Busy days on the wee homestead as spring moves in. The seasons change, alas the chemtrails do not. The weather whiplash as well. But I must admit, I take quite a bit of hope and satisfaction that in the many years I’ve been bitchin’ about this, folks seem to finally be taking some serious notice. Either that, or my scope is conveniently narrowing. No matter. However the media tries to distract us, what’s truly important is happening in and all around us, not out there somewhere.
Insert ’gross face’
Handy Hubby has been busy in the back 40 clearing more pasture and getting the various spaces ready for the soon-to-be coming babies—piglets and lambs and kids and chicks. I’ll be posting lots of those pics when the time comes!
I’ve been busy in the garden and the bees are just starting to get busy, too. Only one colony failed over the winter, so that’s looking promising. We have loads of henbit blooming, but the bees seem to be preferring the chickweed so far. I have seen them enjoying the henbit on other occasions, so I keep plenty of it around. Such fickle little fairies. 😇
Chickweed and henbitWild violets, deliciousHenbit and garlic
The perfect pesto can be created from those three ’weeds’—henbit, chickweed and violets. It takes some patience, but it’s well worth it.
The box that kept us in salad fixings all the cold season, covered with row fabric on the frosty nights and days.
I’m pleased that the avocado and mirliton squash I over-wintered inside did really well. Of course, I’m not counting my fruits before they hatch! I’m also trying sweet corn inside under lights for the first time. We often go so quickly from frost to 90 F degrees that it’s a ’beat the clock’ situation. In the middle photo are the sweet potatoes, ginger, tumeric and another mirliton warming up on a heat mat before putting them in soil to warm some more under lights before transplanting.
Coral honeysuckle—kinda proud of this one because I propagated it from one found in the woods. I’m experimenting with a lot of propagation ‘from the wild’ these days, time will tell, I mostly fail so far. Hubby’s old tractor in the background, it’s seen an enormous amount of work but keeps on ticking, with constant upkeep and much frustration on Hubby’s part sometimes. 😩
Garlic, shallots and a few types of onions going strong! That’s row cover on the right of the photo, for the weather whiplash. On the right you can see the garden from a distance, completely fenced, with a makeshift green house (the cover destroyed during the tornado a couple years ago) that will soon make it to the top of Hubby’s to-do list, I hope! 😏
I remember well the first time I heard the expression ‘learned helplessness’. My mom used the term and I didn’t understand it. I asked her to explain, which went something like, “As if a man is actually incapable of doing the laundry.”
Some time later I heard it used again, only this time in reference to a woman who wouldn’t dream of changing a tire because she might break a freshly manicured nail.
These are benign examples of a much more serious issue. A little co-dependency amongst family and friends can be a very good thing. It reminds us we need each other, and it’s nice to be needed, as long as it’s not too needy. 🙂
But there is a much more nefarious kind of learned helplessness that is proliferating in our society and because it’s being sold by some very slick salesmen it goes on, continually championed by those who should know better. US.
This is the kind of dependency that fosters anxiety and dis-ease, because it promotes frustration, alienation, victimhood, powerlessness. Under the guise of convenience, comfort, safety, and even fun, we have allowed ourselves to become dependent on criminals, sociopaths, martyrs, tyrants dressed up as experts and beneficent leaders and stars.
Food, water, shelter, health, energy, entertainment, protection. These are all crucial aspects of human life we’ve willingly outsourced to others. Gone are the days for the vast majority who cooked from their own gardens, played and sang tunes around the fire pit, cared for their own ill, built their own homes. How many generations must we go back to know a time before politicians were household names and stock markets dealt only in livestock?
How many folks believe we have it so much better in our ultra-civilized modern world because they’ve bought the propaganda of their oppressors, those who actively promote and celebrate our dependency as progress?
There is a wellspring of peace of mind knowing that if you ever dare say “Take this job and shove it” you won’t end up homeless and hungry.
If you could do one thing in the new year to release the yoke of dependency just a bit, or a bit more, what would you do?
Happy New Year from the wee homestead, y’all, thanks for reading!
It’s been unseasonably warm for us so far, with regular episodes of more mild weather whiplash than in recent past years. I suspect that’s about to change, so here’s the garden as it’s growing now.
