)

Now granted, in planning a homestead, there is no one size fits all.  Lots of things factor into your homestead’s layout – location, climate, size, topography, geology, access to resources, etc.  What kind of house will you have?  Where will the garden go? What kinds of out buildings are you going to have?  Where will you plant trees?  What kind of animals are you going to raise?  The list of questions goes on and on.

We have just over 10 acres, but a portion of it is considered flood plain.  So while that does put limitations on our suitable building area, we still have plenty of room to work with.  At first we chose a site closer to the road, and then wondered if it was too close.  It’s around 300 feet from the road and the house we live in now is 20 feet from the road…isn’t interesting how your perspective changes?

Then as we worked the land, we started considering a spot further back.  It is flatter and has no drainage issues, but then you have to consider that you have to pull utilities that much farther, build a driveway that much longer, etc.  From that location, it’s much more open and closer to the only neighbors we can really see (more about them later).  Again, it’s a matter of perspective.  We can look out a window now and straight into the neighbor’s house if wanted to (eeeek).  And we didn’t want our new neighbors to feel that way – walk out their back door and “Whoa!  There’s the neighbors!”

After several rains and getting a better feel for the lay of the land and its drainage patterns, we were drawn back to our original site (which, thanks to a flood event, we were able to determine had no drainage issues either).  It just has more of a “homey” feel with trees and grass there already – you can visualize a house, yard and garden sitting there.  All this floundering back and forth can frustrating. Really, we only get one shot at this, so it has to be right.

And about those next door neighbors…can you say candidates for sainthood?  Last weekend they loaned us their tractor for the day and we managed to completely clear the entire future homesite area of all the trees, cut wood and brush that accumulated from the  dead trees we had to cut down.  In about six hours’ time we completely cleared it all out.  We think it looks amazing!  And we think our neighbors are the most wonderful, kind and generous people we could possibly know. 

Here are before and after pics.  What a difference a day and the right piece of equipment make!

We’ve encountered a lot of that out there – folks that respect hard work and are always ready to lend a hand or equipment.  We even had one older gentleman stop and ask if we needed to borrow any tools when we started digging our water lines last weekend.  He didn’t know us from Adam, but he’s a neighbor (that we hadn’t even met yet).  It’s just nice to know you’re amongst people who will come running if you ever sound the alarm. 

We have our work cut out for us, but I think I’ve mentioned before that we wouldn’t trade a minute of it.  It’s hard work, but it’s honest  work.  And we are getting to see something special take shape, one day at a time, and the satisfaction of knowing we did it all.

Until next time, worms rule and bees rock. 

If you’re like us, we are beyond ready to get away from the rat race and live a more simple lifestyle.  We don’t want to be where the sound of sirens, traffic, horns blaring and the thumping bass in a passing car is commonplace.  Instead, we’d rather hear the neighbor’s rooster crowing, the donkey down the road braying, cows mooing, or the plethora of birds we see (and don’t see) telling their stories.  We’re not looking for Easy Street.  Having a homestead and raising animals and your own food is really hard work.  But it’s the lifestyle we choose with intention.

Now reality is, we have to have jobs to pay the bills and build this homestead that dances in our dreams.  So to have our “perfect” homestead and way of life, we have to be able to commute to jobs in the city.  That puts limitations on location.  And let’s be honest, who wants to spend 2 hours (or more) each way in a car five days a week, even if it does mean you live in your dream location?  Over time, that becomes a stressful scenario.

We looked all over the area for the right place.  After months and months, we had come to the conclusion that our dream homestead just didn’t exist – or at least not a price that we could ever hope to afford.  We even settled for a house in a subdivision.  The neighborhood was nice enough, the house was nice enough, and it had a decent yard.  But it was settling for less than our dream.  As fate would have it, the major national bank we were dealing with royally jacked us over seven days before the closing.  As horrible as that whole scenario and loss of money was, we were back to square one and not stuck with something that would have to “make do”.

We drove through the countryside on the weekends, and I swear, we looked at every piece of dirt for sale in a four county area.  We wanted a place with good soil, some open space and some trees.   Because of the geography and geology in this part of Texas, your options are usually rich Blackland Prairie soil (but not a tree for miles), or sitting on a limestone cap of rock that you have to blast through to dig a minor hole, or fields of rocks where you can’t turn a shovel without more than 50% of being rocks.

