Category: Homesteading

Weekend with the Grands

This is our first solo weekend with the grandkids that are living with us now. During the week, one of them is in school so we still outnumber the other one. Our Saturday morning tradition, even most winter Saturday’s is to go into the town and have breakfast at one of the local restaurants then walk over to the Farmers’ Market to support the farmer’s that brave the cold with their meats, breads, and cold storage vegetables. As we are only two weeks from the full season return of the market, there are still only a few stalls, but more today than in the past weeks, including a new addition to the market with heritage pork. Turns out we know that farmer, so we supported her with a purchase of the thickest pork chops I have ever seen. I hope I don’t overcook them. They are thawing for a meal in a couple of days.

We took the back way home and let the kids see all of the brand new calves in the fields around our farm. This brought us back to speculating about how many we could raise, how much it would cost us to have our field hayed when we kept the hay instead of giving it to the farmer for his work and whether we could make a small profit by raising a small herd for our own meat and to sell maybe 4 or 5 head each year.

Once back home, some chicken chores to add straw to the coop and hay to the extremely muddy run were done while the kids play outside in the sunshine. I want to let the chickens free range, but we just planted some seed in the garden and it is only fenced with two strands of electric which doesn’t even slow the chooks down. I don’t need them digging up my freshly dug, weeded, and seeded beds, or the newly transplanted raspberries, so they will have to remain penned until daughter returns. We will then expand the garden and string plastic poultry fence around the vegetables and let the girls wander again. Or perhaps we can just make poultry netting tunnels over the beds and let the chickens keep the weeds and bugs at bay between the beds. The egg production is up, having gotten 18 eggs in the past two days from the dozen hens. I am hoping that one of the girls gets to feeling broody soon, and I will let her sit a clutch of about 8 eggs to hatch. This will be our first year allowing this and hoping that we will be able to cull some of the older hens and the cockrells that hatch for the freezer instead of raising purchased meat chicks. If this doesn’t happen, I will buy meat chicks later in the summer and raise them until the fall for the freezer. Freedom Rangers or Rainbow Rangers only take about 11 weeks to freezer size and that is what we raised last year and found them to be an excellent table bird.

The seeds we started indoors are beginning to sprout. The flat is on a heat mat in a south facing doorway with a grow lamp. The Roma and Purple Cherokee tomatoes, and the Tomatillos are showing. So far the 6 kinds of hot peppers are still buried, but we hope to see them sprout soon too. Four of the varieties of peppers there are only a couple of plants and they are experimental for us heritage varieties. The others are of many pots of Jalapenos and several Habenos for salsa and chili tomatoes to be canned this summer.

Tomorrow is supposed to be another beautiful day, so perhaps we will take the kids for a walk on the Huckleberry Trail or a hike in the woods if it has dried enough.

Next Saturday we will all drive to Northern Virginia and pick up the eldest grandson for a week too. We will have a house full of younguns to keep us young or run us ragged.

March 21, 2015
Busy Days

Another beautiful day. It was supposed to rain according to yesterday’s forecast, but this morning, it had changed and was a mostly sunny day with only the lightest of sprinkles. I grabbed half a dozen raspberry canes and put them in water as Son #2 would like some of the ones we pulled up. As soon as I can find some cheap pots, I will put them in soil and prune them to give them a chance to establish roots before I can deliver them in April. That was done early when the chicken chores were being completed.

Before Daughter and Mountaingdad got up, I had made two new soap recipes, one with Oatmeal, Lavender buds, and Black Walnut powder. This will be a great body scrub soap once it cures. The other is a Jasmine Green Tea soap. Neither of these soaps have any essential oils or dyes, so they will be good for those with sensitive skin.

After lunch, we experimented with a recipe for Beard Oils for my Etsy shop. Daughter’s husband uses Beard Oil and we thought they might make a good addition to the shop. The lotion bar molds arrived yesterday, so a new batch of Hand Butter bars were also made to add to the shop. The lotion bars, Hand Butter bars and Beard Oils can all be personalized with a customer’s favorite scent or scents or made unscented.