It’s a first for fresh tomatoes in December around here! We are still harvesting from the ‘volunteer’ tomato jungle growing in the duck coop. It looks so pretty and is producing much more than we can munch. Even though it’s tedious work, I dry them. They come out delicious that way and can be added to all sorts of dishes or made into a pesto.
The large tomatoes pictured here are previously frozen. Freezing the surplus in summer solves one big problem around here: the tomatoes come ripe after the cilantro has gone to seed. To me, salsa without cilantro is like a bed without pillows! Now the cilantro is growing like gangbusters, and we still have fresh peppers (another first!), so we get nearly fresh salsa in December too.
With the peppers still growing strong that means in 20/20 hindsight I should not have moved a couple of them last month to winter them indoors after all. Where’s my crystal ball when I need it most?!
Turnip greens are growing faster than I can keep up! I over plant so the sheep and goats get some extra greens and the pigs love the roots.Happy garlic started sprouting All our favorite fall crops are doing fabulously! I plant very heavily then thin when they are still small, but big enough to enjoy. Can’t do that on a factory farm! I also don’t weed out the ’weeds’ —like chickweed and hen-bit—unless they are badly encroaching on the crops. They are edible after all and once they flower the bees love them too, at a time when very little else is available to them. This has the added benefit of habituating the bees to scout the garden all year round.
Now that’s a radish! I love all radishes, but the Korean radish is seriously impressive.
The mushrooms continue to marvel me! First we had chanterelles nearly all summer, now we have delicious ’wood blewits’ (clitocybe nuda—ok that sounds a bit pornographic, no?!) and tabescens, and lactarius paradoxus. Also pictured are either the hallucinogenic ’laughing Jims’ (Gymnopilus spectabilis) or the highly toxic ’Jack-o-lanterns’ (Omphalotus olearius). The latter I give to a friend who uses them to dye yarn. The former, if I were 100% sure of my identification, I might be inclined to try! Apparently you can tell from the spore print color, either orange or white. But, what about when it comes out whitish-orange? Too risky for me!
The cooler temperatures make even our old dogs feel a little frisky!
Play time!Who’s gonna take me on!Come on, chump, make my day!Just as I expected, you wouldn’t dare! 🙂
Another brief plant profile this post, as it’s our first experience of persimmons!
The first thing you learn is absolutely do not eat them when they look pretty enough to eat. With the persimmon, the uglier, the better! If you eat one when it looks like this, you might think you just stuffed your mouth full of dead rodent fur.
If you eat one that looks like these below, you might cringe a little at first thinking you’re about to taste something rotten, but you’d be quite wrong—it’s magically delicious!
Let this funny lady tell you all about it!
It is often claimed that American persimmons are only edible after a frost and that you cannot ripen them off the tree. Luckily, this is not the case. However, most persimmons you can purchase at the grocery store are of a Chinese variety. It seems American producers have decided our own varieties don’t ship well enough.
Preserving ’wild’ persimmons is also a bit peculiar as cooking it will bring the astringent taste back. Making fruit leather was the solution for Native Americans according to this article by Mother Earth News. “When desired, the persimmon leather can be cut into small pieces and eaten like candy. It is much relished by small children this way. Or, the dried pulp can be mixed like raisins with cornmeal and other cereals to make Native American puddings, various cakes and biscuits.”
Time for us to give persimmon leather a try! And persimmon cookies, clearly. I already made persimmon kombucha and it’s positively divine! 🙂
We’ve planted a bunch of persimmon trees in recent years, but only females produce fruit. The ratio of male to female trees is 10 to 1 and you can’t tell them apart until they start fruiting, in about 7 years. Nature’s way of teaching us patience and planning!
No politics or unpleasant ponderings this post, I promise!
Just some homesteady happy snaps and a well wishing for a wonderful weekend. 🙂
A sea of sweet potatoes soon to be harvested.Mexican tarragon—an attractive replacement for French tarragon that does much better in the South.
So excited for the mirliton (chayote squash)! It’s growing like mad, covered in flowers and fruit and providing perfect habitat for bees, wasps, crickets, etc.
