traditional foods – Page 4 – Kensho Homestead

Purebred Souls in a Redneck Wood?

I’ve been doing lots of research concerning the goats and so appreciate the kind help and suggestions from others.

It really is a quandary just like I went through with the bees. Treatment-free types are the anti-Vaxxers of the animal husbandry world, getting similar treatment from the established voices—that is cursed, mocked, belittled and silenced.

And that’s not the worse part, not for me anyway.

It’s far worse not being able to find honest, untainted information. The goat world, like the bee world, is dominated by the industry standards, which has penetrated into every conceivable space of our reality.

In the U.S. that means public-private partnerships that wholly infiltrate the information and therefor the society through the university system and popular organizations like the 4-H club.

Many of our best and brightest agriculture enthusiasts start very young, showing animals and winning awards based on criteria that then get distributed into general farming life. Very little attention is paid to the actual results of this process, not even the simple stuff—like considering whether purebreds are really the best option when stellar looks and trainability aren’t the owners’ top priorities.

Which got me thinking . . .

Might we make an analogy that it’s kinda like ZaZa Gabor playing a starring role in a film like Deliverance?

In other words, are we trying to raise the equivalent of thousand dollar racehorses in two-bit barns? Is that the problem? Or part of it?

“I get allergic smelling hay! I just adore a penthouse view,
darlin’ I love ya, but give me Park Avenue!”

My goats hate the rain (makes for a bad hair day?), and would prefer all their meals to be served to them promptly, 3 meals plus snacks, in their communal space (breakfast in bed), with minimal foraging required (just enough to stretch their legs and ease any boredom) plus they need regular brushing (all natural boars hair brush) and their hooves trimmed (mani-pedi), and routine expensive toxic treatments (Botox).

We get frustrated, obviously, but whose fault is it really?

When I got into this I went for the most popular and trusted source who was calling her style ‘natural’.

That’s for me, I want natural!

The most popular ‘natural’ goat rearing book on the market and she has a YT channel.

I’m not saying this is a bad book, I’ve certainly learned a lot from it, but knowing what I know now, I don’t call it ‘natural’ anymore.

These farmers and breeders may be on the path less traveled, but they are most certainly not off the Big Pharma Ferris wheel. And personally, I find that poor word choice to be deceptive.

For example, they advise breeders to cull rather than to risk populating the community of farmers/homesteaders with genetically inferior animals, which sounds like the wise and conscientious choice to make. Right?

Clearly a diligent and conscientious goat farmer/breeder concerned about good health in humans and animals, yet still considering the most natural methods as including enormous amounts of processed inputs and Big Pharma treatments.

However, they’re advising culling the animals which are not responding to the poisoning protocol, not only the ones who are truly resistant to the parasites. And as for true resistance, could they really know which ones, since they’ve been dosed at birth through the milk or, even more likely, in utero?

Yes, the ‘natural’ methods they espouse still include dosing the goats with drugs, just not so indiscriminately, which they at least recognize has caused a huge issue of drug-resistance in the goat-rearing community. They still rely on highly processed feed, hay that’s been sprayed, and they recommend medicated feed for kids. Many of them also advise vaccination.

This is what passes for ‘natural’ now.

So, for the barber pole worm, the notorious sheep/goat killer, which was the most likely culprit in Bluebonnet’s demise, the issue is said to be that these awful worms cause anemia. But, listed on the side effects of the popular dewormers in use is also anemia.

Hmmm. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Ivermectin—the infamous horse dewormer both celebrated and cursed during the Convid—has a shockingly long list of potential side effects. Interestingly, in all the social media arguments back and forth among suggested protocols and what or whom was being censored and why, I don’t recall that list coming up anywhere.

https://www.drugs.com/sfx/ivermectin-side-effects.html

Since that time I have come across a couple of articles demonstrating how toxic the drug actually is, https://open.substack.com/pub/timtruth/p/ultimate-guide-to-anti-fertility?r=apljy&utm_medium=ios and https://open.substack.com/pub/chemtrails/p/ivermectin-and-population-control?r=apljy&utm_medium=ios though it remains exceptionally popular for horses, sheep, goats, and humans.

These above-linked articles show studies proving its toxicity, but when it comes to the studies themselves, I don’t have much faith in them either. The kinds of studies I’d like to see are those that are appropriate to their environment, and no one does those kinds of studies. No one in farming is dosing their rabbits every single day with Ivermectin in a lab setting. What we need are multi-generational studies with real control groups in natural settings, as in real nature. Science doesn’t do that, yet somehow we accept they are ‘controlling’ inputs and outcomes, and that those results are remotely relevant to the average user, that is, those of us not living in a lab.

Besides Ivermectin, Safe-guard is another farm favorite in these parts.

The following comment comes from my dear friend Kath, a certified herbalist who was also previously a professional nurse in the UK.

Safe-guard:

“I can’t quite believe how bad this drug is!
Taken from this article:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9413524/
‘When fenbendazole was last reviewed (15 years ago), the literature supported the drug’s lack of toxic effects at therapeutic levels, yet various demonstrated physiologic effects have the potential to alter research outcomes. Although more recent reports continue to reflect an overall discordancy of results, several studies support the premise that fenbendazole affects the bone marrow and the immune system.’

‘. . .lengthy and expensive treatment regimens. including the use of fenbendazole and mechanical disinfection, that may fail due to inadequate ovicidal effects.’ (Ie: won’t kill the worm eggs)

So, step one: Kill a few worms. Weaken the animal.
Don’t properly kill the worm eggs. Re-emergence of worms when these eggs hatch. Weakened animals can’t fight off new worms.
More drugs. Vicious cycle.