Daughter and I planted the Lacinato Kale, Purple Top Turnips and a 4 X 4′ bed of Daikon Radishes for kimchi this afternoon. They are the last early spring seed.

March 17, 2015
Garden Season

Though we are still 6 to 8 weeks from our last frost, some garden tasks and a few vegetables can be planted now. For the past two days, we have had dry warm spring like days. As there are more mouths to feed in our household now, we decided to expand the garden, nearly double in size. To facilitate doing this, we first decided to move the grapevines from the north edge of the garden to the north edge of the orchard. The Raspberry canes that I had planted several years ago in the row near the south edge of the garden had become overwhelming, so we moved 6 plants along the chicken run and dug out the remainder of the canes to discard.

Raspberries along chicken run

Grapevines pruned and moved, needing new trellis.

Two of our helpers throwing weeds to the chooks from the now empty Raspberry bed.

Our day was waning, dinner prep needed doing, so we planted 40-50 young onion starts and a half dozen kale plants, erected a row cover bubble over the kale to keep out the cabbage moths/worms,

Tomorrow if we can get it done before the rain starts, we will plant Daikon radishes, turnips, and Lacinato Kale seed. On our next dry stretch, we will deconstruct the 4 remaining compost bins, collect some rock, perhaps rent a tiller and finish the expansion. A good day of labor. After our dinner prep and clean up, we planted tomato and pepper seeds in the indoor flats, put them on the warming tray and set the grow light over them.

Once the last frost date passes, hopefully we will have beds ready for twice as many tomatoes and peppers as last year, the peas and beans, sunflowers, and herbs will be planted. The winter squash are going to be planted in the orchard this year and allowed to spread at will. I may have to extend the electric fence around the orchard again to keep the deer out.

March 16, 2015
Away, No Not Really

Have I been away? No, just focusing on other projects at the moment. Last month when I attended the Fiber Festival, I took 2 bars of homemade soap with 2 homemade lotion bars as my gift exchange and gave my roommate another bar of soap and lotion bar. They were well received and the conversation turned to whether I should be a vendor at the next Festival. The trouble with this is that several of the participants are sensitive to scents and the smell of raw fleece, so if you vend those items, they must be kept in your room, not in the Festival area. This prompted more discussion and I began toying with the idea of opening an Etsy shop through which to vend soap, lotion bars and handspun yarn.

After arriving back home, my daughter and I discussed it more and with her business knowledge, we began the process of setting this project in motion. A shop name had to be selected and my first choice was already taken. Labels had to be created and business cards designed and ordered.

As my supply of soap is limited right now to the last two batches that we made together about 6 weeks ago, we started making more cold process soaps as they must cure for about 4 to 6 weeks to dry enough to not dissolved too quickly in a bath. First we ordered 2 more loaf style soap molds and 2 molds that will make 2 1/4″ disc shaped soaps or can be used for the lotion bars that fit in a tin. We ventured down to the local Michael’s and used 2 coupons for 40% off to purchase 2 more loaf style molds. That will give us 5 to work with. Yesterday, I experimented with a batch of hot process soap as they can be used right away, but benefit from a curing period to harden as well. When cutting the soap from the loaf molds, there are always ends that are too small to sell and some of them we use at home or grate to use in our homemade laundry detergent. The rest of these slivers and small bars collect in a jar and this afternoon, we played with two different recipes of rebatched soap to create Oatmeal and spice scrubbing muffins and flower imprinted bars of Lavender scented guest soaps. These will be usable immediately and will be packaged creatively to add to the shop.

Last evening and this morning, photos were taken of the soaps and hand-spun yarns that are ready for listing. A learning curve as I set up a business Paypal account and began to populate the shop. A spreadsheet was developed to track the supply purchases and the sales when they happen. Many more batches of soap will be made. Lotion bars will follow as soon as the molds arrive. As yarn that I am not planning on using myself or making for my daughter is spun, it will be added to the shop.