Volunteer cherry tomatoes thriving on the old duck coop! We’ve never had tomatoes last all summer before, but now I can see how nature would have it done. This is almost an entirely shaded space and the entire coop is filled with volunteers: malabar spinach, datura, and these delicious little morsels.
Time to wean the lambs. It was a loud couple of days as mamas and babies were separated, but with Summer as surrogate herd Queen everyone has mellowed down again. Phoebe, the goat pictured on the left, will have her first mating encounter next month. Her sister, Chestnut, jumped the gun, by jumping the fence to be near the rams, the little hussy! FYI—a goat crossed with a sheep is a Geep, very rare and not very desirable.
Drum roll, please, for this next rare shot . . . A Skittles sighting!
Our barn cat, Skittles, who we see about once a week and lives mostly in the trees.
Mystifying mushrooms! These are quite common, honies (armillaria tabescens) claimed to be good by a good many foragers, but we haven’t tried them yet, because my mushrooming buddy and her husband got wretchedly ill on them once. Oops, I promised no unpleasantries. 😉
Buttercup paying homage to the pack leader, Tori, she does this multiple times a day.
I suppose these next snaps might be unpleasant to some, sorry! I do get that, I felt that at first too, but I was gradually desensitized as I realized how much economic sense it makes, what an amazing skill it is, and especially how magically delicious it is.
Always an attentive audience at slaughter time.
Our favorite foraging expert who we forayed with nearby this past spring has a great new website all about medicinals. Here’s a short podcast about it, and reminding me that now is the time I should be collecting some goldenrod before winter! Medicine Man Plant Co
We’ve been at this about a decade now, learning by trial and error. Because of a major health crisis in the family, I’ve been introspecting even more than usual these days. That’s why I haven’t been posting much lately.
I thought it high time to deeply consider what our own health futures might hold, Hubby and I, while we are not under the immediate duress of old age and poor health. Health is one of the main reasons why we committed to this homesteading lifestyle. Other reasons are political, esthetic, quality of life and, for me at least, a sense of urgency to hold on to something precious for future generations—nature—before it slips completely from our lives.
Tumeric flowering, didn’t know they do that!
Watching the impact of the Scamdemic not only on the economy, but also on our ‘health care’ system has demonstrated unequivocally that, despite the challenges and hardships, we’ve made the right choice.
Our ‘health care’ system, which is actually a disease promoting system, is beyond hope, in my estimation. (This one’s surely gone viral by now, but in case you haven’t seen it yet, it’s brilliant!) The DEVOLUTION of covid vaccine efficacy
I truly believe the only way out of the mess this country has become is by reclaiming our natural rights back from the government.
However, that first means reclaiming our natural responsibilities—those ‘unpleasant’ aspects of life we’ve come to outsource to the government (and their corporate partners in crime) in the first place, which has made it ridiculously powerful, as all governments (and their co-conspirators) are wont to be.
We are trying to accomplish that by first demonstrating to ourselves, and then hopefully to others, that such a thing is possible, and also desirable.
But what if, due to our increasing age, we had to choose? Limited strength, mobility issues, cognitive decline, all are serious potential threats to our continued lifestyle here.
Considering this I’ve made a few lists, ranking our current activities against future realities based on: Required inputs, health impact, pleasure principle, and bang for the buck.
It isn’t pleasant. I don’t want to give up any of it, ever! Bees, chickens, pigs, sheep, goats, veggie garden, fruit orchard . . . . But, here goes.
Kombucha, no caveats, it stands alone. If you can make tea you can make kombucha. It’s healthy, it’s fun, it’s delicious. Hubby no longer drinks beer or soda thanks to this amazing beverage, better for health and finances for us, and far better for the environment too, with almost no waste.
Sourdough bread, and already we have caveats. I know loads of folks think they are gluten intolerant; I used to think I was too. Grains properly prepared are nothing like most store-bought breads, for health and taste. Around these parts you can’t even find good bread. In other locales you may be able to find it, but I’d guess the prices are scary. Making your own sourdough bread is time consuming, but it’s not difficult. Same goes for sourdough cookies, brownies, pizza crusts, etc. And, let’s face it, gluten-free products are not tasty, so there’s some extra incentive.