So, companies which make & market this drug very conveniently refer to the old research which states no side effects expected & ignore the possibility & reality of new research showing significant risk. Hmm 🤔

Basically use of this drug this means causing ongoing serious depletion in overall resilience & significantly increased susceptibility to further parasite infestation & whatever-it-is that we used to call infections. Worse potential recovery from anything. And all from a drug whose stated purpose may fail!

So, what to do imo is to work to build resilience by nutrition, herbs & healthy living & maybe try to introduce some wild blood when freshening.

I think this drug is an agenda in itself – not only for animals but humans too. Heavily publicised on Google as an amazing off-label cancer cure. I’ve met people who have been persuaded to take it! That’s right – make their own chemo cocktail!

It’s an agenda because I know how heavily ptb come down on any complementary health practitioner making public statements about cancer cure. It’s literally against the law.

And they put it in animal feed too. It’s a very shortsighted & stupid approach.”

Short-sighted, I couldn’t agree more!

Another popular dewormer: Cydectin
From Drugs.com

‘Not for use in female dairy cattle 20 months of age or older (including dry dairy cows), veal calves, and calves less than 8 weeks of age.

For Treatment of Infections and Infestations Due to Internal and External Parasites of Cattle.’

Kath: “This ‘who not to give it to’ suggests it’s toxic to humans & cattle/goats – they wouldn’t make a statement about veal calves if it was a safe thing for humans (or animals) to ingest. Funny how they can balance the illogic of ‘don’t give to babies’ & ‘dose babies by mother’s milk’.

The type of nerve receptor that are targeted by this drug are only found in invertebrates – creatures that don’t have a skeleton. So drug companies have jumped to the assumption that it will paralyse (& kill) only parasites/insects. However – & this is important – the target receptor in invertebrates is very similar to the mammalian – human & animal – receptor for glycine – an important neurotransmitter. Chances are that this drug & its family are at least partly responsible for human & animal depletion & neurological problems, perhaps even paralysis, in goats by direct dosing & in humans via eating meat& milk products/drinking milk from dosed animals.”

Seriously! And they have the nerve to call these treatments ‘natural’ and of course, that old reliable, safe and effective!

(Thank you so much Kath for your addition to this post and to Highlander in last post’s comments for your help and advice, I’m very grateful for your efforts and experiences!)

New marketing suggestion for the CDC:

Hey Moms!
If your kids get all their shots on schedule, you’ll look just like Za Za!*
😆
*Results may vary. Consult your pediatrician.
(*Who, by the way, did a hell of a good job dressed as a pig at last year’s luau in Vegas at our promotional conference that counts as continuing education c*redits *and gets billed to the State. Remember Rule #1: What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas!)* 😉
¹

Homestead Happenings

It’s been a challenging month on the wee homestead. We’ve had some successes and I am still hopeful for more positive outcomes, but I focus on them overly, because I’m being a bit avoidant, because really, I’m still concerned.

The determinate tomatoes are long gone already, but Hubby’s made many delicious jars of puttanesca and salsa for our future enjoyment. Must keep up morale!

So I’ll share about that this post, along with some happy snaps and surpluses, to help the medicine go down. I know it’s part of the lifestyle. Life, that is.

Yes, I’ve gotten better at it. That is, the death part of life. But also, we must understand our own limitations, and for that we must first broach them.

So if there are still any rose-colored glasses sort of readers remaining here, armor up.

Bye, bye Bluebonnet.*
(I share more about my observations on her death at the end, for those who choose to go there.)

I’m so sad to say we’ve lost one of our new mamas, and her mama, our herd queen Summer, has also been very ill. Several of the does are too thin and are not producing enough milk. This all happened quite suddenly. I was training them on the milk stand for a month, even getting a bit of milk from one, I had high hopes of daily cheese-making by now.

Instead I’ve turned suddenly nurse-maid/dietician/worry wort.

Summer and her daughter Bluebonnet, who I figured would one day replace her as herd queen.

The learning curve is so very high and I’ve set myself impossible standards. I do understand that, though that understanding changes little.

I want a treatment-free herd, or no herd at all. Like with the bees, which took me years of failures, I simply cannot stand the industry standard. I cannot abide such total reliance on pharmaceuticals and exotic inputs from far-off lands. I cannot trust the science. I refuse to believe the only way to raise healthy pets and livestock is to poison them with vaccines and parasite treatments and feed them full of processed foods.

There has got to be another way! A much better way!

And I aim to find it.

We are not directly poisoning our garden and still have plenty of success despite the manufactured crazy weather.

I truly believe a large part of the problem is the processed foods causing the need for the supplemental treatments. It’s a vicious cycle and I want off, and I want ALL I see around me every day off it also, including the land, the water, and the air and ALL the critters!

Is that so much to ask?!

But I already know the drill, thanks to the bees. Every professional and expert says that’s impossible. Like with the gardening when we first got here. Every farmer, every gardener, every Farm & Ranch professional, repeating—You’ve got to spray. You’ve got to treat.

There’s a swarm up there, can you see it?

It came off this hive and we watched it, amazing! The large pine in front of the tractor is where it stopped. Too high up to catch, but I’m happy to report another totally treatment-free colony repopulating the county.

“Here, follow this quarterly poisoning routine, and all will be well.” NO!

Is it any wonder they all readily accept without objection whatever the hell is being sprayed over our heads at regular intervals?