Late last night, my shop went live. This will help me indulge my love of the old homestead crafts and hopefully earn a little money that can help me continue making more. If you want to check it out, it is http://www.etsy.com/shop/CabinCrafted.

March 10, 2015
Retreat. Refresh, Renew

On Thursday morning, after another night of snow and little sleep fretting about whether I would be able to leave, I put my little CRV in low and crept up the drive and road in about 6 inches of new snow, not knowing what the paved road down the mountain would reveal. I left more than an hour before I was to pick up my friend who was riding with me, just in case I had trouble.

The paved road was covered in snow with only tracks from a couple of vehicles but it was drive-able and when I safely reached the main road into town, they had pretreated it the day before and it was wet but not covered. Since I had time, I stopped at a local coffee shop and bought a bagel sandwich and a cup of coffee to go and made my way to her house. Though my friend’s address is a town address and she lives on a street with suburban type lots lining both sides, the lots are large and the street surrounded by farm fields, so the road to her was similar to ours snow covered, but flatter. Friend was retrieved, suitcases, her product to vend and spinning wheels loaded and off we went to the retreat that is in a lodge in a state park near the New River Gorge in West Virginia. We had stopped and lunched at Tamarack, a cafe run by the Greenbrier Hotel in a large ring shaped building around snow covered gardens with hand made crafts and food items displayed throughout. A great place to eat and browse for gifts and crafts. As I had walked out and left my tea mug on the counter at home, I indulged in the purchase of a pottery mug to take with me.

Our room on the 4th floor looked down on the frozen snow coated section of the New River. The retreat is held in the Lodge conference room and lobby. It is a gathering of fiber artists, spinners, knitters, weavers, and crocheters. Many are vendors as well as participants with displays of fibers to buy, jams and jellies, jewelry, and hand made woven or knitted articles for sale.

Spinners, weavers and knitters, socializing and making yarn.

Roving from an abandoned flock of sheep, rescued and 20% of the price of the sale goes back to the rescuer to help her feed and have them sheered. This one in daughter preferred colors, so purchased to spin into yarn for her to knit.

Felted wool dryer balls from one vendor at a good price, so added to our collection.

The Lodge provides us with a complimentary breakfast, specials at a good price for lunch and dinner and even made Red Velvet cupcakes and coffee as a mid day snack at a low price.

We visit, watch each other spin for new techniques, shop at the vendors, chat, eat and have a nightly cocktail party catered by delicious food offerings from each retreat participant. As many folks leave on Saturday, the door prizes, donated by the vendors and some participants and a gift exchange drawing occur around check out time. I won two bags of coordinated roving to spin and received two skeins of beautiful sock weight yarn to knit. Wonderful prizes and gifts. Some folks come for a day, others for a couple and some for the three days.

I have made new friends at the two retreats I have attended, come home with new recipes, fiber to spin that came from the farms of some of the participants or from the door prize drawing. My big purchase at this retreat was a pound and a half of Coopsworth over dyed roving, enough for me to spin into yarn to make myself a sweater, the first time I will have enough to make a significant project spun and knit by me. I will share photos of it when I have daylight and begin to spin it. It took me both days there to fill a bobbin with 4 ounces of fine Dorset Lamb that I bought last retreat and now home, I will spin the other half to ply. It is natural creamy white and may become my first dyeing project.

I miss my family when away, but the retreat refreshes and rejuvenates me so I come back relaxed and renewed to them. As a treat, I also returned to a clean refrigerator and a vacuumed and dusted house and clean kitchen, thanks to my daughter. Glad I bought her the gift.

My friend and I reserved our room for the fall retreat before we left today.

