Category: Homesteading

Summer Delights

Yesterday was miserable! My day started with dog and chicken chores in the rain, not a gentle summer shower, a torrential downpour. I had moved Broody Girl to the auxiliary chicken run and chicken tractor the day before and had put her in the chicken tractor with some amusing effort the night before. Her food was in there, but not her water. She squawked unmercifully until well after dark. Figuring she was better off in the tractor since it was raining, I attempted to put her water in with her, but she dove past me into the run in the rain so I just left the door to the tractor open. Now I have heard that turkey’s are stupid enough to drown in the rain. That may be an old mountain tale, but Broody Girl was stupid enough to stand out in the pouring rain nearly all day instead of going back inside the tractor. Last night I felt sorry for her and returned her to the coop, very wet and very agitated.

The first thing she did was go to the nesting box and I ran her off. She is showing me her wet displeasure. This morning she exited the coop with the others and has stayed outside. Yay!

Once those chores were done, I spent 90 minutes in the dentist chair getting a temporary crown on the tooth I broke 7 weeks ago when I went to Northern Virginia to pick up Grandson #1 for the summer. As soon as I got home from that, the dentist did a build up so the tooth wouldn’t break anymore until he could see me for the crown prep. This is not a fun time. It is my 6th crown.

As we were headed home, still in the pouring rain, we picked up the power washer as scheduled and in spite of the rain, our neighbor with my help cleared the covered front porch and open back deck of plants and furniture and he power washed both. He was soaked from the effort and the rain and I was also from helping to move furniture and the hose from front to back.

Today is still overcast and has rained off and on, but not like yesterday. The weather broke enough after we returned the power washer for me to do some harvest. It is definitely that time of year.

The two trips out to the garden resulted in a huge bowl of mostly hot peppers and another of tomatillos. A few tomatoes are getting picked each day and a few lemon cukes. The counter full of goodies encouraged me to haul out the water bath canner, a box of jars, and the other necessaries to put some of it away for the winter.

The cayennes were strung to dry, the habaneros and a couple pounds of tomatillos were made into another batch of the I No Longer Have Taste Buds XXX hot sauce (son said it was wonderful), the jalapenos pickled for hubby, the rest of the tomatillos canned in quarters and the lemon cukes pickled in a dill brine.

One afternoon’s canning session cooling on the counter. A good addition to the goodies accumulating on the shelves for winter consumption. As I’m a rather adventurous cook at this age, the XXX hot sauce must be documented so I can duplicate it next year. My basic idea came from a visit to Mexico where the woman house staff made a salsa for us from Jalapenos, tomato, onion and garlic. That one is good too.

I No Longer Have Taste Buds XXX Hot Sauce

a dozen or so medium Habanero peppers

2 lbs (16-20) tomatillos

1 medium onion

3-4 cloves garlic

2 Tbs. lemon juice

1 tsp pickling salt

1/2 c fresh of 2 Tbs dried cilantro

In a heavy non reactive pot, heat a couple of Tbs of Olive oil and saute the onion, chopped coarsely. Quarter the habaneros with seeds (gloves are advised), peel and chop the garlic, remove the papery husk, wash and quarter the tomatillos. In a blender, place the peppers, garlic, tomatillos, sauteed onion, lemon juice and salt and blend until fairly smooth. Pour back into the heavy pot, add the cilantro and simmer for 20-25 minutes, stirring occasionally to keep it from sticking. If you are going to can this for shelf stability, it should be water bath canned for 20 minutes in pint or cup jars. It will keep for months in the refrigerator if just packed in hot jars and lids with bands applied.

I do love this time of year. Enjoying the spoils of our garden and the labor of putting is away for winter enjoyment. Soon I will be canning tomatoes and tomato sauce nearly every day, but it will be so good later.

Life is an adventure!

August 19, 2014
Sunday musings August 17, 2014

This is the first Sunday in 6 weeks that I could be lazy. The first Sunday where I didn’t have to arise by 7 a.m. prepare breakfast for Grandson #1 and supervise a math worksheet and a writing assignment then encourage him to practice his guitar and his Kung Fu forms.