After many more months, we found one little place that seemed to cast a spell on us.  When we had nothing else to do, we drove by it and just stared and dreamed.  And it wasn't easy getting financing for rural land either, but we finally found a local bank willing to do business with us. (Moral of that story and the previous busted real estate transaction - BUY LOCAL!)  It actually wasn’t until our purchase was complete (six long months later), and we were walking the land that it hit us…we had found our PERFECT homestead.  It has lots of open pasture with pretty good grass (although we plan to eventually restore it all to native grasses), a tank (stock pond), trees on our land and tons of trees surrounding it.  Our only neighbors we can see are two of the nicest, most down to earth people you could ever meet and across the road is a huge pecan orchard – let me tell you, it’s a beautiful view.  And it’s only about 30 miles from our downtown jobs in the city.

We’re just getting started, but we have the room for everything we ever wanted for our future – space for our house, our furry kids, a woodworking shop, a garden, chickens, bees, a greenhouse, a fruit orchard, any other livestock we decide to have and plenty of wildlife. 

Every time we step foot on our homestead, we are so grateful for the blessing of becoming stewards of that land.  Such a sense of peace completely overtakes us both.  It has felt like home since the first time we left our footprints there.

So I guess the moral of my story is, if you’re looking for a different way of life in the country, keep looking until you find a place that calls to you.  Yes there may be compromises you have to make, as with most choices in life.  But if you have a dream, try and be patient and stick with it because I believe the right place will come along.  We know ours did!

Until next time, worms rule and bees rock. 

You've got to be ready to strike when the iron is hot – a future jam story.

Right before Christmas, my wonderful hubby and I stopped in at our local grocery store on the way to our homestead to pick up some lunch for later that day. Immediately inside the door, I spotted half pints of blackberries on sale for 67 cents! And I had thought the $1 I paid two weeks before was a great deal. The more we booted it around, we decided that this is part of what being self-reliant is about. We may not be able to grow our own berries (yet), but when you find something like that on a super good deal, you have to be prepared to take advantage and stock up. So we bought five flats! We saved $2.30 per half pint. Now that's some power bargain shopping. They're really good, ripe, tasty berries too.

I wish we had time that weekend to just make them all into jam. But alas, being the last weekend before Christmas, that just wasn't going to happen. And I think we're low on jelly jars too. So I washed them all up and got them into the freezer in 6 cups portions. But first I froze them spread out on trays so that they're individually frozen and don’t just become a big frozen blob. Now they're ready to be turned into jam or syrup or a cobbler whenever we want. It helps that we have an extra freezer. But I really like having things canned, because they won't ruin in the event of a power outage. And if our previous attempts at making jam are any indication, the blackberry should be pretty darn tootin good too.

So far, since this summer, we've made peach jam and canned peaches from a half bushel we bought at the farmers market, plum jam when we found plums on a really good sale at the grocery store and raspberry jam when we found raspberries for a really good price.  Other than the peaches, which were a planned purchase, all the others were spur of the moment decisions when we found a good deal on some produce. 

I don't know if there is such a thing as a big enough kitchen for us...because we actually use ours!  And we have a LOT of stuff to go in it.  But you have to have the proper equipment and supplies if you're going to be able to put up your own food.  Especially because it can happen spur of the moment.  Now once we get our orchard and garden going, we can do more planning for harvest time.  Producing our own foods to put up is the best case scenario.  But I also like having the ability to take advantage of a good deal when we come across it - especially when it's something we like to eat.  And I'll tell you what, there's nothing like going to a cabinet and grabbing a homemade jar of jam when the last one is empty.  Not to mention the immense satisfaction of knowing you made it yourself and know exactly what's in there.  Or being able to grab a jar for a gift - I mean, seriously, who on earth wouldn't want (or ever get tired of) a jar of homemade jam as a gift?!

Until next time, worms rule and bees rock.

 
Despite all my best efforts, sometimes the animals still get through the fence.  When a fifteen hundred pound jersey cow decides the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, not much is going to keep her in.  So when Mabel decided she wanted a night out with the girls (the neighboring rancher's cows), she just plowed right over the fence.  Luckily, my neighbor, being a  neighborly sort of person, called me and asked if I had a cow and informed me that she was out with his cows.  I searched my entire property and no Mabel.  So I drove over to where he said he saw her, but no Mabel.  I stopped the car and got out and walked the area, finding no trace of her.  I shook the can of 4way grain that I had with me.  Still no luck.  I listened hard, but it was so windy I couldn't even hear the sound of the jeep's engine fifty feet away from me.  Night was coming on, so I drove around the area in a two mile radius, but no Mabel.  With heavy heart, I went home.  Maybe I could find her in the morning, just past dawn, before the wind came up again.  I prayed she would stay put with my neighbor's cows and not go wandering off with a range herd.  I might never see her again.