The latest geoengineered filth-filled skies over our property.

We’re not giving up yet. As long as we have irrigation it will be a jungle out there. But without it we’d be screwed, that’s for sure. It hasn’t rained for nearly 3 weeks.

(Photos below Left to Right) The datura is a blessed monster. The sweet potato vines are prolific and a favorite snack of Summer’s. The melons and green beans are thriving. The indeterminate tomatoes and some of the peppers are doing fairly well under the shade cloth and I’ve been succession planting the cucumbers.

From the front: New cucumbers coming up with purslane to help cool the roots and shading from above, old screens protecting some struggling Romaine lettuce, and a growing grove of well-watered elderberries.

We’ve also been lucky to get some wild grapes, which are now fermenting along with the mead and the blackberry and mulberry wines.

It’s not an easy life, but it’s a life well-lived. Our first figs of the season, along with our last blackberries.

A Czech classic—so simple—Bublanina, made with blackberries or any number of fresh fruits in season. (Comment below if you want the recipe and I’ll post it. )

*The observation which I’ve found most interesting from Bluebonnet’s death, was that her kids adjusted immediately. She died the evening of the full moon last week. She left the corral with the rest of the herd in the morning, she seemed to be improving, I thought. But then in the afternoon she planted herself under a tree on a hill and wouldn’t leave, even when evening came and the rest of the herd returned to the corral. I went and sat with her there at sunset and stroked her neck and she laid her head on my shoulder. I wanted to be hopeful, but I felt she knew, and I felt horribly helpless. I hope that the feeling of helplessness is the worst feeling in the world. The next morning I woke before dawn and I went back to the tree in the dark, the full moon shining on her corpse.

There was a bit of relief for me that her kids adjusted so quickly. I find it odd really, it was like an immediate weaning. While her mama, Summer, is so ill she stopped producing milk, but her kids are still so attached to her their health is also suffering because they won’t go out and eat with the rest of the herd or accept being bottle fed. I’ve been mixing them special feed dosed with milk replacer and they are doing ok, and Summer today joined the herd again to forage, which I’m praying is a good sign. 🙏

Thanks for stopping by, even in the hard times!

Homestead Happenings

Mostly happy snaps this post, plus a few weather woes.

Hubby’s gorgeous melon patch is starting to produce more than just a feast for the eyes. He’s come up with quite an integrated system there and when I expressed how impressed I was with his companion planting scheme (and wondered whether he’d been taking a permaculture course on the sly) he informed me it was all a matter of frugality.

His penny-pincher logic is: the melon mounds have a lot of water run-off and sometimes erosion, so he added a ring of clover at the base of them. It’s just a bonus they are also good for the soil and the bees. The sunflowers are fodder for the goats and the chickens, plus they help shade the melons. The sea of black-eyed Susan’s just turned up there, apparently as impressed as me with the space.

Hopefully the melons don’t go the way of the onions, which has been our worst year yet. Luckily the garlic still did fine, which is from our saved seed, which previously came from a nearby friend’s saved seed. That has become a theme.

Elephant garlic does much better here than anything else, and I’ve tried many others for many years. I think I’ll give up that practice now and stick with what works, avoiding future costs and frustrations.

The success of the tomatoes and peppers so far has also been thanks to saved seed. I bought several varieties of each from the store, just for more variety, and those are the ones suffering more from the rain and high humidity. Several have already died, a few aren’t growing at all, and several of the others have bad issues.

Ours on the left, theirs on the right.

The purchased squash is already full of pests before giving us even a single fruit.

At least we got a few zucchini off our own saved seed before it too is already beginning to succumb to some kind of mold.

But other saved seed, the Trombetta squash and the mystery squash from last year, have proven to be more resilient than the popular varieties.

The filth-filled skies continue and not even the regular rains clear them up for long. I’m sure the sorry state of the skies has nothing to do with the crazy storms, right? The intense lightening, sudden flooding rain bursts, intolerable humidity, hail, tornadoes, and so on, that folks are experiencing across the country?

Just ‘mother nature’ they tell us. OK.

Well, too much ‘mother nature’ is not so good for the garden. It looks plenty green and lush, so that’s nice. But, look a little closer and we find it’s not so pretty below the surface.

But we’ve been relatively fortunate so far this year, just lots of rain and some wind gusts. Others have had far worse.

The yucca didn’t get lucky, but the blossoms are still lovely, even on the ground.

There’s some long-term requirements that fall on Hubby, which I mentioned last update, an upgraded culvert is required now in order to drive to the back half of our property. He’s already gotten started on that, a huge undertaking for sure. After that he can look forward to tackling the pond that’s now washed out.

In better news, there’s been some amazing growth in just one week.

A side by side comparison of 8 days growth.

We’ve prepared for the swelter season by crafting another shading system where these tomatoes and peppers should be much happier into late summer. It’s recycled from another project and a bit awkward to move through, but it should do the trick just fine for supporting the shade cloth.

The asparagus beans, a first timer here, have really taken off in the last week. I’m excited to try them!

In even better news, the mamas and kids are growing well. We’ve started forcing them out of the corral during the day so I was able to give that space a much needed refreshing.

It seems they sometimes prefer following the chickens instead of their mamas. 😆

I’m getting the first fresheners ready for milking by training them on the milk stand. Soon it will be time to start separating them at night so I can milk them in the mornings before putting them back together again during the days. It’s not a happy time for anyone and I’m not looking forward to it.

