Yet another sunny, warm, perfect day idled by today. As I have been prone to doing lately, I took the goats on a pastoral hike in the cedar grove this morning. The boys wore their saddles and packs. The girls wore their ever-growing pregnant bellies. We meandered in a new direction today. I brought the saddle bags along in anticipation of a good foraging trip. If nothing else, I would fill the pack with swathes…
Tag: steps toward self-sufficiency
“A Post About Today, January 11th”
After a very white Christmas, the weather has turned again to rain and the earth to mud. Strong green blades of grass are erupting all around me. It’s surreal! In between bouts of rain I get to stake the goaters out for a refreshing munch of fresh green grass. In January, no less! The first blades of green grass are coloring the meadow I bet they’re grateful not to be weathering another 6-month winter with…
“The Upper Greenhouse Through July, 2021”
Through the busy heat of this unprecedentedly hot summer, the gardens have flourished amazingly. The tomatoes are loaded with pounds of thick green tomato clusters. The string beans are cranking out a few pounds of beans every 3 days- by far the best year for beans yet. The zucchinis are keeping us rich in their fruits at all times, as they are prone to doing. I’ve taken to pickling baby zucchinis now, hopefully it’s a…
“The Upper Greenhouse through June, 2021”
A garden gallery for this June’s progress in the new, monstrous greenhouse we affectionately refer to as the Upper Greenhouse (or UGH)! Early June: A view down the UGH from the porch End of June: The tomatoes near the top are coming along nicely! This portion of the UGH was the origina grow space of the first greenhouse. This year it’s tomatillos, tomatoes, squash, peppers, beans, and culinary herbs. As well as a few young…
“An Experiment in Natural Tanning, Part 1”
Foreword: My tanning videos were put on hold due to the move this year, but perhaps by next summer I’ll have them ready 🙂 One of my goals for 2021 was to start making my own clothing. This will probably start with making shoes and expand to leg and torso coverings. So back in March I began playing around with natural tanning methods. I am only tanning small hides at the moment; rabbit, squirrel, guinea…
“A Post About Today, June 15th 2021”
With sunshine and warm weather abound now, it’s hard to find time and motivation to sit at the computer and write! As the wild world finally bursts forth with green, our first round of leafy greens in the greenhouses are already going to seed. So thinning the greens beds, drying greens, and replanting are high on the priority list. Now that the threat of frost has (theoretically) passed, i’s also time to plant squash and…
“Spring of the Broken Broodies”
Throughout the years, I’ve enjoyed dubbing the seasons with the names of events that were memorable. This spring definitely merits the title “Spring of the Broken Broodies”. I’ve hatched and raised thousands of chickens now, and even this year I’m seeing firsts. The first spring broody of this year did something quite strange. I kept her on golf balls for a few weeks, until a batch of chicks was hatched out in an incubator,…
“A Post About Today: May 5th, 2021”
The thawing pond resembles a tiny glacial lake. It’s May now, and the days and nights are growing ever warmer. Sure, we’ll likely get a few more inches of snow before summer hits, but it won’t stick around for long! The roads are thawing and drying out. With such a rapid melt right now, water mitigation on the roads is vital to avoiding mushy, gooey roads and erosion. So every 2 or 3 days trenches…
“A Post About Today: April 16th, 2021”
It’s been a quiet and productive spring thus far. 2 of the 4 greenhouses are fully seeded/planted for the year. The upper greenhouse is about 1/3 planted, and only limited to that because we’ve only managed to create grow beds in 1/3 of the whole structure! Little sprouts are cropping everywhere. The currants are flowering, and the new kiwis are just putting out leaves. In another month or 2, the greenhouses will be stuffed full…
“A Goat Update: Kids, Milk, & Cheese”
We are now 2 weeks from Ruma’s traumatic birthing experience and she is doing wonderfully. At no point did she threaten me with uterine infection or complications. PHEW! She’s stayin’ plump and lookin’ beautiful as ever. Never did I envision myself someday following a female goat around, carefully sniffing her vulva and noting how it smelled each day… We have each doe down to 1 kid each and are milking the ladies twice a…
“A Post About Today: March 12th 2021”
Bulbs and leafy greens and peas everywhere! As the warm days continue and the ground thaws, we’ve finally begun putting seeds in the ground. Over the last 3 years I’ve been taking notes on the growing seasons, how much we’ve grown and harvested, and how much we eat. This year the gardening goals are: 100 sq ft or 100lbs of carrots 200 sq ft of beets or 200lbs of beets 100 tomato plants…
“Home-Made Liquid Detergent Soap”
I thought I would share a recipe I’ve been using for some time now to make our home-made 4-ingredient grease-cutting dish and laundry soap. Really, it’s our everything soap. But some folks prefer to have a different soap for each application. So for those folks, consider this a dish and/or laundry soap. I initially made the recipe out of desperation. We had just butchered Bill, the 1,000 pound boar, and we rendered hundreds of pounds…
“Counting the 2020 Harvest”
There’s something very magical about producing your own food. I’m not the best at keeping records, but I do try. So here’s a peek at what we managed to produce in the 2020 season. Granted, the ‘season’ is not yet over. We’re still contending with foodstuffs grown last year. Our food and farming season will not begin anew until the spring! Canned Fruits: 79 gallons of apple, pear, huckleberry, aronia berry, and elderberry syrups, juices,…