After a fitful sleep, I got up and brewed some coffee, gathering lead ropes, halter, grain buckets and some muffins for breakfast.  As soon as the sun peeked over the hills, I got the boy up and threw his clothes over his jammies.  No wind yet, so once again we started with the "point last seen," and there she was, big as a dairy cow, grazing in the middle of my neighbor's field.  I shook the grain bucket and called her name, and Marvelous Mabel, who can hear two oat groats rubbing against each other ten acres away and come running, TURNED HER BACK ON ME!!  I walked up to her and hooked up the lead rope and showed her the bucket.  She obligingly stuck her snout in and came up with a mouthful of grain.  I got back into the jeep, holding the lead rope, and coaxed her this way, all the way out to the road, at which point she jerked away from me and ran back across the field into the trees.

Resigned to my fate, I locked up the jeep, got the grain bucket, an extra satchel of grain and the milking halter and hoofed it after her, my son following with an extra lead rope and yet another satchel of grain.  It didn't take long for us to catch up to Mabel and her friends. The friends ran and hid, but Mabel came for the grain. I slipped the milking halter over her head, with its training chain, and let her get a couple mouthfuls of 4way. Then we began the one mile trek home. Mabel only tried to sneak away twice, but the training chain gave her a gentle reminder to stay on course. Thankfully, it was not as slow-going as I thought it would be, and we got Mabel back into the barn without further incident. After a ten minute break and some refreshment, we headed back for the jeep. Without Mabel in tow, the hike was much shorter, and we were back home in time to wash up and go to church. Lessons learned? Always keep your cows bred. Do not let a cow in heat out to graze – especially if your fence needs reinforcing! Check your fence lines regularly and repair!

For more of our homesteading adventures, and to check out our wonderful homemade milk soaps, shea butter lotion bars and other goodies, visit:  http://www.mrsdshomestead.com.

In his first book, The Small-Scale Poultry Flock: An all natural approach to raising chickens and other fowl for home and market growers (Chelsea Green 2011), modern-day homesteader, Harvey Ussery has created an encyclopedic and engaging work that may well be the most important poultry book published in past 75 years or more. Ussery has a keen awareness of fowl behaviors and an uncanny ability to nurture those behaviors to significant benefit for both bird and homesteader. To say that The Small-Scale Poultry Flock inspires only begins to peck at the true value of the wisdom contained within its pages. 

I've followed Harvey Ussery's creative homesteading work for years through his articles in Mother Earth News and other back-to-the-land and poultry periodicals I regularly devour. And I've tried and modified many of his methods in my own endeavors with poultry. Quite simply, his ideas are good ideas that help create an intricate network of ecological cycles that leave the homestead soil more healthy and the homesteader more healthy and satisfied - all while honoring the animals that help make it work. Harvey is most definitely an animal husband and his methods make for a good life for the birds involved.

When I met Harvey for the first time at the most recent Mother Earth Fair in Seven Springs, Pennsylvania, let's just say that I was thrilled. I eagerly put my money down on a signed copy of The Small-Scale Poultry Flock and felt lucky to get one as they were pretty much unavailable by the second day of the fair.  

Within the pages of The Small-Scale Poultry Flock: An all natural approach to raising chickens and other fowl for home and market growers, you will find everything you need to know about choosing breeds, housing, health, feed, processing, and even putting together business plans. However, unlike so many dry, technical manuals, or so-called how-to books authored by the obviously less-experienced, The Small-Scale Poultry Flock is written in Harvey's experienced voice with an encouraging style that will surely inspire poultry enthusiasts of every experience level. This book is as valuable for folks just getting started with poultry as it is for experienced flock managers looking for an edge or a new approach. For example, some of Harvey's ideas on using chickens to make compost or to process green manure can be used by commercial operators to profitable advantage.  

The book's section on Working Partners is my absolute favorite because it explains how to give the animals a wonderful life, while reducing some of the pesky yard and garden chores such as tilling, composting yard, garden and kitchen waste, bug control and much more. Additionally, sections on geese, turkeys, guineas and other types of fowl are as informative as they are engaging and even entertaining. Have you ever thought about using worms to compost your vegetable scraps? But what if you don't like to do that much fishing? A composting worm farm might be just what you need to provide high quality protein for your birds, while processing waste into valuable nutrients. Ussery shows you how to do this and so very much more in The Small-Scale Poultry Flock.   

The Small-Scale Poultry Flock is a must read for anyone interested in or currently raising poultry. The book should be required reading for anyone in a poultry science program, if for no other reason than to understand that chickens are not merely cogs in some factory machine, nor some organism that's so well understood that it doesn't need an outlet for its most basic of instincts - such as scratching the earth in search of morsels of food. The book is my top pick of the decade for poultry farmers of all kinds, backyard bird enthusiasts, homesteaders, and virtually anyone with some level of curiosity for the domestic animals that have so helped shape humanity. I don't care whether you are vegan, vegetarian, omnivorous, raw, paleo, organic, no-till, minimum-till, conventional, biodynamic - Harvey Ussery's The Small-Scale Poultry Flock will give you an insight into the fascinating lives of domesticated fowl that is enlightening, heartening and that cuts to the heart of ecological cycles on the homestead. 