But, I am looking forward to making lots of cheese again. We’re getting a bit of milk from Chestnut, who rejected her boy, and her girl is only nursing from one side. So, if I weren’t milking her she’d become even more lopsided than she already is.

It’s not a lot of milk, but enough for a little mozzarella now and then. I’ve found another method from my new favorite YT channel which is completely natural and far more tasty than the vast majority of those found online.

Raw milk mozzarella, mmmmm!

Unfortunately, the 2nd time I tried it was a failure. But, 99.9 % of the time a failed cheese can always become another delicious cheese. Some of my best cheeses have been from failures.

Not necessarily the case with failed wine. This cheese ‘failure’ will be soaked for a couple of days in the leftover must of the now fermenting wine, another tip I learned from my new fav YT channel.

This one was mulberry and I’ve also started a blackberry.

The blackberries seem to very much appreciate the extra rain and our harvest has been great, inspiring me to make blackberry wine for the first time. Last year’s harvest was very disappointing after getting some kind of strange disease right after their flowering period. (Not normal development, despite what several folks claimed at the time.)

I’ve decided to try more natural, traditional methods with the wine-making, like with the cheeses. Modern methods require all kinds of chemically-obtained inputs, which most insist are necessary for a fool-proof product.

Yet, last year we had a major failure using that method and ended up with several cases of vinegar. Very disappointing after all that work. We have had great success in the past or we might be too discouraged to try again.

Blackberries, banana peppers and Nigella seed pods

Traditionally, country wines were not made with all those foreign yeasts and I don’t really want my blackberry wine to taste like merlot anyway. While we may not have a decent cultivated grape harvest this year, the wild grapes look promising again. Also the pears are looking good, could be a bumper crop like we get only every few years.

If so, I’m going to do some side-by-side experiments, traditional methods vs. modern methods, and make a real project of it.

Blackberry wine in the making, hopefully

It’s easy to find lots of instruction using the identical modern method. For that I’ll rely on this book.

The wild grapes are looking promising. Our cultivated grapes still uncertain.

It’s not as easy to find good instruction on traditional methods, no surprise there. But this channel has a lot to offer and she uses nothing but a homemade fruit fermentation starter for her wines.

A teetotaler who makes wine, don’t see that everyday!

She also teaches how to make natural sodas and mead on her channel which I’m also very eager to try.

Blackberries fermenting beautifully after 36 hours.

The elderberry is also liking the extra rain. I might even try to make elderberry wine too. The blossoms are excellent in kombucha and will make an effervescent ‘champagne’ like beverage or flavor a cordial. And the goats love it. It’s just an all-around fantastic plant that is popping up everywhere now, so I’m going to create a big grove of them trailing down the hill.

A couple happy snaps in parting.

Thanks for stopping by!

Our Corrupt Sick Care System

Good share here from an insider.

“Oncology at the end of the twentieth century and early 21st century runs unethical trials with inappropriate control arms, poor post protocol care, bad crossover, and many other games, which makes companies rich and people poor. Cancer doctors take payments for these companies and go along with this narrative. The system is so rotten and corrupt and pervasive we can’t even recognize it as such.

History will view these are dark days. Where marginal drugs were given to dying people, government taxing poor people to pay for it, and doctors captured by companies to push these products, and everyone patting themselves on the back and the US bankrupts itself with inappropriate, harmful, useless care.”

https://open.substack.com/pub/sensiblemed/p/doctors-take-money-from-pharmaceutical?r=apljy&utm_medium=ios

American oncologists take money from pharmaceutical companies for pure greed

Time to return to the days of good nutrition and more wholesome living!

Gavin’s Newsletter has some choice words on the topic this week.

Should We Re-Invent Allopathic Medicine?

“While I do recognize that some of allopathic medicine’s contributions to trauma care are noteworthy and worth preserving in some format, I also see that at it’s heart, the Germ Theory mentality that pervades the medical academic establishment (no matter how well intended by individuals in those systems) is not about healing, but is in fact, antithetical to life.

The machine thinking of Allopathic medicine which treats the human body as a molecular machine in need of being kept sterile and well greased by an array of chemicals and synthetic lab made substances is like the modern government funded environmentalist program that tries to quantify everything down to carbon units, obsessing over limiting them or sequestering them with more machines, while avoiding/ignoring the fact that it is machines that decimated the environment in the first place and continue to (whether they are lithium powered or gas powered) and not even beginning to take into account other variables such as the massive influence that old growth forests (or the lack thereof) have on hydrological cycles as well as carbon cycles.

It is like the machine thinking of the Big Ag Chemical companies and conventional GMO monoculture farmer who, when faced with diminishing returns due to soil erosion, nutrient leaching, desertification, decreasing mineral and nutritional content in crops (due to soil depletion brought about by extractive and exploitative farming practices) and facing herbicide resistant “weeds”, decides to double down and create even more powerful machines to till the soil harder, faster, inculcate the crop plants with an ever more potent array of synthetic chemicals and petroleum based NPK to keep them alive (on the equivalent of a combination of life support and hard drugs) and decides to create and use even more potent biocides and herbicides to kill all life in the soil in order to squeeze increasingly meager returns out of an abused and dying landscape.

Those are systems of machine thinking, treating living complex systems that are defined and only capable of being healthy, stable and resilient by the myriad symbiotic relationships woven within and around them as simple machines. Both involve one dimensional ways of thinking attempting to understand, heal and make whole multi-dimensional entities.