February 28, 2015
Things I don’t buy anymore

Tortilla’s for tacos and enchiladas

Ricotta cheese

Mozzarella cheese

Pasta noodles

Bar soap, shampoo, laundry detergent

Eggs

Chicken

Tomato products, salsas, jams, chutney

Mustard

Yogurt and cream cheese

Hand and body lotion

The longer we homestead, the more products have been eliminated from our shopping list, more products are made at home. As the garden and orchard grow and my desire to be more aware of what goes on and into my body, the more items are removed. Hopefully, the day will come when we are growing a couple of pigs on our land and at least some of the lard will replace the oils that I buy for cooking and soap making. If Son #1 or 2 raise bees, we will be able to have honey and beeswax too (I am allergic to bee stings, so I can’t tackle that task.)

I love being able to make these items, our bread and chicken feed, grow most of our vegetables and have the health and time to do it.

January 27, 2015
Happy Chaos

Our household is in turmoil, but happy, giddy turmoil. About a dozen years ago, our very young adult daughter left Virginia and moved to Florida. The why is unimportant now as are all of the ensuing dozen years. For a few years now, she and her family have longed to move back to Virginia, this time away from the coast and to the mountains near us. Much has had to be done to allow this to happen and much still must be done for all of them all to be here, but daughter, two grandskiddos and the dog will be here before school starts up again after Christmas. SIL will stay in their house and his jobs until they get a firm offer on the house and then he will transfer his job here as well. For now, daughter and grandkiddos will live with us, and though we have the extra bedrooms in the house, we have been using most of both closets for storage.

Yesterday, in delighted anticipation, I tackled a major clean out and reorganization, finding items that we moved here 8 years ago and didn’t even remember having. Large shopping bags were lined up in the hall and items I never use went into a bag for donation. Party items that are rarely used were relocated by reorganizing the hutch, jelly cupboard, and kitchen cabinets to find places for it all. One of the closets held the boxes of Christmas decorations. When we moved in, they were stored in the basement, but when the basement finishing began, they moved to that closet and have stayed there. The under-the-stairs closet in the basement was cleaned up and space made to store those boxes back down there, empty now of their decorations, but full after the holidays. Dresser drawers that held seasonal linens were emptied, some of them stashed in another big plastic bin in the basement closet, others such as table cloths and napkins folded and stored in part of the hutch. A shelf is going to be added to one of my base cabinets in the kitchen to allow for more organization.

Bags and boxes were donated yesterday and more will likely follow. Closets and drawers are being made available. Holiday decorations that were being neglected are being displayed. Excitement is in the air.

We hope for a quick successful sale of their home so SIL can come up too, for a job opportunity that has evaded daughter in Florida will come up, that we will get to know those grandkiddos better than twice a year visits have allowed and we are grateful that all three of our children will be back in one state.

Yesterday and today have been perfect weather for working in the house. The sky is like a dark curtain hanging over us, raining off and on for days now. The creeks are roaring.

The chicken pen, having a slight downward slope from the gate has been treacherous to enter to let them out and close them up. Though it is gray this morning, I uncovered one of the huge round bales of hay and threw down a layer from the gate to the pop door of the coop and a fresh layer in the coop. This is always new entertainment for the chickens as they scratch through it looking for treats and spreading it farther and farther away from the gate, but at least I will be able to enter the pen without fear of falling.

Two days ago, we came home to find this…

half of the wood that Son#1 and I stacked in the snow at Thanksgiving had toppled. I don’t know if something tried to climb it or if as he suggested, the ground thawed in the rain just enough to cause it to shift. It has been much to wet to want to go out and re-stack it. If we get a dry day, I may begin on it . . . or wait for him to come back at Christmas to help me.

For now, I must get back to household preparation to keep my excitement under control. I booked a flight after Christmas to go down and help her drive back with the kids, the dog and a trailer of kids clothes, toys, sports gear and hopefully bicycles. The rest of their goods will be moved upon sale of the house.