The floors of our buildings here at our desert homestead are all different. Adobe and flagstone are the primary materials. One building has flagstone flooring and the other three have adobe floors. Each of the adobe applications used a different set of materials besides adobe and each has turned out to have very different color and texture from the others. We decided against concrete because we were a crew of two and a bit weak in concrete finishing skills. We had helped lay a large concrete patio base for our son and the drying time snuck up on us. The result was not what we would have liked. We knew from previous experience that adobe dries much more slowly and is more forgiving. There is also the comparative benefit of natural material, adobe, versus material with a great amount of embodied energy such as concrete for those considerate of Mother Earth. We do use cement, but try to use it sparingly.

    
In all the floors, we began with a well-tamped sub-floor of AB sand mix such as is used in a road base. With repeated leveling, wetting, and tamping, this material provided us with a solid base for our earth and rock floors. The material was inexpensive and available from our local sand and gravel people.

         
For those who don’t have a young fellow teacher ready to help out for a few hours, small power tampers are readily available from tool rental outlets. On damp evenings, my shoulders can still feel the effects of tamping down sub-floors by hand in three buildings plus the shop. We don’t have a rental outlet anywhere within 75 miles of the homestead, so it was a hand-tamper for us.

The results using hand tamping were fine, though the process took longer.  The tamped sub-floor was brought up to two inches below the ultimate finished floor level. The rest of the way would be either stone or layers of adobe.

       
The need to have precisely level floors was not as great in the Bear Cave and the shop, so we simply used wood guides for the layers above the sub-floor.

Using dimension lumber in the same manner as screed boards in concrete work, we spread and smoothed the first layer with a garden hoe and a long, handmade combination trowel and screed called a darby float.

    
In the main straw bale house, we wanted more precision and were dealing with a larger floor. Armed with an antique surveying level and rod, we put pegs in the subfloor in a grid so that each peg was reachable from two other pegs with a four-foot level. I know that there are wonderful laser levels and such that could do this job as accurately in less time, but we were watching the budget pretty carefully and the tool we used belonged to Barbara’s dad. Hard to beat a tool that works well and costs nothing.

    
For the main floor, the knee work started when the pegs were in. The floor was built up in three layers including the brushed on aliz. We put in a thick layer, about 1.5 inches, of a damp mixture of  adobe with straw and coarse sand. This was tamped down in much the same manner as the AB. After a few days to nearly dry, a wetter layer of the same material was troweled to the tops of the guide sticks to maintain level.

The final coat was put on in one day to prevent seams and cracking. We screened the adobe to a 1/8 minus clay and used very finely chopped straw. Before this coat was dry, we mixed up some 1/16 minus aliz clay and mixed in to the consistency of heavy paint. This was applied with a wallpaper paste brush and smoothed with a pool trowel. The results were very satisfactory. When the floor dried, we began putting coats of boiled linseed oil on as a sealer. More about that in another blog. The floor in our house is without cracks, level, and a pleasant brown. We will be adding another coat (the fourth) of linseed oil in a few weeks and then will use an acrylic floor wax to bring up a bit of a shine.

    
In the woodshop, I wanted to try an experiment. I read that well-composted horse manure is used around the world as a binder in earth floors. As it happens, we have a neighbor with three delightful manure factories named Bueno, Cody, and Bugsy. When we mixed the adobe in the same manner as for the house, we added one shovel of old manure for each five shovels of other material. The mixture troweled like a dream, has no cracks, and no odor. I would use it again in a heartbeat. While not for fecophobes, this is a great method for those that want a natural binder in adobe.

      
In the utility building, we decided to use flagstone. We had found a great buy on a substantial amount of flagstone and knew it would hold up with laundry, shower, and food prep spillages. I actually think a well-oiled adobe floor would do so as well, but we preferred to err on the side of strength and impermeability. There really isn’t much to say about installing flagstone. A simple, but labor intensive, job that requires a good bedding material such as a fine grit sand to accommodate the irregularities in the stone and then finishing the job a good grout and sealer. For grout, we simply used Portland cement in a ratio of 1 part cement, 2 parts sand, and 3 parts small aggregate. We used the 3/8 material left over from screening the adobe as aggregate.

Our floors are all unique in appearance. As is the case with most DIY projects with local natural materials, costs are very low and the rewards are many. While not recommended for those that like a slick, uniform appearance, the variegations in texture and color make these literally one-of-a-kind floors.