I was tired last night. I drove for 5 hours and once home alone as Hubby was out on his BBH riding, I turned on the Solar Charger that I installed just before leaving to charge the electric fence. Reluctantly I touched the fence at the farthest point from the charger and nothing. It is a 12V impulse charger, so I should have felt a zing every few seconds, nothing. Again I read the manual. I had attached everything correctly, but I had tried to run the wire in two directions from the charger to give me a better place to put the gate without having to bury the wire in PVC pipe below the gate. Assuming that to be my problem, I disconnected everything and determined that the gate was just going to have to be where the charger is mounted on a wooden post and rewired the fence in a continuous two strand loop from charger to gate opening. When I turned the charger back on, still no zing. In walking around the perimeter, I realized that the wire was touching the welded wire fence of the auxiliary chicken pen and must be grounding itself. That corrected and the charger on, I did indeed get shocked on both sides of the gate opening. Now I need a third gate and a second non conductive post to hang the gate for our convenience. The garden and chicken pens are within an electric force field. It won’t keep the bunnies out, but it should keep the neighborhood dogs and coyotes out of the chickens and the deer out of the garden.

Once that was complete, a walk around just to enjoy the beautiful afternoon, I discovered …

The apple and Asian Pear trees are only three years old, so I stripped most of the flowers from them this spring to give them another year to establish. I left a few flowers on one apple tree and the larger Asian Pear tree and was delighted to find 4 apples (one was badly pecked so I gave it to the chickens) and 8 Asian Pears. I ate one pear standing right at the unsprayed tree, Tossed the two tiny malformed ones to the chickens. Our first tree fruit. The peaches produced small hard peaches that all oozed sap. I assume they were attacked by something. I will have to do some research as I won’t use pesticide spray on my fruit, near my vegetable garden and the chickens.

Once I was finally moving this morning, after dog and chicken chores, and enjoying a bowl of homemade granola with coconut milk and a cup of coffee, I hauled the lawn mower out to cut the area inside the electric fence that is not vegetable garden, compost bins or chicken pen and also the grass inside the auxiliary chicken pen as there are no chickens in it right now and the grass was getting quite tall.

Later we must make a Tractor Supply run for dog and chick feed and perhaps to purchase the gate. I can get our neighbor to help me hang it this week. As I was mowing the area above my garden, I realized how much slope the yard has between the area that Son #1 and wife had established as the upper garden and where my vegetable garden is with the compost bins in between. As we are going to remove the compost bins and just leave me a compost pile, I think we will have to terrace that area making a 4 tiered garden as we expand the garden and berry patch back up the slope. It has been nice having the space this year for the pumpkins, winter squash and sweet potatoes. It will be nice to have more space for summer squash and cucumbers to spread out, a place to again plant potatoes which we haven’t done in a couple of years and more room to spread out the tomatoes and peppers so they aren’t quite so crowded. Since I have started using the heavy spoiled hay mulch system this year, there has been much less weeding to do.

Planning continues as our little mountain farm evolves. Life is an adventure!

August 17, 2014
Fall Gardening

The sunny day yesterday did not really happen, but it didn’t really rain either. It was only in the mid 60’s most of the day and partly to mostly cloudy, so a perfect day to garden.

Since eggs are a premium around here still, we went out to breakfast at our local diner. I have gotten 2 pullet eggs in the past couple of days. There are 11 pullets, so we are hoping they will all get the message soon. Their eggs are so cute next to the hens eggs.

After breakfast, we ventured down to Tractor Supply for pine shavings for the brooder and to replace the solar charger that is supposed to protect my garden and the chickens, but failed right before we left for vacation. When we purchased it, we only got a 6V solar charger. The batteries on them only last about 3 years and it probably needs a new battery, but Tractor Supply had a 12V on sale for a price I couldn’t pass up. It is mounted and charging to be connected after I return from taking our grandson home today. Our adventure yesterday also took us to our favorite local nursery for fall vegetable starts. Having grandson here, activities with him, and our vacation just got in the way of starting my own. Once home, a bit of grubbing in the soil with my awesome hoe and my hands, cleared two beds, weeded the bean patch where I realized that the gnawed off shoots were growing new leaves. Planted were 4 Rainbow Chard, 8 Broccoli, 4 Kale plants.