December 5, 2014
Effort, Disappointment, and a Delicious Surprise

Mountaingdad and I began our morning with a group of others from our county to form the core group of Preserve Giles County to oppose and fight the proposed pipeline. We met for two hours, introduced ourselves and I found that this made me very emotional as we each spent about 5 minutes giving our name and why we were there. It was the first time I have introduced myself to these people and talking about the fact that I was born here, my grandfather was born here and though I grew up in the eastern coastal Virginia, retired here. That our home is a labor of love, Son 1 spending two years of his life doing carpentry and stone work on our house. I installing wood siding, beadboard, cedar and doing flooring and baseboards. That we are invested financially, physically and emotionally in the home we built. The meeting was productive and will move on to a point where we feel we are fighting as a group, not as individuals with a common goal.

The disappointment came when I realized that of the 5 1/2 quarts of broth that I made with the turkey carcass, even though they were chilled overnight in the refrigerator with plenty of head room in wide mouth jars, all 4 that I put in the freezer, broke the jars and all 4 quarts of turkey broth are ruined. The remaining quart and a half were used to make gravy for turkey we have eaten since Thanksgiving. To try to salve a disaster, the remnants of the thighs and the meatier parts of the wings that weren’t really done enough to suit me are currently simmering in another 3 quarts of water. The meat will be made into pot pies and casseroles, the broth frozen in vacuum sealing bags this time for use in soups and future gravies.

The delicious surprise came just a few minutes ago as I went to collect eggs and do a quick survey of the garden plot after last week’s 20 something degrees and the wet snow. The row cover over the garlic had blown free from one end and I wanted to re-secure it. There was kale that had perked back up, not a lot, but certainly enough for a meal, maybe my favorite African Chicken with Hot Greens. And a berry bucket of turnips that weren’t large enough to harvest a few weeks ago. I’ll bet they are as sweet as honey after last week. We will enjoy them within the next day or two as well. The chard is gone, the wormy cabbages went to the chooks with the turnip tops that were too wilted to try to cook. With any luck, we will get one or two more meals of kale, then I guess it too will be pulled for the chickens or heavily mulched with hay for maybe some spring regrowth.

The chooks laid just enough eggs while the kids were here to provide us with a delicious breakfast each morning and to make the pumpkin pies. Yesterday there were only 3 and today 6. It seems that the dozen hens are not really going to be laying enough for me to sell many this winter, but should keep us fulfilled.

Love our life on our mountain farm.

December 1, 2014
Dreariness

It is cold and raining. Not the biting cold of last week, that is due again tomorrow, but cold enough to make procrastination on outdoor chores inevitable. I cuddled in bed with my book until the Shadow, the German Shepherd was dancing cross legged by my side of the bed, Ranger, the big guy still lazing on his pad on the floor by Mountaingdad.

It is wet enough that the pups didn’t want to stay outside very long, not long enough for me to finish prepping their eggs, so they hovered around and behind me while I cooked. The recalcitrant hens producing barely enough eggs to have for home use and as I used one of yesterday’s 3 eggs to make cornbread last night for a meal we shared with our recently widowed neighbor after the Pipeline Opposition meeting, there were only two to cook this morning. Once I carton a dozen and put them in the refrigerator for neighbors or friends, I leave them alone and only use from the bowl on the counter. This left me with no egg today, but I had leftover cornbread, a wedge lightly buttered and toasted in a cast iron skillet is a treat to be savored, with or without an egg. The pan was heating to cook the pups eggs, so I got my cornbread first.

With the house critters (including me) fed, it was getting harder to stall about layering up in gumboots, coat and gloves and finally making the wet, chilly walk over to let the chooks out and to feed and water them. Their sloped run, bare of a single blade of grass and with the hay scratched and washed off was as slick as ice. It is too wet to uncover the big round bale of hay to throw more down at the gate, hopefully later it will quit raining long enough to accomplish that task. Their coop hay tossed to loosen it up for insulation and turned to facilitate the deep litter composting that produces heat for them, their feed served in two metal dog bowls to keep it from being trampled into the mud and a quick check of nesting boxes for cleanliness and I found a surprise.