If you’re building with straw, cob, earth bags, or other earth-friendly material, you might do well to include an adobe floor.  For more on our desert homesteading experience, you're invited to visit us at www.grow-cook-eat-beans.com. Happy building!

I have been traveling more lately and reading such diverse works as The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty First Century by Thomas L. Friedman, an interesting but long-winded testament to the glories of unfettered Capitalism and Technology, published in 2007. Simultaneously I’m reading what could easily be classified as the polar opposite in ideology and practice: Living the Good Life: How to Live Sanely and Simply in a Troubled World by Helen and Scott Nearing, widely considered as the original book on homesteading and the forerunner of the back-to-the-land movement, published in 1954.

I try to approach each of these works as open-mindedly as possible. I am, after all, a big fan of technology: It provides part of our livelihood and sanity, considering I work entirely online, and my only real sense of “local” community exists only in the cyber-world. Thanks to Friedman I also finally understand why in India, China, Japan, and most of the rest of the world they have cheaper, faster, and more reliable cell phone and Internet service than we poor rural folks in America do, and why that won’t be changing any time soon.

Conversely, I see handy hubby and I have much in common with the Nearings. Like me, they lost their teaching jobs – where I lost mine thanks to Hurricane Katrina, they lost theirs thanks to the Depression. They also left the city for a try at self-sufficient living after many years dealing with the disillusionment stemming from hypocritical American politics and a society rampantly chasing materialistic dreams. The Nearings chose their “experiment,” as they themselves called it, not to get away from working hard, but to embrace more meaningful work which was more directly related to “real” life. They also would have preferred a more cooperative or communal environment for themselves, but found there was none that existed in which they could “happily and effectively fit.” Just like us, when they started their adventure they were far from spring chickens, and had no experience at living such a life.

The Nearings were at odds with the 60s hippie “counter culture” as well as with the ideologies and lifestyles of the locals in Vermont. Still, they welcomed them regularly as guests and lodgers, understanding that a real community is not made-up entirely of like-minded individuals, and if it were, I’d be inclined to add, it would be torturously colorless and bland.

Unfortunately, the Nearings and the very many who followed in their footsteps in the 60s never did become part of the mainstream, or even close to it. Many expected it would, and felt even that it was inevitable. Now, 80 years after they first made their move, American politics has in fact become more war-mongering, and mainstream America ever-more materialistic.

Friedman, on the other hand, makes a very cogent argument regarding the market brilliance of Wal-mart, one apt to convince even me that I may have unfairly boycotted them years ago. Still, I won’t go back, as long as I can help it.

So, what exactly is my point? To be honest, I’m not exactly sure. But, when I think with my head, I see maybe there is good reason why we need the world to become flat again, and allow the materialism and corrupt values of the American lifestyle to infiltrate the world, since that is what they seem to be screaming for. But when I think with my heart, I’m glad we’re whittling down the ways in which we are collaborators in this insanity.

Last night, our modest quest for self-sufficiency took a drastic turn.

I mean, gardening – fine. Making bread from whole grain? Great. I’ve even got my own recipe for homemade dog treats. I almost have to. When you have a pack of dogs and you care as much about what goes into their body as you do about what goes into your own, that can get real expensive, real quick. And OK, I’ll admit it; awhile back I was telling my husband that I thought we should get some chickens for eggs. I was extolling the virtues of chickens. Our neighbor behind us, Mr. F, keeps chickens, I told him. They don’t smell if you take care of them. Mr. F showed me his chickens, and they don’t smell! I’m talking about just three or four chickens!

Repeatedly, he laughed at me, and told me there was no WAY that we were getting chickens. He drew the line at chickens.

And yet, I cannot PRY the Northern Tool and Equipment Catalogue out of his hands. What does that have to do with anything, you wonder? Well, nothing actually, but when you still have one foot in suburbia, and homesteading is something new to you, a mere couple of chickens don’t seem to be such a tremendous leap from wanting to buy a tractor.

That Mom might want chickens (and a goat for milk) has become something of a family joke. When I ordered six chickens from a local farmer, I can’t tell you how many times my husband said, “These chickens will be dead, right? These are dead chickens that you’re getting, right?” Honestly, I wanted to thump him on the head with one of those dead chickens by the time I got them home.

The farmer offered to bring me over a few in a cage in the bed of his pickup truck just to mess with him.

But I declined.

I mean, I wanted to convert my husband. Not antagonize him.

And then last night, he threw the gauntlet down.

He said, and I quote, “If you want to get chickens, that’s O.K. Go ahead and order them.”

Gulp.

The last time my husband came to me with this kind of life-altering pronouncement, eleven months later we were bringing home a baby.

Um…WHAT?

I mean, I’ve thought about it. I’ve talked about it. It seems perfect IN THE ABSTRACT. Philosophically speaking. But to actually do it?