Raised garden beds, and more caveats. Starting to garden at an advanced age is probably not going to be too successful. Of all we do here it claims the prize of Most: most expensive, most labor intensive, most greatest learning curve, most unreliable results. Still, I love it! So, continuing to garden with some foresight and adjustments is perfectly doable. I insist!
That short list makes me sad. It’s the bare bones and I hope such sacrifices will never be required of us—no more chickens, goats, big dogs, great big garden?!
I don’t even want to consider it, but there it is.
Tori surveying the gopher damage. Bad rodents!
There are also many projects still on my list to successfully accomplish, which are in trial and error mode now. Like making all our own body care and household cleaning products and herbal medicines. Hubby has future hopes of making furniture, if his current to-do list will ever allow it. No time for poor health here!
So, another short list is in order. The three things, in addition to those above, that I hope and pray we never get too old for: 1. Bees — not even for the honey necessarily 2. Chickens — they are easy enough to manage, but they attract predators 3. Goats — mostly for the cheese making, but they’re pretty good company too
And the three things we would most likely not be able to continue into old age: 1. Slaughtering — tough work, no doubt about it 2. Orchard — even established ones are a lot of work 3. Pigs — high maintenance, yes, but so delicious
We have no intention of ever rejoining urban life. And as far as intentions go, avoiding nursing homes and hospitals is right at the top of that list as well.
No rest for the weary around here! Our goal of year-round garden harvesting has been met and is every bit as rewarding, and exhausting, as I expected.
Living, working and eating according to the season is remarkably satisfying. In the last couple of years especially I’ve spent much less time learning from books and much more on direct observing and experimenting.
I’m thinking our next goal should be to throw the calendar and the clock out with the garbage. Show those Amish what a real Luddite looks like! HA! 🙂
This time of year the spiders tell me it’s a good thing I’ve got the cool season crops out already. Many of them were started indoors, then transferred outside under shade cloth which will remain until the heat breaks, fingers crossed we don’t get an early frost.
I’ve just started harvesting the sweet potatoes, the luffa and peppers are going crazy, the radishes, volunteer cherry tomatoes and lettuces are finally happy again and I’m most excited for the mirliton squash (chayote) that is finally getting its first flowers. This will (hopefully) be our first success with mirlitons following multiple failed attempts. I love this squash, but it thrives in southern Louisiana mostly, because it needs a very long warm season, even longer than we get here. I started these indoors in February, along with the turmeric, also a first for us this year.
As soon as it cools down I’ll also be harvesting honey, lots of herbs for drying and pesto, along with foraged leaves and roots for teas— sassafras, beauty berry, sumac—and once we finally get some rain, it’ll be time for mushrooms.
Hubby will be filling the freezer with lamb and pork and freshening our flock for spring lambs and a few to add to our growing herd of milking goats.
Hibiscus in May, hibiscus today . … still not blooming because I got a late start.
The honey bees love the Thai basil and the native bees especially love the salvia and the sweet potato and luffa flowers. We’ve decided next year to plant an entire row of luffa in the orchard just for the bees and pigs.
Hope you can enjoy a moment of piglet playtime! Surely there will be time for a wee rest in late winter?
Sanity still reigns on the wee homestead and I thought maybe a few of y’all might need a decent dose of it during these crazy dog days of summer amidst continued global chicanery.
The garden looks more like a jungle, but there is a method to the madness. Mostly it’s called ‘too hot to bother’. Still, it looks better than it ever has this time of year (which is saying very little) so I’m proud of a few things worth sharing.
The pigs are eating well off the luffa, which does so well here it actually out-competes the grasses. I wish we liked to eat it too, but I do use the sponges. It’s widely consumed in some cultures, so I might keep trying recipes to see if anything can improve its very bland taste. Plus, the bees love it, so it’s definitely a keeper.
We’re pretty limited on the veggie harvest this time of year, which means eating okra almost daily. I’m really not a big fan and it’s not even a fun one to harvest. It’s prickly and the fire ants scout every inch of it waiting to fall into your gloves or onto your thighs as you cut the spears. Its only redeeming qualities, if you ask me, are that it thrives in the heat and the flowers are pretty.