Three fresh, warm eggs to keep my hands warm as I slogged back to the house. I haven’t seen morning eggs in weeks and am luck to find 3 or 4 cold eggs in the evenings. It would be nice to get back to going out and finding more than I can carry in without a basket, but maybe not until springtime.

If it is going to be wet and cold, it should at least be white. I’d settle for the mountain snow flurries that fall for days on end with no real accumulation, just the dusting on gardens, roofs and cars. Cold, rainy winters remind me of winters on the coast, you are supposed to have snow in the mountains. I know, I should be careful of what I wish for, we may find ourselves snowed in without power later in the winter and we haven’t laid in wood for the stove and fireplace, having only a bit left over from last year. I suppose we should set in an emergency supply at least.

November 17, 2014
Autumn Surprises

Today started sunny and at mid day, it is in the mid 60s. A great day in the mountains. We started out early to vote, hoping we will get someone in office who will help fight the Fracking Pipelines and came home for Mountaingdad to get in one of what he knows to be last rides on the BBH before it gets garaged for the winter. It was a good day to work on more of garden close down and to get the garlic planted.

The bed that had contained the peppers and tomatillos hasn’t been used before for garlic, so it was raked to remove the fallen, rotting tomatillos and the stray pepper or two that didn’t get thrown to the chickens or brought into the house. The bed was weeded with my awesome garden tool, smoothed and furrows dragged through the surface. The bed was planted with 74 cloves of garlic. I don’t know if I waited too long last summer to harvest, didn’t wait long enough curing time, but we have a lot of cloves that desiccated in their skins, as much as half a head. If this year’s crop isn’t better, I will start over with new seed garlic next year instead of using cloves from what was harvested.

planted and mulched
covered to keep the chickens from digging it up again
While out there and after a couple more nights of freezing temperatures, I found more winter squash. Most of these will go to the chickens, but there were several Burgess Buttercup and they are so delicious they will be kept. One was pared and cubed last night, roasted with Italian sausage, red onion,a green Ancho pepper, some whole garlic cloves and a few pieces of broccoli. A meal in a pan and it was great.

Several small pumpkins were tossed to the chooks. After finding Broody girl #2 on the nest again yesterday, but not having the heart to dip her hindparts in cold water, I just isolated her in the meat chicken pen for the day and left her there until dark. Once it was dark, I moved her back in the coop on a perch. She nested herself once today but stayed outside after I removed her from the two eggs she had parked on. Another one of the girls is molting. The run and coop look “feathered” and the egg production is down to a maximum of 6 a day out of 12 hens. Hopefully things will settle back into production soon.

Today I decided to start making my own whole grain chicken feed instead of buying the very unappetizing pellets. I am finding that the chooks aren’t eating all of the pellets I put out for them and it is such a waste. They never waste the 5 grain scratch which is a good start on home mixed food. Add some flaxseed, sesame seed, oats, kamut, lentils, kelp and brewer’s yeast and you have a mix that is high enough protein for the layers, they like it, and it doesn’t turn to mush if it gets damp. They don’t eat quite as much at a time either. Since they get free range time for most of each day, they are also getting fresh grass, bugs and totally decimating some of my perennial herbs. I had to put a low fence around one bed that they have decided is a good place to dig, dustbath, and just lay around in.

Another surprise in the garden was secondary broccoli. The primary broccoli heads were harvested a few weeks ago but I left the plants in place. With the freezes, they were relatively cabbage worm free and enough was harvested for a meal or two.

As a bonus, the chooks got the remaining plants tossed in their pen for their entertainment and whatever nourishment they can get from the leaves and the few cabbage worms lurking there.

The day has clouded over, though we aren’t supposed to get rain until Thursday. It was a good day to be outdoors for a while.

November 4, 2014