The “trust the science” proclaiming doctor attempting to treat anti-biotic drug resistant bacteria infected wounds with more and more powerful anti-biotic drugs is like the techno-optimist self-proclaimed environmental activist cheering for more machines (perhaps lithium powered machines) to be built which are supposed to solve the problems created by the previous machines.”

Homestead Happenings

Some brief updates this post and not as many happy snaps as I’d like. But, it’s been so busy and carting my tablet around everywhere is not usually an option, especially where it’s wet and dirty, which is a lot of places at the moment.

Kidding season is over and it’s been a bit stressful, no surprise there. I’ve been wanting to try something new—which is the greatest lost homestead technique I could think of—making our own rennet.

We’ve only had goats a few years now, all of this still feels very new, but, we do want to keep moving forward on the path to self-reliance, so this one is pretty essential on that list. It was as challenging as I expected it to be!

I am squeamish, so that’s the first of the issues. Hubby does all the slaughtering and butchering and for a while I did help plucking chickens, but then we got a machine, so I don’t even do that anymore. I’m not accustomed to seeing the interiors of the animals, let alone having to identify all the parts.

So, trigger warning for this section for anyone reading more squeamish than me! Move to the next section, if you please.

For the briefest of intro lessons, rennet is made from the 4th stomach of the ruminant animal, the abomasum.

This photo is from a calf, so for us we were dealing with far smaller features. Obviously, this is a precious commodity. The abomasum must come from a nursing animal, as it still has the enzymes required for cheesemaking. It can also come from a stillborn, an unfortunate event turned into a beneficial one with proper immediate attention.

In our case, we’ve had 2 stillborn, one this year and one last year. This year we also had a very small doe, a first freshener, who had fairly large twins. We decided to cull one of her kids as part of our efforts. Of course this is never an easy decision to make, and I lose sleep over stuff like this. I was never meant to be a goat farmer, I just want to make cheese!

Anyway, I am glad for the tough choice and going through the trouble to acquire this precious skill. Hubby and I sat down before the guts together, at the kitchen table. One of the great many sentences I could never have imagined I’d be writing!

It’s not easy to find information on the how-to’s of this process, and I certainly had no one to call or visit for advice. It was not enough information to substantially build my confidence, that’s for sure. Sometimes that just takes doing it.

Luckily, I did find one YouTube video, and one blog, both again working with a calf, for which I’m exceptionally grateful.

Rennet, Home Made, Illustrated

Another brief aside about rennet, if I may bore many readers a bit further! As I’ve written before, most cheese made today, at least in the U.S., is not made from real rennet, it’s made from a lab-grown rennet substitute, made by Pfizer.

While it’s not that expensive for home cheese makers to buy animal rennet online, relatively speaking, considering only a tiny amount is required, I don’t want to have to entirely rely on far-away sources for such an essential item.

Another thing I’ve been experimenting with to overcome this issue is vegetable rennet, again, from a natural, local source, not a GMO lab-purchased source. We have figs, so that’s what I’m using, but nettles are another source.

It’s not possible to set a large hard cheese with this method, but it works for soft cheeses and very small, what I’d call semi-hard cheeses (because they don’t need a press) like the one I just tried after discovery this channel’s excellent demonstration.

This cheese is so easy! I’ve only just made it, so I can’t yet vouch for the taste, but he makes it look delicious. For this cheese you don’t need any special equipment—no molds or cultures, no aging fridge, and no rennet. Instead of the cute baskets he uses I just poked some holes in an old sour cream container. (And can I just add how much I adore his heavy accent and classic Italian hand gestures!)

We did eventually figure it all out, and here is our final product, now drying for 3 months or so, according to processing directions. It will then be sealed and last for many years and make many dozens of cheeses.

A great big thanks to the multi-layered efforts of man and nature for this magical gift!

In weather news, we’ve had a lot of rain. While I mentioned last update how much I love the rain, it is causing problems. We lost most of our onion harvest, for starters. This is a big disappointment because we were so close to harvest, just a couple more weeks. Not anymore, they were rotting in the ground, we had to pull them, lost a great many, and the others are mostly very small still.

So between the pitiful potatoes and the sad state of the onions, we are not starting off too well. The peas are already done as well, because of the heat, but that’s pretty normal here.

What’s not normal is my usual complaint—the manufactured weather. We can’t drive to half our property until Hubby upgrades our culvert, a huge undertaking. But we are very lucky this time around! No hail, or tornadoes, or other immediate disasters to deal with, like a great many.

Yes, more manmade clouds above our head. We’ll learn what NASA calls them next post.

But, I have a future Geoengineering Update in the works, so I’ll save further lecturing and complaining for now!

Instead we’ll end with a snap of one of our favorite dinners, just how we like it, burned to perfection! Not our pepperoni or cheese this time, but some just foraged chanterelles, homemade sourdough crust, and homegrown pork sausage. 😋

Thanks for stopping by!

ViroLIEgy: Who Are the Quacks?

An excellent article!

Who Are the Quacks?

“While the US is spending more money than any other country on the healthcare of its citizens, we are seeing the exact opposite return for our money, as reflected in the leading causes of deaths in the US. In 2016, a study by Johns Hopkins examined data over an 8-year period and estimated that more than 250,000 people are dying every year from medical mistakes. These are known as iatrogenic deaths, which means that they are deaths caused by those who are supposed to be healers. There are other studies that estimate the number of iatrogenic deaths even higher at 440,000. Whatever the true number is, these estimates place iatrogenic deaths as the third leading cause of death in the US behind cancer (around 580,000) and heart disease (around 600,000), and above respiratory disease (around 150,000). With dangerous heart disease medications (statins, beta blockers, ACE inhibitors, diuretics, etc.), along with toxic antibiotics/antivirals, harmful opioids, poisonous vaccines, deadly chemotherapy and radiation therapies, and unnecessary invasive interventions and surgeries that can all lead to deaths that are subsequently blamed on invisible pathogens and/or the underlying health conditions, the argument could very easily be made that iatrogenic deaths are the leading cause of death in the US.