Luffa and Okra, 2 heat lovers
It’s our first harvest of scuppernong grapes and I’ll soon be making some wine and jelly. I’m kind of sick of canning, after all the pickles and having tried several new canning recipes this year, but I must find the grit somewhere and get back to it. For my latest experiments we’ll soon be tasting pickled watermelon rind, melon butter, and some exotically flavored cucumbers. That’s in addition to all our usual staples of pickles and salsas and sauces.
Green scuppernongs, yum!
I’ve also made poke wine! It tastes pretty weird, but is supposed to be an excellent medicinal, so I thought it would be good to have on hand this winter. Despite popular hype, poke berries are not poisonous. Well, not exactly anyway. The seeds inside the berry are poisonous if chewed. You must extract the juice or swallow the berries whole.
Poke berries and poke wineButtercup decorated with Poke berry splotches 🙂
Our pear harvest was quite small this year, but those will be processed soon too, into cider and preserves. My favorite, figs, have been doing better after a couple years of total failure. Too bad we eat them too fast to preserve them!
I’ve settled into a nice routine with milking our goat Summer and am extremely pleased with the cheeses I’ve been making. It took some getting used to, fitting it all into a workable new plan, after making mostly large-batch cheeses for several years. I’m using only traditional methods now too, so no more expensive cheese cultures to purchase.
Making melon butter and goat cheeses. Pictured here: left: crottin; right: mozzarella Middle: my favorite preserving book
Organizing seeds and preparing the fall plantings are also in high gear. It’s a real challenge in 90+ degree temps to be considering the cool season crops. I’ve got some started indoors under lights and my direct sow method amounts to throwing a variety of seeds in the ground every week, waterIng liberally, and keeping fingers crossed. Usually, eventually, some seedlings get brave and make an appearance and if we’re lucky, will produce something before the first frost.
Handy Hubby’s still rockin’ the new utility room and it’s already looking fabulous! It’s been a 100% DIY project for him and he never fails to impress. Once done I’ll give him a proper staging and big kudos post.
The Sweltering Season has officially begun, later than usual for these parts, lucky for us.
Long weeks of crazy heat and zero rain makes for four lazy dogs and one crabby wife.
So Handy Hubby comes to the rescue once again!
I wanted to share this one because it’s a cool off-grid hack, even though we aren’t off-grid. The ability to pump water from your natural spring, creek or man-made pond or other source has advantages for any landowner. There is the savings on your water bill of course, and the peace of mind in having an alternate water supply, but beyond that the untreated water is better for the plants, animals and environment.
While it does take some significant time and expense initially, to set it up, move it around and then conveniently store it away when not in use is just what we need around here.
We soak the yard and garden with it, and then soak in it ourselves in our 200 gallon stock tank. A real redneck sort of system, but so refreshing!
I asked for a detailed explanation on Hubby’s handiwork to include here for anyone interested and he mumbled, “Just glue it and screw it.”
Yes a man of few words, but great actions, just like I like ‘em. 🤣
On further pressuring him he said if there was anyone reading this that must know the details, just say so in a comment below and he’ll let me figure out a way to persuade him to oblige.
Nature is not perfect, nor perfectible. But whether in chaos or order there can always be found magnificent beauty that heals, energizes and inspires.
I don’t like to see folks high on false Hopium when they face troubled times. I don’t like political slogans or wistful mantras about Hate or Love.
I wish all mankind could feel what I feel, see what I see, touch what I touch, so that the wholesome Hopium of pure life filled them each day with all the sense of wonder and potential, or challenge and purpose, they try forever in vain to find in others’ words and buying things.
And they would know to micromanage Life is antithetical to our raison d’etre, not to mention a hard lesson in futility.
Co-creating beauty and abundance, participating directly in our daily sustenance, living reciprocally between the heavens and the soil is a marvelous feast of the mind, heart and soul.
Nature does not long to be worshipped, or revered, or admired from afar, or just replicated in images. It is us, it is ours to be truly seen and felt, up close and very personal, not as masters or servants, but as partners, in divinity.
To work with nature, really work WITH it and IN it, is to spend your days suspended in magic.
Try one minute of bee zen. Can you hear their successful model of a happy colony? Contrary to popular lore, the worker bees control the queen, not the other way around. Can you sense their contentedness in maintaining their colony as instinctually as every Superorganism does?
Just like the human body, if left to its own devices, it knows just what to do.