Once they were safely tucked in the soil and mulched with some spoiled hay, row cover was placed over them and the beans to thwart the bunnies and the cabbage moths. Perhaps we will get some beans this season after all. We have about 60 days until our average first frost date, so I am hopeful.

In recent years, I have been reluctant to plant radishes and turnips in our garden as they always seem to be attacked by the little white maggots. Recently I read that if you sprinkle wood ash in your furrow that they won’t be a problem. I hadn’t really saved any wood ash, but found a couple of cups worth in the bottom of the woodstove and added it to about a cup of diatomaceous earth and planted a row of red radishes, a row of white icicle radishes and a row of turnip seed as a test, sprinkling the mix in the row and on top of the covered seed. We will see if that experiment works, if so I will save more wood ash next year. This bed was also covered with a row cover to thwart the bunnies.

My son says I should sit out there with my .22 and dispatch them and eat them. Unfortunately, I don’t like rabbit and I couldn’t clean them if I succeeded in shooting one. I will continue to deter them with row cover and maybe once I get the electric fence charged to keep the deer and dogs out, I will string plastic bunny fence around the vegetable garden.

I couldn’t get cabbage starts at our local nursery, they were all sold out, but Lowes just got theirs in yesterday afternoon and a scored a flat of 9. This morning they were planted. , Now it’s time to thin the raspberries, harvest and preserve for the winter.

Life is an adventure on our mountain farm.

August 14, 2014
Peeps, Rain and a Mess

Today’s mail brought a box of 15 Rainbow Ranger chicks to be raised til late fall. One of the little yellowish peeps has strange markings that from the top makes the little one look like a chipmunk. They are safely ensconced in the brooder with food, water and a heat lamp. It would sure be easy if I could just give them to Broody Girl and let her raise them.

We woke to rain with the task of moving the remainder of the scaffolding from the barn to the house. We decided that unloading the trailer and reloading it was more trouble than just folding the seats down in the Xterra and loading it down to the house in the back of the SUV which is what we had decided to do. When we returned from our vacation, we noticed a puddle near one garage door and had seen on the weather reports while we were gone that we had rain, so we didn’t think much of it. We have had rain blow under the door in the past. As we were preparing to go down to the Post Office to retrieve the chicks, I noticed that the puddle was larger, much larger and grabbed the garage broom to push it out only to discover that instead of water, it was oil based house stain. One of the 5 gallon buckets had a small vertical slit in the side and it had slowly been leaking. Fortunately I had an empty 5 gallon bucket, but no lid and we were out of Oil Dry granules so our adventure out had to include a stop at Lowes for a lid and the Oil Dry.

Once the chicks were in their new abode, the clean up commenced. Oil Dry absorbs the oil and there was enough oil that it had to be applied, shoveled up and reapplied. It will sit for a few days and again be shoveled up and possibly reapplied until the corner is cleaned.

It looks like our weekend with our son here will involve only erecting scaffolding in the rain, we won’t get any caulking done with it so wet. I will begin staining the garage doors, the ceiling of the front porch and front porch logs once the rain ends.

Life is always an adventure on our mountain farm.

August 8, 2014
Maintenance

When our house was under construction and due to having a heavy timber roof, thus cathedral ceilings, we knew we were going to need scaffolding. The contractor that did the log erection and rough carpentry used a Skidsteer with a platform that his crew stood on, but our eldest son was doing the finish carpentry, stone mason work, floors, doors and cabinets with his partner and whatever other crew they could pull together. He priced renting scaffolding, but realizing how long this would take, it made economic sense to purchase our own.

The 12 sections are stored in our barn when not being loaned out or used by us. We have had to haul sections down to repair a ceiling fan and a few other repairs. One of our Farmers Market friends used it to build a washing shed on his farm, but mostly it just leans up against a wall. We are going to need it for re-caulking the logs and re-staining, so today while hubby and grandson went to a movie, I started hauling it down to the house. First wrestling with the utility trailer that occupies the same barn bay to get it on my car. The car won’t fit under the top edge of the bay and the floor slopes downhill slightly and is littered with decades old dried manure chunks. Somehow I managed to wrestle it to the hitch and pull it out of the bay.

Then the fun began. The 24 sides, as many of the cross tie bars, the feet and pins were loaded in the trailer and hauled down to the house. Unfortunately, there is another load of walk boards and more cross tie bars waiting in the barn, but I am too tired to unload the trailer, much less go refill it, so it will sit until help arrives home.

Fortunately, we purchased all the remaining necessary supplies, including a 2″ x 12″ x 16′ board to use as a connector walkboard today, so tomorrow we can unload and reload the trailer.

Oh, broody hen is still sitting on an empty nest regardless of my efforts. I wonder if she would sit on and raise the 15 meat chicks due tomorrow?

August 7, 2014
Olio – August 6, 2014

Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things.

As our last week with our grandson this summer is closing and since he was such a good traveler last week we gave him another afternoon at the Frog Pond, the public pool. He enjoys this outing. The pool has a large shallow circular pool with an island, an umbrella that showers water down and a small frog shaped slide then an attached deeper pool with two water park type tube slides into it. He slides and gets out, slides again, then gets into the shallow area and plays splash tag with other kids. Neither of us got in with him today.

Broody hen is winning. Yesterday, I repeatedly removed her from the nest, put bags of ice in the nest (she sat on them), and finally blocked off the nest (she moved over one). This morning, after I blocked off both of the ones she prefers last night, she had moved over yet another one and was sitting, puffing up and pecking at me when I try to move her. I have pulled her out of the nest and put her in the pen several times today and just a few minutes ago, I found her again, sitting on an egg. In the past 11 days, we have gotten only 2 eggs and she broke one of them.

Yesterday, I brought in several pints of jalapenos and pickled them for Jim, who eats one with nearly every dinner I prepare. There are dozens of Ancho peppers turning red, a pint of so of red cayenne’s, a handful of Habeneros. The Tomatillos skins are beginning to dry and split, showing the fruit inside.

This morning, our neighbor who has been gone for 2 years, having returned a couple of nights ago, came down to visit and say hello. He tried to help get my solar charger on the electric fence to charge the fence. The charger will shock you if you touch the connector with a wire, but won’t charge the braided wire that the charger requires. I sent him home with a grocery sack full of rainbow chard and several jars of various jams. He will be helping us over the next few weeks to get our porch and deck re-stained before winter.

Our eldest, father of the visiting grandson, will be here this weekend to begin setting up scaffolding and caulking between the logs of the garage so that we can begin staining again. Log homes require frequent staining until the logs have absorbed enough of the oil stain, then it can be done with less frequency. Knowing what we know now, though we love our wood house, we probably would not have built a log home, rather one that was easier to maintain.

The weather over the next few days is to be cooler and wet, so the final outings with grandson will have to be of the indoor variety.

August 6, 2014
Olio – July 25, 2014

Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things.

Phone saga continued. . . after numerous visits to the cell phone store, learning that they are retail outlets with zero authority to do anything but make a phone call; agreeing to accept a “Network Extender” refurbished with a monthly discount to help pay for the thing, knowing that it probably wouldn’t work since we don’t have high speed internet with our phone co-op, just DSL; receiving the extender (a new one 3X cost, not a refurbished one) 10 days ago; hooking it up to have service, maybe, if you were sitting right in front of it; receiving our bill (still no reliable service) and there being a charge for a new extender, no reduction of cost; we took both phones, the extender, and a major case of attitude back to the store yet again. This time, the poor young man on whom we unloaded, was very sympathetic, knew what to say to customer service and finally got our contract cancelled without penalty. Another couple of hours in the old provider’s store that we knew had service on our mountain and we have new phones, and amazingly, service.

Now reality, this was probably all my fault in the first place. I wanted an Iphone, the provider we had didn’t have them; my service with this provider was good here in the mountains, but spotty when I went to babysit in Northern Virginia a few times a year. I didn’t get an Iphone when we switched, the service was better in Northern Virginia, but the two times we had a crisis here, we couldn’t even call each other within shouting distance if we had both been outdoors. Back with the original provider, they do now have Iphones and I got one. Hubby got the next generation of the phone he had and liked and we can make and receive calls on our property, up our road, and in our house. I will suffer spotty service when I travel to have a phone at home.

Broody hen is still being difficult. I put plastic buckets in her two preferred nesting boxes, there are still 4 others, so she is hunkered down just outside of the boxes. She tried to peck me when I shooed her out the pop door and got a swat for doing so. Our egg production is less than one a day right now. I know that in a few weeks, we will be overrun with eggs once all 13 girls are laying.

On Tuesday, both pups had a new vet visit. When we first got them, we took them to a vet in our county, but it was 18 miles in a direction we rarely go. We tried to switch to a vet that was much nearer us, but they didn’t carry the Trifexis that we had the dogs on for heartworms and fleas, so we switched to one about 18 miles away in a direction we do travel, but he is nearing retirement and has a new younger vet part time in the office that we did not care for. During the time we were using him, our pups decided that they wouldn’t willingly take Trifexis. Surprisingly, the big guy, the English Mastiff would let me force feed his, the much smaller German Shepherd would have no part of it and nothing I did would trick her into taking it. During this 14 months or so, the vet nearest us retired and the two vets that took over his practice, are great as well as doing house calls if necessary. They switched the pups to Sentinel and Nextgard and both dogs will take them willingly. Win/win!

The garden is more or less stalled due to the hot weather. There are lots of tomatoes, but none of them are turning red yet. There are some peppers and I will likely have to pickle another jar or two soon. Chard is thriving, but grandson doesn’t like it. Berries are done. We don’t like the yellow wax beans and the green beans are just sprouting. There are a few white scallop squash and an occasional lemon cucumber. There will be dozens of small Seminole pumpkins come fall and it looks like a stellar crop of yellow and white sweet potatoes. Two beds are awaiting some fall greens in another couple of weeks. This fall, the raspberry bed is going to be dug out, a reasonable number of shoots moved to the orchard and that bed prepped to return to part of the vegetable garden, there just wasn’t quite enough space this year with blueberries, raspberries, and grapes occupying about half of the garden beds. The huge multibin compost structure is coming down, it is actually falling down, so it will be pulled down, the compost spread and a compost pile initiated. That area will continue to be utilized for the vegetables that spread so viciously throughout the garden.

Any photos that I had taken are on the SD card of the old phone and haven’t been transferred to the computer or the cloud to add to the new phone and blog, so just words today.

July 25, 2014
Broody Girl

On July 3, Brown Dog, belonging to our neighbor feasted on two of my United Nations flock of cull chickens, after causing significant damage to the chicken tractor in which they were housed. On July 4, eldest son and I killed the remainder of them and frozen them for stewing chickens plus 1 rooster, the Buff Orpington, the King of the Domain. He had gotten too aggressive toward the hens and toward us. Neither of the then 14 month old hens was showing any signs of broodiness though I really had wanted a self sustaining flock and hen set chicks. The next day, Brown Dog managed to scare the teenagers enough that one flew out of the pen the dog couldn’t get in and he trotted home with a young Buff Orpington pullet in his mouth. Brown Dog hasn’t been seen since then, and the Buffs are maturing to a point where I expect the 3 that are 22 weeks old to start laying very soon and the 20 week olds to begin within a couple more weeks. Since July 4, we have averaged only 1 egg a day from the two adults.

Beginning night before last, when I went to check for eggs and lock up the girls, I found one of the mature hens sitting in the nesting box that they both use. I chased her out, took the egg and closed them up for the night. The next morning, she didn’t come out to eat with the rest of the girls and sure enough, she was on the box again and puffed herself all up at me. I chased her out again and found her there again last night, this morning and this afternoon. This evening, though there are no eggs to collect, I put an upside down bucket in that nesting box. She is quite indignant with me, puffing up and trying to peck my hand when I shoo her away. She probably won’t be too amused to find the bucket in her space, but now that Cogburn is in freezer camp, it is pointless to let her continue to be broody as there are no fertilized eggs for her to sit. Silly chicken.

I have 15 Rainbow Ranger chicks due here the end of the first week of August to raise in the second pen and chicken tractor and I don’t need Buff Orpington chicks in the coop that won’t mature enough to put in the freezer this fall. Perhaps next spring I will replace Cogburn with a new young rooster and let one or more of the hens go broody and see if we get chicks in the coop. For now, I just need to break Buttercup’s heart and her broodiness.

July 24, 2014
It’s Finally Done

Last night as the sun went down and the evening cooled, the edge of the garden, the empty chicken pen, and between the T posts that son and I set two and a half weeks ago were mowed in preparation for finally finishing the job that he and I started, I worked on and quit.