These are wholly preventable deaths that are a direct result of a corrupt healthcare system that is not designed to protect health, but rather keep people as customers returning to the pharmaceutical industry for life. It is a system that was established in the early 1900s by special interests using massive amounts of money flowing in from the Rockefeller and Carnegie families. I previously wrote about the destruction of the homeopathic healers by the robber barons and the real snake oil salesmen of the past which resulted in the establishment of a system that aimed to sell petrochemical poisons as “cures.” It is a system designed to keep people weak and sickly utilizing drugs for invisible fictitious pathogens that are a means to cover up real environmental causes of illness and disease. Following the 1910 Flexnor report, financed by both of the wealthy industrialists Rockefeller and Carnegie, the entire medical educational system was overhauled and restructured away from holistic and natural therapies (such as homeopathy, herbal medicine, essential oils, chiropractic care, and naturopathy) and towards a system of invasive surgeries and petrochemical “cures.” The Flexnor Report recommended the closing of more than one-half of the medical schools, many of which were homeopathic and alternative medicine practices, based on ancient healing traditions, that were in direct opposition to the desired goals of the wealthy businessmen. The report called for a specific program and curricula to be adopted by all remaining, as well as any future, medical schools. Most importantly, it stipulated that all schools must undergo regular reviews in order for the renewal of their long-term accreditation following the initial approval by the American Medical Association (AMA). In other words, in order to remain a medical school and to receive funding, all schools needed to adopt the new medical system that was built upon the new germ “theory” of disease popularized in the late 1800s and the emergence of petrochemical medicines as a form of treatment. All alternative schools that did not wish to play ball were forced into closure. The AMA was given full control over what would be considered medicine as well as those who could practice it.”

Read on . . .ViroLIEgy

Homestead Happenings

It’s raining caterpillars!

And other news this post, including Hubby’s big mistake, lots of garden snaps, critter updates and the new normal weather chaos.

Big ones, small ones, skinny ones, fat ones . . .

Black ones, white ones, green ones, yellow ones . . .

Let’s see, perhaps a bit of 80s pre-conditioning before our current day “You vill eat ze bugs!”?

We’ve never seen so many, and such a variety. They do not look the least bit appetizing and clearly the birds agree, or there couldn’t possibly be so many.

I’m not exaggerating when I say you cannot take a step without seeing one. I’m hoping they turn into gorgeous butterflies and soon we’ll have a garden full of them. But I haven’t looked them up yet and they could easily become some voracious relative of horn worms for all I know, about to attack the tomatoes.

They’ve destroyed my spring cabbages and are working on the fava beans and snap peas now.

Fall cabbages in the back compared to spring cabbages up front

At least the goats appreciated all those Swiss cheese-like leaves.

Snap peas don’t last long here anyway and while those creepy crawlers get the leaves of them, and those of the radishes, at least they leave us the fruits.

I’ve already made a large crock of sauerkraut and a quart of fermented radishes. Plus we’ve been getting loads of mulberries thanks to Hubby who has been destroying the tent worms that have been appearing all spring. Those little buggers love the wild cherries too and can easily destroy all leaves and fruits in a matter of days.

So, big kudos to Hubby for coming to the rescue, and spending a fair amount of tedious time harvesting these little beauties as well.

But, Hubby is also responsible for the misdemeanor crime of killing our potatoes! I should’ve caught it. I know, he was just trying to help. So, he filled our potato buckets with too much compost too fast and now we have potato disaster.

Lesson learned, you can only add a couple inches at a time, even if the greens are much taller than that.

I’ve got lots of herbs companion planted with the tomatoes that are all looking great.

Thyme, cilantro and dill growing between tomatoes

One of the best garden decisions I’ve made is far more flowers in the garden. Not only to attract pollinators, but to attract us too. It’s a far more inviting space than just rows of crops and makes me want to go in and play. 😊

The Peggy Martin rose just one year after planting a cutting from a friend.

And the Burr rose, many years old, huge and seemingly indestructible, even from constant nibbling by the sheep and goats.

And one of my garden favorites, which my photo doesn’t do justice at all: Nigella, a delicious seed and lovely tiny blooms in blue and white.

Their seeds have a grape-like flavor and are delicious in bread and kombucha.

Another fruit that so far seems successful are the persimmons. We have both Virginia and Asian planted and the flowers on them are so unique, just like their fruits.

I’ve also got the citrus planted at last and I’m so excited! I cannot fail! (Says no one but me and I’ve gotten quite a few discouraging words from others on this venture.)

Meyers lemon, Satsuma orange and Key limes, don’t fail me, please!

Planted along with the new ‘kiss me under the garden gate’ flower which is doing quite well, and the still unfinished wattle fence.

In the best news we have our first kids just born this morning. Milking season approaches too quickly!

The weather madness continues, unfortunately. Big surprise.

Some still think these are contrails! Good grief!

This weekend’s forecast looks like a drop-down menu: 1/16th inch rain possible, or severe storms, or flooding, or hail, or tornadoes. Try planning for those options, peasants! 😩

Hope life is a little more predictable in your neck of the woods!