Okay. It’s confession time. It may be – I’m not positive, but it MAY be – that that one foot of mine that’s still in suburbia is stuck fast in some recently poured concrete.

Still. Suddenly chickens are on the table (no pun intended).

So I pulled out my copy of The Backyard Homestead, a book that I love, and turned to the section on raising chickens; a section that I had given only a cursory reading up till now. And I know I have a GRIT issue around here somewhere that talks about chicken coops or raising chickens, or something about chickens … and I’m going to read every blog post about raising chickens because I know there’s a wealth of demystifying information right here at my fingertips and because quite frankly – I’m a little bit scared.

But I’m also kind of excited.

It seems that on the ladder of self-sufficiency, “Can you feed yourself?” may be the first rung. I mean, I’m sure it’s cheaper to poke seeds in the dirt and raise chickens than it is to install windmills or solar panels or to build your own home from the lumber on your property (if you even have any).

So. What the heck. I’m game.

I shared with him what little I did know about raising chickens for eggs – and the part that most concerns me about the prospect. It’s not the poop. Are you kidding me? We’ll have our own fertilizer! It’s not that I might occasionally get my hand pecked. It’s not that having chickens requires a twice a day commitment between the cleaning, the feeding and the gathering of eggs. It’s that they really only lay well for a year and two, and that after that, apparently, the best place for them is in the stew pot.

And around here, we tend to get attached to things. How else would I have ended up with four dogs? Quite frankly, having had a few litters of puppies around here over the years, it’s a wonder we don’t have twenty.

But the fact remains that we do eat meat; that the chickens we bought from the local farmer lived for about six or seven weeks before their trip to the butcher; and that they almost certainly had a better six or seven weeks of life than anything I might pick up out of most grocery store coolers.

And then my husband said something both surprising and interesting to me, something along the lines of how having to raise and care for and eventually eat our chickens was likely to reawaken our spiritual sides.

I couldn’t agree more.

I began gardening with gusto because of a perpetual concern about what I’m putting in my family’s bodies, and because of a distrust of the gargantuan pharma-medica-food monster that otherwise runs every aspect of our modern lives. What I didn’t expect from the experience was to be thinking about faith; about what it means to believe in something that you cannot see – like that little seed unfolding some fraction of an inch below the soil line – and upon which you are dependent. I didn’t expect that I would feel so closely dependent both on the earth and on my own efforts, and that this dependency would become tinged with reverence. I didn’t expect to feel a responsibility for every seedling I started, and for every transplant I purchased. And I sure didn’t expect to feel guilt and shame over all of the ones that I allowed – through neglect, or ignorance, and sometimes I suspect through no fault of my own – to die. That is, the ones that died for no good reason; the ones that were not able to fulfill their natural life cycle and end up on my table. I didn’t expect to have an increased awareness of and respect for nature; or a heightened awareness of the cycle of life, and the fact that we, too, are in that cycle, and that life doesn’t last forever, and isn’t supposed to.

So if we do this chicken thing, we’re not going to do it in ignorance. Because one day we’re going to have to look a living creature in the eye, and say, “Thank you” for an upcoming meal. And when we do have that last conversation, I’d like to think that they might also be thinking, “Thank you” to me.

That is both a radical and a sobering thought.

And one we ought to be having more often, I suspect.

So, chickens are on the table, and we have a lot of learning to do. We also have a lot of other, more pressing things to do in the meantime, like solve my compost problem that I just keep putting off, and reading the Root Cellaring book that arrived yesterday, and finding the right storage place for my eight million sweet potatoes. Oh, and finishing the addition we’re putting on the house. Hopefully by Christmas. So, if we can do all of that, and educate ourselves, and my husband builds the coop (no problem there), we may try a few hens this coming spring. So stay tuned.

Oh, and by the way. He’s also on board about the goat. But we’re going to have to work our way up to that.

(The problem:  getting the water from the trailer to the storage tank)

While many people are experiencing frozen water pipes right now, I am grateful that mine is still flowing. It may not be for long, however, if I can't get the water into the holding tank. The typical water setup out here, in the land of 800 foot deep water tables, is to get a 2500 gallon water tank and set it a few yards away from the house, then bury your water lines running to a pump and pressure tank and insulate them running into the house. With this method, we haul water from the local well, which was dug and maintained by the town at enormous cost, and then pump it into our large tank. I saw the problems with this logic when I was setting up my home, but the contractor flatly refused to sink the tank into the ground, even for an extra fee. So now the pump I use to get the water from the trailer ten feet up in the air into the big tank has gone out, and I am waiting for the new one to arrive, so I can wire it and fit it to pump my water out. I tried carrying 5 gallon buckets of water up the ladder and pouring them into the tank, but it was kind of like, you know, trying to fill up the bathtub with a teaspoon, only heavier. Plan B is to make the half tank (1250 gallons) of water I have left last until we can pump again. I did borrow a friend's pump, but with everyone's hookups being designed to their own particular preference, it didn't quite do the job.