We had a couple of places that we couldn’t pound a T post in but they were going to only hold polybraided electric fence wire. I did get the fencing up on the second chicken pen, the one that will be used for meat birds and culls, surrounding the chicken tractor which is too heavy for me to move daily and will serve as the coop for those birds. I still haven’t reinforced the hardware cloth that the dog tore free from the frame, but I won’t have chicks until mid August and even then, they will be in the brooder for 5 to 6 weeks, so I still have time. A week or so ago, I started putting the insulators on the T posts outside the welded wire fence and realized that I needed longer ones for the posts that also had fencing on them and stopped. Grandson and I bought the longer insulators, but they have just been sitting on the workbench taunting me each time I walked by. Brown Dog hasn’t been back, so I wasn’t in too big a hurry.

During the time that we were setting posts, our haying neighbor came down with a half bale of hay that was in the baler and he was done haying for the season, so he dropped it outside my garden for me to use as mulch. Grandson attacked it with a fiberglass stake and spread it over a rather wide section of back lawn. This morning before it got too hot, I decided that I better put it in the garden where it would smother weeds instead of all over the yard where it was smothering grass. That proved to be a hefty task, pulling it back into a usable stack with the pitchfork and hauling fork after fork into the garden. I also finally installed the longer insulators and realized that the corners were going to be a problem as the insulators only fit in one direction on the posts.

A few step-in posts solved the problem, setting the electric off the corner post by a couple of inches and placing a less sturdy post where we couldn’t pound in the T posts. Wire is strung, charge is set. Our dogs were wary of the electric when it surrounded the entire orchard and garden, but have gotten used to going over to “check on” the chickens since it has been down. They are in for a shock, literally though mild, when they venture over now. Hopefully, it will keep Brown Dog out as well, should he decide to revisit us.

July 21, 2014
Let the Outings Begin

One week ago, right about now, we left Vienna, VA, grandson, son, daughter in law, and me. We have had grandson solo since Sunday afternoon. His daily routine here requires guitar practice, Kung Fu practice as he is missing those lessons this summer, a writing assignment and a math assignment as practice for weak skills and reinforcement for those skills that he does well. I supervise those practices first thing each morning right after breakfast unless the writing requires a library visit.

We told him that he would have some basic chores to do here at the house each day and for that, we would give him an allowance so that he has some spending money. He can earn extra money by going above and beyond his required chores. He is only 9, so nothing is too onerous or too difficult. We also told him that while he was here, we would do a series of outings and that with cooperation with his practices and chores, he could earn extra outings. Some of the outings planned can be repeated such as the county pool, batting cage, movie date with granddad. Others are ones that will only be done once, such as the one we did today. We drove to Roanoke, the nearest city, about an hour from home, leaving to be there at lunch time. The market square hosts a farmers market many days each week and we caught quite a number of farmers there today. On the market square, there is a hot dog counter and we though it doesn’t stand up to our favorite one from Virginia Beach, it was a delicious unhealthy lunch, followed with healthy purchases of fresh corn, tomatoes, potatoes and a watermelon. One stand had baked goods and we purchased a whole grain breakfast bread full of fruit, nuts, seeds and not too much real cane sugar.

After our lunch and the market we drove a few short blocks to the Virginia Transportation Museum. This was a fun adventure, bringing back many memories for me as I used to ride a Norfolk and Western train from Norfolk to Farmville to and from college. On display are locomotives, passenger cars, cabooses, old wagons, handpump firetrucks, and a trolley car. Inside the museum is a huge O gauge train set up, displays on bus transportation, train history, and air travel. It was a fun couple of hours spent with our grandson.

Back home, the last of the peas were harvested and the vines pulled for the chooks. The peas were shelled and cooked with the corn and some left over kabob beef and pork tenderloin for dinner. Once the clean up was done, some garden weeding and harvest of 76 heads of garlic, now drying for a day or two outside before the stems are clipped and they are moved to the wire shelves of the root cellar to finish drying.

That part of the bed will be cleaned up and planted with a second planting of bush beans within a day or two.

I love when the garden is producing and the local markets have produce that either we don’t grow or don’t have in ready in our garden yet.

I’m loving life on our mountain farm.

July 10, 2014