Thanks for stopping by. 🤗

Homestead Happenings

Almost entirely happy snaps and almost no complaining at all, really! The garden is mostly great, the weather mostly fine, summer in full swing already, ready or not.

It’s been busy around here, as usual. But, busy in the country way, which is very different. Our preservation season has already begun, and it’s fixing to get very busy very soon. I have mixed feelings about that, but here it is anyway.

I’ve been saving the rose petals for drying and kombucha after admiring their scent and beauty in many lights and angles.

The poppies continue to pop up in random places, among the roses and in cracks and crevices, like dandelions.

And the bees love them as much as I do.

Another rose variety, the thornless Peggy Martin, I just planted last year, is now getting its first blooms.

I’m so very pleased with the transition from cool-season coral honeysuckle blooms to the Dortmond rose takeover, lovely! I especially like the short spell they co-habitat.

The wattle fence I began with the best intentions is languishing due to too many other priorities. It has been a sheep deterrent at least, since the mamas and lambs have taken over the front yard. And even Shadow doesn’t dare stand in their way!

This is where the citrus will go, my new big project. I’m even considering throwing an avocado in there too. I know, very ambitious! But, I want to give some of the new methods a try and it seems like a good time. This side of the house is ideal, the house breaking the north wind and the heavy late afternoon sun. Plus, there’s the extra warmth accumulated in the walls of the house to help in cold snaps, along with the extra heating and draping methods that seem to be working for others.

Ooohhh, anticipation!

Just like the tomatoes and cucumbers coming so soon, right around the corner, and I can hardly wait. The last fermented cucumbers we used up a week ago, amazingly, and they were still crispy and flavorful. I plan to continue and expand my fermenting efforts this summer and fall. More herb pastes, more tea blends, more spice mixes.

The lambs are still doing fine, my how fast they grow.

Spring lambs on springs! 😆

My garden mascots, two white rabbits.

And my single complaint—the spray continues to ruin our beautiful days.

Is this why we can so clearly see these colors, because we have an atmosphere saturated with reflective particulate matter?

“I’m no prophet Lord, I don’t know nature’s ways.”
‘Anticipation’ by Carly Simon

Homestead Happenings

The exciting season continues! Mostly plant talk this post. And, we’ve got our first lambs, I’m workin’ my first wattle fence, there’s some flower photos and fancy garden plans.

A first-time mama is the first to drop a perfect set of twins!

Trumpet, or coral, honeysuckle on our front porch usually attracts hummingbirds by now. It’s looking gorgeous and I’m quite proud of it because it’s one I propagated from the wild. But, where are our feathered friends?

Seed saving has definitely upped our game in the garden. Buying seeds is certainly far easier than saving them. Where we once just had to plan one large garden space, now there are three. It feels like juggling! You’ve got to keep all the spaces perfectly coordinated. I had to make a chart. I am not a chart sort of person. I’m the kind of person who instantly glazes over at the mere inclusion of a chart in any piece of literature.

So really my chart was more like a list of do’s and don’ts in a useless graph format. Don’t plant the pumpkins with the zucchini. Don’t plant the luffa with the Trombetta. Do plant different varieties of cucumbers, peppers, melons and watermelons at least 1/2 mile apart. (Is that even possible?) Musk melons and watermelons are safe to plant together, but French cantaloupe most certainly cannot be planted with American varieties or with green melons.

And that’s just the summer season’s produce, there’s a whole different set of charts for the winter veggies.

Luckily, I’ve got some good guidance in a great book and, even better, some bigger minds to follow in the form of Gavin’s Newsletter. He’s just started a book club and his first book up for April just happens to be the one I’m reading.

https://open.substack.com/pub/gavinmounsey/p/the-results-from-the-first-book-club?r=apljy&utm_medium=ios

Why save seed?
From the book we learn a few good reasons:
*selecting for specific traits,
*preserving diversity,
*saving money,
*creating superb plants,
*And, going on an adventure.
“The art of saving seeds may so intrigue you that you’ll branch out to your own plant-breeding adventures with such long-term seed-saving projects as growing oaks from acorns.”

Perhaps that could be me! Or perhaps I should’ve started this about 30 years ago.

But, those do all sound like good reasons to me, plus I’ll add one more. It’s a good way to exercise your body and your brain at the same time.

But, propagating something so slow-growing from seed at this stage of life, I think I’ll need more bang for the buck than an oak. Like, this magnificent magnolia!

(Photos sent by a friend in UK, wow, what a specimen!)

Of course, not all seed saving is complicated. After all, it used to be something every farmer would do, and their children, too. If I’d grown up doing it I’d probably think I’m making much ado about nothing.

In particular, most of the common herbs we love—dill, cilantro, basil, parsley couldn’t be easier—let them go to seed, collect the seed once dry, keep in a paper bag over winter, and sprinkle back out in spring.

Easy-peasy, leaving more time for flowers!

More flowers, herbs and medicinals has been the big goal besides seed saving. I’ve always liked hollyhocks and other traditional ‘cottage garden’ favorites. How fortunate for me to find one I’ve never heard of before, with a really cute name.

Inspiration photo only, real or photoshop, no clue

Flower name: “Kiss me over the garden gate”
Latin name: Persicaria orientalis (formerly Polygonum orientale) is an annual member of the buckwheat family. The tall plants produce pretty pink pendulous blooms.

I’ve just planted it under the bedroom window inside my work-in-progress wattle fence.

What’s a wattle fence?