(Hauling water to the animals)

Luckily, for Christmas, Santa brought a garden cart, so with this wonderful invention, I am able to run (okay, slog and drag) water to the animals from the trailer, so I can conserve the water in the tank for household washing and flushing. Hmm...maybe this would be a good time to teach the horses to pull a garden cart. On the cart I have a half 55 gallon drum and 2 six gallon buckets. This method also comes in handy on those days when the hose is frozen, and cannot be used to fill the critters' water. For a really entertaining saga of frozen pipes, check out www.asthebutterchurns.com. Denise and her family endured nearly a month of frozen pipes in Washington State this season over the Christmas and New Years holidays. Her blog chronicles their adventures trying to live as normally as possible without water. Check out the postings from December 15-January 5, 2009. I am hoping my little story doesn't turn into an epic saga, though. As exciting as the days of bucketing and boiling bathwater were, I sure do appreciate my indoor hot and cold running water.

Okay, I'm gonna try and wrap this up now.  So we are "roughing" it and enjoying ourselves and then, about the end of October, the temperature starts to drop; the wind begins to blow. You can't very well have a safe campfire in 40mph-plus winds. We went to using just the stove in the camper, but it quickly got crowded and uncomfortable with four of us plus pets. The establishment where I was working part-time graciously put us up in one of their motel rooms for the first two weeks of November. There were many confrontations with the contractor and the real estate agent during this time. We traveled to grandma and grandpa's for Thanksgiving and by the time we returned, December 1st, we had a junky double-wide – WITH FOUR WALLS AND A ROOF!! Green tag be bleeped, after fighting tooth and nail for this for months (blood, sweat and tears begins to have a literal meaning), we moved in and set up housekeeping.

Electric hookups followed shortly thereafter. It was a bit longer for the propane, but we used kerosene heaters (yechh) donated by a friend who wanted to get them out of his garage, and mountains of blankets, double layers of long johns, and rediscovered the night cap – the kind you wear on your head. Due to a plumbing pipe that kept breaking, we still carried buckets of water into the "house" and heated it on the stove for baths and washing.  After the third "repair" by the plumber, I fixed the pipe myself and ten years later it has not yet broken again. We replaced the old water heater and, with the advent of propane, now had hot and cold running water in the house. With a little oil, the motor on the ancient forced-air unit began to pump warm air through the ducts. We now also had gas to the kitchen stove, and water and gas for the washer and dryer. Victory is ever so sweet.

Lessons learned for rural living:

• If you want something done right, do it yourself. 

• Celebrate the small stuff. When we finally moved into our trailer and got the electricity on, the first thing we did (it being December and all) was put up the Christmas tree and lots of sparkly lights.

• Don't feel bad about wimping out here and there. We're only human, and coming from a pampered lifestyle, it takes time and faith to adjust.

• This IS the good life.

When I first moved out to the 5-acre homestead (we later acquired another 5 next door) with my 3 pre-teens, ten years ago now, we had high hopes of "living off the land" and pipe dreams of self-sufficiency. In the meantime, we lived on our property in a tent and a camper while we waited and waited for the septic to be dug and a run down trailer to be set.

Oh what joy to finally gain shelter once again within four sturdy walls! We heated our water, which we hauled from the town well in a 400 gallon tank on the back of our pick-up, over a campfire until our propane tank was installed and hooked up. And now new delight – water heating over the gas stove, while we carry buckets from the 2500 gallon storage tank to the bathtub for our weekly baths. Then came the golden day when our electric was hooked up and turned on. Ah the luxury of flipping a switch for light, and the electric pump magically bringing water right into the house with only the turn of a faucet! We were kings and queens! Well, I was the queen, they were the royal children.

It's all a matter of perspective out here. Those children are grown (age-wise anyway) now, and I have a 5-year-old son to share the homestead with. We've come a long way from the rundown trailer next door, which is now my workshop for soapmaking, sewing and other miscellaneous projects. Our full ten acres is finally fenced this year, and our small goat and sheep herds, 2 of our 5 horses, our jersey milk cow Mabel, and our chickens are able to graze contentedly and wander at will.

We're still not "living off the land" as much as we'd like, but we keep plugging away at it. I have come to realize that "self-sufficiency" is never completely self-sufficient. But my dream of country life has come true, and I hope to share its ups and downs with you as I contribute to this blog.

Last week we got a surprise batch of guinea chicks. My friend had ordered them, intending to be ready for them when they got here, but wasn't. So she called and I said "sure," forgetting that I was enjoying time off from the "keeping baby creatures alive" struggle.

Anyway, here they are, set up in my spare bathtub, in a large bucket with some hay, 2 heat lamps and their food and water. At a week old, they are the size of day old baby chickens. They are very delicate at this age. Originating in Africa, they require more heat than the chicks I'm used to brooding. We started out with 31 and 13 have survived.

Yup. Our weather just turned a lot colder, so they really need to be draft free and warm. When they arrived, as with any baby chicks, we dipped their beaks in sugar water, about 3 tablespoons to 1 quart of water, and since the feed store didn't have any chick starter, we put some lay crumble through the food processor to powder it, so that their tiny beaks could handle it. The heat lamps are about 18 inches from the floor of the bucket and are still there. We are cutting back on the sugar in the water, but still feeding crumble that has been powdered. These chicks seem to be fairly hardy now, and the death rate has dropped dramatically (knock on wood). We are hoping to get these through the next few weeks and have them ready for pest control in the spring.

Hello, friends!

We are honored to share a bit of our lives with you in this blog. It seems appropriate for our first blog to introduce the family and give a little history in a nutshell.

Andy and I met in college here in Wisconsin and were dating about two years before I graduated and moved to Colorado Springs as a graphic designer. He followed me with a job transfer about half a year later. By May of the following year, we were engaged, married and into our first house together. All was splendid. We were the mid-twenties corporate junkies so typical of our generation. We thought we'd be in Colorado for quite some time, far away from our family and our roots. However, two months after the wedding, our lives changed forever.

My grandfather passed away back in Wisconsin and we flew home for a whole week to aid my parents and see family. We enjoyed helping out on my parents' farm and on the drive back to the airport, we confided to my father that we wanted to take over the farm someday. Dad was receptive to our plans for the farm, which was to take it from a struggling crop and livestock farm to a successful "tourist farm" for city people and their kids to experience life in the country. I had always wanted to return to the farm in some capacity; it didn't matter how. That spurred into action a series of events we were not prepared for. I don't know what you all believe, but we know things happen for a reason; it's a part of our faith.

The day after we got home and back to work, Andy was fired from his job. He did nothing wrong; his supervisor wanted to hire a relative, so they made up some charges and that was that. We were shaken and scared, but suddenly saw the sign. Maybe coming back to Wisconsin is what we're supposed to do. After a month of no decisions and living pretty tight, Andy still could not find a full time job. Then we found out that I was pregnant. It should have been wonderful news, but we were stunned. I had always dreamed of being a stay-at-home mother but now I was the bread winner. Meanwhile, after continued denials from Colorado employers, Andy started to put feelers out back in Wisconsin. Immediately he had three bites from three employers begging for a face-to-face interview. We sent him back for a week to look for a job and an apartment. I put in my resignation and, by the end of November 2006, hauled our whole lives back across the Wisconsin state border.

We chose to live in a city close to Andy's work and close to the farm. Plus, we were near both sets of parents (grandparents) and managing to live off of Andy's salesman income and my newly formed career: freelance graphic design. In May, three days after our first anniversary, we welcomed our daughter Eleanor into the world. All the while, we were living off the farm but wanting to be on the farm. Our ideas had begun to metamorphose and we no longer wanted to have a tourist farm. We wanted the real deal: healthy food that we grew ourselves to be sold directly to the consumer right off the farm. We began to immerse ourselves in literature and learn as much as we could about many different ventures: grass-fed beef, milk-fed hogs, pastured poultry and organic produce.

In August of 2007, my parents bought a home in a neighboring town and Andy, Elly and I moved onto the farm, renting just the house. I stayed home with Elly, and Andy continued to work his 8-5. We had no time at all to be involved in the farm operations. Things weren't much better than when we were living in the city. So after much debate and prayer, Andy left his full time job in February of this year and began full time work on the farm as my father's apprentice ... of sorts.

That brings us to now, August of 2008, and we are still afloat! We just celebrated two years of marriage in May and feel as though we have lived a lifetime together already. In two short years, we went from chasing that illusion of corporate success to living out the reality of true and amazing life. We are actually living! We don't have a dime in savings, and my freelance checks are few and far between. But we couldn't be closer to each other or happier. Elly actually knows her father because we are blessed to both be working from home. Andy has finally found the job of his dreams, having never fit within the business structure of the military or corporate America. I have my family farm secured for at least another generation and get to learn all about self-sufficiency and homesteading.

Welcome, fellow readers! Welcome to our home! Share with us as we live and learn and make mistakes. Laugh with us, cry with us; we are an open book. And as we have already discovered, the journey is the reward!

Becky & Andy