I had no idea what that was until I read about another blogger, Re-Farmer, building one. It looked like a fun and do-able project perfect for a precision-challenged person like myself.

And it is! There are lots of YouTube videos on the process, but I think this one was the best—a much taller and longer wattle fence than I’ve tried to produce, but who knows, as my skills develop I could step it up a notch. 🤔

The other big garden plan this year are a few citrus trees. We’ve been wanting them for a long time, but all fruit trees are a challenge here with our crazy weather. (And it’s not just us! All kinds of complaints about it from YouTubers and neighbors alike. It didn’t used to be like this.)

Anyway, this guy’s got some great suggestions and solutions and we so love our citrus, so we’re going to make an investment toward our citrus-filled future with Myer’s lemon, Mexican lime and Satsuma orange.

Another small plan is more peppers, specifically seasoning peppers, also called spice peppers (though they aren’t always spicy as in hot), like pimiento’s and such.

As much fermenting as I’ve been doing I see they are an excellent addition to all kinds of dishes. Plus, peppers do pretty well here usually, and they harvest in fall when there’s little else happening, and they are lovely little plants some folks grow just as ornamentals. Four excellent reasons to squeeze them into the rotation. Here’s one variety I’m trying:

Aji Dulce spice pepper from Southern Exposure

Aji Dulce Spice Pepper

“(C. chinense) 99 days. (green > orange-red > red) [Venezuelan heirloom. Seed source from Donna Hudson in TN.] Has the same shape, size, color and aroma as Habanero, but is sweet, spicy, and delicious, with only a trace of heat. Highly aromatic fruits; their flavor is unusual and complex, with overtones of black pepper and coriander, and undertones of other spicy flavors. An excellent choice for sautéed vegetables, rice and bean dishes, paprika, or herbal vinegars. The thin-walled pendant fruits are 1 x 2 in., tapering at both the stem and blossom end. Plants have good foliage cover and bear at 18 in. high. Seedlings grow slowly at first, but grow rapidly later in the season to 48 in. or more.”

Like I said, it’s the exciting season on the wee homestead!

Bubba says “Bye and thanks for stopping by!”

Homestead Happenings

Such an exciting season around the wee homestead! We’ve got mostly happy snaps and cute vids to share this post—growing piglets and bees and veggies—yippie!

I’ll save the unsavory stuff til the very end, that way those who must can just skip it. (Mighty generous of me, eh? 😆)

Let’s begin with a bumper crop of piglets, 11 of them, here trying to figure out the basics. This is just one day old, my aren’t they some quick learners!

Later we have a couple more from today, at one week old.

She’s been an excellent mama, Patty, this is her 2nd litter.

The garden is going strong already and this is definitely the earliest I’ve seen bumble bees out and about. March 15 is our average last frost date around here, for whatever that’s worth. Considering we’ve seen snow-covered Indian paintbrush before, we don’t put a lot of stock in that date.

If we don’t get a late frost this year it will be our earliest ever for summer planting. I’ve already got cucumbers in! The tomatoes are just about to go in and the peas are presenting perfectly.

Peas and fava beans planted together. If it gets too hot too quickly they will be a bust, but we do love when they succeed.

On left in the basket is celeriac, another fav of mine I try ever year, but like the fava beans and peas, it all depends on the temperatures if we’ll see a harvest. Next to them are tomatoes started under lights indoors and hardening now before planting in a day or two. I’ll plant some indeterminate varieties in about a month, hoping they’ll last longer through the heat. On right, the onions and garlic are looking great.

The old pears have already flowered over a week ago, here you can see Papa Chop napping while surely enjoying their sweet scent wafting on the breeze. Along with the bees!

On the right you can see me filling up the new hive with bees that over-wintered in the nuc where they positioned themselves last spring.

This was such a memorable experience last year that we managed to catch a bit of on vid—well worth the watch as the colony we just captured as a swarm moves from the hive I tried to put it in into the nuc I’d placed as a bait hive, moving themselves within just a few hours from one side of the garden to the other.

This was a swarm we caught and first tried to transfer to a different hive on the other side of the garden. The bees had a better idea.

This was the swarm last spring. It was just a small one and I guess they just didn’t feel quite ready yet for the big hive I tried to place them in.

Thank you ma’am, but we prefer it over here!

Well, this time they were a little more receptive to my preference and they are in their expanded home doing fine. 🤗

The piglets are so cute it’s hard not to take multiple vids watching them. I don’t edit yet, but maybe someday I’ll venture into more serious farmish filming.

And another ….

But, it’s not all peaches and rainbows for the piglets. Because you know, ‘male privilege’. Last year Hubby learned to castrate, which is an absolutely necessary skill if you’re serious about raising pigs. He did the deed, he’s gotten rather quick and good at it, so we made a couple of vids this time. Here’s the intro.

https://videopress.com/v/59aC7tGy?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=true

I’ll refrain from posting an example of the dirty deed though, which I could barely film! Yes, I admit one of my many bad qualities is squeamishness. But in my defense, I know many others way more squeamish than me!

If you really want to see it, you’ll have to send me an email. Don’t worry, I won’t judge. 😉

And in other bad news, yes, they still spray our beautiful days away. 😩

Still, it’s a beautiful life, and while we may complain, we know how to appreciate it all, too.

When all else fails, learn from Bubba.

“Oh, you only meant to dry the cushions here for freshening?
Let me test that out for ya.” ~So Says Bubba

Thanks for stopping by, wishing y’all a glorious spring!

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: